I appreciate your response and will give your comments some thought.

Might I try to explain something? I think this essay doesn’t explicitly discuss how faith helps us when we accept God’s will and accept suffering in our lives. When we speak of faith as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we focus particularly on faith in Jesus Christ. We also speak of faith in God’s plan and purposes for us as His children.

Faith is more than just an acceptance of suffering. It involves an active trust in God, even though we don’t always understand why things happen in our lives. It’s a recognition and trust that the suffering 1) has a purpose (to tutor us, to test our faith, to help us come closer to God, and to help us become more Christlike) and 2) has ultimately been overcome for us! Jesus, through His sacrifice, has overcome sin and death. Also, because of Him, the sorrows and pain of this life that are out of our control (that we have to “accept”) now are only temporary trials. Therefore, we can have a more eternal perspective regarding suffering, knowing its purpose, and knowing that we can hope for a better world, where pain and sorrow and tears are no more — where what has been wrong here can be made right.

For example, consider the following scriptures:
Isa. 25:8
8 He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it.

Rev. 21:4
4 And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Ether 12:4 (from the Book of Mormon)
4 Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

I like also what Paul said about this — that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory” (Romans 8:18) that can await us if we stay true to God and not lose faith even when times are tough.

This is a pretty quick response (and it’s late). I want to give more thought to your thoughts. I’m also interested in what others might say. I hope at least some of this helps a little. Best to you in your journey and searching. You are welcome here anytime!

As way of introduction, I am not a Christian nor a Mormon but someone who has been struggling with issues of faith lately and has been slowly moving towards becoming a Christian. But this has been a process and not an easy one.

My introduction to Christianity - at the level of faith - has been Soren Kierkegaard (Danish religious writer). Kierkegaard wrote extensively on faith. In fact, he wrote a whole book called “Fear and Trembling” that deals exclusively wtih the story of Abraham and Isaac.

K makes the point that what makes Abraham the ‘father of faith’ is not simply that he was willing to sacrifice Isaac. For as K points out, this makes him a tragic hero (if anyone is familiar with Greek literature they will see the similarity… the Greek tragic hero has to sacrifice that which he loves the most because the god has told him to do so). But the Greek tragic hero does not represent faith. What makes Abraham the father of faith is that he goes one step further. After making the movement of resignation - in Abraham’s case, resigning himself that Isaac, literally the child of promise, must be killed by his own hand - he makes an additional movement. This additional movement is the movement of faith where Abraham believes that even though God has commanded this he will nevertheless get Isaac back. K concludes that faith means believing “by virtue of the absurd.”

This seems to agree with your BIL’s comments that “faith only becomes a factor when the intellect is made inoperative—when the command seems petty, nonsensical, or completely random.” Without the sense of unintelligibility, there is no need for faith.

But I believe it comes from a very different place. As I understand him, your BIL is saying that faith exists in the willingness to make the first movement of resignation.
As someone struggling with faith, I can’t see how this can be. If at the end of the day faith is merely the willing acceptance of suffering how does that differ from the heartfelt resignation of the most sincere atheist? The atheist, after all, can also say “thy will be done” so long as the “Thy” in question is Nature.

I apologize if I have gone on too long… I recognize that this is not a philosophy forum (in fact, as I was typing this I realized it was a woman’s forum… which makes me - a 27 year old male - feel all the more out of place). I guess I thought your BIL’s comments were very insightful and wanted to express both my sincere appreciation of them as well as my own uncertainty about them.

Thanks,
Jordan

(I had to smile at your M&M image comment. I should dress up like that for Halloween….)

The comments in this post are so wonderful! It reminds me of a short story I heard years ago, that touched on the issue but didn’t really delve into it. A Jewish man was working at BYU as a janitor, and in a discussion one night with a member who was talking about sacrifice, commented that members of our church “don’t know the meaning of the word ’sacrifice’”. The member was bothered by his view, and the janitor continued with the sentiment that pretty much everything we consider a “sacrifice” is offered only in exchange for something better. It’s like we use our agency to barter for better returns from God. He said something to the effect that, true sacrifice is only given when we do so with no expectation of blessings in return. That thought has stayed with me, but till reading your BIL’s comments, it hadn’t done me much good. I will be re-reading this again and again, and sharing it with my loved ones. Thank you for posting it!

One of the things that struck me after reading this was in pondering the Savior’s sacrifice. While He chose to come to earth and be our Savior, He did reach a point in Gethsemane where He pled for the cup to pass (three times)! - but even while suffering (after it had already begun) declared that He would submit. And I have heard it said that He could not have comprehended what He had agreed to - that the pain and agony was more than He could have comprehended (hence the angel coming to strengthen Him in Gethsemane.) In that sense, I wonder if some of what happened was imposed on Him, not all voluntarily given by Him, if that makes sense. What He gave in those agonizing moments was His will.

And, think of when He was on the cross and cried out to His Father. I think He had to submit to that aloneness after the fact; again, it seemed to be imposed on Him (and almost seemed to surprise Him??). He chose to endure through all He experienced both by proactive choice and by reaction to what happened to Him, and by so doing was able to finish His work and set the perfect example of sacrifice, submission and endurance.

Anyway, perhaps the specific word/label doesn’t matter as much as the principles being discussed.

(Here’s a thought I just had…if the Savior was perfect and 1) asked that the cup might pass and 2) cried out when He felt the Father’s presence withdraw, might that provide some hope for us that sometimes we can struggle and cry out without sinning? — Of course, the state of our hearts will influence whether we are or not, but that was just something that crossed my mind…don’t know if my thoughts have merit.)