In 1 Nephi 4, the Spirit of God
gives Nephi a startling choice to make: Kill Laban. Nephi—while justified in
the Law of Moses to kill Laban because of Laban’s false accusations and
attempted killing of Nephi and his brothers—hesitates. This wasn’t Nephi’s idea
or plan. He was led there by the Spirit and had not premeditated anything. Yet
the Spirit clarifies something important:“It is better that one man should
perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief”(1 Nephi 4:13).
Nephi had a real choice. He could
spare or take Laban’s life. Yet the Spirit outlined an example of God’s
contingency or hypothetical knowledge. Not only does He know what will happen,
He knows what might happen under any given set of subjective circumstances. IF
Nephi does not kill Laban, THEN all future descendants of Lehi would dwindle
and perish in unbelief. In response, Nephi does kill Laban, giving hope for
future descendants to yet choose Christ and live. David directly interacts with
similar hypothetical foreknowledge of God, which spares his life in 1 Samuel
23.
The infinite knowledge of God is
expansive enough not just to know all things within linear time, but to also
know all hypothetical possibilities across time and space. Clearly understood
in the opening storyline of the Book of Mormon with Nephi, this scriptural
account of God’s contingent knowledge allows for God to know all possible
outcomes and therefore set the course for all souls within creation without
fatally determining the choices of humanity in advance. Consider the Messianic
cry over Jerusalem in this rhetoric with subjunctive notes,“O Jerusalem,
Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto
thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!”(Matthew 23:37). May
not just Jerusalem, but all of Israel and Christianity be gathered back to
greater understanding of Jesus Christ through the beautiful and restored
understanding of our Creator and Redeemer given clearly in the Book of Mormon.
(Joshua Gehly, “Human
Freewill and God’s Foreknowledge,” The Gospel News 81, no. 9
[November 2025]: 5)
