What Is Your Evidence for the Gospel
President Holland pointed our attention at evidence for the gospel.
He told the story of the man blind from birth who was healed by the savior, and when asked to denounce Jesus as a sinner replied that he didn’t know anything about that, but he did know that he now could see.
How important evidence is, as opposed to wishes or argument or even malice in opposition to the truth.
Evidence is not the actual root of testimony. That is the Spirit–the peace of God which passeth understanding–sweet is the peace the gospel brings.
But it is also good, important even, to tally up the evidence that you also have.
Here is some of mine.
Evidence for the Supernatural and against Materialist Reductionism.
Consciousness is the basic empirical fact that we all experience. At least I do, I hope you do too. Every attempt to explain it from a secular, material scientific perspective has been mad. Not even wrong, just completely missing the point entirely.
I have had weird inexplicable things happen to me that just don’t fit in a material scientific world view, including ones that can’t be dismissed as wish fulfillment or something I was primed to expect. For example.
And we keep discovering that the enterprise of science is pretty ramshackle in many ways. Consensus arrived at politically and sometimes in spite of the evidence.
This will not convince you, but I in studying history and even contemporary affairs have discovered a number of unlikely turns that seem to fit better with Providence, Fate, or God willing it than anything else.
These are all pieces of evidence that the scientific materialist worldview is not the whole truth and that there is a supernatural realm.
Fruits
I lead a very happy, even a charmed, existence. It is pretty clear that most of it is because of various gospel commandments and principles. Family, forgiveness, avoiding addictions (especially important given my family’s genetic history), and even small stuff like gardening. I know myself well enough to know that most of this I would not have been able to keep up as well if I were purely doing it for some supposed later payoff.
Also, your views may differ, but in my view its pretty clear that western societies have become increasingly nasty as their faith deteriorates.
The fruits are evidence for the gospel.
The Book of Mormon
There are parts of the Book of Mormon that very much read like Joseph Smith writing pseudo-prophetic biblical fan fiction. I’m mainly thinking the stuff about Columbus and the American Revolution in 2 Nephi. I have those firmly on the shelf.
But for the most part, I just can’t get myself to believe that the Book of Mormon was a 19th C creation by anyone, let alone by Joseph Smith. It is a genuine ancient document.
Joseph Smith
His views are glorious. What he revealed ab0ut the body, about God, about our eternal destiny, is inspiring and wonderful and continues to unlock the secrets of the world as I get deeper into it. Either he was a genius or God worked on him. Which is evidence, though not proof, of his prophetic calling.
The Pioneers
The inspiring efforts of the early Saints in the face of immense adversity is evidence for the gospel.
The Spread of Christianity
The rapid early spread of Christianity is evidence that Christ was resurrected and/or had worked miracles.
What is your evidence?
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Sol
October 9, 2025
Fantastic post. In my case, I was utterly trapped by the “scientific” mindset from the time I was mid-teens through (embarrassingly) my late-30s, unwilling to accept as evidence anything except that which materialistic science actually dealt with: physically observable phenomena. I accepted without irony Bierce’s entry in the Devil’s Dictionary:
Material, adj. Having an actual existence,
as distinguished from an imaginary one. Important.
Material things I know, or feel, or see; All else is immaterial to me.
But then I (with plenty of nudging from Heavenly Father of course) found my way out of that recursive loop through consciousness — about which I had a similar “missing the point entirely” feeling wrt quasi-scientific explanations — and then through quantum mechanics, which helped me see some of the implications of science outside the fragmented mechanistic scientism we usually frame ourselves in.
From there, I only needed a relatively brief flirtation with Buddhism and a discovery of Joseph Smith-inspired theology (via Bruce Charlton) to arrive as a suit-wearing, curse-abstaining ward member, reliably supplying primary with multiple children each Sunday.
I documented this ad nauseum on my own blog: https://aftersolipsism.substack.com/p/the-depths-of-crackpot-illogic
The only thing I added there, which I guess you would agree on, is that everyone has an implicit or explicit metaphysics that drives what they accept as evidence. I boiled that list down to:
1. Life on earth has meaning.
2. Children have meaning
3. The Omnigod isn’t mandatory
4. Love persists
5. Reincarnation is explained
I don’t expect others to have the same list, but it was partly the process of gradually making those assumptions explicit to myself that allowed me to expand what I would consider evidence and eventually arrive at church on Sunday.
G.
October 9, 2025
It was to pull out comments such as yours without I made this post in the first place
I agree with your addition. What your evidence is is going to share some points with mine but there’s a personal dimension to it
Marilyn
October 22, 2025
One of the biggest for me is just how good and optimistic I feel when I feel peace or the spirit. This is absolutely not something I can make up or feel on demand. I try often, repeatedly, to somehow self-manufacture these experiences, because often I’m very worried and in turmoil and would give anything to comfort myself by saying “it’ll be OK, things will work out, God is in charge.” Of course these are things I believe, even when I don’t feel them, but I absolutely cannot manufacture how it is to FEEL them in my bones, for lack of a better term. And yet, reliably in the temple or at other special times when praying or truly communing with God, I feel these truths and believe them to the very depths of my soul, to the point that I feel all my muscles relaxing and my fears almost physically receding out of my body. This is temporary (they come back) but so restorative, allowing me to sleep or just catch my breath in a way that is truly miraculous.
I don’t know, maybe that isn’t really “evidence” in the way you mean, though?
G.
October 23, 2025
That is good evidence and it strengthens me to hear it.