From Bruce C. Hafen’s book “The Believing Heart”:
One of the clearest—yet at times the most perplexing—themes in the history of God’s dealings with mankind involves his decision to draw a veil between our world of mortality and his world of eternities. Not only does the veil keep us from remembering our premortal past, it also keeps us from seeing many things that are presently taking place–for God, his angels, and their activities are hidden from our sight.
He has rarely parted that veil in his dealings with his children on earth. After the Savior’s resurrection, for example, he encountered two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus. They did not recognize him as he engaged them in conversation. As they told him of “Jesus of Nazareth,” in whom they had “trusted” (note the past tense), it became apparent to him that they had not grasped the message of his mortal ministry. He then said, “O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.”
And then, beginning at Moses . . . he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.” (See Luke 24:13-31.)
He did not tell them who he was. He taught them from the same scriptures he had used to teach them while he was in the flesh. Only later did they recognize him. .
Why didn’t he tell them sooner? He could have revealed the fact of his resurrection much more clearly, much more rapidly.
In another passage in Luke, we read the parable of the beggar Lazarus and the rich man who died about the same time as did Lazarus. What the rich man realized on the other side of the veil moved him to plead with father Abraham to send Lazarus back to preach repentance to the rich man’s family, who remained in mortality. But Abraham replied. “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.
“And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.
And he said unto him, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.” (Luke 16:29-31.)
Why Not?
In the first chapter of John we read about the Word, who was the light and life of the world, a light that “shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” (John 1:5.) Christ came into the world, but it knew him not. If it is indeed eternal life to know God, why didn’t the Lord reveal Christ to the people more obviously? He came so quietly.
If it is so important for us to know him today, why doesn’t the Lord send a great chariot across the sky every day at noon, drawn by flying white horses? The chariot could stop right above the earth and then a voice from the great beyond would say, “And now a word from our creator.” Why has he chosen not to do things like that?
Consider also the parable of the prodigal son. A young man came to his father and asked for his inheritance, and then, having received it, he went and learned some important lessons from a sad experience. (See Luke 15:11-32). The father must have known what kind of trouble his boy was headed for. Wasn’t there some way the father could have taught what he was going to encounter, to help him understand what he might learn from his experience, without running the risk of losing him?
Certainly that must have occurred to our Father in the premortal existence when he considered the plan of a free experience in mortality. Caring about his children as he does, why was he willing to take the risk that many would not come back? Didn’t he have the power to touch them in some miraculous way that would bypass that risk and endow all of us with the capacity to live with him in the celestial kingdom?
A verse in the book of Hebrews makes it clear that the Savior himself had to learn many of life’s lessons the hard way — from experience. He “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him who was able to save him from death; . . .
“Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience from the things which he suffered; “And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him.” (Hebrews 5:7-9.)
Then come those significant lines in which Paul talks about the need to give us only what we assimilate: Ye . . . are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. “For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe. “But strong meat belongeth to them that are full of age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.” (Hebrews 5:12-14; italics added.)
What do all these passages have in common? Why not force people to be righteous? What is so essential about experience—so essential that it is worth the risk that we may not come back? Why is it that we who are accustomed to the milk must “by reason of use” exercise our senses to become ready for meat?
Salvation is a process as well as a goal. The process involves growth, development, and change. Thus in mortality we must learn capacities and skills, not merely gather information. There is something about forcing people to be righteous that interferes with, even inhibits, the process that righteousness in a free environment is designed to enable. Righteous living causes something to happen to people.
There are two different kinds of knowledge. One involves such rational processes as gathering information and memorizing. The other kind of knowledge I would call skill development—learning how to play the piano or swim or to take a car engine apart; learning to sing or dance or think. The process of more than learning facts and figures. And there is something about the nature of developing those divine skills that makes it impossible even for God to teach us those things unless we participate in the process. We shouldn’t expect it otherwise—what piano teacher could teach people to play if they were unwilling to practice? What coach could improve an athlete’s skills without supervising the athlete’s trials and errors during innumerable practice sessions?
Imagine an innovative music school with a revolutionary approach, in which the piano students did not have to practice. The school would teach in a purely theoretical way the rudiments; describe in detail how to move one’s fingers; go deeply into music theory and history; teach thoroughly how to read music. The students would memorize all the best books that have ever been written on how to play the piano. The course could last for four years. . . .
Then, the first graduate of the “Do It Without Practice, Piano Course” walks out onto the stage of Carnegie Hall to perform his debut with the orchestra, what do you suppose would happen?
Not much. Why? Even though “thinking” is an essential element to any form of learning, some things can be learned only by practice. ~Bruce C. Hafen, The Believing Heart (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book; 1990), 40-44 (continued—see ‘The Value of the Veil II’)
