Personally, I think the word “know” is overused among Mormons when expressing spiritual conviction. In modern vocabulary, to say you know something carries certain connotations about the thing itself. In a scientific context specifically, knowledge of a fact means that the fact can be empirically proven and, to at least some degree, objectively observable. Spiritual knowledge fails on both criteria: faith building events, i.e. spiritual confirmations, take place in a subjective, unobservable realm—within the minds and hearts of the believer. That isn’t to say the experience wasn’t real or valid or based in something true. But when I say “I know the Book of Mormon is the word of God” and “I know the Pythagorean Theorem is true,” I’m really saying very different things, even though I used the same word.
Obviously, spiritual knowledge and scientific knowledge are completely different in the first place. I’m comparing apples and oranges here. But I think we in the Church may have a tendency to conflate the two when we talk about the acquisition of faith. Take, for example, Moroni 10:3-5, which Church members often look to as the jumping off point of a real-life testimony. As a missionary, I (and I wasn’t the only one) treated the passage like it was a set of instructions for an experiment—2 parts sincerity, 3 parts faith, 1 part real intent, a few drops of the prayer enzyme, and ding! You can say “I know.”
What I’m getting at is that I think we often use the word “know” not necessarily because our experiences really classify as “knowledge” in the most common sense of the word, but because sounding really sure of ourselves is what all the cool people are doing. Consider these two statements:
- “My name is Brother Jake, and I know the Church is true.”
- “My name is Brother Jake, and I feel in my heart that the church is true.”
Now, according to the definitions of faith and spiritual knowledge in Alma 32 and Moroni 10, these statements are functionally equivalent. But I’ll bet dollars to donuts that the vast majority of members prefer the first statement to the second, and not just because it’s more parsimonious. Let’s face it—it sounds way better to say a hard, sure statement than to say something that would imply any sort of doubt.
But even if, as I’m hypothesizing here, we are using the word “know” as a form of rhetorical inflation of certainty, what does it matter? As long as there is belief, what’s the big deal? Well, there are two main problems with it, in my opinion. First, I think it can undermine the importance of faith. Faith, and the lessons that faith can teach us, is absolutely central to our spiritual development. Faith cultivates trust as we as we act on something for which there is no discernible, objective proof. Faith fosters humility by forcing us to subject our personal priorities to those of something larger than ourselves. But if we see it as crutch or stepping stone until we can get to a “knowledge” level, like some sort of spiritual Charmeleon we hold onto while we wait for a Charizard, then I think we might be missing the point.
Second, I believe overuse of the word “know” implicitly stigmatizes not “knowing” and ostracizes people with doubts. The conflation of spiritual and objective knowledge cuts both ways. If people are told over and over that they can “experiment” and “know,” it builds an expectation that cultivating a testimony is like some sort of binary event. You follow the recipe and then you “know.” And if you complete the experiment without seeing the expected results, then you either wallow in self-doubt for not getting “the answer” so many others say they “know,” or you conclude that the (Church, Book of Mormon, etc.) is disproved and therefore without worth.
I’m not necessarily recommending that everyone stop using the word “know” in their assertions of belief. But I am arguing that we should be more thoughtful about the way we use the word and more specific about what it means in a spiritual context. Doubt and uncertainty aren’t evil or bad or to be feared, and we shouldn’t be so anxious to publicly declare that we have exorcised them from our hearts. They are the lifeblood of faith and spiritual growth, and I don’t think there’s anything implicitly noble or good about using language to imply that we’re free of them.
In testimony we are actually referring to Gnosis which indicates spiritual knowledge.
Aha, now I get it. Even if I don’t “know” the Church is true, I can “gno” the Church is true.
When someone says they know, how do we know that they know or is our response “NO you don’t know” ?
Know (no) what I mean?
I know that what Brother Jake says is true.
Allowing for the presence of doubt within a testimony is absolutely critical for some members, including myself. Without it, the doubts will actually increase in the face of the seemingly blind and dogmatic certainty of others.
But not ALL Mormons work this way. Many active Mormons need to say “I know” because they have no doubt. Even little children who bear their testimony saying “I know.” They actually DO know. it doesn’t mean they are right, but they have no doubts in their own mind. They trust perfectly the words of their parents.
Like Hawkgrrl said in her post earlier this week: “we never experience BEING wrong. Being wrong feels exactly like being right. We never know we ARE wrong; we may realize later that we WERE wrong, but in doing so, we are RIGHT again”
Saying “I know” is a statement of personal certainty. Saying “I believe” is uncertain, and it feels uncertain. That’s great because faith is not to have a sure knowledge. I love to say “I believe” because it shows conviction, not certainty.
We might smugly think that mental certainty is a crutch for lazy people who have never examined their faith. But this would be wrong. I think mental certainty can be a gift from God. It can free the mind from the paralysis of doubt and increase zeal and efficient work in the kingdom, rather than lurking on blogs such as these, trying to reconcile paradoxical states of faith within ourselves, which is taxing and inefficient, as necessary as it might be for some.
@nate Well put, although I don’t necessarily agree with your last paragraph.
I suppose (know?) it all comes down to semantics — “knowing” as knowing of something absolute and verifiably or “externally” objective, versus “knowing” of something internally subjective, something that isn’t open to an external, objective analysis of proof or interpretation — an “internal” truth, so to speak.
By their very nature, spiritual truth and one’s conversion — so far as within the mortal arena — are entirely subjective matters. For such to be otherwise would undermine the very essence of a mortal “Plan”.
This can be both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, because of their entirely internal, personal nature, they’re “truths” that no one else can take away, .On the other hand, they’re conversely truths that no one else can really give or prove. That’s the nature of the process.
Regarding Nate’s last paragraph — I disagree with the use of “smugly”. Or rather, I don’t believe that it’s always necessarily “smugness”. To say so might imply that “faithful” and “lazy” are mutually exclusive terms (speaking in the spiritual realm of things).
Can a person be faithfully “lazy”?
The Psychology of Belief – Humans go with their gut and rationalize around contradictory evidence.
I agree with the gist of the original post. Personally, however, I think that the words “truth or true” are also overused among Mormons when expressing spiritual convictions. Truth is a concept akin to perfect. In modern vocabulary, to say such and such is “true or the truth” carries certain connotations about the thing itself, also.
I, for one, side with Genly Ai, the protagonist of Ursula Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness. Truth is a matter of the imagination. Note, truth is not imagination. Truth, as the scriptures indicate, is what happened, what’s happening, and what will happen. A dictionary I have defines the word “know” as, first among a list of eight other definitions, “to perceive directly; grasp in the mind with clarity or certainty.” Anyone who’s studied or even just contemplated carefully the brain/ the mind knows that it’s more complex than that definition. We all are dependent upon other bodily functions, senses, and whatnot. We utilize our imaginations. And we’re all different; our bodies, minds, and spirits are unique. Think of a past event. Think of what may come in the future. Think of right now. What is that that you smell, hear, see, etc. akin to what you “know.” And how “the Spirit” fits into all that, I know not.
Enough blather. Stimulating post.
I have been struggling with this very issue for the past few months. I have been an active member my whole life, but lately I have been wondering if I can say that “I know.” I have felt that I having been doing what the Lord would have me do, but I don’t feel that gives me a certain knowledge. I hear others stand and say I know, and it makes me wonder if I have fallen short, not received the witnesses that they have. Or am I just expecting too much? I have felt a weakening of my faith because I don’t seem to have the absolute conviction that others seem to have.
Hyperbole points to weakness of argument, or so it seems to me. I consider this a form of hyperbole.
Jake: “like some sort of spiritual Charmeleon we hold onto while we wait for a Charizard.” Isn’t it more apt to say it’s “like a Hypno we hold onto while we wait for an Alakazam”? 🙂
Nate and Stu,
Ditto to both. The subjectivity of spiritual “gnosis” (as Howard alluded to) to a two-way street, and far be it from the outside observer to determine whether someone really “knows” a spiritual fact. However, do think that there is a kind of “faithful laziness” that many fall into. We’re all “looking through a glass darkly” in this life, and when we start to act as if the glass was supposed to be dark and we were only interested in looking at smudgy shadows anyway, I think it can invite a kind of complacency. But my glass is smudged too, so I can’t be sure I’m not just full of crap.
Hawkgrrl,
When you say “I consider this a form of hyperbole,” what’s the ‘this’ in your sentence? Could you elaborate?
And you’re probably right–Hypno and Alakazam probably fit the profile of faith and knowledge better. I was trying to keep the references in the same evolutionary line, but I could have done better!
(*rents garment in shame*)
When someone says “know” vs. “believe” or “feel” in matters of testimony, I consider that hyperbole. Even eye witness testimony has been shown to be only about 25% reliable, and most people talking about spiritual knowledge are not describing eye witness testimony.
I think believe is a much nicer word then know.
I really enjoyed this post about it:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/10722/i-believe-you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means/
Thank you for having some balance in your challenging of the K word in testimony. I think there’s a point to be made about overuse, and a point to be made about considering it. I’m fine with people who say they believe, but don’t know.
I have a problem with people telling me that they know that I can’t know what I say I know. How is anybody else in a position to stand in judgment of my subjective experience? If you want to say that spiritual knowledge is of a different kind than academic knowledge, then that’s fine. We use the word “love” to talk about how we feel towards our spouses, children, pets, favorite teams, favorite cars, favorite foods — but we mean something significantly different by that word in each of those circumstances. Nothing wrong with that.
I don’t claim my spiritual knowledge has any authority beyond me. If “believe” fits you better than “know” does, then rock on. But I’m going to rock on with “know” when it fits me, and I’m not going to await your permission to do so, or stop if you dispute it. Joseph said “I knew it, and I knew that God knew it,, and I couldn’t deny it, neither dare I.” I piss God off enough without down-playing what he’s given me in terms of testimony — I’ll risk pissing you off over him, just this once.
Blain,
Thanks for chiming in. Your last paragraph was intriguing to me. If I could ask you a follow up question: of the 2 statements of testimony listed in the OP, do you prefer one over the other? And if so, why? (Point of clarification: I ask this under the assumption that these are functionally equivalent statements of spiritual conviction according to what I understand Alma 32 and Moroni 10 to mean.)
I dont see what the big deal is with the whole “knowing” v “believing” thing. What’s somebody’s testimony to you? Has anybody ever faced negative blowback for saying “I believe” or “I want to believe” publicly? If not, why does it need to be discussed? To me, it seems like projection- those who can’t say ‘I know” want to project their lack of “knowing” on others, for what reason, I don’t know. But I might be wrong. In any case, why doesn’t everyone worry about their own testimoney instead of straining at the word “know”? It thoroughly befuddles me.
At least for me, I can say “I know” some things, and with others I feel more comfortable with “I believe.” Maybe the people who say “I know” all the time conclude that because some parts of it are true, then all of it is true. Therefore they say “I know” all the time. Just a thought.
The overuse of “I know” has rendered it somewhat meaningless to my ears, especially when some of those who said it most often are now no longer active.
Other words losing their meaning: pornography and immodest. Apparently pornography now refers to underwear models and immodest refers to uncovered shoulders on five-year olds.
Jake — I wrote a response to you that seems to have fallen into the bit bucket. I’ll try again, but it won’t be as good.
I prefer the “I know” version, because it seems a better fit for my experience. How I know has to do with experiencing something subjective, but describing an aspect of that in the manner of “feeling in my heart” doesn’t really cover it. Words, unfortunately fail. I could stop and recount the context in which I came to have that experience, but even that isn’t based in an event that I can accurately encapsulate (nor, frankly, remember in intricate detail — it was more than 30 years ago), and I just don’t have time to do that over and over. So “I know” is a closer fit than anything else, and I think those who have had similar experiences will understand some of what the words fail to convey.
Also, I do not use the word “feel” to mean anything but sensation or emotion. Feelings aren’t beliefs or thoughts, although one can have feelings about beliefs or thoughts.