Hi. I'm new at this, so please excuse me as I learn the mechanics and protocol of posting.
Saying "I know the Church is true" is something I cannot take lightly, yet I personally have a hard time expanding on that simple affirmation. A long time ago, as I tried to share the gospel with certain highly educated Englishmen, and hearing their measured and polished declarations of agnosticism or atheism, I began to realize that I was way out of my league, intellectually. I think that the terminology of testimony is somewhat incompatible with that of logical, intellectual debate. I could say “I know,” but couldn't defend that assertion without talking about “feeling.” A feeling in the heart did not seem a reasonable rebuttal to cold logic. The golden threads of my personal testimony tapestry were difficult to discern or define unless I talked in terms of “feelings.”
Yet to talk of feelings, despite the disdain of the intellectuals, is valid nonetheless. A friend put it this way: Just as an electron microscope, as an instrument of investigation, can reveal and affirm the secrets of the living cell, so can your own soul, as an even finer instrument of investigation, respond to brushing contact with God in the whispering of the Holy Ghost to reveal and affirm that which no earthly instrument may detect. The natural man intuitively trusts the microscope, the work of his own hands, to show things truly, but to appreciate spiritual things, he must learn to have faith in the divinely designed instrument of his own being – to trust his own feelings and the golden threads of his life that are the stuff from which the fabric of testimony may be woven. (I love that tapestry analogy that Spencer W. Kimball gave us.)
Not having fine intellectual arguments or abilities with which to defend my testimony does not bother me. I don't have a problem reverting to the logically illegal position of "because of feelings I've had". I trust my soul as an instrument by which to perceive the imperceivable and say "I know".
