“faith and truth cannot be separated; if there is to be faith . . . there must first be truth”
| Mormon Doctrine. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966.
Truth
LDS Quotes on Truth
“While I believe all that God has revealed, I am not quite sure I understand what he has revealed, and the fact that God has promised further revelation is to me a challenge to keep an open mind and be prepared to follow wherever my search for truth may lead.”
| "A Final Testimony"
“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.”
“The Restoration scriptures encourage us as individuals and as a Church community to seek after good everywhere and make it a part of our religion. ‘The grand fundamental principle of Mormonism is to receive truth let it come from where it may.’ As the prophet Joseph Smith stated: If the Methodists, Presbyterians, or others have any truth, then we should embrace it. One must ‘get all the good in the world’ if one wants to ‘come our a pure Mormon.'”
“My brothers and sisters, the first great commandment of all eternity is to love God with all of our heart, might, mind, and strength—that’s the first great commandment. But the first great truth of all eternity is that God loves us with all of His heart, might, mind, and strength. That love is the foundation stone of eternity, and it should be the foundation stone of our daily life. Indeed it is only with that reassurance burning in our soul that we can have the confidence to keep trying to improve, keep seeking forgiveness for our sins, and keep extending that grace to our neighbor.”
| “Tomorrow the Lord Will Do Wonders among You”
“We want a script, and we find we stand before a blank canvas. We expect a road map, and we find we have only a compass. We have yet to learn, as the poet John Ciardi wrote, that ‘clean white paper, waiting under a pen, is a gift beyond human history and hurt and heaven.”
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.
| A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings and Speeches
Caught in today’s confusion, it is no wonder that so many consign themselves to the words spoken 2,500 years ago by Protagoras to the young Socrates: “What is true for you,” he said, “is true for you, and what is true for me, is true for me.” Blessed with the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, we humbly declare that there are some things that are completely and absolutely true. These eternal truths are the same for every son and daughter of God.
“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.”
“The doctrines of the Church and its authority are not just partially true, but true as measured by divine standards. The Church is not, therefore, conceptually compromised by having been made up from doctrinal debris left over from another age, nor is it comprised of mere fragments of the true faith. It is based upon the fulness of the gospel of him whose name it bears, thus passing the two tests for proving his church that were given by Jesus during his visit to the Nephites.”
“Sad, indeed, would the whole matter be, if the Bible told us everything God meant us to believe.”
“As knowledge increases, the verdict of yesterday must be reversed today, and in the long run the most positive authority is the least to be trusted.”
| Of All Things!: A Nibley Quote Book
“There need to be some absolutes in life. There are some things that should never be done, some lines that should never be crossed, vows that should never be broken, words that should never be spoken, and thoughts that should never be entertained.”
“In time, one who makes decisions based upon circumstance is virtually assured to commit serious transgressions. There is no iron rod of truth to keep that person in the right way. He will continually be faced with many subtle temptations to make deviations from the commandments. Those choices are justified by arguing that they are not that bad, that they are more socially acceptable and provide a broader base of friends. A clever individual without foundation principles can at times acquire, temporarily, impressive accomplishments. Yet that attainment is like a sand castle. When the test of character comes, it crumbles, often taking others with it.
“The second pattern, making decisions based upon eternal truth, is the pattern of the Lord. It will always lead you to make decisions guided by His plan of happiness. Such decisions are centered in doing what is right, not in first deciding the result desired. Choosing to do what the Lord has defined as right will, in the long run, always lead to the best outcomes. However, that pattern may require you to set aside something you very much desire now for a greater future good.”
| "The Power of Righteousness"
“The gospel accepts and embraces all truth; science is slowly expanding her arms, and reaching into the invisible domain, in search of truth. The two are meeting daily, religion has an equal right to try science. Either method, properly applied, leads to the same result: Truth is truth.”
| “In Search of Truth: Comments on the Gospel and Modern Thought.”
“The church supports and welcomes the growth of science. … The religion of the Latter-day Saints is not hostile to any truth, nor to scientific search for truth,”
| “Evidences and Reconciliations”
The best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain divine teaching.
The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.
“A problem related to perceptions of Mormonism’s monopoly on truth is the impression that Mormons claim a monopoly on salvation. It grows increasingly difficult to imagine that a body of a few million, in a world of seven billion, can really be God’s only chosen people and heirs of salvation. That is because they aren’t. One of the most unfortunate misperceptions about Mormonism is in this tragic irony: Joseph Smith’s view is one of the most generous, liberal and universalist conceptions of salvation in all Christendom.”
“The Savior’s message was essential to our salvation, but his personal exposition of it was not. President J. Reuben Clark Jr. gave this caution: “Brethren, it is all right to speak of the Savior and the beauty of his doctrines, and the beauty of the truth. But remember, and this is the thing I wish you . . . [to] always carry with you, the Savior is to be looked at as the Messiah, the Redeemer of the world. His teachings were ancillary and auxiliary to that great fact.”
| The Infinite Atonement
“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.”
“The use of fashions in thought is to distract men from their real dangers. We direct the fashionable outcry of each generation against those vices of which it is in the least danger, and fix its approval on the virtue that is nearest the vice which we are trying to make endemic. The game is to have them all running around with fire extinguishers whenever there’s a flood; and all crowding to that side of the boat which is already nearly gone under.”
| The Screwtape Letters
“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.”
“The axiom ‘You get what you pay for’ is true for spiritual rewards as well. You get what you pay for in obedience, in faith in Jesus Christ, in diligent application of the truths that you learn.”
| "The Sustaining Power of Faith in Times of Uncertainty and Testing"
“To have faith in Jesus Christ means to have such trust in him that we obey whatever he commands. There is no faith where there is no obedience. Faith comes from hearing the word of God and is a spiritual gift. Faith increases when we not only hear, but act on the word of God as well, in obedience to the truths we have been taught.”
| "Help Thou Mine Unbelief", November 2001, Ensign pg 28
“The inquiry is frequently made of me, ‘Wherein do you differ from others in your religious views?’ In reality and essence we do not differ so far in our religious views, but that we could all drink into one principle of love. One of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism’ is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may.”
“Everyone should learn something new everyday. You all have inquiring minds and are seeking truth in many fields. I sincerely hope your greatest search is in the realm of spiritual things, because it is there that we are able to gain salvation and make the progress that leads to eternal life in our Father’s kingdom. The most important knowledge in the world is gospel knowledge. It is knowledge of God and his law, of those things that men must do to work out their salvation with fear and trembling before the Lord.”
| Ensign, May 1971, pp. 2-3
The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And it has been wisely said that the man who knows only half of any question is worse off than the man who knows nothing of it. He is not only one sided, but his partisanship soon turns him into an intolerant and a fanatic. In general it is true that nothing which cannot stand up under discussion and criticism is worth defending.
“Section 10 of the Doctrine and Covenants contains a rather remarkable reassurance. The date is April 1829, a year before the Church was restored. In this revelation, the Lord refers consistently to his Church as something that already exists. The Restoration, he says, will not ‘destroy that which my people have already received.’ ‘Therefore,’ he continues, ‘whosoever belongeth to my church [in 1829] need not fear, for such shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.’ Those who belong to his church, he tells us, will receive more light. In his words, ‘a part of my gospel’ will be theirs. But this will not, he repeats reassuringly, ‘destroy my church, but I say this to build up my church.'”
“Religion without morality, professions of godliness without charity, church-membership without adequate responsibility as to individual conduct in daily life, are but as sounding brass and tinkling cymbals. … ‘Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.’ Honesty of purpose, integrity of soul, individual purity, [absolute] freedom of conscience, willingness to do good to all men even enemies, pure benevolence—these are some of the fruits by which the religion of Christ may be known, far exceeding in importance and value the promulgation of dogmas and the enunciation of theories.”
| Articles of Faith
“That is why true religion is inseparable from suffering. It tells us the truth about our condition without flinching, offers no cheap solutions, and consoles none of the costly price.”
At some point, God will ask you to sacrifice on his altar, not only your stories about your own life, but your version of his stories as well. Your softly lit watercolor felt-board version of scripture stories and church history must, like all your stories, be abandoned at his feet, and the messy, vibrant, and inconvenient truths that characterize God’s real work with real people will have to take center stage. If they don’t, then how will God’s work in your hungry messy, and inconvenient life ever do the same?
When God knocks, don’t creep to the door and look through the peephole to see if he looks like you thought he would. Rush to the door and throw it open.
| Letters to a Young Mormon By Adam Miller
“Let us educate ourselves. Light is not the absence of darkness; rather, darkness is the absence of light. Light and truth exist independently. This being the case, the more light we have, the more independent we are, and the freer we are to choose. With truth lighting the way, we are able to see and make choices we otherwise couldn’t make.”
The Saints should not imagine that because they know the truth and the Work of God at the present time, that they will always know these things and therefore be able to stand. If they lose the Holy Spirit through their transgressions, from that moment their knowledge respecting the Work of God ceases to increase and becomes dead; a short time only elapses before such persons deny the faith. They may not deny that the Work was ever true, or that the Elders were ever the servants of God, but they will place a limit and say, ‘Up to such a time the work was true and the Elders were all right, but, after that, they went astray,’ – that very period being the time at which they themselves had committed some act or acts to forfeit the Spirit of God and kill the growth of that knowledge which they had had bestowed upon them. This has been the case in numerous instances in the past. . . . It is plain that it is they who have transgressed, and thereby driven the Spirit of the Lord from them; and at the very time they say the Church of God strayed, they themselves were guilty of transgression.
| “Knowledge, without the Aid of the Spirit of the Lord, Not Sufficient to Save,” Millennial Star, 8 Aug. 1863, pp. 505–6.
“Sadly, some young men and young women in the Church today ignore “things as they really are” and neglect eternal relationships for digital distractions, diversions, and detours that have no lasting value. My heart aches when a young couple—sealed together in the house of the Lord for time and for all eternity by the power of the holy priesthood—experiences marital difficulties because of the addicting effect of excessive video gaming or online socializing. A young man or woman may waste countless hours, postpone or forfeit vocational or academic achievement, and ultimately sacrifice cherished human relationships because of mind- and spirit-numbing video and online games. As the Lord declared, “Wherefore, I give unto them a commandment … : Thou shalt not idle away thy time, neither shalt thou bury thy talent that it may not be known” (D&C 60:13).”
| Things as They Really Are
“I call evil inverted good, or a correct principle made an evil use of.”
| Journal of Discourses
The fullness of truth, and the fulness of the Holy Ghost, and the fulness of the priesthood, and the fulness of the glory of the Father are all phrases that are ocurrent in connection with the temple, and cannot be received anywhere else, nowhere else on the planet. You cannot receive the fulness that the Lord has for you without coming through the temple and having the temple come through you.
| Foundations of Temple Worship, BYU-Idaho Devotional Address, October 2004
“In a pluralistic society, it is easy to regard different belief systems as equally true. There is one thing a professor can be absolutely certain of; almost every student entering the university believes, or says he believes, that truth is relative.”
It is the easiest thing in the world to believe the truth. It is a great deal easier to believe truth than error. It is easier to defend truth than to defend error.
| Journal of Discourses, 19:42
“There is not one of us that He has not desired to save, and that He has not devised means to save.”
“Let these truths sink down in our hearts, that we may even here begin to enjoy that which shall be in full hereafter.”
| Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, (2007), p. 45
“…Faith is always pointed toward the future. Faith always has to do with blessings and truths and events that will yet be efficacious in our lives.”
| "Remember Lot's Wife", 13 January 2009 BYU Speech