Korihor asks for a sign, challenging Alma to provide proof for his assertion, which Korihor has countered with his own assertion. Of course, Korihor cannot prove that Yahweh does not exist, but there is some logic in suggesting that, if there is a God, there should be some evidence of his existence. But by denying the Spirit, Korihor has already ruled unacceptable the kind of evidence that would provide the very proof that Korihor rather smugly demands. Alma has had a dramatic proof, yet Korihor will not accept it.
This is the problem with those who seek signs. The signs are already available, and they have already rejected them, yet they ask for a different type of sign. The Pharisees and Sadducees in Jesus’s day had much the same problem:
The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would shew them a sign from heaven.
He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for the sky is red.
And in the morning, It will be foul weather to day: for the sky is red and lowring, O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?
A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign; and there shall no sign be given unto it, but the sign of the prophet Jonas. And he left them, and departed. (Matt. 16:1–4)
The Pharisees and Sadducees, like Korihor, asked for a sign but had already refused available signs, except for unimportant ones like the next day’s weather. God does give us signs. As Alma said, “All things [stand] as a testimony that these things are true” (v. 41). This point is important. God has never said that we should not have signs. What he has insisted on is that those signs must be interpreted by the Spirit and in no other way. Influenced by the Spirit, Alma has “all things” as signs of God’s existence. By denying the Spirit, Korihor cannot see things that can be understood only by the Spirit (v. 41).
The problem isn’t in the signs; it is in the seeker. Sign seekers are saying that they cannot discern the signs that are given and want more. Unfortunately, even such signs cannot convince without the Spirit.
When I was serving a mission in Spain this principle was taught to us forcibly and undeniably. My companion and I placed a Book of Mormon with a man. A couple of weeks later, my companion was awakened by an ear-splitting thunderclap—the loudest he had ever heard—accompanying a violent storm. (I slept through the whole thing.) A few days later when we called back on our investigator, he invited us in, saying, “I really need to talk to you. I read the Book of Mormon after you left, and couldn’t put it down. I was really touched by it, but I just wasn’t quite sure if it were true. I decided to kneel down and pray, and asked the Lord for help. I wanted some sign to tell me that the book was true, but I knew that I shouldn’t ask for a sign. Nevertheless, I needed some assurance. It was stormy outside, and so I thought that I would ask the Lord for some thunder, so I would know. I then realized that it would thunder anyway, so I asked to hear the loudest clap of thunder I had ever heard.”
My companion was sure that this was the thunderclap that had awakened him, as we could trace it back to that very night. Unfortunately, the man concluded that “it was raining anyway,” so he really couldn’t be sure that his prayer had been answered. He gave us back the Book of Mormon and we left. This man could not be considered wicked or perverse but was nevertheless insufficiently attuned to the Spirit. He asked for a sign; but even when it came and he recognized the miracle, it did him no good. He was like the Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’s day who could read the signs in the sky but not the signs of the time. This man could read the sign in the thunder but not the power in the book.
This experience was a telling example to two young missionaries about the role of faith in constructing our definitions of reality. It also explains Laman’s, Lemuel’s, and Korihor’s ability to deny their experiences with the divine.