It is important to understand that belief or disbelief in
God does not change the reality of God’s existence or change Him in any
way. All it does is change your
relationship to God. A major purpose of
this life, for each person who lives it, is to develop and test faith in God,
so your choice of belief matters a lot to you
and how you live and succeed in this very brief and temporary existence we call
mortality.
The principles of belief and faith in general are recognized
for being so closely tied to action that the maxim is oft repeated that whether
you believe that you will fail or that you will succeed in something you are
likely to be right, since your belief will govern your effort. There is a similarity—but only a
similarity—with regard to belief in God.
Whether you believe in God or not in this life, the events of life are
likely to seem to confirm you in your belief.
Those who believe in God will, if they choose to persist in their
belief, increasingly see His hand in everything. Those who choose not to believe in God will
find many ways to convince themselves of their choice.
Those with faith in God see evidence of Him in all things
and are increasingly able to draw upon the powers of heaven. The ancient American prophet Alma declared,
“I have all things as a testimony” of God (Alma 30:41). Jesus Christ, after His resurrection, declared
to His disciples that “signs shall follow them that believe” (Mark 16:17). In modern times the Savior declared again
that “signs follow those that believe”, but He warned and added that signs come
“not by the will of men, nor as they please, but by the will of God.” (Doctrine
and Covenants 63:9, 10) God is not a
machine, responding to direction and command, but rather a loving parent who
bestows His blessings on His children for our benefit as plentifully as we
will receive. Our belief enhances our
ability to receive.
On the other hand, those who choose not to believe in God in
this life can usually conjure up reasons not to believe and even to explain
away what believers would consider strong evidences of the reality of God. These words spoken nearly a hundred years
before the birth of Christ, by one who chose not to believe, sound very fresh
in the twenty-first century:
Behold, these things which ye call
prophecies, which ye say are handed down by holy prophets, behold, they are
foolish traditions of your fathers.
How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of things which ye do
not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ.
Ye look forward and say that ye see a
remission of your sins. But behold, it
is the effect of a frenzied mind; and this derangement of your minds comes
because of the traditions of your fathers, which lead you away into a belief of
things which are not so. (Alma
It has been my observation that God usually leaves for those
who choose not to believe plenty of room to apply their choice, to find
an explanation that excludes God and His power.
He rarely provides knowledge founded on hard, convincing evidence until after a person has made his choice to
believe and exercised faith. Then the
evidences come and with increasing clarity.
The Lord wants the virtues that are associated with belief—humility,
patience, perseverance, trust, courage, obedience, and many others including
broadness of mind and soul—to be developed in us, which would be scarcely
possible if He provided the evidence of conviction before the development and trial of our faith in Him. As we grow in our faith, we grow in these
other virtues.
Not only does the person who chooses not to believe fail to
recognize the evidences of God before Him, but God intentionally withholds from
him the greater evidences. In effect,
the Lord rewards believer and unbeliever with what they choose, confirmation of
belief or the withholding of what the unbeliever would consider
verification. The unbeliever, as with
the believer, has to come to the knowledge of God through faith.
Part of the grace of God, available in this life, is that
the choice of unbelief is not final while mortality lasts, and those who
believe are commanded by God to employ their faith to help stir belief and
faith in others. “So then faith cometh
by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” (Romans 10:17) Believers are commanded to tell, to share
their belief. God is ready to begin
to lead to faith and from faith to knowledge those who will begin to hear. “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”
(Matthew 11:15)
