PREDESTINATION AND FOREORDINATION, Chapter 8 of Reincarnation
Pages 68 to 72
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But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: Who verily was fore-ordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you, . . . (1 Peter 1:19-20)
Predestination and foreordination have similar definitions as they both refer to something being planned or decreed beforehand. Predestination means what it says-a destiny or destination planned ahead; and likewise with foreordination-an ordination that was planned ahead.
Men who have been foreordained to specific missions on earth were then predestined to the place, time and circumstances of their birth-to enable them to accomplish these assignments. This is the same as the Elders of the Church being ordained and given the commission as missionaries for the LDS Church. They receive their call based on their worthiness, free agency, valiancy and willingness to serve; they are then given a destination and specific time to fulfill that mission. Hence, their ordination is the result of their own faithfulness and free agency, but the time and place of their mission is predestined or appointed by someone else.
Most reincarnationists believe that our past, present and future are all predestined, and that our destiny depends on our lives on this or other earths. However, the Gospel of Jesus [69] Christ teaches us that predestination applies mainly to the time, place, race or nation in which we are born. Many people were given a specific calling, a mission, and were foreordained to it before they were born, but they still had their free agency in fulfilling that ordination.
Christ was chosen, set apart and ordained to come into this life as the Messiah, the Redeemer and Savior of all mankind. He was “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” (Rev. 13:8) If reincarnation were a true doctrine, He should have been born in the finest of living conditions as He had “earned” it, but instead He was born in the most humble and primitive of circumstances.
Furthermore, since Christ was so perfect and Godlike, He should have already reached Nirvana, or wherever reincarnationists think the greatest souls go. According to their belief, He wouldn’t have to come back and trudge through this mortal mess again.
Other good men were also chosen, called and ordained for a special work on the earth because God had the foreknowledge of their character-not because they were predestined by their own better life in some other dispensation. The Prophet Joseph stated:
Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council. (TPJS, p. 365)
Jeremiah was one of those persons chosen and fore-ordained in the Pre-Existence. He came to earth with a pre-assigned mission and calling-but not because of his own good deeds in some prior mortal life here or on some other world.
[70] Then the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations. (Jer. 1:44-5)
Abraham was another of the valiant spirits chosen in his pre-mortal life:
And among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. (Abra. 3:22-23)
Orson Pratt explains further the nature and selection of certain pre-mortal spirits:
. . . Now if the Apostles and others were called “with a holy calling” and “chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world” and actually received grace in Christ, and had the promise of “Eternal Life” made to them “before the world began,” then why should it be thought incredible, that in and through Christ they also received forgiveness of the sins which they may have committed in that pre-existent state? If all the two-thirds who kept their first estate were equally valiant in the war, and equally faithful, why should some of them be called and chosen in their spiritual state to hold responsible stations and offices in this world, while others were not? If there were none of those spirits who sinned, why were the Apostles, when they existed in their previous state, chosen to be blessed “with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ?” All these passages seem to convey an idea, that there were callings, choosing, ordinances, promises, predestinations, elections, and appointments, made before the world began. (The Seer, p. 55)
[71] According to the scriptures, races and nations were predetermined and pre-destined by God:
Remember the days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When the Most High divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number of the children of Israel. for the Lord’s portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance. (Deut. 32:7-9)
The Apostle Peter wrote to the “elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience. . . .” (1 Peter 1:2)
According to Peter certain men were chosen to specific missions on earth, not because of merits in a previous mortal life, but rather according to the ordinations in their pre-mortal life.
The mightiest and more worthy spirits were foreordained to be prophets or spiritual leaders on earth. The founding fathers of America and the framers of its Constitution were chosen according to the foreknowledge and foreordination of God and accordingly were born when and where they were in order to accomplish that mission. The Lord explained:
And for this purpose have I established the Constitution of this land, by the hands of wise men whom I raised up unto this very purpose. . . . (D & C 101:80)
The Lord chose those men, according to their worthiness in the pre-mortal existence, not because of their achievements in a prior mortal life on this or other worlds.
[72] According to the theory of multiple mortal sojourns on earth, man is like the spokes of a wheel that continue to revolve, according to his own Karma-reaping what he sows. Fate is the basis for reincarnation, whereas free agency, forgiveness and Christ’s atonement provide the basis for the Gospel of Christ.
The atonement of Christ eliminates the need for man to go through mortality again and again, for the Lord said, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.” (Isa. 1:18) Christ’s atonement eliminates the need for a return to earth to get rid of our sins and transgressions. But the reincarnationist believes they follow man from life to life, and world to world, until they are overcome and erased.
[73] Chapter 9
SPIRITS AND
SPIRITUAL MANIFESTATIONS
