Response to “An Aim for the Noblest Desire”, by Ryan Andrus One thing that immediately stands out to me upon the reading of this article is that author’s lack of reference to faith. Faith [in the Lord Jesus Christ] is the first principle of the Gospel, and one of the pillars upon which our religion is founded upon. In the book of Alma, 32:21-22 we read: “And now as I said concerning faith -- faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true. And now, behold, I say unto and I would that ye should remember, that God is merciful unto all who believe on his name; therefore he desireth in the first place, that ye should believe, yea, even on his word.” Orson Scott Card states very eloquently in this article “If it is true that we cannot pretend to have personal abilities and traits that we do not have, is it also true that we cannot aspire to have personal abilities and traits that we do not yet have? I think not. It’s the “as if” principle. If we act as if we have certain desirable traits — without hypocrisy — then slowly but surely, eventually there will be no “as if” about it — we will have those desirable traits — Christ-like attributes and traits!” I think that the crucial part of this statement is “without hypocrisy”, we have to want to develop said attribute, or just have faith that if we start to work on developing an attribute that we’re after, that God will make up the rest. I feel that it all comes down to faith, faith that God will do His part if we do ours, and faith that human beings and by extension human nature can change. To continue with Alma’s teachings in the Book of Mormon: “Now, as I said concerning faith – that it was not a perfect knowledge – even so it is with
