Alma 40: Revelation is messy

My Book of Mormon reading this week was Alma 40-42, but I'm going to focus my reflection on Alma 40. As I often do, I'll start by venting about what annoys me in this chapter; then I'll transition into more of a "humble seeker" mode. If God wants consecration—if he wants me to lay everything before him—then I figure he wants my venting as well as my humility. Think of it as a very frank conversation I'm having with Someone from whom I can't conceal anything anyway.

So, on to the venting: Alma says in this chapter that he has "inquired diligently" to know—and has received revelation from an angel about it—the answer to the question: What becomes of people's souls from the time of death to the time of the resurrection? Now, to Latter-day Saints who have grown up learning the answer to that question as part of the conventional schematic of the plan of salvation, this might seem like a rather mundane question. But in fact, when you think about it, it's really quite arcane. I mean, if we Latter-day Saints didn't already have an answer, it's the kind of question that would fall into the category of "mysteries," those not-yet-revealed matters we're not supposed to waste our time delving into.

You might be thinking at this point: "What are you talking about, John-Charles? The state of the soul after death isn't some arcane matter—it's an important part of understanding human destiny." Granted. But let's be more precise. What practical difference does it make to know what Alma tells us in chapter 40—that before the resurrection and the final judgment, when the righteous inherit the kingdom of God and the wicked are cast out, there's a period when the spirits of the righteous rest in a state of happiness called paradise while the spirits of the wicked sit in darkness, waiting fearfully for God's judgments to fall upon them?

Basically what Alma's telling us is: the righteous are happy after death, and the wicked suffer. This is hardly earth-shattering news. Don't stop the presses. The Nephites have known this since king Benjamin's address at least. The extra information Alma 40 provides (that your happiness or suffering begin in the interim period between death and the resurrection) doesn't give sinners any more reason to repent than king Benjamin's address had already given them. And what other practical consequence is there to knowing the state of the soul between death and resurrection except to inspire sinners to repent and escape the wrath that is to come? I could see how there would be practical consequence if the angel had also taught Alma about vicarious work for the dead, but there's no indication that's the case. Alma's teachings about resurrection and restoration in chapters 41-42 have practical consequence as a rebuttal to universalism and thus as a motivation to repent. But I just don't see any practical consequence to the teaching in Alma 40, especially considering how often Alma still says: Now I don't know such-and-such, and this part here is just my opinion, etc. This chapter is just so much fretting over cosmological and theological details.

To put it bluntly: This strikes me as a stupid question for Alma to be obsessing over compared to the weightier, more practical matters he might be asking God to send him revelation about.

Ok, end of venting. What do I sense the Spirit may be trying to teach me through this chapter?

First, the chapter tells me that God is willing to give people revelation about whatever questions concern them. However stupid your quandaries or anxieties might seem to other people, if it bothers you, God cares. (Actually, it occurs to me that as an academic, I'm hardly in a position to be faulting other people for investing their energies in investigating arguably arcane questions.) And if you inquire diligently, God will give you personal revelation. The image of an angel coming to teach Alma about the state of the soul between death and resurrection illustrates that promise very dramatically.

However, this chapter also shows me that revelation, even if it comes in so dramatic a form as an angelic visitation, is . . . problematic. Despite having received communications from an angel, there's still a lot that Alma doesn't really know. There are still questions he can't answer, things he can only speculate or opine about. Revelation didn't tell him everything there was to learn about his question. And while Alma signals at some points where his own opinion or understanding begins, it still isn't really clear to us as readers how much of Alma's teaching in this chapter represents revealed knowledge, because Alma (unlike, say, king Benjamin or Nephi) doesn't try to quote the angel's words for us. What exactly did the angel tell Alma? How much of this chapter actually reproduces the angel's teachings, and how much of it may be Alma's own extrapolitions or interpretations? We don't know.

The lesson I take from this is that while LDS tradition underscores the importance of revelation—scriptural, prophetic, personal—the tradition also cautions us that revelation is messy. As D&C 9 indicates, human reflection and deduction and speculation are integral to the process of receiving revelation. To an orthodox mind, revelation is supposed to provide a sure ground for knowledge, contrasted to the limitedness and fallibility of human knowledge. But in fact, there is no clear-cut boundary between revelation and human knowledge. As in Alma 40, so in everyday life, it isn't clear where revealed knowledge ends and human understanding begins. Which means that revelation doesn't provide in practice the basis for certainty that the orthodox want it to provide in theory. Revelation—or if you want to be really precise about it, the knowledge that we understand to be revealed—is fallible precisely because it is made manifest in and to and through our limited human understanding.

There's no point in letting yourself be paralyzed by this reality. You seek revelation to the questions that trouble you, you make sense as best you can of the knowledge that seems to be coming to you via revelation (whether scriptural, prophetic, or personal), and then you act on the best knowledge you have. But it's also healthy to maintain a tentative attitude, as Alma does in this chapter, recognizing the limits of your knowledge even when you believe that knowledge comes by revelation.