In what way can faith be replaced by knowledge?

Thomas R. Valletta

Elder Bruce R. McConkie observed: “In the eternal sense, because faith is the power of God himself, it embraces within its fold a knowledge of all things. This measure of faith, the faith by which the worlds are and were created and which sustains and upholds all things, is found only among resurrected persons. It is the faith of saved beings. But mortals are in process, through faith, of gaining eternal salvation. Their faith is based on a knowledge of the truth, within the meaning of Alma’s statement that ‘faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things,’ but that men have faith when they ‘hope for things which are not seen, which are true.’ In this sense faith is both preceded and supplanted by knowledge, and when any person gains a perfect knowledge on any given matter, then, as pertaining to that thing, he has faith no longer; or, rather, his faith is dormant; it has been supplanted by pure knowledge. (See Alma 32:21–34.) … The brother of Jared stands out as a good illustration of how the knowledge of God is gained by faith, and also of how that perfect knowledge, from a mortal perspective, replaces faith” (New Witness, 209–11; see also McConkie et al., Doctrinal Commentary, 4:278–79).

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