The Leap of Faith at BYU

I am honored to be asked to speak to you today. It is a consummate privilege to be a part of Brigham Young University, a school whose mission is realized only through the union of mind and heart, intellect and spirit. BYU is built on a foundation of faith and commitment.

I desire to speak on faith--faith in the purposes of God, faith in the Restoration, faith in and at BYU. There are few things as desperately needed in our day than faith--faith in the unseen, or as one astute observer has noted, "faith that bridges the chasm between what our minds can know and what our souls aspire after." (Malcolm Muggeridge, Jesus: The Man Who Lives, p. 20.) Faith is not whimpering acquiescence, not timid and spineless hope for happiness, for pie in the sky in the great bye and bye. Faith is active. Faith is powerful. Faith is based on evidence, internal evidence, the kind of evidence that men and women acquire who search and pray and open themselves to the Infinite, who refuse to yield to cynicism or arrogance.

Though one need not be simpleminded to have faith, one may need to be simple in his or her approach to life and its challenges in order to enjoy the fruits of faith. There is a sense in which faith requires us to act in the face of (what the world would consider to be) the absurd. Abraham was asked to put to death his beloved and long-awaited son Isaac, the one hope Abraham had of fulfilling the promise that his posterity would be as numberless as the sands upon the seashore or the stars in the heavens. Jehovah had spoken. Abraham had entered the realm of divine experience, knew the voice of the Lord, and knew that what he had encountered was real. Therefore, when the awful assignment came to offer up Isaac in sacrifice, he obeyed, even though, rationally speaking, there was no way the promises could thereafter be realized. But the Father of the Faithful had implicit trust in his God, "accounting that God was able to raise [Isaac] up, even from the dead." (Hebrews 11:19) Abraham knew God and he knew his purposes; the finite mind yielded to the Infinite, knowing, as the Prophet Joseph Smith observed, that "whatever God requires is right, no matter what it is, although we may not see the reason thereof till long after the events transpire." (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 256) His leap of faith was prerequisite to his ascent to glory.

Faith and the Will of God

I am shocked and often surprised by the ways some people use the word faith. I hear a missionary in Vienna say: "Come on, Elder, where's your faith? Why, if we had the faith we could baptize this whole city!" I watch with some sorrow as well-meaning but insensitive souls explain to a grieving mother and father that if the family had sufficient faith, their fifteen-year old daughter, who has struggled with Multiple Sclerosis for five years, would not be forced to suffer longer. I say emphatically that faith is not the power of positive thinking. Faith is not the personal resolve that enables us to will some difficult situation into existence. Faith is not always the capacity to turn tragedy into celebration. Faith is a principle of power, of God's power. We do not generate faith on our own, for it is the gift of God (Ephesians 2:8). We do not act ourselves into faith, for faith is a gift of the Spirit, given by God to suit his purposes and bless the body of Christ, the Church.

People act in faith when they act according to the will of God. To say that another way, I have sufficient faith to move Mount Timpanogos to the middle of Utah Lake only when I know that the Lord wants it moved! I have faith or power to touch the hearts of men and women with my testimony of the truth only when they are prepared and readied for the word. Even the Master could not perform miracles in the midst of a people steeped in spiritual indifference. "A prophet is not without honour," Jesus said in speaking of his own reception in Nazareth, "save in his own country, and in his own house. And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief." (Matthew 13:57-58, emphasis added.) Similarly, the prophet-leader Mormon loved his people, and poured out his soul in prayer in their behalf; "nevertheless, it was without faith, because of the hardness of their hearts." (Mormon 3:12, emphasis added.) Someone watching from the sidelines, unaware of what faith really is, might have cried out: "Come on, Mormon, where's your faith?"

Again, acting by faith is acting according to the will of the Lord. I remember very well one warm June evening in Louisiana, only a few months after I had returned from a mission, sitting with my mom and dad, watching television. The phone rang, and my father was quickly summoned to the hospital to give a priesthood blessing to someone. A sixteen-year-old boy, a friend of my younger sister, had suddenly collapsed on the softball field and had been rushed to the hospital. My dad was told that the young man had contracted some strange degenerative nerve disease, and if something didn't happen soon that he would die. We rushed to the hospital, took the elevator to the fifth floor, and hurried through the doors that opened to the waiting room. We were greeted by the wailing and sorrow of the bereaved; the young man had died. We did our best to console the mourners and then made our way home. As we walked in the back door my sister asked, "How is he?" I answered that her friend had passed away. She came right back with: "Well, why didn't you raise him from the dead?" Being the seasoned and experienced returned missionary that I was, having most all of the answers to life's questions, I stuttered for a second and then turned to my father: "Yea, why didn't we raise him from the dead?" Dad's answer was kindly but firm. It was also terribly instructive: "Because the Spirit of the Lord didn't prompt us to do so," he said. In the years that followed, I came to know something about my dad's faith: he had been with his father when in fact the Spirit had prompted and the dead had been raised to life again. He knew when to move and when not to move. He had faith.

Let me share another story. Wilford Woodruff was traveling to Zion to assume his new assignment to the Quorum of the Twelve. On the journey his wife Phoebe was overcome with a high fever and lay upon the point of death. "I alighted at a house," Brother Woodruff wrote, "and carried my wife and her bed into it, with a determination to tarry there until she either recovered her health, or passed away. This was on Sunday morning, December 2nd.

"After getting my wife and things into the house and wood provided to keep up a fire, I employed my time in taking care of her. It looked as though she had but a short time to live.

"She called me to her bedside in the evening and said she felt as though a few moments more would end her existence in this life. She manifested great confidence in the cause she had embraced, and exhorted me to have confidence in God and keep his commandments.

"To all appearances, she was dying. I laid hands upon her and prayed for her, and she soon revived and slept some during the night.

"December 3rd found my wife very low. I spent the day taking care of her. . . . She seemed to be gradually sinking, and in the evening her spirit apparently left her body, and she was dead.

"The sisters gathered around her body, weeping, while I stood looking at her in sorrow. The spirit and power began to rest upon me until, for the first time during her sickness, faith filled my soul, although she lay before me as one dead.

"I had some oil that was consecrated for my anointing while in Kirtland. . . . I then bowed down before the Lord and prayed for the life of my companion, and I anointed her body with the oil in the name of the Lord. I laid my hands upon her, and in the name of Jesus Christ, I rebuked the power of death and the destroyer, and commanded the same to depart from her, and the spirit of life to enter her body.

"Her spirit returned to her body, and from that hour she was made whole; and we all felt to praise the name of God, and to trust in Him and to keep His commandments.

"While this operation was going on with me (as my wife related afterwards) her spirit left her body, and she saw her body lying upon the bed, and the sisters weeping. She looked at them and at me, and upon her babe, and while gazing upon this scene, two personages came into the room. . . , and told her they had come for her. . . . One of these messengers informed her that she could have her choice: she might go to rest in the spirit world, or, on one condition she could have the privilege of returning to her tabernacle and continuing her labors upon the earth. The condition was, if she felt that she could stand by her husband, and with him pass through all the cares, trials, tribulations and afflictions of life which he would be called to pass through for the gospel's sake unto the end. When she looked at the situation of her husband and child she said: 'Yes, I will do it!'

"At the moment that decision was made the power of faith rested upon me, and when I administered unto her, her spirit entered her tabernacle, and she saw the messengers [go out] the door." (A String of Pearls, Juvenile Instructor Office, 1880, p. 85)

Joseph Smith taught that working by faith is working by the power of mental exertion rather than physical force. (Lectures on Faith 7:3) I am persuaded that the mental exertion of which he spoke is not merely a cognitive exercise, but rather a stern, strenuous effort, a spiritual search to know the will of God and then to accept and abide by that will. "Working by faith is not the mere speaking of a few well-chosen words," Elder Bruce R. McConkie has written; "anyone with the power of speech could have commanded the rotting corpse of Lazarus to come forth, but only one whose power was greater than death could bring life again to the brother of Mary and Martha. Nor is working by faith merely a mental desire, however strong, that some eventuality should occur. There may be those whose mental powers and thought processes are greater than any of the saints, but only persons who are in tune with the Infinite can exercise the spiritual forces and powers that come from him." In short, "Faith cannot be exercised contrary to the order of heaven or contrary to the will and purposes of him whose power it is. Men work by faith when they are in tune with the Spirit and when what they seek to do by mental exertion and by the spoken word is the mind and will of the Lord." (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, pp. 191-92, emphasis added.)

The Lord asks us to move forward on the path of life on the basis of what has been made known through prophets. We cannot always see the end from the beginning. We cannot always act in the face of the observable or the demonstrable. In many cases, believing must precede seeing. Indeed, the revelations affirm that as we search diligently, pray always, and be believing, all things shall work together for our good. (see D&C 90:24, emphasis added.) We are further counseled to doubt not because we see not, for we receive no witness until after the trial of our faith. (Ether 12:6) This is the nature of the leap of faith, a leap from the safe and the secure to the anticipated and the hoped for. (see Alma 32:21) The disciples of Christ are not called upon to proceed wholly in the dark, to leap from the precipice without evidence of deliverance. Rather, we are asked to rely upon the unseen, to trust in the quiet but persistent whisperings of the Spirit, to lean upon the prophetic promises. In the words of President Harold B. Lee, we must "learn to walk to the edge of the light, and perhaps a few steps into the darkness, and [we] will find that the light will appear and move ahead of [us]." (Cited in Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple, p. 184)

Faith in and at BYU

What is true individually is equally true institutionally. This university must be founded on faith, the faith of the ancients, the faith of our fathers and mothers, if it is to achieve its prophetic destiny. Acting by faith is acting according to the will of God. And how do we know the will of God concerning BYU? We know it because of what has been said by those charged with its direction, because of the foundational principles established by that unusual Board of Trustees, many of whom we sustain as prophets, seers, and revelators. Too often our orientation and approach to BYU has been: "We will seek to make this place the finest academic institution possible. And, by the way, we will seek all the while to remain true to our religious heritage." Though commendable, this is backwards. We must hold tenaciously to a foundation of faith and conversion, a foundation of spiritual values, a foundation of the testimony of Jesus Christ and of the Restoration. Then we will have something stable, something enduring, upon which to build.

I have the simple faith (some call it naive) that if our hearts are right and if we are striving constantly for excellence and improvement in the classrooms and in our research, then this place will become the educational Mount Everest of which President Kimball spoke some years ago. As we ponder upon the challenges we face at Brigham Young University now and in days to come, the counsel of Jacob, son of Lehi, seems particularly pertinent: "Before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good." (Jacob 2:18-19) To paraphrase Jacob: "Before ye seek to become a great university, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ, ye shall become a great university, if ye seek to do so; and ye will seek to do so for the intent to do good--to bless the sons and daughters of God and to build the larger kingdom of God." This requires us to consecrate our hearts and minds, must rivet ourselves on the things of God, as well as prepare ourselves academically to make a difference in our chosen field of study. Whenever we fail to prepare academically, we prevent ourselves from making the kinds of contributions that might be made. Whenever we fail to build our scholarship on the rock of the Restoration, we sacrifice our distinctiveness and come short of what could be. In other words, if BYU is ever to reach its foreordained heights, is ever to make its mark in the world as the spiritual and intellectual Mount Everest, it must more closely approximate Mount Zion.

I am enchanted by a phrase that comes from a type of mission statement of the University of Notre Dame. I really think there's a message here for us at BYU: "What we intend [at Notre Dame] has no exact models. We intend to be a great university, without conceding that professionalization and insistence on quality inevitably entail secularization. We intend to be a great Catholic university, without conceding that allegiance to a religious identity is possible only at the level of a strictly sectarian college. We can avoid both an indifferent secularism and a narrow sectarianism only if a significant number of our faculty are dedicated to first-rate work in their disciplines and to the larger intellectual conversation animated by the teachings found in Christian learning generally and in the Catholic tradition more particularly." (Report of the Committee on Academic Life to the Colloquy for the Year 2000, Christmas 1992, p. 3.)

We should not apologize for wanting the religion of the Latter-day Saints to permeate all that is done at a Latter-day Saint university. On the one hand, it is wrong to hide behind our religious heritage and thus neglect our academic responsibilities; there may have been a time when some faculty members at BYU excused professional incompetence in the name of religion, on the basis that BYU is different, that this is a school devoted to the enhancement of faith and testimony. This was and is wrong. It is just as wrong, however, if not more so, to hide behind academics and thus cover spiritual incompetence. We can be thoroughly competent disciples and thoroughly competent professionals.

Further, I am not persuaded that we gain much ground spiritually when we speak of integrating or blending or balancing the spiritual and the secular. Those models do not fit what I perceive to be our challenge. We do teach and we must teach the secular here at Brigham Young University, and for good reason; our students need to be prepared to engage the ideas so prevalent in the academic world and the workplace. There is in fact much we can learn from what others have discovered or taught, and we need not isolate ourselves from the world. We can hardly make a difference that way. At the same time, I am persuaded that we do our students a disservice if we do not (1) help them to recognize the strengths and the limitations of their discipline; and (2) help them view all things through the elevated perspective of the restored gospel. President Ezra Taft Benson reminded us that "Nominal Christianity outside the restored Church stands as an evidence that the blend between worldly philosophy and revealed truth leads to impotence." ("The Gospel Teacher and His Message," address to religious educators, 17 September 1976, emphasis added.) Elder Marion G. Romney counseled us: "We are not to teach purely gospel subjects by the power of the Spirit. We are also to teach secular subjects by the power of the Spirit, and"--please note what follows--"we are obligated to interpret the content of secular subjects in the light of revealed truth. This purpose is the only sufficient justification for spending Church money to maintain this institution." ("Temples of Learning," BYU annual university conference, September 1966, emphasis added.)

Certain disciplines lend themselves quite readily to the consideration and interpretation of academic matters in the light of the restored gospel. Discussions of this sort will often be rather spontaneous and unpremeditated. With some areas of study this will be more difficult, and efforts to integrate religion or religious principles into the content of the course may be perceived as unnatural or contrived. It is not that we must create a "Church-centered Chemistry" or a "Mormon Mathematics" or an "LDS Linguistics" at Brigham Young University. More important, we must live in such a way that students and faculty have no reason to wonder where we stand on matters of faith and commitment. Obviously when we cultivate the spirit of inspiration on this campus, the truths of the gospel will be taught and learned more effectively. But this principle extends beyond the teaching of religion or the explanation of gospel precepts. It has much to do with how we teach, research, write, discover, display, and apply truths in all fields of study. Students who attend a calculus class taught by an instructor imbued with the Spirit of God will be richly rewarded, even if a religious principle is never mentioned. Students who study with faculty members who are loyal to the Church and its leaders, who are earnestly seeking to put first in their lives the things of God's kingdom, will come away from the BYU experience with an informed perspective that will tower above that which they might have received elsewhere.

Let me here repeat the words of President Merrill J. Bateman on this aspect of the life of the mind at BYU: "Placing commitment to gospel truths first in the life of a faculty member does not demean the second requirement of academic excellence. If testimony and high personal standards are the foundation, outstanding scholarship that includes teaching ability is the capstone. Both testimony and scholarship are essential for this university to achieve its destiny. They are not competitive but complementary. . . .

"A personal commitment to gospel standards by faculty members will increase, not decrease, academic freedom. If applied, the gospel framework will keep us from gathering like flies hovering over the dead carcasses of secular error. As a close faculty friend pointed out to me recently, the greatest limitation on academic freedom comes when faculty take for granted the assumptions employed by colleagues at other institutions in their development of secular theories. We will be more productive and enjoy more freedom if we examine and test secular assumption under the lamp of gospel truth. We must not blindly accept the choices made by others." ("A Zion University," BYU devotional address, 9 January 1996)

Recently Professor Alvin Plantinga of Notre Dame suggested to BYU graduates that "One extremely important job of the Christian [insert Mormon] university . . . is to examine contemporary intellectual culture, and contemporary intellectual projects, to discern their roots, to see what perspective these projects embody and arise from, and how they fit with a Christian view of the world. . . .

"This is hard enough," he continued. "But there is something even more difficult: a Christian university must work at the various areas of science and scholarship in a way that is right from a Christian perspective. We must not assume automatically that Christians can sensibly work at the various disciplines in just the same way as the rest of the academic world. There are all these different areas of scholarship: philosophy, history, psychology, economics, sociology, anthropology, biology. In working at these areas, shouldn't we take for granted Christian answers to the great questions about God, ourselves and creation and then go on from there to address the narrower questions of the various disciplines? Must Christian psychologists or economists or philosophers ply their trade in the very same way as it's done in centers of secular scholarship? Certainly not; a Christian university ought to address these questions from a Christian point of view.

"So we need Christian scholarship; and that is one basic and important reason why we need Christian universities. . . . This task of building Christian scholarship and Christian culture, I believe, is laid upon us by the Lord himself. We must thank him for what has already been accomplished; but we must work hard to do better. . . . The Christian academic's most important assignment is really that of serving the Christian community. . . . Give thanks to the Lord for what this university has been and is; support it in accomplishing this task of Christian scholarship; insist that it carry out the task with zeal, patience, discernment, and deep Christian commitment. Mormons are known the world over for industry, thrift, sobriety, Godliness, plain living and high thinking. Is it too much to hope that this great Mormon university will be similarly known for courageous and deep and powerful Christian scholarship? That is my hope and prayer for BYU." (BYU commencement address, 15 August 1996)

Gaining Knowledge by Faith

Faith has its own type of discipline. Some things that are obvious to the faithful sound like the gibberish of alien tongues to the faithless. President Jeffery R. Holland explained: "Faith must ever be the scholar's hallmark here [at BYU], including of course faith fostered by diligent study 'out of the best books.' (D&C 88:118) Faith in friends, faith in facts, faith in the future, above all faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Secularism will be shunned as a callous compromise with shallow society. Mere utilitarianism will be shunned as an unworthy expediency falling short of eternal consequence. With this vision the idea of Brigham Young University is to succeed at that great and abiding Christian challenge--to be in the world and to indeed bless the world but ultimately never to be of it." ("The Idea of a Brigham Young University," 14 November 1980, pp. 7-8) The discipline of faith, the concentrated and consecrated effort to become single to God, has its own reward, a reward that includes the expansion of the mind. Such persons (and the institutions with which they are affiliated) come to be filled with light and are able in time to "comprehend all things." (D&C 88:67)

It is worth considering the words of a revelation given in Kirtland, Ohio. Having encouraged the Saints to call a solemn assembly, the Lord continued: "And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith." (D&C 88:118) We note that the counsel to seek learning out of the best books is prefaced by the negative clause, "And as all have not faith . . ." One wonders whether the Master did not intend something like the following: Since all do not have sufficient faith--that is, according to Elder B. H. Roberts, since they have not "matured in their religious convictions" to learn by any other means (cited by Harold B. Lee in Conference Report, April 1968, p. 129)--then they must seek learning by study, the use of the rational processes alone. In other words, if all did have the requisite faith, then what?

Perhaps learning by studying from the best books would then be greatly enhanced by revelation. Honest truth seekers would learn things in this way that they could not know otherwise. Could this be what Joseph Smith meant when he taught that "the best way to obtain truth and wisdom is not to ask it from books, but to go to God in prayer, and obtain teaching"? (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 191) It is surely in this same context that another of the Prophet's famous yet little-understood statements finds meaning: "Could you gaze into heaven five minutes," he declared, "you would know more than you would by reading all that ever was written on the subject" of life after death. (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 324) "I believe in study," President Marion G. Romney stated. "I believe that men learn much through study. As a matter of fact, it has been my observation that they learn little concerning things as they are, as they were, or as they are to come without study. I also believe, however, and know, that learning by study is greatly accelerated by faith." (Learning for the Eternities, p. 72, emphasis added.)

Let me repeat myself. I believe the impact BYU will have upon the world of higher education is inextricably tied to the moral strength, spiritual stature, and intelligent loyalty of the students and faculty. President Harold B. Lee expressed the following to BYU students just weeks before his death: "The acquiring of knowledge by faith is no easy road to learning. It will demand strenuous effort and continual striving by faith. In short, learning by faith is no task for a lazy man. Someone has said, in effect, that 'such a process requires the bending of the whole soul,' the calling up from the depths of the human mind and linking the person with God." (Could this be what the Prophet Joseph meant when he taught that working by faith entailed working by the power of mental exertion?) Continuing, President Lee said: "'The right connection must be formed; then only comes knowledge by faith, a kind of knowledge that goes beyond secular learning, that reaches into the realms of the unknown and makes those who follow that course great in the sight of the Lord.'" (1973 BYU Speeches of the Year, p. 91.) On another occasion, President Lee taught that "learning by faith requires the bending of the whole soul through worthy living to become attuned to the Holy Spirit of the Lord, the calling up from the depths of one's own mental searching, and the linking of our own efforts to receive the true witness of the Spirit." (Conference Report, April 1971, p. 94, emphasis added.)

Conclusion

It is an honor for me to be a part of Brigham Young University. I confess that in my more reflective moments I still pinch myself when I cross the campus. There is no place quite like this. Because of that, it might appropriately be observed that we cannot always look elsewhere in the academic world for directions on where to go and what to do, simply because our ideal university, the one after which we seek to model ourselves in every respect, is not to be found on this earth.

Twenty-one years ago I sat in the Smith Family Living Center wondering whether anything of worth would ever materialize in my life. I had completed both bachelors and masters degrees in Psychology here at BYU, had been accepted into a Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology, and, for all intents and purposes, everything should have been fine. There was only one major problem--I was not happy. I didn't feel that I should continue my work in Psychology, and in general was wrestling with what I wanted to be when I grew up. I was also a bit troubled by the fact that many of my soul's deepest yearnings to view the various academic disciplines through the lenses of the Restoration were going unmet at the time. One young faculty member, sensing my frustration and having desires akin to mine, sat and talked with me for over two hours. Among the things he did was to read a statement by Charles H. Malik, former president of the United Nations General Assembly, a pronouncement that seems to me more prophetic as the years go by. "One day a great university will arise somewhere," he said, "I hope in America. . . to which Christ will return in His full glory and power, a university which will, in the promotion of scientific, intellectual, and artistic excellence, surpass by far even the best secular universities of the present, but which will at the same time enable Christ to bless it and act and feel perfectly at home in it." ("Education and Upheaval: The Christian's Responsibility," Creative Help for Daily Living, 21 September 1970.)

I felt the spirit of those words in 1973 and they brought hope and comfort to my heart; I still feel them as poignantly in 1996. Such things will indeed come to pass, I assure you. They will come to pass because men and women fully committed to the restored religion of Jesus Christ--students, faculty, and staff--will take a leap of faith, will walk a few steps ahead of the light, and maybe even a bit into the darkness. Then will shine forth that kindly light amidst the encircling gloom in the world, and Brigham Young University will have become a light unto that world.

I love BYU with all my heart and want this to be a place that is respected and admired, not alone for its Christian environment, but also for its passion for learning and discovery. But I am absolutely convinced that intellectual attainments, the curiosity of the learned, and the recognition of the world will not come to us until we stand firm and are secure in what it is that makes us different. Spiritual excellence will always underlie academic excellence at BYU, and we fool ourselves to believe otherwise. Truly, as President Kimball pointed out, as time passes there will be "a widening gap between this university and other universities both in terms of purposes and in terms of directions." (" Second Century Address," 10 October 1975.) We take the leap of faith at BYU when we trust in the prophetic promises concerning this unusual institution and give no heed to those who doubt and spurn our idealism; when we accept the fundamental truth that loyalty to God, loyalty to god's anointed servants, and loyalty to the mission of this university--these things underlie true excellence and lay a foundation for the revelation of great and important truths.

Once we have obtained a hope in Christ, to use Jacob's language, then the heavens will be opened more regularly and consistently and knowledge in all useful fields will be poured out upon us in ways we could not have imagined. When our primary thrust is spiritual, when our meat and drink is character and integrity and spirituality, then the Lord will raise up men and women--thoroughly prepared students and faculty--and send them here to complete the process you and I have started. That we may properly prepare for our date with destiny, is my prayer.