THE PRE-MORTAL WORLD, CHAPTER 7 OF REINCARNATION
Pages 62 to 67
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For a wise and glorious purpose,
Thou hast placed me here on earth,
And withheld the recollection
Of my former friends and birth.
Yet, ofttimes a secret something
Whispered: “You’re a stranger here,”
And I felt that I had wandered
From a more exalted sphere.
-Eliza R. Snow
“Oh My Father”, v. 2
There is an inequality among mortals on earth that is difficult to explain or understand: Why does a just and fair God send spirits to earth in such different and unequal bodies and circumstances? Some people are born rich, others poor; some are born healthy, while others are sickly; some are more intelligent or talented than others; some come into beautiful, lush surroundings, while others begin their lives in hot barren deserts or cold polar regions.
Even the modern Christian religions have trouble explaining such apparent unfairness. Irving Cooper, a noted Christian author, wrote:
We are unequal physically, mentally, morally, and spiritually, while opportunity and limitation seem always to be playing a game of tag with our plans.
[63] Some men have strong and healthy bodies; others are frail and diseased. Some have grace and physical refinement; others are gross and coarsely grained. Some have quick and capacious brains; others are dull and limited in thought. Think, too, how completely our standing in the world is affected by what we are physically. Equality? Equality is denied by every fact in Nature!
In one of our large cities, for many years there was to be seen a little cripple seated at the street corner on a piece of carpet. He was certainly over forty years of age, but had a body the size of a boy of ten and his arms and legs were so twisted and distorted that it was unpleasant even to look at him. For years he had kept himself alive by selling pencils and papers, and the limits of his intellectual universe were bounded by the street-crossing at which he sat. Contrast the limitations of his life-the physical suffering, the dim yearning for friendship, the colorless days, the narrow horizons-with the many opportunities and friends which have come to us. If we believe there is a divine Power, then that Power is responsible for this man’s destiny, either directly by placing a soul without stain in this crippled body, or indirectly by creating a world in which such tragedies can take place.
Why are there so many terrible inequalities in environment? (Reincarnation, Cooper, pp. 7-8)
What has occurred to bring these differences about? The most logical explanation is that the mental, moral, and physical parts of our characters are results of our thoughts, desires and actions in a pre-mortal world. Hence, our life is not the result of some accidental mixup, nor can we blame God for the conditions of our mortal birth. Rather it is the accumulated result of our own actions previous to coming to this earth.
Since we “earned” our place in mortality before we came here, we should learn to accept our temporal destiny and not complain if we are born in adverse conditions or imperfect bodies. This life, however, gives us another opportunity to improve on those conditions.
[64] When we come into this world as a newborn baby, we bring with us all of the traits and talents, likes and dislikes that will be developed throughout mortality. Just like a handful of various seeds that are scattered upon the soil to grow, each matures to the very germ of its latent faculties and unfolds the image of its first creation. So man reflects the image which he developed in the pre-mortal world.
When Jesus said, “My sheep know my voice,” He implied that His followers had known and heard Him before they came to earth. (See John 10:2-7.) Most reincarnationists have only a vague understanding of the beginning of the spirit body, whereas a student of the Gospel has a much more complete picture of how spirits were born in the Pre-Existence. Bruce R. McConkie presented this beautiful description:
Our spirit bodies had their beginning in pre-existence when we were born as the spirit children of God our Father. Through that birth process, spirit element was organized into intelligent entities. The bodies so created have all the parts of mortal bodies. The Brother of Jared saw Christ’s spirit finger and then his whole spirit body. “I am Jesus Christ,” that glorious Personage said. “This body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; . . . and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.” (Ether 3:14-17)
We had spirit bodies in pre-existence; these bodies are now housed temporarily in mortal tabernacles; during the period between death and the resurrection, we will continue to live as spirits; and finally spirit and body will be inseparably connected in the resurrection to form immortal or spiritual bodies.
Animals, fowls, fishes, plants, and all forms of life were first created as distinct spirit entities in pre-existence before they were created “naturally upon the face of the earth.” That [65] is, they lived as spirit entities before coming to this earth; they were spirit animals, spirit birds, and so forth. (Moses 3:1-9) Each spirit creation had the same form as to outward appearance as it now has in mortality– “the spirit of man,” the revelation specifies, being “in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created.” (D & C 77:2) (Mormon Doctrine, p. 750)
The teaching of a pre-existence was predominant in the early days of Christianity, but according to the following statement, they were removed:
Under circumstances that to this very day remain shrouded in mystery, the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 553 A.D. banned the teachings of pre-existence of the soul from the Roman Catholic Church. During that era, numerous Church writings were destroyed. . . . (Coming Back, op. cit., pp. 4-5)
The pre-existent life was infinitely long and was a probationary, progressive school. However, there was an atmosphere of free agency, allowing some to become “noble and great”, while others chose to be rebellious, cruel and warlike. All had power to progress in many fields of learning, or they could neglect them. The reincarnationist says that we lived before we came here as mortals. However, they cannot conceive of our learning, acting and gaining experience as a spirit in a spirit world. But the scripture says at death “shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.” (Eccles. 12:7)
God in His wisdom did not create these spirits and then immediately send them down to earth without any preparation or understanding of what to expect in mortality. Orson Pratt explains:
[66] This period of pre-existence must have been sufficiently long to have educated and instructed the spirit in the laws and order of government, pertaining to the spiritual world; to have rendered itself approved or disapproved by those laws; to have been tried in all points, according to its capacities and knowledge, and the free agency which always accompanies and forms a part of the nature of intelligent beings; in fine, the period of pre-existence must have been sufficiently long to have constituted a probationary state, or the “First Estate” wherein the spirits are on trial, and may fall, and be reserved in chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (The Seer, Pratt, p. 18)
In the pre-mortal world, the spirit body was born just as a mortal body is born on earth. Spirits are actually born to an exalted heavenly father and mother. And when others become similarly exalted, they too will have spirit children. That family unit will continue much the same as it can on earth.
Peter wrote that we had “fathers of our flesh” but that we should “rather be in subjection unto the father of our spirits”. (Heb. 12:9) And according to Paul’s writings, Jesus was the “first born among many brethren.” (Romans 8:29) These scriptural evidences show that we are the literal spiritual offspring of parents in heaven, not an evolutionary growth of some materialistic substance, as many reincarnationists believe.
Thus, if we are the offspring of heavenly parents, they would naturally want to look after us in the same kindly and careful manner as we would our children here on earth. Would these concerned and protective parents send us to a strange place to go through a mystical series of circuitry over and over again? Wouldn’t it seem reasonable that instead they would have us gain our experience and learn our lessons during one mortal lifetime, without repeating it numerous times?
[67] One of the best examples of the progress of man-from the spirit world into mortality, back to the spirit world and on to resurrection and exaltation-was seen by Mosiah Hancock in his vision of the pre-mortal state, where he saw the activities and progress of the spirits of men, i.e., Abraham, other great men, and even himself:
At last the time came for me to go to the earth. The Savior came to me and said, “Mosiah, it is time for you to prepare to go. You have been faithful so long here, it is time for you to go, that you may return and be as we are.” * * *
I knew my departure was near at hand and I asked, “If on my return I could have the same position I then held.” Then the Savior said, “Yes, and greater, but you have to go down to the earth, and take a lowly position and be misunderstood by man, even your brethren, and endure many hardships and set many examples of humility and patience, that you may return and enter the glory, even such as I have.” (Mosiah Hancock Journal, Addendum, pp. 3-4)
The experiences obtained in the Pre-Mortal World are so vast and important that they can produce both extremes-great and noble, wicked and evil.
[68] Chapter 8
PREDESTINATION
AND FOREORDINATION
