Continuing from Bruce C. Hafen’s book: The Believing Heart II, . . .
The Doctrine and Covenants teaches that “whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.” (Doctrine and Covenants 130:18.) “Principle of intelligence” may refer to facts, information, knowledge of commandments with all of the doctrinal variations. But it may also refer to Christlike capacity and skills — self control, obedience, compassion, patience, unselfishness, and other virtues.
Why might we be damned if we saw a sign — if the Veil’ were parted too early? We would be stopping our progress toward the development of those celestial qualities. Even if a chariot were to fly across the sky every day, seeing such wonders would not help us to know God and Jesus Christ whom he sent. (see John 17:3.) Since eternal life, which is what it means to know Christ, refers not to the length but to the quality of life, it involves the long-term, difficult, gradual development of the capacity to live as Christ does. When we begin to live as he does, then we will begin to know him.
Sometimes in our gospel discussions we recall the presentation of Satan’s plan in the preexistence: “I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.” (Moses 4:1.) We usually say the problem with Satan’s plan was that he “sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him.” (Moses 4:3.)
We might also ask why agency matters so much. Agency is important not only in representing the abstract principle of free will. Without agency we cannot develop the growth to return to God’s presence. It is simply impossible. A horse can be led to water, but he cannot be forced to drink. A child can be given a book, but she will never learn to read unless she voluntarily makes the effort to read. Satan’s plan could never have worked. His claim of guaranteeing, regardless of our choices, that not one soul would be lost was like most of his claims: it was a lie.
These ideas suggest some of the reasons why voluntary actions and freedom of inquiry are essential to the development of religious character, just as they are essential to intellectual development.
The idea that salvation involves a process of skill development may help us to understand why there is a veil. We need not be impatient that things must be the way they are — we should rather, be grateful. These circumstances show us how faith and repentance and knowing God are processes and principles of action, understood not just by defining them but by experiencing them. God is a great teacher and he knows the patterns and principles we must follow in conduct of our lives in order to develop active divine capacities. He can teach us these things — He has the power — but only we will give ourselves to the process.
If we insist on giving ourselves a medal or a gold star on our forehead as proof that we are learning the right things, or if we insist on being able to explain to everyone else how the gospel works and why it works, even though God himself cannot explain it to our finite minds until we have developed the capacity to understand it, we will not have learned what the gospel of Jesus Christ is all about. We will still be floundering around as spiritual adolescents trying to master the details of a lesser law.
The substance of our religion cannot be fully measured, it cannot be fully specified, except it is understood by experience. But that is no reason to value it less. The most significant we know about cannot be totally measured, it cannot be fully specified, except it be understood by experience. But it is not reason to value it less. Our love for our families, our testimonies, our feelings of gratitude when we sense anew all that God has done for us — somehow to reduce these things to a content we can communicate entirely to other people or a meaning we can label so they will understand them fully may be to degrade their sacredness. Like beauty and joy, they are too important to be specifiable.
It should be observed, of course, that the value of learning through experience does not mean that we must make every human mistake ourselves in order to learn the lessons of life. We can learn vividly and permanently through vicarious experience, as we observe the good and bad consequences that flow from the choices other people make. There is evidence all around in today’s world that wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10.)
In addition, we are not able, solely through our own effort, to develop the attributes of Christlike perfection — even if we participate fully in the learning opportunities provided by the mortal experience. We must do all within our power, but the final achievement of celestial capacity comes ultimately through the bestowal of endowments. “For we know that it is by grace that we are saved after all we can do.” (2 Nephi 25:23.) “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him . . . [for] by his grace ye may be perfected in Christ.) The Savior’s atonement compensates not only for our sins but also for our inadequacies. This is an important qualification on the significance of our own effort — not only because it reminds us of the mission of Christ, but because it also assures us that our own struggling is not our only resource in the quest for understanding, for meaning and for divine nature.
There is a veil between our world of mortality and God’s world of the eternities. It can become very thin at times, but for most of us the veil remains; for he has placed it there to help us learn how we must live, what we must become, to live with him some day. ~Bruce C. Hafen, THE BELIEVING HEART : Nourishing the Seed of Faith (Salt Lake City; Deseret Book: 1990) p.48-51 (For the first post of this series, click ‘The Value of the Veil’)
