Growing in Innocence

Eliza R. Snow once challenged the sisters of the Church to “grow in innocence.” I confess that before I watched an episode of The Joseph Smith Papers on KBYU where she was thus quoted, I had not conceived of the idea that we can “grow in innocence.”

The phrase intrigued me. I thought that innocence was lost as we passed through mortality. Certainly we are tempted and tried and we become less trusting and perhaps more cynical as we mature. Our fellow beings often do not meet our expectations, and often we do not meet theirs. Because of our weakness, because of our loss of childhood innocence, because we succumb to the temptations of the world, the Father knew that it would be necessary to send one to atone for our inevitable sins so that we might repent and return to His presence. In fact, Joseph Fielding Smith said in Doctrines of Salvation,that:

When a child comes into this world he is innocent as far as this mortal life is concerned, but children soon lose their innocence as they grow and come in contact with the world.

So if this is true (and who would argue with a great prophet) then what does Mosiah 3:19 mean when it says:

For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father. (bold italics added)

Joseph Smith, as recorded in History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said to the women of the Church (and certainly, there is equal application to the men of the Church):

As you increase in innocence and virtue, as you increase in goodness, let your hearts expand, let them be enlarged towards others; you must be long-suffering, and bear with the faults and errors of mankind.

My personal interpretation of the prophet’s statement is that he says that innocence and virtue are parallel attributes, perhaps even synonyms. For innocence to increase, virtue must increase, and vice versa. Hearts must expand; we must suffer the foibles of others with forgiveness and kindness. May I humbly offer another synonym: purity. As we reject the temptations flung at us by the ever-increasing efforts of the adversary, as we work to increase our innocence, we must by definition, increase in purity before the Lord. As we repent of sin, we increase in innocence, virtue, and purity.
The scripture tells us that to redevelop innocence, virtue, and purity, we must be patient, meek, humble, full of love, and submissive to the will of the Lord, in all things.

Perhaps regaining our innocence as adults is more difficult than we imagine. It is the work of our lifetime. It is the overarching challenge of mortality. It would be completely impossible if we could not “put off the natural man” through the atonement of Jesus Christ, repent of sin, and make some halting progress toward true innocence, virtue, and purity.

It seems apparent then, that we must redevelop the innocence we have lost if we are to enter into the Celestial Kingdom. But the innocence demanded of us as adults is different in both kind and result than the virtue and purity that is bestowed unbidden on little children. The innocence required of us is based on conscious effort and knowledge of what we must do to achieve true eternal innocence. As adults, we must become innocent of sin through our own efforts and “after all we can do”, through the grace of the Savior. (2NE 25:23)

It seems to me then, that as regards a little child, innocence equates with being free from sin through the atonement of Christ. Little children cannot sin, because they lack the knowledge to do so. Even when they reach the age of accountability, their capacity to sin is limited by the extent of their knowledge.

As we grow in knowledge of the gospel, the protection from sin we had as a little child is removed. We must begin to exercise our God-given agency to develop a new, mature innocence, recognizing our accountability to the Lord for our deeds. To “become as a little child,” to “grow in innocence” we must choose to free ourselves from sin, something we cannot do without divine assistance.

Childhood innocence is a protection; mature innocence creates true freedom – the kind of freedom the Savior spoke of in John 8:23:”And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”  As adults, we have no free pass to innocence. Our knowledge can condemn us or free us. As adults, we consciously work out our salvation – we spend our mortal lives growing in innocence toward that perfection we will achieve only in eternity. The kind of true virtue and purity that only the Savior possesses, and through his love and concern, and the proper exercise of our agency, we can one day achieve.

We must pass from the innocence our Savior bestowed upon us as children by his atonement, through temptation, sin, and repentance (again by the atonement), to virtue and purity, or godly, eternal innocence. So, as in all other things, we must exercise our agency – we must choose to “grow in innocence.” We choose.

So the truth, or knowledge and understanding of the gospel, put into practice, can make us free from the sins and temptations of the world. Knowledge of the truth is the key to the effort required to “grow in innocence” or to free ourselves from sin through the atonement of Christ. B. H. Roberts, in his Seventy's Course in Theology, quotes Dr. Lyman Abbott in his Theology of an Evolutionist, as follows:

Innocence, Temptation, Fall, Sin: This is the biography of every man, save only Him who passed from innocence to virtue through temptation, yet without sin. Man cannot grow from innocence to virtue without temptation; he cannot experience temptation without a possibility of sin,—that is, of yielding to temptation…

t seems to me that Dr. Abbott omitted the most important aspect of mortality – The ability we have been given to repent of sin. When we yield, we can choose to recover. It is only through repentance that we can achieve the kind of innocence needed to return to our Father-in-Heaven. The ability to repent was provided by a loving Father through the atonement of his Son. But as always, we choose. We choose to repent and “grow in innocence” or we choose to continue in sin and suffer the justice that must befall the unrepentant.
“Growing in innocence” can perhaps be characterized as an ever deepening commitment to the gospel and its eternal principles. The light of the gospel can illuminate our efforts to become virtuous and pure. To quote D&C 50: 24-25:

That which is of God is light; and he that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.
And again, verily I say unto you, and I say it that you may know the truth, that you may chase darkness from among you;

Perhaps chasing darkness from among us is the key to real, godly, eternal innocence. So know the truth, recognize the light of Christ in yourself, receive more light as it is offered, and progress toward true innocence will be possible.