Alma’s real intent is to teach them true faith, to counter their current belief in the ways of the Zoramites. He began with the distinction between faith and knowledge. That is the beginning point. Now he begins in earnest his definition of faith, and as he does so we see language that echoes Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Alma and Paul see this as the fundamental definition of faith, and Alma gives it right after his important foundational definition that faith and knowledge are not the same thing. What we must do now is understand why Alma so tightly links his “faith is not knowledge” foundation with this definition that is so similar to Paul’s. We will begin by analyzing Paul’s famous definition, and the place that into Alma’s context.
Paul’s definition is akin to the questions on certain tests, where you are given an example something like “a rider is to a horse as a driver is to a ....” and you are to fill in the answer based on the conceptual similarities. If we interpret Paul’s definition in that form, it begins to make a little more sense. In his we have the formulation: “substance is X as faith is to X; evidence is to X as faith is to X.” What we need, of course, is to find out what Paul intends “X” to mean.
What is substance? It is something tangible. We can feel it, we can experience substance with our senses. If someone offers you a coat against the cold, you will gladly put it on. We laugh at the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes precisely because they had no substance. Put simply, we are willing to interact with objects that have substance. With substance, we have a frame of reference, and we can act on that thing of substance.
Evidence similarly provides a frame of reference for our actions. Numbers have no substance. You cannot hold a mathematical formula in your hand, yet our ability to provide evidence allows us to trust mathematical formulae. We have sufficient faith in the evidence of some non-tangible concepts that we were willing to send men thousands of miles to the moon and back. Those astronauts had more than wishes and hopes, they had the evidence of all the tests that had gone before as a springboard to their journey.
Both substance and evidence share a common conceptual thread, the “X”. They both serve as a basis for our actions. We act and react to substance in this life. We act and react to concepts for which there is evidence. It is to that thread that Paul likens faith. For Paul, faith is also a basis for action. For the things we hope for that have no substance, faith stands instead of substance as a basis for our action. When concepts have no evidence, faith becomes the principle upon which we act. Paul’s “X” is action, and substance and evidence allow us to act. What Paul tells us is that when there are things of God for which we have no substance, nor evidence, it is faith that allows us to act nevertheless. (Reynolds and Sjodahl would appear to have a similar understanding of Hebrews 11:1, though not as fully elaborated as presented here. See Commentary on the Book of Mormon. Deseret Book 1977, 4:89).
Alma’s definition is so close to Paul’s that we may assume the same basic understanding. Faith is a basis upon which we may act. Now we need to place this idea in Alma’s contextual definition that faith is not knowledge. Faith and knowledge are frequently conflated because they share tremendous similarities. As in Paul and Alma, they are both motivators, or bases for actions. If they are similar in function, how are they different?
When a young child is learning to ride a bicycle, the parents put training wheels on the bike and send him on his way. As the parents watch, they see that the child is beginning to learn to balance, and they raise the training wheels so that they are used less. At some point in the process, the parent notices that the child is really riding on two wheels, and is ready to have the training wheels removed.
This is the time of the true test. With the wheels off, the young child faces a dilemma. She knows that she can ride a bicycle with training wheels, and has been doing so. She does not know that she can ride a bicycle without training wheels, and in fact, does know that it can be dangerous. She knows that people have fallen and have failed. What does a child do?
It almost seems too simple to spend a long time analyzing it. Of course the child tries to ride the bicycle, but how does she come to make the decision? The answer is faith. There is no knowledge, only faith in the relationship with her parents. They say she can, and based on her faith in their word, she is willing to try.
What happens after that? Of course she continues to ride. Once she has ridden the bicycle a few times, then she gains the knowledge that she can ride. Once experience takes over, substance and evidence move her to knowledge, and her faith is dormant.
It happens the same way in all mundane examples of faith. We need faith to take the first step, but when we know a thing, our faith fades to the background. The analogy of faith to a farmer planting seeds misses this critical point. Planting has little to do with faith, for experience tells us what the result of the action may be. Even when there is not a precisely predictable outcome, we know the range of expected outcome. We know that the crop can succeed or fail, and we know many of the factors that can influence the success or failure. Some have suggested that flipping a light switch might be an exercise of faith. The disproof of this idea if found in our reactions when the light does not come on. All of our expectations are that flipping the switch will give us light. When that does not happen, we are surprised because our clear expectations were not fulfilled. We know what should happen, and evidence contrary to our knowledge is shocking.
Yet even in the mundane world, faith serves an important role. Faith is a mechanism of change. It is that ability we have to take a step into the darkness, to attempt that which we have never done before. Faith is, in Joseph Smith’s words, “the principle of action in all intelligent beings.” (Larry E. Dahl and Charles D. Tate, Jr., eds., The Lectures on Faith in Historical Perspective [Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1990], 31.) In the temporal world it is quickly and powerfully superseded by knowledge, but when founded in Jesus Christ and tuned to the spiritual realm, it becomes the first principle that transcends mortality and communes with the attributes of Godliness. In the realm of spiritual action, faith is the first principle of progression. Only faith allows us to attune our actions to the principles of holiness so that we begin to stretch our spiritual muscles and experience some of the Joy that awaits us at the end of our process.