A Simple Answer to Complex Moral Questions

Life is full of difficult moral questions, and I almost relish that. I enjoy pondering complex moral issues in a purely academic sense. When the questions are less theoretical and more immediate, I enjoy the questions less. I frequently have a hard time determining what the right answers are, leaving me paralysed when making decisions and second-guessing the decisions I ultimately make. The questions "What Would Jesus Do?" and "What Would Jesus Have Me Do?" are sometimes very difficult to answer. But in his recent Conference talk, The Truth of All Things, Elder David F. Evans shared some counsel his mother had given him in response to other questions he had raised.

"While you are searching and reading and praying for the answer, why don’t you do the things you know you should and not do the things you know you should not?"

We don't have to know the best way to act in any given situation, even our own. God knows that there are going to be situations we misjudge, signals we misinterpret, principles we're going to misapply, and so forth. That may be partly why He gives us so much credit for just trying to do what we think is right. That's all we really need. God gives us basic guidelines, and it can be difficult to apply them to the complexities of real life, but as long as we are trying to follow at least one or two of those principles, we can simplify (perhaps oversimplify) the complex moral problems we occasionally face.

We won't always know what we should do in each situation, but as long as we're doing at least one of the things we know God wants us to do, that's a step in the right direction, and it can help attract the Spirit, who can walk us through the rest. So, if you find yourself facing a tough moral question, try to think of one thing, maybe an unrelated thing, that you know you're supposed to do, and do that. It might not make your question any easier, or if you apply the principle to the problem, it might not be the best possible solution, but it'll show God that you're at least trying to do good things, and that may compel Him to give you a hand with that.

Life's moral problems are complicated, but the first steps of our approach to them don't have to be. We can start with basic principles, and hopefully build up to more complex issues from there.