Believing is Seeing

Last night Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Presidency of the Seventy gave a devotional for the young adults of the Church.  One of the topics that he discussed was faith, and he made the statement that “seeing is NOT believing.”  He gave several examples from the scriptures which give evidence of this, including the fact that even after seeing an angel Laman and Lemuel did not believe.   On the opposite spectrum is Alma, who even though he saw an angel described how he gained a testimony through fasting and prayer (see Alma 5:46). 

The world will always want physical proof that can be examined with the human senses, but that kind of proof will never be enough to prove God’s existence, the diving calling of prophets, the authenticity of scripture, etc.  Elder Robbins’ discussion reminded me of something Hugh Nibley said.  Speaking of the fact that the gold plates were not made available after the translation of the Book of Mormon, he said, “Critics of the Book of Mormon often remark sarcastically that it is a great pity that the golden plates have disappeared, since they would very conveniently prove Joseph Smith’s story.  They would do nothing of the sort.  The presence of plates would only prove that there were plates, no more: it would not prove that the Nephites wrote them, or that an angel brought them, or that they had been translated by the gift and power of God, and we can be sure that scholars would quarrel about the writing on them for generations without coming to any agreement (An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 21-22).  Indeed, seeing even the golden plates would not be enough to make a believer, for the world will always find a rationalization or justification for miracles and signs which allows them to remain in unbelief.  The correct order is that believing is seeing, and not the other way around.  I think that we see this symbolically through the account of the blind man who was healed by the Savior.  After Christ anointed the man’s eyes with clay, He said, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam” (John 9:7).  The man first had to show faith in the Savior by following His instructions by making his way to the pool without being able to see, and then washing there.  It was only after he had shown this faith that he was miraculously given his eyesight.  He believed, and then he saw.  His faith was contrasted with the disbelief of the leaders of the Jews who eventually cast him out of their synagogue because he defended Christ who had healed him.  When Jesus spoke of how those that see would be made blind, these Pharisees heard and asked him, “Are we blind also?”  He answered them, “If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but now ye say, We see; therefore your sin remaineth” (John 9:40-41).  In other words, they saw the miracles He did and did not believe, and therefore they were condemned.  Ultimately the kind of sight that we want does not come from our eyes; to make it through our secular world successfully we must see with “an eye of faith” (Alma 32:40, Ether 12:19).