I recently heard a scientist (an agnostic or an atheist, reading between the lines) speaking about his family in a radio interview. He said he let his kids make messes because he was more concerned with preserving and fostering their innate tendency to be curious and perform experiments than he was with having a clean house. This man, though an agnostic at best, knew more about what it means to be “like God” from personal experience as a father than he could have learned from twenty years of attendance and study at a divinity school. Scripture indicates that God cared more about preserving our agency than He did about preventing the inevitable mess and pain that come from sin. This is likely because we learn best through personal experience, even painful experience. The tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil were both made by God, and He gave Adam and Eve freedom to choose both, knowing beforehand the consequences. Instead of adopting Satan’s plan of depriving us of agency to prevent the resulting mess, He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to clean it up through His suffering. The agnostic scientist on the radio had experienced a microcosm of the plan of salvation in his own living room.
This vignette demonstrates the difference between intellectual or theoretical learning, and experiential learning. Take D&C 121 as another example.
“Behold, many are called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world that they do not learn this one lesson…” Hold it right there. If the revelation gives us a description of the unlearned lesson, is that the equivalent of God giving the unchosen a cheat-sheet? If He tells us that our obsession with owning a fleet of sports cars and a swimming pool full of cocaine keeps us from learning a certain lesson, and then tells us what that lesson is, will that allow us to keep our unhealthy obsession and still be “called” as well as “chosen?” No, because the obsession does not simply blind us to facts; it robs us of the capacity live the information, regardless of whether we can quote the lesson in D&C 121 by heart.
Facts we learn are not the same thing as traits we earn.
“Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.” That seems to indicate that book learning is critical to our salvation. It is. “Faith cometh by hearing the word.” But are facts all we need? “And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come.” Why the redundancy—“...knowledge and intelligence...?” Are they the same thing in this context? Rather than emphasis by redundancy, I believe these two words indicate distinct and separate things. Knowledge refers to facts we know; intelligence here refers to what we are, our character, the degree to which we adhere to light and knowledge we possess. Two beings might know the same facts, but one may choose to inconvenience himself by acting on that information, while the other may choose to shirk the responsibility the information places on his shoulders. They both have the same knowledge, but one is more intelligent, more obedient to truth, than the other. Hence we gain intelligence by “diligence and obedience,” not necessarily by theoretical exercises (though our minds must stretch also before we can receive the things of God).
Abraham gets a lesson in astronomy from the Lord, in which the magnitude of various heavenly bodies is compared to spiritual magnitude of intelligences, conscious heavenly beings. If you find two beings, and one is more intelligent than the other, you may find one more intelligent than either. But God is “more intelligent than they all” (Abr. 3:19). James chides us in his epistle: “...faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble. But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?” (James 2:17-20). Our acts must reflect our level of knowledge, or we lose light and come under condemnation. Intelligence is our fidelity to whatever knowledge we have.
Jesus’ ability to do the right thing no matter what exceeded everyone else’s; this was one reason He was the only one who could successfully complete the Atonement.
Till one is equally intelligent with God, we are beings with varying levels of intelligence, above or below each other. How do we become more intelligent in this sense? Obedience and diligence, adherence to the laws we have already received. As our obedience increases (even as our determination to be obedient increases) we receive further grace to be able to climb the next mountain.
If it were possible to gain this kind of intelligence from a book the way we gain other knowledge, life and the creation would have been unnecessary. We could have remained in our premortal home, and studied some heavenly book until we knew all there is to know. But learning the dictionary definition of patience will not make it easier to endure gracefully. The woman in line at the grocery store in front of us may take five minutes to find a working pen in her purse, and reciting a definition of patience will not be very helpful in keeping our temper from flaring. The crucible of experience is where such intelligence is earned.
When we show we are a good enough pilot of our flawed, simple, limited physical bodies here, we can then receive a powerful resurrected body, because we were faithful stewards who magnified the first one. “Well done, thou good and faithful servant—thou has been faithful over a few things. I will make thee a ruler over many things.” You were a good owner and driver of a compact car; I will make you the captain of an aircraft carrier.
I was in a tempting circumstance once, and I walked away. But I was deeply troubled by how easily my keel had almost been overwhelmed, how magnetic it still was, even after a few minutes of walking in the opposite direction. I implored in a silent prayer of how to surmount such things. The answer I got back was from Abr. 3:17. “...there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it.” When I first encountered this statement in the scriptures, it seemed to me to be a non-sequitur, an interruption of the narrative. I wondered what Abraham was looking at in the vision that prompted the Lord to say such a thing. But if intelligence indicates fidelity to truth, what could be more appropriate here? Moons and stars may be above one another in magnitude; spirits may be above each other in their respective level of intelligence; God is above them all. One ranking system used as a metaphor for another.
And what could be more appropriate for me to know as I walked away from temptation, yet still felt it heavy on my heart? If God does not waste His heart on impossibilities, neither should we. We should reserve our hearts for what we WILL do. Part of the ache of mortality is constantly having our hearts entangled in that which is not, nor ever will be. “Wickedness never was happiness,” but how many times have we tried to brew happiness with just the right amount of wickedness included in the recipe? The leaven falls flat, and the aftertaste is always bitter. But as we follow the Spirit a little bit better each day, we get closer to happiness that does not include what Elder Maxwell called that unpleasant “morning-after” feeling.
