02 — The Primary Questions
Four questions. Answer these first.
Not every question carries the same weight. Some are load-bearing — entire lives are built on them. Others are real and worth engaging, but they don’t determine whether God exists or whether the Restoration happened.
Elder Corbridge calls the load-bearing ones primary. They are the questions that, if answered, make the secondary ones survivable.
Is there a God who is our Father?
Why this is primary. If God exists and is your Father, then you are known, you are loved, and your life means something specific. Every other question — about the Restoration, the Church, the prophets — depends on this one.
How to seek the answer. Pray. Honestly. Out loud if you can. Read the words of Christ in the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. Notice when peace comes. The Spirit confirms truth through peace, light, and a quiet sense of knowing — not through emotional fireworks.
Reflect: Have you ever received a spiritual witness about this? When? What did it feel like? Write it down — not for anyone else. For you. For the next time doubt comes.
Scriptures: Moroni 10:4–5 · James 1:5–6
Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?
Why this is primary. If Christ is who He said He was, then His Atonement is real, His resurrection is real, and the entire weight of your salvation rests on something sure. If He is not, nothing else in the gospel matters.
How to seek the answer. Read His words directly — the Sermon on the Mount, the Gospel of John, 3 Nephi 11–17. Ask the Father, in the name of Christ, whether Jesus is the Christ. The answer comes through the Holy Ghost.
Reflect: Have you ever received a spiritual witness about this? When? What did it feel like? Write it down — not for anyone else. For you. For the next time doubt comes.
Scriptures: John 7:17 · 3 Nephi 11
Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
Why this is primary. If Joseph was a prophet, then a real First Vision happened, real angels visited, and the priesthood was actually restored. The Restoration is the load-bearing claim. Either it is true or it is not.
How to seek the answer. Read the Book of Mormon — that’s the test Joseph himself proposed. Read it with real intent and ask God if it’s true. If it is, Joseph was His instrument.
Reflect: Have you ever received a spiritual witness about this? When? What did it feel like? Write it down — not for anyone else. For you. For the next time doubt comes.
Scriptures: Moroni 10:3–5 · D&C 135:3
Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?
Why this is primary. If the Church is His, then its keys, ordinances, and covenants are real — not symbolic. If it isn’t, none of those things matter. There is no middle position that holds.
How to seek the answer. Attend. Partake. Serve. Notice what happens to your soul over weeks and months of consistent participation. The witness comes through doing, not through analyzing.
Reflect: Have you ever received a spiritual witness about this? When? What did it feel like? Write it down — not for anyone else. For you. For the next time doubt comes.
Scriptures: D&C 1:30 · Matthew 7:16–20
The divine method of learning
Corbridge identifies four ways of acquiring knowledge: the scientific, the analytical, the academic, and the divine. The first three are valuable — but only the divine method answers the primary questions.
“The divine method of learning incorporates elements from the other methods... but it requires something more, namely the ratification of the Holy Ghost. Knowledge of the things of God comes by the Spirit of God.”Elder Lawrence E. Corbridge, “Stand Forever”
This is why arguments about Church history, however careful, cannot produce a testimony — and why a confirmed witness from the Holy Ghost cannot be unmade by any single argument.
The foundation
If you have answered the primary questions — if you have received a spiritual witness that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that this is God’s Church — then you have a foundation that secondary questions cannot destroy. You don’t ignore the secondary questions. You just don’t let them outweigh what you already know.
Self-assessment
Private. No accounts. Saved only on this device. The point isn’t a score — it’s noticing where to focus.