Balancing Critical Thinking and Faith in Mature Discipleship

Just before he left home for college, eighteen year old Henry Eyring, the future world renowned LDS scientist, was invited by his father, Edward Eyring, to sit down for some fatherly counsel. After sharing his firm conviction that Joseph Smith was a true prophet whom God used to restore his church, Edward said to his son, “Now, there are a lot of other matters which are much less clear to me. But in this Church you don’t have to believe anything that isn’t true.”

In this Church you don’t have to believe anything that isn’t true. Hmm. This echoes President Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s teaching when he declared, “Latter-day Saints are not asked to blindly accept everything they hear. We are encouraged to think and discover truth for ourselves. We are expected to ponder, to search, to evaluate, and thereby to come to a personal knowledge of the truth.” 

So, how do we do this when it comes to theological or doctrinal truth? How can we confidently determine what is and what is not reliable doctrine so we can decide what to believe? 

In this episode of Church History Matters we dive into this very question and explore three vital questions to ask when evaluating all doctrinal truth claims.

For show notes and transcript for this and other episodes go to https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/church-history-matters-podcast/