After all We Can Do

For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

2 Nephi 25:23

One verse.

One verse from the Book of Mormon is all it took to reconcile the religion-oriented chiding present in Terry Pratchett's wonderful childrens' novel "Truckers" with the gospel of Christ.

To sum up: Gnomes from "Outside" find their way into the Arnold Bros. department store and find there a culture of other gnomes who worship the store (or at least Arnold Bros.) as their god. They bring with them The Thing, of which they have now knowlege, save that their ancestors said it was important.

The Thing (spoilers) turns out to be sort of a memory cube that tells the gnomes they came to Earth from outer space, and that their hardscrabble existence on Earth is due to some ancient error that severed their link with the mother ship, which is still in the solar system neighborhood.

It's a great story, to be sure. But they discover Arnold Bros. is to be demolished, thus ending the subsistence of the gnomes from both Inside and Outside. So they begin, with The Thing's help, to cook up a plan.

Then The Thing abandons them, thus:

If I'm understanding the implications here, The Thing represents not the god of Arnold Bros., but science and reason, since it is a thinking machine. The Thing "abandoning" them at this point is supposed to show that it's up to the gnomes to succeed, without intervening help, as they are more than clever animals.

Thus the citation from Nephi. God knows we are more than clever animals. We are to work out our own problems, seeking assistance not only from God, but from ourselves, our peers, our families, our friends, working as hard as we can to solve our problems and making decisions on what to do next.

We can ask God for assistance, but He is not going to tell us each step of the way what to do. That is left to us, our agency, and our faith that our decisions, based on our faith and hard work, will be the correct ones.