On knowing the truth – Sunday, August 23, 1959
Last week we referred to the fallacy of the old adage that “ignorance is bliss”—and to the need for understanding. Now to turn for a moment to another phase of this subject of ignorance and understanding.
Some centuries ago, Nicholas Ling said that “Ignorance is a voluntary misfortune.”1
And John Locke later added: “A man may live long and die at last in ignorance of many truths which his mind was capable of knowing . . . “2
There are some things, surely, of which we needlessly are ignorant, and voluntary ignorance is a major misfortune. And as to acquiring constructive knowledge, we should have a continuing discontent, and never become complacent, never smugly satisfied with what we know—pertaining to people, to places, to principles.
We should “study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people.”3
We should seek wisdom, seek understanding, and have minds open to truth, whatever it is and wherever it is—for education is not only an opportunity, but also an obligation. Sometimes we hear it said that what we don’t know won’t hurt us.
This is as if to say that if a person has a disease and doesn’t know it, it doesn’t hurt him. This is as if to say that if we pay for good quality, and receive something shoddy, something that has a false label on it, it doesn’t hurt us.
This is as if to say that if we have lost something and haven’t learned of our loss, it doesn’t hurt us. Anything false or fraudulent or damaging or deceitful has its ill effects whether we know it or not. We need to know, all we reasonably can—as pertaining to physical facts, to people or their problems, —to the plans and purposes of Almighty God—to eternal principles.
We should seek, always, to turn light into dark places, to repent, to improve, to know more than we have known, to do better than we have done; to cast out fear, superstition, mistrust, misunderstanding; to penetrate the shadows, and be free to seek, to search, to have the courage to face facts—for “The glory of God is intelligence, . . . “4 and avoidable ignorance is unbecoming any of us.
“And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”5
1 Nicholas Ling: Politeuphuia, 1597
2 John Locke: Essay concerning Human Understanding, 1, 1690
3 Doctrine and Covenants 90.15
4 Doctrine and Covenants 93:36
5 John 8:32
August 23, 1959
Broadcast Number 1,566