Ich weiß nicht.

“You seem upset.”

“I am upset. You should be, too. Why aren’t there apologies? Why aren’t our leaders more concerned with the issues that bother us? Why isn’t there any transparency? I feel like I’m knocking, knocking, knocking, and I’m not getting any answers.”

A few tender months after the Church’s article on Race and the Priesthood was released, I was visiting some friends in Paris, France when I heard the good news – Elder Steven E. Snow, the Church Historian, was in town, and he was holding a Q&A Fireside for anyone to attend. Seeing as I had about one million questions, I agreed to go.

The first half hour was quiet and calm, commencing with testimony-filled comments from the historian and his counselor about the greatness of the Lord’s work and how learning the Church’s history intimately has helped their faith in Joseph Smith grow. A few shy questions were politely asked, as if to ease the obvious tension in the room that weighed heavily upon confused hearts. Suddenly, my dear friend’s hand shot up. “I served my mission in Utah,” she started, “where I learned about many historical events I wasn’t aware of, often because investigators would question us with rumors they heard. I wanted to know if you’ve ever personally come across something in your research that’s disturbed you, and, if so, how do you deal with it?”

The room fell silent, and Elder Snow’s pleasant face twisted into a frown. Becoming surprisingly defensive, he brushed aside her question with another Praise to the Man, claiming that if anyone had a real testimony of the restored gospel they wouldn’t have a problem. “The Church’s history is like a large tapestry,” he informed us, “and, if you look closely, sometimes you’ll see threads in there that don’t make sense. But if you take a step back, you’ll see the whole beautiful tapestry. Then the threads you don’t understand don’t matter as much.”

A floodgate had opened, with several more people daring to raise their hands to ask the “tiny thread” questions. Elder Snow answered a few more questions, then asked to draw the meeting to a close. Since I was not of the chosen few selected to speak, I marched up to the front and asked to speak to the historian and his counselor.

“So, would you say that these ‘confusing’ threads are a mistake? Or do you believe that they’re actually a necessary part of the ‘tapestry’?”

Elder Snow saw my blazing eyes and excused himself to speak to the bishop while his counselor turned to me, smiling. I continued, explaining my thoughts on the recent article on racism in the Church’s history, my dissatisfaction with the way women are treated, and the lack of support given to LGBT members of our faith.

“You seem upset,” he responded, slightly hesitant. 

“I am upset. You should be, too. Why aren’t there apologies? Why aren’t our leaders more concerned with the issues that bother us? Why isn’t there any transparency? I feel like I’m knocking, knocking, knocking, and I’m not getting any answers.”

Looking intently at my face, he paused for a moment, and proceeded to say the sweetest words I have ever heard come out of a priesthood leader’s mouth.

“I don’t know.”

I once listened to a Freakonomics podcast that really resonated with me called, “The Three Hardest Words in the English Language.” And no, “I love you” are not those words. The three hardest words in the English language are, according to economists, “I don’t know.” Stephen Dubner, the host of the show, goes on to explain that in order to become successful at your job and, well, in life in general, being able to acknowledge when you don’t know something is crucial. “Until you can admit what you don’t know,” he explains, “it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to. Because if you think you already have all the answers, you won’t go looking for them.” His colleague and fellow economist, Steve Levitt, added, “The thing about always faking is that if you fake like you know the answer, you don’t have the freedom to explore other possibilities. But if you actually care about the outcome and the truth, saying ‘I don’t know’ is critical.”

There’s a perception in our society that if we admit to not knowing something, we appear to be weak or incompetent. This absurdity, like so many other aspects of our Western culture which we subject ourselves to, has permeated the porous religious walls behind which we protect our faith. Time and time again I have attempted to bring difficult and ambiguous questions to the Sunday School table or to the bishop’s desk, and time and time again I have been shut down with unverifiable doctrinal theories or rote answers that don’t even really address the issue at hand.

In my last transfer on my mission, I was asked to give a workshop on “How to Answer Hard Questions” at our quarterly Zone Conference. I started out by asking the Elders in the room (my companion and I were the only sisters) to role play answering certain prompts I’d given them, most of which had something to do with an investigator asking why women don’t have the priesthood or why the Church practiced polygamy. Every single one of those Elders came up with some sort of elaborate answer, even throwing some scriptures around as if to prove the point they’d rehearsed their whole lives.  

I then asked them if there was any real doctrinal foundation to what they were saying. I pointed out some scriptures that directly contradicted the message they were trying to convey through their own display of God’s Word, and asked them to provide the reference for the prophets they were supposedly quoting. They fumbled around for a minute, searching for something tangible in the void I’d thrown them into, before admitting that they had no concrete evidence for the answers they were providing. I turned around and wrote “Ich weiß nicht” [I don’t know] on the board.

“These are the only words that have given me any comfort when addressing these issues. No theories, no opinions, no traditions of thought have ever provided as much consolation as the words ‘I don’t know’ have when spoken by a person in authority,” I explained. “Never pretend to have the answers. Be honest, open, and willing to admit when something is hard to understand. Tell them you don’t know, but you’d like to.”

  

I have come to believe that allowing yourself to not have all the answers can not only be extremely therapeutic, it can also lead you on the path to more enlightened truth.  In that same podcast, Stephen Dubner reminded us that “simply saying ‘I don’t know’ isn’t a solution. It’s just a first step. You have to figure out what you don’t know – and then work like a dog to learn.”

Though perhaps contradictory to logic, understanding that no one has the answers has provided me a lot of clarity and given me a space in which my faith has grown. It has allowed me to explore the idea that there is so much more to learn, and the answers and excuses I had been given all my life that I did not agree with are not necessarily the truth God wants me to know and comprehend. I find great comfort in knowing that my Heavenly Father will, as I’ve learned through the example of Joseph Smith, give me knowledge that is contingent upon my asking and waiting for it. Elder Stanley G. Ellis assured members in a 2010 Ensign article that “the Lord expects us to inquire, study, and act – even though there are some things we may never know in this life.”  

“I don’t know” is a good place to start, but it is not the magic pot at the end of the rainbow. It should never be used to shut someone up or quiet a movement down. Admitting our lack of knowledge shouldn’t lead us to blind faith, it should guide us to divine inspiration. Knowing you don’t have the answers is humility, and understanding that it is possible to have answers, clarity, and peace in this life is hope.

“Verily, verily, I say unto thee, blessed art thou for what thou hast done; for thou hast inquired of me, and behold, as often as thou hast inquired thou hast received instruction of my Spirit. If it had not been so, thou wouldst not have come to the place where thou art at this time.

Behold, thou knowest that thou hast inquired of me and I did enlighten thy mind; and now I tell thee these things that thou mayest know that thou hast been enlightened by the Spirit of truth.”

D&C 6: 14, 15