Difference between revisions of "Alma 32:11-15"

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The Book of Mormon > Alma > Chapter 32

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Lexical notes

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Exegesis

Verse 11

Just as in verse 10, Alma presents a structural tension in his second rhetorical question: while the rhetorical question he asks makes an appeal to absolute reason, his "I would ask" and his "do ye suppose" together ground the question in the situational reality of the missionary encounter. That is, there is a tension between the absolute, non-situational reason one should employ in thinking the question being asked, and yet Alma is careful to keep things located immediately in the situation in which the question is asked. This tension has been building, of course, since verse 9, and it will come to a first fruition in verse 12; thereafter it will guide the interpretation of the remainder of the chapter (see the commentary for verses 8-10).

Moreover, if the content of the previous verse also embodies the same sort of tension by intertwining the concrete act of worship with the abstract idea of a kind of absolute worship, the same is accomplished in this verse. Verse 10 at once points to and subverts the concrete reality of place in the act of worship, while the present verse at once points to and subverts the concrete reality of time in the same. That is, together, these two verses underscore the absolute necessity of a concrete place and time for the concrete act of worship, and yet in their very nature as rhetorical questions, they seem together to imply that worship is something abstract, a sort of broader way of being rather than a concrete act. This tension, however, is left off at this point until Alma 33:2, while the remainder of the present chapter deals with the structural tension discussed in the paragraph above.

Verse 12

If verses 9-11 are characterized by appeal to absolute reason, it appears quite clear that Alma abandons any such appeal in the present verse. That is, the rhetorical questions have ended, and Alma turns rather to a sort of direct engagement of the Zoramite poor in very existential terms. Leaving off the rhetorical questions entirely (Alma himself does not answer them here), he returns in full force to the situational reality of the face-to-face encounter: "I say unto you." In four words, Alma brings the Zoramites to a direct engagement with himself, and anything he goes on to say in this verse will be characterized by that situational reality. In fact, if one is inclined to read the phrase immediately following these first four words as universal in some sense, it is worth pointing out that Alma uses the word "well" rather than the word "good" to make his first point: rather than making some absolute claim about their being cast out of their synagogues, Alma describes the situation as "well," relativizing it by using an adverb. Likewise, when Alma goes on to speak of the necessity of learning wisdom, he immediately relativizes that point as well: "it is necessary that ye should learn wisdom." Undeniably, every hint of the universal, of the absolute, of non-passional reason has disappeared when Alma turns to this verse.

Or perhaps not entirely, since Alma's injunction to the Zoramites is precisely that they "may learn wisdom," that universal, rational, absolute understanding that allows for the possibility of doing things well or decently. But if the very word "wisdom" reintroduces the absolute, it is only reintroduced in tension with the paired word "humble": "that ye may be humble, and that ye may learn wisdom." Without any doubt, humility is always a question of a direct encounter, of a face-to-face reality. The tension, then, of the previous two verses is reintroduced in the present verse: humility is connected with wisdom, in that the two arise together. Curiously, this same tension characterizes almost all of the Old Testament wisdom writings. While most scholars agree that the wisdom writings draw on universal understanding, on the collective wisdom of many nations, on ideas and beliefs that transcend the particularities of Israelite thinking, those same wisdom writings nonetheless relate learning this wisdom--constantly--to one's relation to Jehovah specifically. The tension is embodied wonderfully in the rather common saying: "the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" (see Job 28:28; Ps 111:10; Prov 1:7; 9:10). If wisdom has some sort of absolute or universal appeal, it is nonetheless a direct result of the personal encounter one might have with a very personal and real God.

In the end, this same tension between the universal and the particular characterizes the whole of the present chapter: right through to the end of chapter 32, there is a constant appeal to reason (even in the form of experimentalism) coupled with Alma's strict reminders that every word being spoken (every word and all the words) is spoken in a particular place and at a particular time and according to a face-to-face encounter that requires the personal engagement called "faith." Over the course of the chapter, the face Alma puts on the relation between faith and reason is constantly changing as each verse adds its conditional take on that relation (albeit implicitly). In order to watch the unfolding dynamic of that relation (between faith and reason) throughout the chapter, then, it is worth first taking the time to identify how that relation appears in these first five verses of Alma's discourse.

What, then, is the relation between faith and reason as Alma lays it out in these first five verses, already shown to be quite rich in implication?

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