The Power of Faith

One reason why I am a Mormon is becuase as a church we don't necessarily see a gulf between faith and reason; but believe that both are necessary in order to achieve knowledge. After all, would reason alone have permitted the Wright brothers to invent the air plane? Or would reason and thinking alone have aloud Edison to invent and array of inventions which radically changed the world?

In fact, Edison could be one of the greatest examples of why faith and reason are essesnsial for true genius. Certainly had Edison not had reasonable ideas, or done ridiculous things on the premise that, "hey I have faith that's all I need," none of these events would have been brought forth.

By equal measure, Edison could have spent his whole life reasoning if it were possible to light a room with electric light, however, without the faith to percieve the unseen and to dare to try, and try and try as Edison did until he achieved success, the world would still be dark.

It is in this context which I, just a punk kid (i.e. I'm no biblical scholar) that I've always understood Heb 11:3 when Paul said, "Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Many use this scripture to argue that the "stuff" that this world was made of was non-existent and God spoke and poof! However, in the context of my Edison example, the way I understand this verses is that when God looked over the universe and saw raw elements and space, he took the elements and made worlds so beatiful that we couldn't have comprehended them before. He percieved in his mind what he wanted and what could be achieved, though the end of his goal was unseen.

And like wise the Book of Mormon and other scritptures teaches that God can do like wise in our lives if we have faith in his son Jesus Christ. Though our lives may be miserable and painful today, we are able to look forward with a steadfastness of hope, knowing that God is able to the wilderness into a garden, and replace our sorrow with great joy.

And as we see the fruits of our faith, we have all the more reason to believe.

Jason Bentley is just a punk college kid who is attending Brigham Young University.