“To believe in God is impossible; but to not believe is absurd.”
Doubt
LDS Quotes on Doubt
“In this Church there is an enormous amount of room — and scriptural commandment — for studying and learning, for comparing and considering, for discussion and awaiting further revelation. We all learn “line upon line, precept upon precept”, with the goal being authentic religious faith informing genuine Christlike living.”
“Honestly acknowledge your questions and your concerns, but first and forever fan the flame of your faith, because all things are possible to them that believe.”
| Lord, I Believe, April 2013 General Conference
Embrace your sacred memories. Believe them. Write them down. Share them with your family. Trust that they come to you from your Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son. Let them bring patience to your doubts and understanding to your difficulties.
| Spiritually Defining Memories - General Conference 2020
“People are told they ought to love God, but they cannot find any such feelings in themselves. What are they to do? The answer is the same as before: Act as if you did. Do not sit trying to manufacture feelings. Ask yourself, ‘If I loved God, what would I do?’ When you have found the answer, go and do it.”
“To be open to truth, we must invest in the effort to free ourselves from our own conditioning and expectations. This means we have to pursue any earnest investigation by asking what the philosopher Hans Georg Ger calls the ‘genuine question. And that is a question that involves openness and risk. As he explains, ‘our own prejudice is properly brought into play by being put at risk.”
“Faith precedes the miracle. It has ever been so and shall ever be. It was not raining when Noah was commanded to build an ark. There was no visible ram in the thicket when Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Two heavenly personages were not yet seen when Joseph knelt and prayed. First came the test of faith–and then the miracle. Remember that faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other. Cast out doubt. Cultivate faith.”
“It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.”
“Joseph Smith loved learning even though he had few opportunities for formal education. In his journals, he spoke happily of days spent in study and often expressed his love of learning. The Prophet Joseph taught, ‘Knowledge does away with darkness, [anxiety], and doubt; for these cannot exist where knowledge is.’”
“Like children, we adults also want our most pressing questions answered, not multiplied. So it is not surprising that we look to religion, the great comforter, to ‘resolve us of all ambiguities,’ in the words of Dr. Faustus. But perhaps providing conclusive answers to all of our questions is not the point of true religion.”
“I came to the understanding that if I employed the same qualifications I was using to think about my testimony of the church as to think about my relationship with my wife, our relationship would fizzle. Like the church, my wife has changed over the years. She is not the same woman I married and, frankly, I would be bored and unfulfilled if she were. I certainly don’t feel that she deceived me because I didn’t know everything about her when I married her, and I have never felt betrayed when I discovered more about her. It has never bothered me that my understanding of her continues to evolve. So should I feel betrayed when I discover new things about the church or start to understand how it has evolved?”
“Faith precedes the miracle. It has ever been so and shall ever be. It was not raining when Noah was commanded to build an ark. There was no visible ram in the thicket when Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. Two heavenly personages were not yet seen when Joseph knelt and prayed. First came the test of faith – and then the miracle. Remember that faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other. Cast out doubt. Cultivate faith.”
| “The Call to Serve,” Ensign, Nov. 2000, pp. 48-49
“Believing things on authority only means believing them because you have been told them by someone you think is trustworthy. 99% of the things you believe are believed on authority. I believe there is such a place as New York. I have not seen it myself. I cannot prove by abstract reasoning that there is such a place. I believe it because reliable people have told me so. The ordinary man believes in the Solar System, atoms, evolution, and the coalition of blood on authority.”
“Faith and character are intimately related, Faith is the power of obedience to the commandments of God will forge strength of character available to you in times of urgent need. Such character is not developed in moments of great challenge or temptation. That is when it is intended to be used. You will discover how faith and character interact to strengthen one another. Character is woven patiently from threads of applied principle, doctrine, and obedience.”
| The Transforming Power of Faith and Character, Conference October 2010
“Light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time. Light dispels darkness. When light is present, darkness is vanquished and must depart. More important, darkness cannot conquer light unless the light is diminished or departs.”
| Ensign, May 2002
We don’t always know the details of our future. We do not know what lies ahead. We live in a time of uncertainty. We are surrounded by challenges on all sides. Occasionally discouragement may sneak into our day; frustration may invite itself into our thinking; doubt might enter about the value of our work. In these dark moments Satan whispers in our ears that we will never be able to succeed, that the price isn’t worth the effort, and that our small part will never make a difference. He, the father of all lies, will try to prevent us from seeing the end from the beginning.
| “See the End from the Beginning,” Ensign, May 2006, p. 43
Faith and Doubt cannot exist in the same soul at the same time.
It is my hope and my belief that the Lord never permits the light of faith wholly to be extinguished in any human heart, however faint the light may glow. The Lord has provided that there shall still be there a spark which, with teaching, with the spirit of righteousness, with love, with tenderness, with example, with living the Gospel, shall brighten and glow again, however darkened the mind may have been. And if we shall fail so to reach those among us of our own whose faith has dwindled low, we shall fail in one of the main things which the Lord expects at our hands.
| Conference Report, October 1936, p. 114
All of our decisions will not be perfect. We will feel hopefully only temporarily, regret. But let us never wait for perfect clarity. It will be a rare decision indeed when all of the data in perfect clarity is apparent before the decision is made. Some of our greatest growth comes from the mind stretching exercise of filling in where information is not available and weighing that which is incomplete. Sometimes there must simply be a leap of faith.
| “Decisions Determine Our Destiny,” February 6, 1981
Any reluctance to sacrifice whatever God requires will, to that degree, lessen our ability to have faith in God.“But those who have not made this sacrifice to God do not know that the course which they pursue is well pleasing in his sight; for whatever may be their belief or their opinion, it is a matter of doubt and uncertainty in their mind; and where doubt and uncertainty are there faith is not, nor can it be. For doubt and faith do not exist in the same person at the same time; so that persons whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken confidence; and where unshaken confidence is not there faith is weak; and where faith is weak the persons will not be able to contend against all the opposition, tribulations, and afflictions which they will have to encounter in order to be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ Jesus; and they will grow weary in their minds, and the adversary will have power over them and destroy them.”
| Lectures on Faith, 6:15
“Even recognizing the extent of our unexamined assumptions can be the hardest thing of all. It is like asking a fish what it is like to be wet. ‘What is wet?’ even a miraculously verbal fish would reply. Our assumptions, like the ocean in which a fish swims, are the invisible background to our thinking, waking existence.”
“We have become accustomed to equating testimony with certainty and knowledge, and we use the language of certainty–I know the church is true, I know this, I know that–and it may be that in fact the silent majority as members of the congregation may very well feel unqualified or unable to affirm that they know the church to be true. We are simply trying to add our voices to those of the brethren like Elder Holland, to the effect that we need to be more accommodating and embracing of those in our midst who feel that they want to express the desire to believe without being able to express the certainty.”
“My dear associates in the work of the Lord, I implore each of us to prayerfully study and ponder the Book of Mormon each day. As we do so, we will be in a position to hear the voice of the Spirit, to resist temptation, to overcome doubt and fear, and to receive heaven’s help in our lives.”
| "The Power of the Book of Mormon," Conference April 2017
“No man woman can remain in this church on borrowed light. However, in 1945, a Church magazine urged upon its readers the exact opposite, that ‘When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done.’ Many are familiar with that expression; fewer are aware that when President George Albert Smith learned of it, he immediately and indignantly repudiated the statement. ‘Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking,’ he wrote, ‘is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church.”
“One speaker in Church directs, “You can’t do everything. Don’t run faster than you have strength”. The next says, “Push yourself. You can always do more.” One person advises, “Don’t worry about what you can’t do” at the same time someone else says, “You can do anything you put your mind to.” In one hymn we sing, “I need thee every hour,” and in another we sing, “We will work out our salvation”. In this world of mixed messages, I never can seem to escape the nagging though, “If only I were better organized or if only I tried harder.” Satan tempted Christ with the word, ‘if.’ He often comes to me with the words, ‘if only.’”
| The Continuous Atonement
“I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have.”
“Life is assumed to be about the fundamental, clear-cut choice between good and evil. Mormonism sees no such simple dichotomy in the primeval options. Yes, obedience and safety and security in God’s presence are presented as one of the choices, But Mormonism is more sympathetic to Eve’s perception of the alternative; the beauty of the fruit, its goodness as food, its desirability ‘to make one wise.’ Not coincidentally, ancient philosophers like Plato considered the triad of ideas – Beauty, Goodness, Truth – to be the highest manifestation of divine virtue. In the Mormon narrative, therefore, the circumstances that define the reality of the human predicament are not a blatant choice between Good and Evil but a wrenching decision to be made between competing sets of Good. The philosopher Hegel believed that this scenario, replicated in myriad artistic narratives, expressed the inescapably tragic nature of the universe. There are very few simple choices. No blueprint gives us easy answers. Life’s most wrenching choices are not between right and wrong but between competing demands on our time, our resources, our love and loyalty.”
“In itself, doubt is neither good nor bad. Its value depends on what you do with it.”
| Letters to a Young Mormon
“Why would God go out of his way to hide evidence and make his own (world-historically pivotal) message more obscure and less credible? Or even more to the point, what about God’s own absence? Why put us in the same weak position as Lehi? Why give us a text, at least twice removed from God himself, rather than give us some kind of direct interaction with God? Is this a game or a test? Is God just testing us to see if we’ll believe things that we don’t have good evidence for? If this is the case, then what is God testing for, credulity? Is credulity the measure of a life, the litmus test for salvation? In effect, is God saying, ‘You’re welcome to join me in eternal bliss, but only if you’re willing to believe (in exactly the right way) things that I intentionally and unnecessarily made it really hard to understand and believe?’ I don’t buy it. I don’t buy this version of the story.”
| Future Mormon, p. 21
“Salvation is an eternal goal we gain by a process of constant upward change. Doubt is spiritual poison that stunts eternal growth. We must first feel our way before we can see it with any clarity. We prove ourselves by making numerous correct decisions without being absolutely sure; then comes a greater knowledge and assurance, not before. Happiness is created. Love is its center. Its principal ingredients are sincere faith, true repentance, full obedience, and selfless service.”
| "Happiness Now and Forever", Ensign, Nov. 1979, 70
Some are willing to set aside the precious gospel truths restored by Joseph Smith because they get diverted on some historical issue or some scientific hypothesis not central to their exaltation, and in so doing they trade their spiritual birthright for a mess of pottage. They exchange the absolute certainty of the Restoration for a doubt, and in that process they fall into the trap of losing faith in the many things they do know because of a few things they do not know.
| “Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration,” Ensign, November 2009, p. 37
“I think the greatest benefit that can be derived from an honest doubt is the recognition that in the final analysis, we choose to believe. For somebody who has seen that there are reasons to doubt and reasons to believe, and yet make a free choice to affirm their belief, you can see that that is a wonderful position to be in, to recognize that this is something I chose, it’s not something I was compelled by the evidence to accept. It’s something that out of a free heart I choose to embrace. Now, I think that that’s an advantage known only to those who have passed through the crucible of doubt.”
“Some seem to believe that faith and questions are antithetical. Such could not be further from the truth. The question is not whether or not we should ask questions but rather, what are the questions that we should be asking?”
To all within the sound of my voice who may have doubts, I repeat the words given Thomas as he felt the wounded hands of the Lord: “Be not faithless, but believing.” Believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the greatest figure of time and eternity. Believe that his matchless life reached back before the world was formed. Believe that he was the Creator of the earth on which we live. Believe that he was Jehovah of the Old Testament, that he was the Messiah of the New Testament, that he died and was resurrected, that he visited these western continents and taught the people here, that he ushered in this final gospel dispensation, and that he lives, the living Son of the living God, our Savior and our Redeemer.
| Conference Report October 1978
“Your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received— Which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation. And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon.”
Increased faith is as vital and necessary today as it was when Jesus walked the earth. Our modern world struggles with insufficient faith. President Gordon B. Hinckley said in a conference talk: “This is my prayer for all of us. . . . Increase our faith to bridge the chasms of uncertainty and doubt. . . . Grant us faith to look beyond the problems of the moment to the miracles of the future. . . . Give us faith to do what is right and let the consequences follow.
| “Faith in Jesus Christ,” April 2001, Ensign, p. 22
“Philosophy is what you have to do until you figure out what questions you should have been asking in the first place.”
Fear not; ask questions. Be curious, but doubt not! Always hold fast to faith and to the light you have already received. Because we see imperfectly in mortality, not everything is going to make sense right now. . . . It’s true that “faith is not . . . a perfect knowledge” (Alma 32:21), but as you exercise your faith, applying gospel principles every day under any circumstances, you will taste the sweet fruits of the gospel, and by this fruit you will know of its truth (see Matthew 7:16–20; John 7:17; Alma 32:41–43).
| “The Reflection in the Water,” Church Educational System fireside for young adults, November 1, 2009
“For all questions about the spirit world, I suggest two answers. First, remember that God loves His children and will surely do what is best for each of us. Second, remember this familiar Bible teaching, which has been most helpful to me on a multitude of unanswered questions:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).”
Our main task is to declare the gospel and do it effectively. We are not obligated to answer every objection. Every man eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there he must make his stand. (President Ezra Taft Benson)
| “What We Believe,” BYU Devotional, Feb. 3, 1998, p. 9
For all questions about the spirit world, I suggest two answers. First, remember that God loves His children and will surely do what is best for each of us. Second, remember this familiar Bible teaching, which has been most helpful to me on a multitude of unanswered questions:
“Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
“In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6).
“Doubt, for us, leads to the capacity to ask genuine questions, and a genuine question is a question born out of sincerity and a yearning to know.”
If our testimonies are strong on this point and if we feel the absolute assurance that God loves us, we will change our questions. We won’t ask, ‘Why did this happen?’ or ‘Why doesn’t God care about me?’ Instead, our questions will become, ‘What can I learn from this experience?’ or ‘How does the Lord want me to handle this?
| When Times Are Tough: 5 Scriptures That Will Help You Get Through Almost Anything
“I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have. I am asking you to be true to the faith you do have.”