Church members can be confused at what they should have faith in. Indeed, the word “faith” is misused often in our teachings. Having faith in something true or having a belief in a fantasy often look much alike, so I thought it time to review the difference. We review the Savior's healing of the crippled man in the pool of Bethesda. The man had a belief that the waters would heal him, when he should have had faith that Jesus Christ would do so. We need to put away the childish ways of believing in unproven claims, and be willing to experiment on the seed of the Gospel - and other aspects of our lives.
Email - scottrfrazer@gmail.com
Website: - https://www.scottrfrazer.com/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/scottrfrazerauthor/
S3E9 – Faith vs. Fantasy
This is the podcast Science and Scriptures - Discerning Truth from Error, Season 3, Episode 9, or “Faith vs. Fantasy”.
Hello everyone. This is Scott Frazer of the podcast Science and Scriptures. In my years as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have found that there is a surprising breadth of beliefs within our religion. Considering the time we spend in church meetings learning about doctrine, it is not surprising that we agree on basic doctrine. Yet, in speaking to members, I am amazed at the many different interpretations of history and doctrine, acceptance of unproven claims, and continued belief in concepts proven false decades ago. Newer church members can be confused at what they should have faith in.Indeed, the word “faith” is misused often in our teachings. Having faith in something true or having a belief in a fantasy often look much alike, so I thought it time to review the difference.
In John chapter 5, the Savior visits the Bethesda pool near the sheep market in Jerusalem. A great multitude of disabled people lay around that pool, hoping for a miracle. According to John 5:4,
“For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water: whosoever then first, after the troubling of the water, stepped in was made whole of whatsoever disease he had.”
In Jesus the Christ, James E. Talmage speculates that this pool was a mineral spring, since the water was reputed to have restorative properties. I quote,
“The spring was of the pulsating variety; at intervals its waters rose with a bubbling disturbance, and then receded to the normal level.”
Talmage did not seem to believe this pool really healed anyone, calling out the “rumored virtues of Bethesda pool”. I don’t believe the pool had miraculous healing properties either - for a few reasons. Jesus chose one man and asked him, “Wilt thou be made whole?” The man did not recognize the power of the Savior and petitioned him to help him get in the pool when the water was troubled. He believed the waters could heal him, because he had probably been told so for years. He believed in the pool, not in the Savior. We don’t know his background, but the man was very lucky indeed.Despite the man’s mistaken beliefs, Jesus said, “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.” Immediately the man became whole.
Please note that the Savior did NOT tell the man to get in the pool and heal him there. There was no healing power in the water. One could say this man had faith in healing powers of the pool of water.But… let’s NOT say that. The disabled man did not have faith. He believed in a fantasy. To say this man had faith gives faith a bad name. As an aside, I wish that John had recorded what the Savior thought about the acclaimed healing of the Pool of Bethesda – and how faith and fantasy can be confused.
In the days of Jesus, superstitions and false beliefs were plentiful. The Age of Enlightenment was about 1700 years in the future. There was no scientific method to check claims of healing properties.No one was around to run a clinical trial on the efficacy of the healing properties of a mineral spring in Jerusalem.Without such science, how could anyone discern the truth of any such claims?
We all know the verse in Alma 32:21 that faith is a “hope for things which are not seen, which are TRUE”. It is a strange cultural aspect of our religion that we sometimes throw the word “faith” around with abandon. When a person starts to explain a belief with the words, “I have faith that…”, church members never question him or her, thinking such questioning to be rude. We never ask, “Do you know if the thing in which you have faith is actually true?Because, if it’s not true, then what you have is not really faith. It’s simply a belief, and a mistaken belief at that.”
Church members WANT to have faith – which is a good thing, as long as we choose carefully what to have faith IN. Not understanding this concept can have serious, devastating, and even fatal consequences. Let me give you an example. Every four years we have my least favorite Sunday School lesson. As we are studying the Doctrine & Covenants and Church History, one lesson discusses the Willie and Martin handcart companies.There are always church members who exclaim how faithful the Saints in these companies were. I beg to disagree.
On August 13, 1856, the Willie Handcart company met in Florence, Nebraska to decide if they would go ahead with the trek or winter in Florence. To orient you here, Florence and Winter Quarters are the same place! As most of us know, Winter Quarters was constructed by the Church to house church members over the winter in their trek to Salt Lake City. However, James Willie did not want to wait in Winter Quarters and called this meeting to convince his company to continue their trek, though it was late in the year.Brother Willie invited Levi Savage, who was the resident expert on the trek, to express his opinion. Brother Savage said that the Saints should winter there in Winter Quarters. According to his journal, he noted that going ahead would result in having to “wade in snow up to our knees and shovel at night, wrap ourselves in a thin blanket, and lie on the frozen ground without a bed.” He had done this before – and he was correct.
James Willie was not happy with Levi’s statement and rebuked him. He stated that the God that he served was a God that was able to save to the uttermost, that was the God that He served; and he wanted no Job’s comforters with him”, meaning he wanted no naysayers (like Levi) in the company.” I always wondered if Brother Willie understood he was going against church policy by leaving Winter Quarters when he did.
James Willie wanted everyone to have faith in a God who would hold back the snows and cold of winter so these Saints could get to Zion. I can’t emphasize enough how false such doctrine is. Throughout the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Christian churches, the word “faith” has often been used like a club – to force others into making poor decisions. Often when we Christians have a choice, we can choose the logical, well thought-out, careful plan that experts (like Levi Savage) recommend. Or… we can choose a risky, poorly-planned, nonsensical plan – and have faith that God will support it. If someone encourages you to have faith that God will bail you out of a bad decision if you just have faith, simply run away.One of the reasons for earth life is to learn the consequences of bad, uninformed decisions. Thus, God rarely bails you out of your poor decisions. Bottom line… you should have faith in Jesus Christ, but you don’t have to have faith in someone else’s ideas of what the Savior wants.
Reportedly, about 100 Saints decided to heed Levi Savage’s advice and not continue the crossing. They were probably chided for their lack of faith. Of the 404 Saints who decided to move forward, 68 of them died from exposure and starvation. I have heard the claim that none of the surviving Saints regretted their decision. But children and spouses died – so I don’t believe that claim for a moment.
We should immediately be suspicious of any idea that God is going to set aside the laws of nature for our benefit. We should be alarmed if we can describe a life plan as, “I have faith that God is going to do exactly what I want Him to do.”That is not faith; that is self-deception. One of the reasons that God established this mortal world in the first place is to teach us that “bad decisions have consequences.” When the Saints following James Willie decided to ignore their Levi Savage’s advice, they made a very poor decision – and many of them, or their children, died for it. This historical event was not a good example of faith. It’s a good example of fantasy and stubbornness.
When Jesus stated in Matthew 17:20:
“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”
He didn’t detail the fine print of His declaration. I realize that moving a mountain is a metaphor, but we can use it as an example too. If you want to use your faith to remove a mountain to yonder place – you must have a very good reason for moving it. If you want to move Mount Timpanogos to impress your friends or have a dramatic ending to your sacrament talk on the power of Faith, it won’t work. I’m sure Brigham Young and other pioneers would have moved several mountains during their trek if they could have done so.
Likewise, when the Savior says, “nothing shall be impossible unto you”, please note that there are…restrictions to this promise. Again, there must be very good reasons for the impossible thing that you want. James Willie and his handcart company wanted the Lord to delay winter – because they were too impatient to wait six more months to get to Salt Lake City.They had faith in a God who would do an impossible thing for them – just so they wouldn’t be inconvenienced for a few months. That God does not exist.
Jesus used miracles to prove who He was the Son of God.Otherwise, He would have spent His three-year mission knocking on doors, like missionaries today. There was a very good reason for His miracles. I like to think that I would have believed Him from His words alone… but I think I would have needed to see the miracles firsthand. So, in what do you believe or in what do you have faith? Do you believe that a mystic can walk on hot coals and, because of his faith, not be burned? It’s a good party trick, but to what end does it serve?
When Joseph Smith was looking for the true religion, he encountered conflicting messages. He states,
“The Presbyterians were most decided against the Baptists and Methodists, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors…”
Joseph’s search was important enough that he took the question to the Lord, and, as we know, received his answer. However, God lets us sort out most questions of faith by ourselves. In trying to do so, there are going to be a lot of people who will “use all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove” their own beliefs, as Joseph Smith found.
If you have faith in a God who will make your life easy and awesome because you are a faithful Christian and Latter-day Saint, you will probably be disappointed. I have talked to many inactive members who lost their faith because God did not come through for them at some difficult point in their lives. Because they didn’t have a realistic understanding of earth life, these members had faith in a God who was going to make things easy for them. That is not faith. It is a misunderstanding.
In what do you believe? Dietary supplements, or Nutraceuticals, are supplements that people take much like medicine, believing they will help sustain their health. They range from vitamins tablets to mineral supplements to Chinese herbs. Utah is the home of several large companies which market nutraceuticals. Dietary supplements do not have to prove their efficacy like medicines do. Walk down any pharmacy aisle and you will see dozens and dozens of dietary supplements.Now, the vitamins and minerals you find in a Once-A-Day vitamin pill may help you be healthier – especially if your diet is not as balanced as it should be with, say, fruits and vegetables. However, in dozens and dozens of clinical trials, most of those other supplements you see in the pharmacy aisle have failed to demonstrate any health-sustaining efficacy.
Utah has a number of essential oil companies as well.Though they smell good and can be considered a form of relaxing “aromatherapy”, longer-term health benefits that have been claimed have never been demonstrated. Lately, CannabiDIol (or CBD) products which are extracted from marijuana are being touted as a treatment for sleeplessness, anxiety, and pain. None of these claims has been proven to be true.
So, with no scientific proof, do people who take such supplements have faith in them? Again, we run into that pesky definition found in Alma 32:21 that faith is a “hope for things which are not seen, which are TRUE”. So, in my understanding of these words, no, people may have a belief in obscure, unproven dietary supplements, but they cannot have faith in them.
Becoming as Little Children
In considering faith vs. fantasy, I have two more verses I would ask you to consider.
The first is Matthew 18:3,
“And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”
The other is Ephesians 4:14
“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;”
So… what’s the message here? Do we become as little children, or not?
Children will believe in many things – Santa Claus, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy. My granddaughter assures me that forest fairies and Harry Potter have true magic. We all remember untrue things we believed as little children. I remembered believing that the exhaust from a car was what propelled it forward, rather like a small jet engine, I guess. As we read in 1 Corinthians 13:11,
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
On one hand, the Savior would have you have the willingness to believe that children have. However, he doesn’t want you to believe in “every wind of doctrine” that someone may teach you. He wants you to recognize and put away childish things as you become an adult.
So, we are told to have faith in only things that are true. We are told to not be like children, believing in anything they are told. How do you do that? The answer given in the scriptures delights me.
Let’s read the advice given to us in Alma 32:28,
“Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed… behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts; and when you feel these swelling motions, ye will begin to say within yourselves—It must needs be that this is a good seed, or that the word is good, for it beginneth to enlarge my soul; yea, it beginneth to enlighten my understanding.”
Then Alma 32:33,
“And now, behold, because ye have tried the experiment, and planted the seed, and it swelleth and sprouteth, and beginneth to grow, ye must needs know that the seed is good.
I included this last verse because it includes the word “experiment”, a word I love. Your experiment, in determining if the seed of the Gospel is a good seed, is the selective factor I wish to emphasize here. Your experiments may take a variety of forms. If you have faith in a particular dietary supplement, the experiment may be a simple Google search. If you have faith in the tooth fairy, you might put a tooth under your pillow tonight and lock your bedroom door. If you have faith in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, your experiment may be to review your life and see if it has been happier because of that organization. Lastly, if you have faith in God, I encourage you to examine your life yet again, and see if you are happier now than you would be if you were an atheist. Alma invites you to run experiments on the various seeds in your life, so do so.
So, that is all I have for you today. As always, thanks for listening to my podcast. If you have friends who are questioning why they should believe or in what they should have faith, please consider sharing this episode with them. We need to have faith in things that are true, and discover those things were are not. Run your experiments. This is Scott Frazer from the podcast Science and Scriptures. Take care, have a good week, and may God bless.