Alma understands that the essential problem with Korihor is not lack of belief, but a heart hardened against belief. Alma’s regret for Korihor is for Korihor’s soul, and Alma is hesitant to act for the sake of Korihor’s soul. Greater than his fear for Korihor, however, is Alma’s fear that Korihor might bring others to this same state of jeopardy before God. That would be unconscionable for Alma. Alma notes that it would be better for Korihor to suffer the destruction of his soul, a fate he appears to have chosen for himself, than for others to suffer the same fate because of Korihor’s preaching.
Literary
“While we posses a substantial number of words that Alma spoke during the trial of Korihor (Alma 30), because of the nature of the legal interchange, we would normally expect to find nothing linked to Alma’s three-day ordeal. But one matter reaches back to that experience: the idea that one soul perishes so that others may live. To illustrate, when the angel of the Lord scolded Alma and his friends, the angel specifically said to Alma: “If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed, seek no more to destroy the church of God” (Alma 36:9). This thought led Alma not only to be “racked with eternal torment” because of all his “sins and iniquities” (vv 12-13) but apparently to conclude that he “had murdered many of [God’s] children, or rather led them away unto destruction” (v 14).
In the case of Korihor, Alma tried to warn him simply to repent and not to seek a sign from God. “I am grieved,” said Alma to Korihor, “that ye will still resist the spirit of the truth, that thy soul may be destroyed. But behold, it is better that thy soul should be lost than that thou shouldst be the means of bringing many souls down to destruction” (Alma 30:46-47). Clearly, Alma had once faced the possibility that his own life might have been taken to preserve others; and his own experience of coming face to face with this reality seems to underlie his appeal to Korihor not to “resist the spirit of the truth” (v 46).” (S. Kent Brown. “Alma’s Conversion: Reminiscences in his Sermons.” Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr., eds., Alma, the Testimony of the Word [Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1992], 151 - 152.)