Divine guidance and logic

[Katya]

This topic came up in the thread on BYU Pauper Babies. I wanted to give it its own thread and finally got around to it. Here's the conversation so far:

It has been my experience that the guidance of the Lord usually follows that which is also logical and thought out. In other words, when I've studied and applied logic and thought before making a decision, the decision I've chosen has almost always been the one I've also felt inspiration about.

Wait—is the inspiration coming before the logical thinking out or after?

After. I follow the model set forth in the scriptures: study out all options, make a decision, pray for confirmation.

What are the circumstances that lead you to pray about a decision? (I.e., surely you're making small, routine decisions all the time that you're not praying about. So what bumps something up into being prayerworthy?)

Also, has there ever been a time when you were prompted to make a very counterintuitive decision?

Katya, I feel like this perhaps should be another thread, but I would love to answer you.

The main circumstance that would lead me to pray is any uncertainty in my mind about the decision, and if I feel it could be in any way life altering. Also, most of these kinds of prayers are simply in my head, so it isn't like I'm dropping to my knees every five seconds, or praying about which cereal to buy (I already know the best choice is cinnamon Life.)

I wouldn't say there's been a time when I've felt prompted to do something "very counterintuitive." There have been times when I've felt that a better choice existed than the one I had made, in which case I go back to the drawing board and look for something I may have missed. If I do feel a sudden prompting to do something different than what I've decided, and it isn't a choice I've made yet, then I will go back and try to look at the topic in a new light. I think it is something like when Nephi felt a prompting to kill Laban, which seemed odd to him, but then he considered it and found reasons to support it.

[Katya]

Based on this exchange, it sounds to me like you've never had a "leap of faith." (At least, not the way I'd define it.) Would you agree? If not, how would you define a leap of faith?

[Marduk]

I'm honestly not sure what you mean by "leap of faith." The way I've always understood it is taking a risk when you aren't sure how things are going to turn out, and in that case, I've taken many "leaps." If you mean doing something that makes absolutely no sense to me, and even after analyzing it, it still seems like the wrong decision, then no, I haven't, and I don't think this is a common experience. I would say we could count on one hand the moments in the scriptures where individuals were commanded by God to do something that went against 'standard operating procedure' (in fact, I can think of exactly one.)

I feel that God has given us logic and reason, and they are an understanding of the basic ways in which the universe operates. If it was commonplace for it to be necessary to discard these things, then by definition they could not exist, as there would be no basic way in which the universe operates, it would be entirely capricious.

[Dragon Lady]

Ok, what about not going against logic and reason, but rather, going against what you would choose to do. For example, I once had a missionary. I had a general plan of my life (stay at BYU-I to see what happened between us) for when he got home. He got home and broke up with me. Suddenly I had a totally open future. I stayed up till 2 or 3 planning out my life including mission, service abroad, bachelors, etc. It was fantastic. I was so stoked about it. And then I prayed about it, mostly out of habit, and got a very strong, "Nope. I need you to move to Provo." Nothing else. School? Work? Provo MTC (but not really because I wasn't old enough yet)? No other answer than that. But I knew that I had to move to Provo, even though that had not factored into anything that I had wanted to do or planned out. And honestly, I didn't really want to move to Provo. Nothing against Provo, but my now ex-missionary had changed plans and was moving to BYU that fall and I didn't want people to think I was following him. Because I really, really wasn't. That experience, for me, was a leap of faith because it required me to choose what I felt I should do over what I wanted to do. Without any knowledge of why.

[Katya]

If you mean doing something that makes absolutely no sense to me, and even after analyzing it, it still seems like the wrong decision, then no, I haven't, and I don't think this is a common experience.

I don't mean being prompted to do something that seems actively wrong, but being prompted to make a choice that doesn't seem like the best choice, logically.

DL's experience is one example, where she had great reasons for wanting to stay in Rexburg and at least one good reason for not wanting to move to Provo. I had an experience where I was trying to decide if I should go to grad school in 2005 or 2006. I had good reasons for wanting to wait an extra year, but every time I considered it, it felt wrong. In retrospect, I can think of good things that came about because I went in 2005, but, in the absence of a "control Katya" who waited a year, I can't say for certain that equivalent things wouldn't have happened a year later. (Also, my original reasons for wanting to wait a year still stand: I think I would have much less student debt if I'd been able to save for an extra year.) I don't doubt the prompting I received, I'm just saying that it wasn't the most logical choice, at the time, and I still don't have evidence to back it up as the better choice.

I would say we could count on one hand the moments in the scriptures where individuals were commanded by God to do something that went against 'standard operating procedure' (in fact, I can think of exactly one.)

I can think of two or three, so I'd be curious to know what your "one" is. More broadly, however, I'd say we're missing a lot of information about the motivation behind the actions of scriptural figures. We know what various prophets and other righteous people did and we know that what they did worked out for the best, but we generally don't know if they thought what they were being asked to do was logical or if they thought it was irrational, but went along with it anyway.

I feel that God has given us logic and reason, and they are an understanding of the basic ways in which the universe operates.

I agree with this.

If it was commonplace for it to be necessary to discard these things, then by definition they could not exist, as there would be no basic way in which the universe operates, it would be entirely capricious.

No, it would mean that there are times when the operation of the universe or the reasoning beyond God's will is beyond our understanding. If we could make every important decision in life based only on our logic and reason, why would we ever need the prompting of God?

I don't doubt that you live a life governed as much as possible by logic and reason, and I wouldn't be surprised if God generally speaks to you in ways that resonate with approach towards life. I also appreciate the teaching that inspiration speaks to both our minds and to our emotions. However, I would argue that sometimes God speaks more to one or to the other, either because of the situation at hand or because of the person to whom he's speaking. (I suspect, though, that you won't like the argument that different people get different "flavors" of inspiration.)

[Marduk]

(I suspect, though, that you won't like the argument that different people get different "flavors" of inspiration.)

No, I actually have no problem with this. However, in general, I think most people would do better by better utilizing reason and logic.

A conjecture I have made in the past, and one I still hold to, is that God doesn't have one specific path for our life, or the church at large, or the history and future of the world. That is to say, I think that there are frequently many options available to us that God would be equally pleased with, but may have varying results in the short term. In these cases, logic and reason can help us decide the best of eternally equivalent, but temporally very different, options.

After experiencing many visions and having a deluge of knowledge about this life and the next, and all of God's creations, Moses makes an interesting statement. He says, "Now...I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed." The phrase that strikes me most is that he never had supposed these things, and without a further understanding of the context of his existence, it would have been impossible for him to make certain decisions governing that. As we increase in knowledge and understanding, I believe, our decisions and actions will more often fall into the realm of logic and reason; that is to say, it is more and more possible to get an accurate picture using these than it previously was.

It certainly has been a blessing in my life (and I recognize it as such) that the decisions I have made have always been understandable to me. That is to say, I have never had an experience where I have made a decision based on a prompting that I have not later come to recognize as beneficial. I have, in your connotations of "leap of faith," made decisions which initially appeared to me to be at odds with my normal desired course of action. To share a personal anecdote (since you've pressed me to do so, not that I mind) a felt prompted in junior high to sign up for the wrestling team. This seemed odd to me, my current repetoire of activities including things like chess club and junior philosophers, it didn't seem a good fit. Nonetheless, I did it, and felt such a strong attachment to it that I did it for five more years. I can see now how the trials and struggles I went through as a result of those experiences have shaped me as a person, and I can see the hand of divinity weaving into my life because of that.

This has been the pattern; but as I have learned what sort of person the Lord wants me to be, and my communication with the spirit has grown stronger, my own logic and reason have grown increasingly in line with His patterns and methods. Learning to be obedient to God isn't about subverting our will and understanding to His, it is about learning to make our will and understanding the same as His.