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Brett, thank you for your comment. I see faith and hope as amazing dancing partners. Sometimes faith leads, and sometimes hope does. Each strengthens the other.
Thank you for a thoughtful and insightful article. Regarding faith and works, somewhere and somehow, the hope spoken of in Alma 32:21, which is a hope that defines faith as I understand that verse, needs added attention. It strikes me that hope, far from being the product of faith and its concomitant works, is the incubator from which faith May and can arise.
There are a number of passages in the Book of Mormon that teach the principal of repentance as being restored to the presence of God in a rhetorical form called stair-step, graded parallelism, or anadiplosis. The reader is instructed how to be taken from the sinful state to being restored by ordinances and repentance to the presence of God.
Just a few examples:
Alma 42:16-23
Now, repentance could not come unto men except there were a punishment, which also was eternal as the life of the soul should be,
affixed opposite to the plan of happiness, which was as eternal also as the life of the soul.
Now, how could a man repent except he should sin?
How could he sin
if there was no law?
How could there be a law
save there was a punishment?
Now, there was a punishment affixed,
and a just law given, which brought remorse of conscience unto man.
Now, if there was no law given—if a man murdered he should die—
would he be afraid he would die if he should murder?
And also, if there was no law given against sin
men would not be afraid to sin.
And if there was no law given, if men sinned
what could justice do, or mercy either,
for they would have no claim upon the creature?
But there is a law given,
and a punishment affixed,
and a repentance granted;
which repentance mercy claimeth;
otherwise, justice claimeth the creature and executeth the law,
and the law inflicteth the punishment;
if not so, the works of justice would be destroyed,
and God would cease to be God.
But God ceaseth not to be God,
and mercy claimeth the penitent,
and mercy cometh because of
the atonement;
and the atonement bringeth to pass
the resurrection of the dead;
and the resurrection of the dead
bringeth back men into the presence of God;
and thus they are restored into his presence,
to be judged according to their works, according to the law and justice.
Mormon 9:11-13
And now, if ye have imagined up unto yourselves a god who doth vary,
and in whom there is shadow of changing,
then have ye imagined up unto yourselves a god who is not a God of miracles. But behold, I will show unto you a God of miracles,
even the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; and it is that same God who created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are.
Behold, he created Adam,
and by Adam came
the fall of man.
And because of the fall of man
came Jesus Christ, even the Father and the Son;
and because of Jesus Christ
came the redemption of man.
And because of the redemption of man,
which came by Jesus Christ,
they are brought back into the presence of the Lord;
Moroni 8:25-26
And the first fruits of repentance is
baptism; and
baptism cometh by faith unto
the fulfilling the commandments;
and the fulfilling the commandments bringeth
remission of sins; And the
remission of sins bringeth
meekness, and lowliness of heart; and because of
meekness and lowliness of heart
cometh the visitation of
the Holy Ghost,
which Comforter filleth with hope and perfect
love, which
love endureth by diligence unto prayer,
until the end shall come,
when all the saints shall dwell with God.
2 Nephi 9: 25-26
Wherefore, he has given a law,
and where there is not law given,
there is no punishment.
And where there is no punishment
there is no condemnation.
And where there is no condemnation
the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them
because of the atonement.
For they are delivered by the power of him.
For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice
upon all those who have not the law given to them,
that they are delivered from
that awful monster,
death,
and hell,
and the devil,
and the lake of fire and brimstone
which is endless torment.
And they are restored to that God who gave them breath,
which is the Holy One of Israel.