Is Your Knowledge Perfect?

When Alma taught the poor among the Zoramites, he spoke about what might be the result of trying an experiment of faith.  Once the seed is planted (i.e. the experiment on the word is tried), if it “swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must know that the seed is good.”  He then made this interesting conclusion: “And now, behold, is your knowledge perfect?”  If we didn’t read any further, I think most of us would assume that his answer to the question would of course be “no,” but that’s not what he taught: “Yea, your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant; and this because you know, for ye know that the word hath swelled your souls, and ye also know that it hath sprouted up, that your understanding doth begin to be enlightened, and your mind doth begin to expand” (Alma 32:33-34).  Alma seems to have been saying that we can test individual principles of the gospel, acting at first in faith—not knowing what the outcome will be—but eventually having seen the result of testing those principles can bring a sure knowledge.  Elder Maxwell called this “particularized verifications of gospel truths”—because we have tried the experiment, and perhaps repeatedly, we know what the outcome is and need no more faith in the thing, for the outcome is sure. 

               I thought of this concept as I put up Christmas lights on my house with my dad and 7-year-old son (thanks Dad!).  I was on the roof and we were testing the lights.  Once we verified they were working, my dad said to my son to pull out the plug for the lights on the porch.  He unplugged it and then called out to both of us, “Are they off?”  When he asked this I thought, what a silly question—of course they are off, for they are no longer plugged in!  I have had so many experiences with electricity that there is no question in my mind as to what happens when you pull the plug on something.  It doesn’t take faith at all; I don’t have any doubt as to the result of pulling out the plug, whereas my son with fewer experiences of the same kind doesn’t quite have the same sure knowledge.   Alma’s message to us is that this can be the same for spiritual matters; we can be absolutely sure that a specific gospel principle is true.  I have to think that this certain knowledge doesn’t come in a one short test, though Alma’s words might seem to read that way.  But growing a seed, the metaphor of the whole teaching, is never a quick process—it takes numerous repeated actions over a long period of time to indeed “nourish it with great care” (Alma 32:37).  In the same manner it takes countless efforts at following a gospel principle to develop the kind of sure knowledge that Alma was teaching about.  But his message to us is that through repeatedly doing what the gospel requires we can indeed “know of the doctrine, whether it be of God” (John 7:17).  Through repeated effort, we can eventually know that keeping the commandments always brings blessings, that keeping our covenants of baptism always brings the Spirit, and that doing the works of righteousness always brings peace (see Mosiah 2:41, Doctrine and Covenants 20:77, 59:23)