Continuing now from “‘Things as They Really Are II’” and the first post of this series “Things as They Really Are I” the second post, Neal A. Maxwell from his book “Things as They Really Are” writes:
“. . . the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him.” At the end of that straight course is a gate where Jesus, the Holy One of Israel, is the gate keeper “and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way.” Jacob then stresses that Jesus will not open the gate to any who refuse to consider themselves fools before God, and come down in the depths of humility.” (2 Nephi 9:41-42, 47.) But the foolishness spoken is a prelude to real knowledge.
Alma describes the growth of faith and how faith can actually become knowledge with the accompanying intellectual and emotional experiences of the believer. After the understanding of the believer has become enlarged and his mind has been expanded, Alma asks, “O then, is not this real?” It is real, he says, because it is “discernible, therefore ye must know that it is good.” (Alma 32:35)
The truth of each divine doctrine is actually discernible by us in a system of certification and confirmation that justifies our saying, “I know!”
This precious perspective about reality that came from God through his prophets surely tells us about “things as they really are and things as they really will be”; it is the only kind of perspective that can rescue us from the myopic* mortal view we have about the relative importance of things. This was laid bare by C.S. Lewis:
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by an offer of a holiday at the sea. . . .We are far too easily pleased.” (A Mind awake, p. 168.)
Those who stoutly deny the existence of ordering principles in the universe, nevertheless, certify in their manner of living a keen sense of some realities.**
* myopic – nearsightedness, lack of imagination or intellectual insight. Oxford, American Desk Dictionary and Thesaurus 2001
** Professors of philosophy often discuss the reality of reality, sometimes with great intensity and sometimes with bemused detachment—but they always cash their paychecks.
