Hugh Nibley
Zeal Without Knowledge
Hugh Nibley (born 1910) is one of the
Church's most accomplished scholars. A graduate of
UCLA and UC, Berkeley, Nibley joined the
History Department at
1946. For more than four decades, his
writings have covered an array of topics: ancient history,
politics, classics, education, science,
Egyptology, early
Mormon, temples.
are currently co-publishing The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, a
multi-volume series. "Zeal
without Knowledge" originally
appeared in Dialogue: A
Journal of Mormon Thought, summer
1978, and was later reprinted in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless:
Classic Essays of Hugh
Nibley (1978).
In one of his fascinating scientific
survey books, this time dealing with the latest discoveries
about the brain, Nigel Calder notes,
"Two of the most self-evident characteristics of the conscious
mind are that (1) the mind attends to one
thing at a time, and (2) that at least once a day the
conscious mind is switched off." (1) Both of these operations are completely miraculous and
completely mysterious. I would like to
talk about the first of them. You can think of only one
thing at a time!
If you put on a pair of glasses, one lens
being green, the other being red, you will not see a frey
fusion of the two when you look about you,
but a flashing of red and green. One moment
everything will be green, another moment
everything will be red. Or you may think you are
enjoying a combination of themes as you
listen to a Bach fugue, with equal awareness of every
voice at a time, but you are actually
jumping between recognition first of one and then another.
The ear, like the eye, is, in the words of
N. S. Sutherland, "always flickering about. . . . the brain
adds together a great variety of
impressions at high speed, and from these we select features from
what we see and make a rapid succession of
'models' of the world in our minds." (2) Out of what
begins as what William James calls the
"great blooming, buzzing confusion" of the infant's world,
we structure our own meaningful
combination of impressions, and all our lives select out of the
vast number of impressions certain ones
which fit best into that structure. As Neisser says, "The
model is what we see and nothing else." (3) We hold thousands of instantaneous impressions in
suspension just long enough to make our
choices and drop those we don't want. As one expert
puts it: "There seems to be a kind of
filter inside the head which weakens unwanted signals
without blocking them out. Out of the
background of the mind constantly signals deliberate
choices." (4) Why the mind chooses to focus on one object to the exclusion of
all others remains a
mystery. (5) But one
thing is clear: the blocked-out signals are the unwanted ones, and the ones we
favor are our "deliberate
choices."
This puts us in the position of the
fairy-tale hero who is introduced into a cave of incredible
treasures and permitted to choose from the
heap whatever gem he wants--but only one. What a
delightful situation! I can think of
anything I want to--absolutely anything! With this provision,
that when I choose to focus my attention
on one object, all other objects drop into the
background. I am only permitted to think
of one thing at a time, that is one rule of the game.
An equally important rule is that I must
keep thinking! Except for the daily shut-off period I
cannot evade the test. "L'ame pense
toujours," says Malebranche: We are always thinking of
something, selecting what will fit into
the world we are making for ourselves. Schopenhauer was
right: "Die Welt ist meine
Vorstellung." And here is an aside I can't resist: What would it be like
if I could view and focus on two or more
things at once, if I could see at one and the same
moment not only what is right before me,
but equally well what is on my left side, my right side,
what is above me and below me? I have the
moral certainty that something is there and as my
eyes flicker about, I think I can
substantiate that impression. But as to taking a calm and
deliberate look at more than one thing at
a time, that is a gift denied us at present. I cannot
imagine what such a view of the world
would be like, but it would be more real and correct than
the one we have now. I bring up this
obvious point because it is by virtue of this one-dimensional
view of things that we magisterially pass
judgment on God. The smart atheist and pious
schoolman alike can tell us all about
God--what he can do and what he cannot, what he must be
like and what he cannot be like--on the
basis of their one-dimensional experience of reality.
Today the astronomers are harping on the
old favorite theme of the eighteenth-century
encyclopedists who, upon discovering the
universe to be considerably larger than they thought or
had been taught, immediately announced
that man was a very minor creature indeed, would have
to renounce any special claim to divine
favor, since there are much bigger worlds than ours for
God to be concerned about, and in the end
give up his intimate and private God altogether. This
jaunty iconoclasm rested on the assumption
that God is subject to the same mental limitations that
we are; that if he is thinking of Peter,
he can hardly be thinking of Paul at the same time, let alone
marking the fall of the sparrow. But once
we can see the possibilities that lie in being able to see
more than one thing at a time (and in
theory the experts tell us there is no reason why we should
not), the universe takes on new dimensions
and God takes over again. Let us remember that quite
peculiar to the genius of Mormonism is the
doctrine of a God who could preoccupy himself with
countless numbers of things: "The
heavens they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto
man; but they are numbered unto me, for
they are mine." (Moses 1:37.)
Plainly, we are dealing with two orders of
minds. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither
are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For
as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are . . . my
thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah
55:8-9.)
But why this crippling limitation on our
thoughts if we are God's children? It is precisely this
limitation which is the essence of our
mortal existence. If every choice I make expresses a
preference; if the world I build up is the
world I really love and want, then with every choice I am
judging myself, proclaiming all the day
long to God, angels and my fellowmen where my real
values lie, where my treasure is, the
things to which I give supreme importance. Hence, in this
life every moment provides a perfect and
foolproof test of your real character, making this life a
time of testing and probation. And hence
the agonizing cry of the prophet Mormon speaking to
our generation. ("I speak unto you as
if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus
Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know
your doing." [(Mormon 8:35]). He calls upon us, "Be
wise in the days of your probation . . .
ask not, that ye may consume it on your lusts" (Mormon
9:28); i.e., that you may use up or
consume your probation time just having a good time or doing
what you feel like doing--nothing could be
more terrible than that: "But woe unto him . . . that
wasteth the days of his probation, for awful is his
state!" (2 Nephi 9:27, Italics added.) It is
throwing our life away, to think of the
wrong things, as we are told in the next verse that "the
cunning plan of the evil one" is to
get us to do just that; trying, in Brigham Young's phrase, to
"decoy our thoughts," to get our
minds on trivial thoughts, on the things of this world against
which we have so often been warned.
Sin is waste. It is doing one thing when
you should be doing other and better things for which you
have the capacity. Hence, there are no
innocent idle thoughts. That is why even the righteous
must repent, constantly and progressively,
since all fall short of their capacity and calling.
"Probably 99 percent of human ability
has been wholly wasted," writes Arthur Clarke, "even
today we operate . . . most of our time as
automatic machines, and glimpse the profounder
resources of our minds only once or twice
in a lifetime." (6) "No nation can afford to divert its
most able men into such essentially
noncreative and occasionally parasitic occupations as law,
advertising, and banking." (7) Those officials whom
thrones in a state of thoughtless
stupor" (
anyone--but they were committing grave
sin. Why do people feel guilty about TV? What is
wrong with it? Just this--that it shuts
out all the wonderful things of which the mind is capable,
leaving it drugged in a state of
thoughtless stupor. For the same reason a mediocre school or
teacher is a bad school or teacher.
Last week it was announced in the papers that a large
convention concerned with violence and
disorder in our schools came to the unanimous
conclusion--students and teachers
alike--that the main cause of the mischief was boredom.
Underperformance, the job that does not
challenge you, can make you sick: work which puts
repetition and routine in the place of
real work begets a sense of guilt; merely doodling and
noodling in committees can give you
ulcers, skin rashes, and heart trouble. God is not pleased
with us for merely sitting in meetings:
"How vain and trifling have been our spirits, our
conferences, our councils, our meetings,
our private as well as public conversation," wrote the
Prophet Joseph from Liberty Jail,
"--too low, too mean, too vulgar, too condescending for the
dignified characters called and chosen of
God." (8)
This puts
a serious face on things. If we try to evade the responsibility of directing
our minds to
the highest possible object, if we try to
settle for a milder program at lower stakes and safer risks,
we are immediately slapped and buffeted by
a power that will not let us rest. Being here, we must
play the probation game, and we pay an
awful forfeit for every effort to evade it. We must think--
but what about? The substance of thought
is knowledge. "The human brain depends for its normal
alertness, reliability and efficiency on a
continuous flow of information about the world. . . . the
brain craves for information as the body
craves for food." (9) "Both individuals and societies can
become insane without sufficient
stimulus." (10) If the mind is denied functioning to
capacity, it
will take terrible revenge. The penalty we
pay for starving our minds is a phenomenon that is only
too conspicuous at the BYU: Aristotle
pointed out long ago that a shortage of knowledge is an
intolerable state and so the mind will do
anything to escape it; in particular, it will invent
knowledge if it has to. Experimenters have
found that "lack of information quickly breeds
insecurity in a situation where any
information is regarded as better than none." (11) In that
atmosphere, false information flourishes
and subjects in tests are "eager to listen to and believe
any sort of preposterous nonsense.'' (12) Why so? We repeat, because the very nature of man
requires him to use his mind to capacity.
"The mind or intelligence which man possesses," says
Joseph Smith, "is co-equal with God
himself." What greater crime than the minimizing of such
capacity? The Prophet continues: "All
the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are
susceptible of enlargement. God himself,
finding he was in the midst of the spirits and glory,
because he was more intelligent, saw
proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a
privilege to advance like himself. The
relationship we have with God places us in a situation to
advance in knowledge." (13) Expansion is the theme, and we cannot expand the boundaries
unless
we first reach those boundaries, which
means exerting ourselves to the absolute limit.
Now we come to a subject with which the
Prophet Joseph was greatly concerned. To keep the
Saints always reaching for the highest and
best, the utmost of their capacity, requires enormous
motivation--and the gospel supplies it.
Nothing can excite men to action like the contemplation of
the eternities. The quality in which the
Saints have always excelled is zeal. Zeal is the engine that
drives the whole vehicle, without it we
would get nowhere. But without clutch, throttle, brakes,
and steering wheel, our mighty engine
becomes an instrument of destruction, and the more
powerful the motor, the more disastrous
the inevitable crackup if the proper knowledge is
lacking. There is a natural tendency to
let the mighty motor carry us along, to give it its head,
open up and see what it can do. We see
this in our society today. Scientists tell us that the
advancement of a civilization depends on
two things: (a) the amount of energy at its disposal, and
(b) the amount of information at its
disposal. (14) Today we have unlimited energy--nuclear
power,
but we still lack the necessary
information to control and utilize it. We have the zeal but not the
knowledge, so to speak. And this the
Prophet Joseph considered a very dangerous situation in the
Church. Speaking to the new Relief
Society, he "commended them for their zeal, but said that
sometimes their zeal was not according to
knowledge." (15) He advised restraint in an effort to
keep things under control. The Society, he
observed, "was growing too fast. It should grow up by
degrees," he said, and" . . .
thus have a select society of the virtuous, and those who would walk
circumspectly." (16) What good is the power, he asks, without real intelligence
and solid
knowledge? He gives the example of those
Saints who were carried away at the thought and
prospect of "a glorious manifestation
from God." And bids them ask, "a manifestation of what? Is
there any intelligence communicated? . . .
All the intelligence that can be obtained from them
when they arise, is a shout of 'glory,' or
'hallelujah,' or some incoherent expression; but they have
had the power." (17) Another time he warned the sisters against being
"subject to overmuch zeal,
which must ever prove dangerous, and cause
them to be rigid in a religious capacity." (18) Zeal
makes us loyal and unflinching, but God
wants more than that. In the same breath, the Prophet
said that the people "were depending
on the Prophet, hence were darkened in their minds, in
consequence of neglecting the duties
devolving upon themselves." (19) They
must do their own
thinking and discipline their minds. If
not, that will happen again which happened in Kirtland:
"Many, having a zeal not according to
knowledge," said the Prophet, " . . . have, no doubt, in the
heat of enthusiasm, taught and said many
things which are derogatory to the genuine character
and principles of the Church." (20) Specifically, "soon after the Gospel was established
in Kirtland
. . . many false spirits were introduced,
many strange visions were seen, and wild, enthusiastic
notions were entertained. . . . many
ridiculous things were entered into, calculated to bring
disgrace upon the
were out to prove that they were smarter
than the Prophet and produced the so-called "Egyptian
Alphabet and Grammar," to match his
production of the Book of Abraham.
This illustrates another point--that
knowledge can be heady stuff. It easily leads to an excess of
zeal--to illusions of grandeur and a
desire to impress others and achieve eminence. The
university is nothing more nor less than a
place to show off: if it ceased to be that, it would cease
to exist. Again, the Prophet Joseph is
right on target when he tells us that true knowledge can
never serve that end. Knowledge is
individual, he observes, and if a person has it, "who would
know it? . . . The greatest, the best and
the most useful gifts would be known nothing about by an
observer. . . . There are only two gifts
that could be made visible--the gift of tongues and the gift
of prophecy." (22)
Our search for knowledge should be
ceaseless, which means that it is open-ended, never resting
on laurels, degrees, or past achievements.
"If we get puffed up by thinking that we have much
knowledge, we are apt to get a contentious
spirit," and what is the cure? "Correct knowledge is
necessary to cast out that spirit." (23) The cure for inadequate knowledge is "ever more light
and
knowledge." But who is going to
listen patiently to correct knowledge if he thinks he has the
answers already? "There are a great
many wise men and women too in our midst who are too
wise to be taught; therefore they must die
in their ignorance." (24) "I
have tried for a number of
years to get the minds of the Saints
prepared to receive the things of God; but we frequently see
some of them . . . [that] will fly to
pieces like glass as soon as anything comes that is contrary to
their traditions: they cannot stand the
fire at all . . . . (25)
[If I] go into an
investigation into
anything, that is not contained in the
Bible . . . I think there are so many over-wise men here, that
they would cry 'treason' and put me to
death." (26) But, he asks, "why be so certain that
you
comprehend the things of God, when all
things with you are so uncertain?" (27) True
knowledge
never shuts the door on more knowledge,
but zeal often does. One thinks of the dictum: "We are
not seeking for truth at the BYU; we have
the truth!" So did Adam and Abraham have the truth,
far greater and more truth than what we
have, and yet the particular genius of each was that he
was constantly "seeking for greater
light and knowledge."
The young, with their limited knowledge
are particularly susceptible to excessive zeal. Why do it
the hard way, they ask at the BYU, when
God has given us the answer book? The answer to that
is, because if you use the answer book for
your Latin or your math, or anything else, you will
always have a false sense of power and
never learn the real thing. "The people expect to see some
wonderful manifestation, some great
display of power," says Joseph Smith, "or some
extraordinary miracle performed; and it is
often the case that young members of this Church, for
want of better information, carry along
with them their old notions of things, and sometimes fall
into egregious errors." (28) "Be careful about sending boys to preach the Gospel to
the world,"
said Joseph Smith. Why? Certainly not
because they lacked zeal, that's the one thing they had.
The Prophet explains: "Lest they
become puffed up, and fall under condemnation . . . beware of
pride . . . . apply yourselves diligently
to study, that your minds may be stored with all necessary
information." (29) That is doing it the hard way. Can't the Spirit hurry
things up? No--there is no
place for the cram course or quickie, or
above all the superficial survey course or quick trips to
the
mind capable of instruction, and a faculty
which may be enlarged in proportion to the heed and
diligence given to the light communicated
from heaven to the intellect . . . but . . . no man ever
arrived in a moment: he must have been
instructed . . . by proper degrees." (30) "The
things of God
are of deep import; and time, and
experience, and careful and ponderous and solemn thoughts . .
. stretch as high as the utmost
heavens." (31) No short-cuts or easy lessons here! Note
well that the
Prophet makes no distinction between
things of the spirit and things of the intellect. Some years
ago, when it was pointed out that BYU
graduates were the lowest in the nation in all categories of
the graduate record examination, the
institution characteristically met the challenge by
abolishing the examination. It was done on
the grounds that the test did not sufficiently measure
our unique "spirituality." We
talked extensively about "the education of the whole man," and
deplored that educational imbalance that
comes when students' heads are merely stuffed with
facts--as if there was any danger of that
here! But actually, serious imbalance is impossible if one
plays the game honestly: true zeal feeds
on knowledge, true knowledge cannot exist without zeal.
Both are "spiritual" qualities.
All knowledge is the gospel, but there must be a priority, "proper
degrees," as he says, in the timing
and emphasis of our learning, lest like the doctors of the Jews,
we "strain at a gnat and swallow a
camel." Furthermore, since one person does not receive
revelation for another, if we would
exchange or convey knowledge, we must be willing to have
our knowledge tested. The gifted and
zealous Mr. Olney was "disfellowshipped, because he would
not have his writings tested by the word
of God," according to Joseph Smith. (32) Not
infrequently,
Latter-day Saints tell me that they have
translated a text or interpreted an artifact, or been led to
an archaeological discovery as a direct
answer to prayer, and that for me to question or test the
results is to question the reality of
revelation; and often I am asked to approve a theory or
"discovery" which I find
unconvincing, because it has been the means of bringing people to the
Church. Such practitioners are asking me
to take their zeal as a adequate substitute for
knowledge, but like Brother Olney, they
refuse to have their knowledge tested. True, "it needs
revelation to assist us, and give us
knowledge of the things of God," (33) but
only the hard worker
can expect such assistance: "It is
not wisdom that we should have all knowledge at once
presented before us; but that we should
have little at a time; then we can comprehend it." (34) We
must know what we are doing, understand
the problem, live with it, lay a proper foundation--how
many a Latter-day Saint has told me that
he can understand the scriptures by pure revelation and
does not need to toil at Greek or Hebrew
as the Prophet and the Brethren did in the School of the
Prophets at Kirtland and Nauvoo? Even
Oliver Cowdery fell into that trap and was rebuked for
it. (D&C 9.) "The principle of
knowledge is the principle of salvation. This principle can be
comprehended by the faithful and
diligent," says the Prophet Joseph. (35) New
converts often get
the idea that, having accepted the gospel,
they have arrived at adequate knowledge. Others say
that to have a testimony is to have
everything--they have sought and found the kingdom of
heaven; but their minds go right on
working just the same, and if they don't keep on getting new
and testable knowledge, they will
assuredly embrace those "wild, enthusiastic notions" of the new
converts in Kirtland. Note what a
different procedure Joseph Smith prescribes: "[The] first
Comforter or Holy Ghost has no other
effect than pure intelligence [it is not a hot, emotional
surge]. It is more powerful in expanding
the mind, enlightening the understanding, and storing
the intellect with present knowledge, of a
man who is of the literal seed of Abraham, than one
who is a Gentile." (36) "For as the Holy Ghost falls upon one of the literal
seed of Abraham, it is
calm and serene; and his whole soul and
body are only exercised by the pure spirit of
intelligence." (37) "The Spirit of Revelation is in connection with these
blessings. A person may
profit by noticing the first intimation of
the spirit of revelation; for instance, when you feel pure
intelligence flowing into you, it may give
you sudden strokes of ideas . . . thus, by learning the
Spirit of God and understanding it, you
may grow into the principle of revelation." (38) This is
remarkably like the new therapeutic
discipline called "biofeedback."
The emphasis is all on the continuous,
conscientious, honest acquisition of knowledge. This
admonition to sobriety and diligence goes
along with the Prophet's outspoken recommendation of
the Jews and their peculiar esteem and
diligence for things of the mind. "If there is anything
calculated to interest the mind of the
Saints, to awaken in them the finest sensibilities, and arouse
them to enterprise and exertion, surely it
is the great and precious promises to . . . Abraham and .
. . Judah . . . and inasmuch as you feel
interested for the covenant people of the Lord, the God of
their fathers shall bless you. . . . He
will endow you with power, wisdom, might and intelligence,
and every qualification necessary: while
your minds will expand wider and wider, until you can .
. . contemplate the mighty acts of Jehovah
in all their variety and glory." (39) In
Israel today, they
have great contests in which young people
and old from all parts of the world display their
knowledge of scripture and skill at music,
science, or mathematics, etc., in grueling competitions.
This sort of thing tends to breed a race
of insufferably arrogant, conceited little show-offs -- and
magnificent performers. They tend to be
like the Jews of old, who "sought for things that they
could not understand," ever
"looking beyond the mark," and hence falling on their faces:
"they
needs must fall." (Jacob 4:14.) Yet
Joseph Smith commends their intellectual efforts as a
corrective to the Latter-day Saints, who
lean too far in the other direction, giving their young
people and old awards for zeal alone, zeal
without knowledge--for sitting in endless meetings, for
dedicated conformity, and unlimited
capacity for suffering boredom. We think it more
commendable to get up at 5:00 a.m. to
write a bad book than to get up at nine o'clock to write a
good one--that is pure zeal that tends to
breed a race of insufferable, self-righteous prigs and
barren minds. One has only to consider the
present outpouring of "inspirational" books in the
Church which bring little new in the way
of knowledge: truisms, and platitudes, kitsch, and
cliches have become our everyday diet. The
Prophet would never settle for that. "I advise you to
go on to perfection and search deeper and
deeper into the mysteries of Godliness . . . . It has
always been my province to dig up hidden
mysteries, new things, for my hearers." (40) It actually
happens at the BYU, and that not rarely,
that students come to a teacher, usually at the beginning
of a term, with the sincere request that
he refrain from teaching them anything new. They have no
desire, they explain, to hear what they do
not know already! I cannot imagine that happening at
any other school, but maybe it does.
Unless we go on to other new things, we are stifling our
powers.
In our limited time here, what are we
going to think about? That is the all important question.
We've been assured that it is not too
early to start thinking about things of the eternities. In fact,
Latter-day Saints should be taking rapid
strides toward setting up that eternal celestial order
which the Church must embody to be
acceptable to God. Also, we are repeatedly instructed
regarding things we should not think
about. I would pass this negative thing by lightly, but the
scriptures are explicit, outspoken, and
emphatic in this matter; and whenever anyone begins to
talk about serious matters at the BYU,
inevitably someone says, "I would like to spend my time
thinking about such things and studying
them, but I cannot afford the luxury. I have to think about
the really important business of life,
which is making a living." This is the withering effect of the
intimidating challenge thrown out of all
of us from childhood: "Do you have any money?" With
its absolute declaration of policy and
principle: "You can have anything in this world for money!"
and its paralyzing corollary:
"Without it, you can have nothing!" I do not have to tell you where
that philosophy came from. Somebody is out
to "decoy our minds," to use Brigham Young's
expression, from the things we should be
thinking about to those which we should not care about
at all. The most oft-repeated command in
the scriptures, repeated verbatim in the Synoptic
Gospels, the Book of Mormon, and in the
Doctrine and Covenants (41)
is "Take ye no
thought for
the morrow, for what ye shall eat, or what
ye shall drink, or wherewithal ye shall be clothed. For
consider the lilies of the field . . .
." We cannot go here into the long catalog of scripture of
commandments telling us to seek for
knowledge in one direction but not in another. "Seek not for
riches, but for wisdom"; "lay
not up treasures on earth," but in heaven, for where your treasure
is, there will your heart be also. You
cannot serve two masters, you must choose one and follow
him alone: "Whatsoever is in the
world is not of the Father but is of the world," etc. We take
comfort in certain parables; for example,
"Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not
down first, and counteth the cost . . .
." (Luke 14:28ff. Italics added), as if they justified our
present course. But the Lord is not
instructing people to take economic foresight in such matters--
they already do that: "Which of you
does not?" says the Lord. He points out that people are only
too alert and provident where the things
of this world are concerned and says, to their shame: "If
you're so zealous in such matters, why
can't you take your eternal future seriously?" And so he
ends the parable with this admonition:
"Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he
hath, he cannot be my disciple." That
is the same advice, you will observe, that he gave to the rich
young man. The Lord really means what he
says when he commands us not to think about these
things; and because we have chosen to find
this advice hopelessly impractical "for our times"
(note that the rich young man found it
just as impractical for his times!), the treasures of
knowledge have been withheld from us.
"God [has] often sealed up the heavens," said Joseph
Smith, "because of covetousness in
the Church." (42) You must choose between one route or the
other. If we go on "lusting after the
groveling things of this life," says Brigham Young, we remain
"fixed with a very limited amount of
knowledge, like a door upon its hinges, moving to and fro
from year to year without any visible
advancement or improvement . . . . Man is made in the
image of God, but what do we know of Him
or of ourselves when we suffer ourselves to love and
worship the God of this
world--riches?" "I desire to see everybody on the track of
improvement . .
. but when you so love your property as
though all your affections were placed on the changing,
fading things of earth, it is impossible
to increase in knowledge of the truth." (43)
What things should we think about then,
and how? Here the Prophet is very helpful. In the first
place, that question itself is what we
should think about. We won't get very far on our way until
we have faced up to it. But as soon as we
start seriously thinking about that, we find ourselves
covered with confusion, overwhelmed by our
feelings of guilt and inadequacy--in other words,
repenting for our past delinquency. In
this condition, we call upon the Lord for aid and he hears
us. We begin to know what the Prophet
Joseph meant about the constant searching, steadily
storing our minds with knowledge and
information--the more we get of it, the better we are able
to judge the proper priorities as we feel
our way forward, as we become increasingly alert to the
promptings of the Spirit which become ever
more clear and more frequent, following the
guidance of the Holy Ghost: and as we go
forward, we learn to cope with the hostile world with
which our way is sure to bring us into
collision in time. That calls for sacrifice, but what of that?
Eternal life is not cheaply bought.
This may sound very impractical to some,
but how often do we have to be reminded of the illusory
and immoral nature of the treasures we are
seeking on earth? Even without the vast powers of
destruction that are hanging over our
heads at this moment, even in the most peaceful and secure
of worlds, we would see them vanishing
before our eyes. Such phenomena as ephemeralization
and replication, once dreams of the
science-fiction writers, are rapidly becoming realities.
Speaking of the ephemeralization, of
technological obsolescence, A. R. Clark writes, "Within the
foreseeable future all the most powerful
and lucrative callings in our world will exist no more.
Because of new process of synthesizing,
organizing, programming basic materials of unlimited
supply into the necessities of life, we
shall soon see the end of all factories and perhaps of all
transportation of raw materials and all
farming. The entire structure of industry and commerce . .
. would cease to exist. . . . all material
possessions would be literally as cheap as dirt. . . . Then
when material objects are intrinsically
worthless, perhaps only then will a real sense of values
arise." (44)
Yes,
you say, but meantime, "we must live in the world of the present."
Must we? Most people in
the past have got along without the
institutions which we think, for the moment, indispensable.
And we are expressly commanded to get out
of that business. "No one supposes for one moment,"
says Brigham Young, "that in heaven
the angels are speculating, that they are building railroads
and factories, taking advantage of one
another, gathering up the substance in heaven to
aggrandize themselves, and that they live
on the same principle that we are in the habit of doing. .
. . No sectarian Christian in the world
believes this; they believe that the inhabitants of heaven
live as a family, that their faith, interests,
and pursuits have one end in view--the glory of God
and their own salvation, that they may
receive more and more. . . . We all believe this, and
suppose we go to work and imitate them as
far as we can." (45)
It is not too soon to
begin right
now. What are the things of the eternities
that we should consider even now? They are the things
that no one ever tires of doing, things in
themselves lovely and desirable. Surprisingly, the things
of the eternities are the very things to
which the university is supposed to be dedicated. In the
Zion of God, in the celestial and eternal
order, where there is no death there will be no
morticians, where there is no sickness
there be no more doctors, where there is no decay there
will be no dentists, where there is no litigation
there will be no lawyers, where there is no buying
and selling there will be no merchants,
where there is no insecurity, there will be no insurance,
where there is no money there will be no
banks, where there is no crime there will be no jails, no
police; where there are no excess goods
there will be no advertising, no wars, no armies, and so
on and so on.
But this happy condition is not limited to
celestial realms of the future; it actually has been
achieved by mortal men on this earth a
number of times, and represents the only state of society
of which God approves. All the things that
are passing away today are the very essence of "the
economy," but they will be missing in
Zion. They are already obsolescent, every one of them is
made work of a temporary and artificial
nature for which an artificial demand must be created.
Moreover, few people are really dedicated
to them, for as soon as a man has acquired a superquota
of power and gain, he cuts out and leaves
the scene of his triumphs, getting as far away as
he can from the ugly world he has helped
create-preferably to Tahiti. The race has shown us
often its capacity to do without these
things we now find indispensable. "The Devil has the
mastery of the earth: he has corrupted it,
and has corrupted the children of men. He has led them
in evil until they are almost entirely
ruined, and are so far from God that they neither know Him
nor his influence, and have almost lost sight
of everything that pertains to eternity. This darkness
is more prevalent, more dense, among the
people of Christendom that it is among the heathen.
They have lost sight of all that is great
and glorious--of all principles that pertain to life eternal."
(46) "Suppose that our Father in heaven, our elder brother,
the risen Redeemer, the Savior of the
world, or any of the Gods of eternity
should act upon this principle, to love truth, knowledge, and
wisdom, because they are
all-powerful," says Brigham Young, "they would cease to be Gods; . .
.
the extension of their kingdom would
cease, and their God-head come to an end." (47)
Are we here to seek knowledge or to seek
the credits that will get us ahead in the world? One of
the glorious benefits and promises of the
gospel given the Saints in these latter days that
"inasmuch as they sought wisdom they
might be instructed; And inasmuch as they were humble
they might be made strong, and blessed
from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time."
(D&C 1:26, 28. Italics added.) But
they had to want it and seek for it. What is that state of
things? The late President Joseph Fielding
Smith wrote: "We are informed that many important
things are withheld from us because of the
hardness of our hearts and the unwillingness as
members of the Church to abide in the
covenants and seek divine knowledge." "Our faculties are
enlarged," said Joseph Smith,
"in proportion to the heed and diligence given to the light
communicated from heaven to the
intellect." (48) "If [a man] does not get knowledge,
he will be
brought into captivity by some evil power
in the other world, as evil spirits will have more
knowledge, and consequently more power
than many men who are on the earth. [We need]
revelation to assist us, and give us knowledge
of the things of God." (49) There
is indeed an order
of priority. The things of God come first,
and the seeker ever tries to become aware of that
priority. "All science," says
Karl Popper, "is eschatology," concerned fundamentally with the
questions of religion. The most important
question of all is that of our eternal salvation.
I once acted as counselor to students in
the College of Commerce for a couple of years. Most of
these students were unhappy about going
into business and admitted that Satan rules this earth
and rules it badly, with blood and horror,
but they pointed out the intimidating circumstance that
you cannot have money without playing his
game because he owns the treasures of the earth.
They could see he owns them as loot, and
by virtue of a legal fiction with which he has, in Joseph
Smith's terms, "riveted the creeds of
the fathers," but still the students would ask me in despair,
"If we leave his employ, what will
become of us?" The answer is simple. Don't you trust the Lord?
If you do, he will give you the guidance
of the Holy Spirit and you will not end up doing the things
that he has expressly commanded us not to
do.
May God help us all in the days of our
probation to seek the knowledge he wants us to seek.
Notes
1. Nigel
Calder, The Mind of Man (London: BBC, 1970), p. 25.
2. Ibid., p. 169.
3. Loc. Cit.
4. Ibid., p. 29.
5. Ibid., pp. 29, 184.
6. Arthur Clarke, Profiles of the Future
(N.Y.: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 197.
7. Ibid., p. 96.
8. DHC, 3:295f.
9. Calder, p. 33.
10. Clarke, p. 83.
11. Lyall Watson, Supernature (N.Y.:
Anchor Press, 1973), p. 239.
12. Calder, p. 77.
13. Joseph Fielding Smith, comp.,
Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, (Salt Lake City:
Deseret Book Co., 1967), p. 354. Italics
added. Hereafter cited as TPJS.
14. Carl Sagan, The Cosmic Connection
(N.Y.: Dell, 1973), Ch. 34.
15. TPJS, p. 201. Italics added.
16. Ibid.
17. TPJS, p. 204.
18. TPJS, p. 238. Italics added.
19. Ibid. Italics added.
20. TPJS, p. 80.
21. TPJS, pp. 213,214.
22. TPJS, p. 246.
23. TPJS, p. 287.
24. TPJS, p. 309.
25. TPJS, p. 331.
26. TPJS, p. 348.
27. TPJS, p. 320.
28. TPJS, p. 242.
29. TPJS, p. 43. Italics added.
30. TPJS, p. 51. Italics added.
31. TPJS, p. 137.
32. TPJS, p. 215. Italics added.
33. TPJS, p. 217.
34. TPJS, p. 297.
35. Ibid.
36. TPJS, p. 149.
37. TPJS, pp. 149, 150.
38. TPJS, p. 151.
39. TPJS, p. 163.
40. TPJS, p. 364. Italics added.
41. Matthew 6:25ff, Mark 13:11ff, Luke
12:11ff, 3 nephi 13:25ff, D&C 84:81ff.
42. TPJS, p. 9. Italics added.
43. Brigham Young in Journal of
Discourses, 26 vols. (London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot,
1855-86), 7:337: hereafter cited as JD.
44. Clarke, p. 16.
45. JD 17:117f.
46. JD 8:209.
47. JD 1:117.
48. Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to
Gospel Questions, Melchizedek Priesthood Manual, 1972-
1973, p. 229.
49. TPJS, p. 217.