Question: Do Latter-day Saints claim to be the only ones that can experience the fullness of happiness on this earth?

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Question: Do Latter-day Saints claim to be the only ones that can experience the fullness of happiness on this earth?

Introduction to Question

Many former members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and even active members of the Church oddly become troubled from time to time by the reality that many people outside of the Church and even those that go against the Church appear to be happy people.

This confusion seems to stem from a notion that only active, believing, fully-practicing members of the Church can experience the fullest measure of happiness in this life. There appears to be an assumption that leaders of the Church or the Church’s official scriptures make this claim.

How can we understand this? This article attempts to answer that question.

Response to Question

Claims from Church Leaders

There are claims from Church leaders that are roughly the same as the one made above. For instance, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland made the following claim in the April 2009 General Conference of the Church:

I testify that one cannot come to full faith in this latter-day work—and thereby find the fullest measure of peace and comfort in these, our times—until he or she embraces the divinity of the Book of Mormon and the Lord Jesus Christ, of whom it testifies.

Sister Jean B. Bingham taught in the October 2017 General Conference that “Jesus instructs His disciples to keep His commandments because He knows that as we follow His example, we will begin to experience joy, and as we continue on His path, we will come to a fulness of joy. He explained, ‘These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.’”

What perhaps gets misunderstood, however, is that the claim is not just that one can experience a fullness of joy in this life by following the teachings of the Savior, but that one can experience the fullest measure of peace and happiness in the next life when we reach the eternities. Doctrine and Covenants 59:23 claims that “he who doeth the works of righteousness shall receive his reward, even peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.” The scriptures consistently describe eternal life as never-ending happiness.

But still, you might ask, why are people happy and sometimes happier outside of the Church?

He Maketh His Sun to Rise on the Just and the Unjust

Basically all human beings cooperate with one another to mutually achieve pleasure and happiness. It’s a basic tendency of human nature to prefer life and happines over death and/or pain. That means that most people will follow Jesus’ injunction in Matthew 7:12 quite naturally: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you: do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets”. A large amount of happiness will be reaped by people as they do this.

Additionally, Jesus tells us this:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

It’s interesting to notice where this observation about happiness and unhappiness comes. Jesus is in the middle of telling his disciples to love their enemies. That is something that is not common among the world’s “natural morality”. We tend to hate our enemies. Maybe not murder them or kill them, but certainly allow ourselves to experience deep feelings of hatred towards those that annoy or injur us. Jesus recognizes that there must be something that sets us apart from other peoples in our practice of love. Jesus wants us to pay very close attention to these finer points of the law. The world will practice the basic law, but the covenant people will practice the finer points. It is these that Jesus likely has in mind when he tells people to come unto him and experience a fullness of joy. It is these that bring us the fulness of peace and happiness in this life and in the life to come.

We often think that the wicked are those that do drastic evils such as rape, murder, incest, and other heinous acts. Of course, those people are wicked, but they are not the entire group of people that make up the wicked. Satan rather works most frequently by counterfeits of the finer points of the law to draw people away from it. He works by using the philosophies of men mingled with scripture. It’s those deceptions that we, as Latter-day Saint Christians, have to become especially adept at recognizing and rejecting. We need to use the word of God as our measuring stick to measure all truth. We need to submit ourselves to its claims regarding our behavior and obey with exactness and not deviate from it. That is the only way that we will recognize how God leads us to the fullest measure of peace and happienss in this life and in the life to come.

Conclusion

While confusions like this are common and forgivable, it should also remind us that we need to do more at reading scripture and the words of living prophets and apostles both contextually as well as holistically. Another article on the FAIR wiki instructs in how to do that.

Hopefully this article will allow all of us to more fully understand how we can become more of one heart and one mind.

Notes