This extended treatise on faith and knowledge is widely considered one of the most beautiful passages of the Book of Mormon. Eugene England, the late Mormon scholar, considered it one of the most marvelous and hopeful statements about faith in all of scripture. In essence, Alma builds the case that faith is necessary for spiritual growth—an argument that has clear equivalents in the Bible and elsewhere. If people had all the signs and miracles that they crave, they’d never have to exercise their faith. (And in many cases, people who claim that they’d become believers simply if they experienced a miracle are fooling themselves. In the Book of Mormon, the example of Laman and Lemuel, who were privy to all kinds of signs and wonders but stubbornly hardened their hearts, reminds us that lasting faith does not result from merely being a passive witness to supernatural events.) As we’ll see, Alma takes the faith argument one step further, however, arguing that faith is but a precursor to sure knowledge; in fact, he even suggests that in some ways faith may be superior to knowledge.