Over the last two days, I've heard and thought a lot about obedience, and the message that I seem to hear the most is that we must obey God's laws from the bottom of our hearts, no matter what He commands us to do or what we want to do.
I'm not sure how well I like this. I like to understand the reasons for things, and I have a certain aversion to what others might call "blind obedience." While I have faith that God and the prophets are totally trustworthy, it seems foolish to offer even them a behavioral "blank check," by promising to obey their laws, no matter what.
Then again, even if I don't trust the Prophets and Apostles well enough to pledge to obey their counsel no matter what, I can still trust God with that kind of faith. I know that God has good reasons for things. I may not like His reasons or logic all the time, but I trust that His love, wisdom, and logic are greater than mine. As the Gospel Principles manual says, I can obey God's commandments without needing to understand the reasons for them.
Yet, it still feels like a loss of freedom to me, and to willingly give up my freedom seems extremely dangerous, even to the point of being an exceptionally stupid thing to do. Who in their right minds would sign a contract without understanding and agreeing to the terms of the contract? Even if you trust the person with whom you're making this deal, that's just not something that wise people do. Is it wise to pledge to keep all of God's commandments, not knowing what He may command you to do later?
In fact, doesn't making a promise to do something without knowing exactly what it is you're agreeing to do sound an awful lot like the secret combinations we read about in the Book of Mormon? Haven't we already been warned that making open-ended promises is a really bad idea? And yet, the same God who warned us about such promises is asking us to make such a promise to Him, by pledging to obey all current and future commandments, whatever they may be. I don't mean to be divisive or incite rebellion, but it seems odd to me that God would give us freedom of choice, teach us how important it is, and then ask us to give it back to Him.
Maybe this is a test. "You know how important freedom is. Now, will you protect it, even from the being you trust more than any other being, even from me?" Actually, since the issue of trust has come up, perhaps we should evaluate whether we, ourselves, are trustworthy enough to be entrusted with the power to make our own decisions. We each know how unwise and how foolish we are. We know how ignorant we are of the future consequences of our actions. Are we sure that we want our own, blind selves to be in command of our lives? Making the question less general and more personal, I know that I don't trust my own ability to make decisions. I am in idiot. If I want my life to not be a total train wreck, I have to put in charge of it someone who is wiser than myself. Fortunately, I know the Perfect Man for the job.
So, we've come full circle. I trust God enough to obey His will, mostly because I don't trust myself or my own will to lead me where I really want to go. I trust the Prophets and Apostles because they seem like good, wise people, and they seem to have a deep devotion to God, whom I trust more than I trust myself. It seems wise to me to put total faith in God because it seems foolish for me to put faith in myself. That may not be the best reason to obey God, but it's the best reason I've got right now.
I still struggle with the commitment part, though. I feel that it's more wise to obey His will than mine right now, but can I wisely pledge to abide by that decision forever? Can I give God a behavioral blank check? I suppose what I'm really asking is that, if I pledge myself to God, and God turns out to secretly be evil (I have a pretty good imagination), would it be better for me to continue to obey God, or to break my pledge and strive to be righteous without His guidance? Is it better to keep ones word or to follow ones conscience? If it's more essential to keep ones word than it is to do good, then I don't want to make any promise such that the fulfilling of which could potentially lead to evil, which means that I don't want to promise loyalty to anyone, even God, no matter how trustworthy they seem.
Then again, if it's better to be good than to keep a foolish promise to an evil trickster, then I don't have a problem. If that's the case, I can promise loyalty to God, and if He turns out to be evil (which I highly doubt will ever happen), I can break all ties to Him and try to be righteous some other way. However, if I go into this commitment with the understanding that if He turns evil, I'll turn on Him, is it even a commitment at all?
Suppose I don't commit myself to serving God. What if, instead, I commit myself to serving the cause of good? To being good and doing good? And since God is good, and commands us to be good, I can follow His commandments, not because I'm committed to obeying Him, but because I'm committed to doing good, and He's telling me how I can best do that. Thus, even without promising to obey God no matter what, I can obey God out of a desire to do good, because I know that He commands us to do good.
It feels like cheating. It feels unfair to me to not trust God completely, when, to my knowledge, He hasn't done anything to betray that trust. I know that He's good. Why can't I just make the promise and take the risk that He isn't, especially when I know that there's actually no risk at all? Except that there is a risk. I know I can trust God because I've judged Him to be trustworthy, but can I trust my own judgement? What if my judgement was incorrect? What if He is evil, and He has just fooled everyone into thinking that He isn't? Then again, if I can't trust my judgement now, what makes me think that I can trust my judgement later? Why do I think that I could be wrong about God being good now, and think that I won't be wrong about God being evil later?
I've run out of time to talk about this now, but I'll continue to think about it. I'll probably blog about it more later.
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