The issue of Saints who doubt is clearly on the minds of the Lord’s servants in our day as evidenced by many recent presentations. One example...in January Elder Lawrence Corbridge of the Seventy, addressed students at a BYU devotional in detail on how to resolve doubts. His suggestions arose out of an assignment he received as part of his calling to study Anti-Mormon claims in depth. I found two of his point to be very helpful advice for those who are seeking to overcome their doubts.
--First, he divided the questions that lead to doubts into two types, Primary Questions and Secondary Questions and counselled; “Begin by answering the primary questions. There are primary questions and there are secondary questions. Answer the primary questions first. Not all questions are equal and not all truths are equal. The primary questions are the most important. Everything else is subordinate. There are only a few primary questions. I will mention four of them.
1. Is there a God who is our Father?
2. Is Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Savior of the world?
3. Was Joseph Smith a prophet?
4. Is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints the kingdom of God on the earth?
By contrast, the secondary questions are unending. They include questions about Church history, polygamy, people of African descent and the priesthood, women and the priesthood, how the Book of Mormon was translated, the Pearl of Great Price, DNA and the Book of Mormon, gay marriage, the different accounts of the First Vision, and on and on”
--Second, Elder Corbridge taught that we cannot learn the truth by the process of elimination, stating; “There are some who are afraid the Church may not be true and who spend their time and attention slogging through the swamp of the secondary questions. They mistakenly try to learn the truth by process of elimination, by attempting to eliminate every doubt. That is always a bad idea. It will never work. That approach only works in the game of Clue.
Life, however, is not nearly as simple. There are unlimited claims and opinions leveled against the truth. Each time you track down an answer to any one antagonistic claim and look up, there is another one staring you in the face. I am not saying you should put your head in the sand, but I am saying you can spend a lifetime desperately tracking down the answer to every claim leveled against the Church and never come to a knowledge of the most important truths.
Answers to the primary questions do not come by answering the secondary questions. There are answers to the secondary questions, but you cannot prove a positive by disproving every negative. You cannot prove the Church is true by disproving every claim made against it. That will never work. It is a flawed strategy. Ultimately there has to be affirmative proof, and with the things of God, affirmative proof finally and surely comes by revelation through the spirit and power of the Holy Ghost.”
It is important to remember that not understanding, or having questions about, the primary questions is not the same thing as doubting them. Once God has answered the the primary questions by revelation, then we may still not be able to fully understand them or explain away apparent contradictions to them as posed by the plethora of secondary questions, but it will not matter. We will know they are true simply because they have been confirmed to us by a perfect God.
From such a position we can move forward, trusting that in a coming day all such secondary questions will be answered, and any issues based in them fully resolved. That is what lies at the heart of President Nelson's powerful recent reminder; “You don’t have to wonder about what is true. You do not have to wonder whom you can safely trust. Through personal revelation, you can receive your own witness that the Book of Mormon is the word of God, that Joseph Smith is a prophet, and that this is the Lord’s Church. Regardless of what others may say or do, no one can ever take away a witness borne to your heart and mind about what is true. I urge you to stretch beyond your current spiritual ability to receive personal revelation, for the Lord has promised that “if thou shalt [seek], thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things--that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.”