Benjamin McGuire

In some contexts, yes. I think that we could discuss the question of blacks and the priesthood - as an example of this. These were what we might call correlated views. However, in this particular discussion, I would suggest that at least on the question of orthodoxy, these speculations were nipped in the bud. This view was popular in the Church because people like to have 'deep' discussions on things that allow for some degree of speculation. But it never rose to the level of orthodoxy at any point. It is also worth pointing out that correlation - as a process in the LDS Church - had its infancy in 1908, and only reached its maturity around 1960. So only after the early 1960s do we understand that the publications of the Church had been fully vetted through the process we call correlation. You can see also that it's beginnings also match the historical discussion I provide above. You wouldn't get anything about this subject into authoritative sources at this point precisely because of its history - without a push from the First Presidency and potentially some sort of additional revelation.

I don't think I have rejected this idea at all. I think that this is a reasonable take on it. I think that we might agree on how open-ended this is - I lean very strongly towards universalism (but in this discussion that is small potatoes).

Did you mean "reflect"?

The funny thing about the KFD is that it isn't authoritative doctrine. And the only way that this obliterates the "no individual personhood prior to the first estate narrative" is if you read it with a certain pre-determined interpretative model (as well as taking the whole thing out of context) ....

It was taught. There is a section of B.H. Roberts' book New Witness for God which refers to this. It was included in the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Association manual (YMMIA 2:390–91) - it was challenged and later publications dropped this on theological grounds. There is a fascinating history here. In an editorial in the May 1906 Improvement Era, the editors promised that B.H. Roberts would be publishing an article soon on the immortality of the soul. It didn't happen. We understand why from the historical record. A.L. McDermott had written to James Talmage about his concerns over the YMMIA manual material. Elder Tamage had added some additional concerns and sent both along to President Joseph F. Smith. Additionally there were concerns discussed about a book on the subject by L.A.Wilson. Wilson took the whole thing a different way - but in some ways dealt with the similar issues raised on this thread. Wilson argued that if intelligence represented individuals, then of necessity there must be only a finite number of individuals possible. In 1907, B.H. Roberts published his article ("The Immortality of Man") in the Improvement Era, but included a statement that this article was his own opinion: And in that article, he raises the 6 major objections to the theory that has already been expressed: 1 - That the pre-existence of the spirit is considered to be co-eternal with God. 2 - The problem that exists over why we are all so far behind God in our progress if we have all existed for the same time frame 3 - This one is interesting enough relevant to the discussion here that it's worth repeating (so we can see that none of these discussions is really new): "Third, the Manual doctrine of immortality must lead to the idea that the number of intelligences that could eventually become human beings, must be limited, that is, all that can ever come into existence as human beings already exist, and have always existed, and when they have all concluded (if they have not already done so) to progress by obeying law, then there will be an end to creation; to the works (new works) of God." What makes this interesting is that if you take the other side of this, that there are infinite intelligences, then we have an opposite problem where some intelligences never gain a spiritual body. 4 - Roberts recognizes that this idea creates a problem for the widely taught belief that our progression had a starting point in the past, even if it continues through an eternity in the future. 5 - (It's hard to paraphrase this one): "Fifth, 'in order to verify the claim that the hymn, ‘O My Father’ was inspired (and I have often heard this statement made by those in responsible positions in the Church), we must understand that, as in the formation of the human body, in the creation of the spirit, the union of the life of two individuals of (in certain respects) opposite or complementary qualifications (sex) is absolutely necessary. If an individual cannot be produced without the union of two other separate individuals, I do not see how we can deny the beginning of the begotten individual. If we believe in the eternal increase that the faithful are promised, we can hardly accept the theory that the spiritual children promised are already existent, and independent of our salvation as they would, in justice, have to be.'" 6 - "Sixth, it is tentatively suggested as a counter theory to the Manual theory, by the objectors quoted above, 'that the life of the parent is imparted to the offspring, and that while it is still a part of the same life or spirit of the parent, and as such did not have a beginning at the time of birth, yet as a separate individual it did have a beginning at the time of birth or conception.” This is thought to be a solution of spirit existence “both reasonable, and more in accordance with the apparent, plain meaning of many passages both of ancient and modern scripture.'" B.H. Roberts also published his view in 1910 in the 4th year of the Seventy's manual which he wrote, along with another Article in the Improvement Era. However, that is generally the end. In 1911, when he went to publish another article, it was opposed by President Penrose (First Presidency) and it was only allowed to be published with the material on eternal self-existent entities removed. In 1914, the First Presidency stopped the publication of a priesthood manual written by Elder John Widstoe for material on the same topic. A less dogmatic version was eventually allowed to be printed in his book A Rational Theology. In 1918, President Charles Penrose concluded a talk he was giving with this statement: In the same time frame, Elder James Talmage started to get involved in the discussion. In a Liahona article (7/16/1918), he described the four stages of man as a (1) a disembodied state, (2) an embodied state, (3) a disembodied state, and (4) an embodied state. That first state, he argued was when The Spirit lived as an organized intelligence before it became the embodied child of human parents". More recently, in a letter from Elder McConkie to Walter Home, he wrote (1974): Clarifying his view, he wrote this in Mormon Doctrine: At any rate, there is a brief window when it shows up in lesson manuals (the first decade of the twentieth century) primarily as expressed by B.H. Roberts and John Widstoe. But in the century plus since then, it has been carefully kept out. And while there is some ambiguity that could be read into the early sources, the LDS Church's position currently does not recognize this speculation. (It doesn't say that it couldn't have happened - it just continues to argue that the ambiguity is not strong enough to warrant such an interpretation and has instead chosen to only represent what they see as being on stronger theological footing). There is no question that this speculation has been popular in the Church and has had proponents in the leadership. I personally think that we (as a Church) lose something in that we now hide these disagreements among the leadership. If this had been a more open discussion (much like the questions of evolution and pre-Adamites and all that) then there would be far less difficulty with this sort of thing. We would all recognize that there was speculation and that the Church was authorizing one particular narrative over another. Further, the Church's position here has been more of a 'we will allow it to die away on its own' sort of thing - and I think that in a convert Church where the speculation is effectively suppressed in authoritative contexts, it will eventually succeed.

It is supportable. I have every expectation that my understanding of the Church history is better than yours. And I believe that I have at least some credentials to back that up. No. It is widely believed that this use of "intelligences" in Abraham is a word that is synonymous with our word "spirits" today. In other words, in Abraham (which is still considered part of the formative period of our theology of the pre-existence). It isn't referring to an unorganized spirit - but to organized spirits. And of those organized spirits that Abraham is shown, the spirits all have different levels of light and truth (or glory or intelligence or whatever adjective you want to use). But they are still spirits. This is not a view of something prior to that spiritual estate - it is a view of the pre-existent spirit world where Abraham is being shown the spirit children of God. I think you are reading my use of these terms backwards. The Book of Abraham doesn't refer to intelligence in any pre-spirit creation context. There is no "unorganized intelligence" in Abraham (and it would be potentially undifferentiated intelligence at that). I have a few points to make. First, I am not ignoring it. I am arguing that President Joseph Fielding Smith is not making the claim that intelligence is the source of spiritual identity or individual. Spiritual identity or individual begins only when intelligence is combined with spirit. What this statement does not provide is the claim that there is an individual and identity that exists as intelligence that, when combined with spirit, become a spiritual identity. Second, Joseph Fielding Smith doesn't ever claim that this is all occurring before the First Estate. He actually repeats this idea of what man is several times in that section of his book (which I admit might be hard to read if you are just using what gets frequently quoted): From the same section, where he starts by quoting the Book of Abraham: Man is not an intelligence wrapped in a spiritual body. Man is a spirit. And here, despite all of the efforts made to try and differentiate between intelligence as some self-aware personal entity and intelligence as the light of truth (the glory of God), President Joseph Fielding Smith pulls them back together. It is this intelligence (the light of truth) that is eternal and not created. They are not, in Joseph Fielding Smith's understanding, separate ideas. It is this eternal light and truth that is introduced into the spirit bodies of men that gives them the capacity for eternal progression. Second point - Joseph Fielding Smith published this material almost a decade before becoming the President of the LDS Church. Third point - Joseph Fielding Smith's material has never been recognized as authoritative. It was not published withe the imprimatur of the LDS Church. All of these points challenge your assertion that you are somehow representing "President Joseph Fielding Smith's direct statement" accurately. Yet, it seems to me that you are contradicting Pres. Smith here. I think that my historical interpretations are much closer to the historical reality. No, I don't. I am using the term "intelligences" as it was historically used - interchangeably with what we now exclusively call spirits. Spirits are persons, self-aware, sentient and progressing. You can keep arguing until you are blue in the face - but there is nothing in authoritative LDS sources which makes the claims that you are making. You are repeating a historically popular speculation, but it is nothing more than speculation, and current LDS teachings are distancing the Church's theology from that speculation.

I'm sorry about the delay. My general concern is the recognition that the LDS Church has issues authoritative material (with the imprimatur of the Church) in which it defines LDS doctrine/theology. As with any religious organization, more recent statements take precedence over older material. The caveat to that might be the fact that Mormonism holds its authoritative material in a hierarchy of sorts. However, I would also say that this hierarchy is flexible through an interpretive mechanism. Canon is higher than just about anything. But, since canon has to be interpreted, interpretation tends to redefine canon at the top of the hierarchy. Interpretations change from time to time. The problem that has been occurring here in this forum is that we have a lot of speculative ideas being presented as doctrine. Consider the thread about Moses 7 where @teddyaware made this comment: Here we have an assertion that D&C 93 speaks of intelligences (as proto-spirits) being individual persons, having agency, and so on. This isn't LDS doctrine. It occurs in no official doctrinal source. It is contradicted in current LDS material (with the Church's imprimatur) which insists that intelligence here is just another word for spirit. It doesn't represent some proto-spirit. This isn't limited to Teddy. Others are taking up this point as well - but this isn't LDS doctrine. It is a well known line of LDS speculation - although I would suggest that it is better known to those of us that are older because the LDS Church has been excluding this idea and putting in information that contradicts this idea much more frequently in recent years. Marineland asked (in that thread that I quoted Teddy from) whether or not intelligences had agency. It is clear (at least to me) that this is not a question that is answered in any authoritative LDS source. Instead, we generally get appeals to the KFD, to the JoD, and other LDS sources where citations are cherry picked and where this selective use of historical quotes is used to create a narrative that doesn't really represent the context of those speeches but the context that occurs in the first half of the 20th century when these kinds of speculations were frequent. Part of what I mean by that is also the fact that much of these speculations resulted in early LDS ideas that Teddy and the others would not accept. The idea that since intelligence (in this sense) is uncreated, that when someone fails in their mortal probation, that their spiritual body is allowed to decay back into that pre-existing intelligence, from whence it is chosen again, and given a new spirit body and repeats the process (until it gets it right). The issue is that we have (as an LDS community) created a lot of speculations over time - and lots of them have been rejected. This idea of pre-existent self-willed, intelligences that would become spirits is one of these speculations that seems to have been rejected. It is understandable why someone like @marineland would have these questions given what the Church actually teaches compared to what is being explained here. So, I generally let the Church determine what is official doctrine. I do this by citing current material published by the LDS Church - material that has gone through the correlation process, which they give the Church's imprimatur to. The rest is interesting - from the perspective of historical context. I think that it is important, for example, to understand how Joseph Smith uses the word "intelligence" in Abraham and in D&C 93. That historical context is quite different from what is suggested in these threads. But, if we are discussing the doctrine of the Church today, and we privilege our interpretations of the past over the current publications, we are going to present something that isn't actually a doctrinal position of the Church today.

If the language is figurative. The thing is that it isn't simply intelligence that is suggested it can act for itself here - but also truth. Here is the verse (30): So are we suggesting that truth also has agency? I think that it's a very messy proposition for us to suggest that it is literal for one and figurative for the other. If we look at the LDS teaching on Section 93, there is a lot of interesting things related to this discussion but nothing that would suggest that intelligence is a reference to some self-aware proto-spirit: There's a lot of commentary there on this particular verse. In general, this "to act for itself" is never discussed as agency. But relevant to this discussion, the commentary on verse 33 is also interesting: What we don't have here is a discussion that man is intelligence. A little earlier, in the discussion on verse 29, there is a lot said about the word intelligence and its definition - and when we look up the sources, we can see where these ideas come from: Intelligences are spirits (referring back to Abraham). They are already organized. And intelligence is something eternal that becomes a part of man - when man is organized. But man (the personhood) doesn't exist as something we would identify as raw intelligence. And part of our understanding of this is the idea that intelligence changes - it grows or is reduced depending on our actions. The Widstoe quote is quite brief. He goes on to make this point more specific (and this feeds into the way that the Joseph Fielding Smith statements are usually read): I want to reiterate that this is part of the challenge. This language is used interchangeably. We don't have an intelligence in Abraham 3 that is distinct from spirit. Widstoe does go on to discuss the idea of intelligence as a personal identity that is a precursor to the spirit. As he puts it: This is the view that is being suggested here. It is interesting in some ways that this is a subject that is much better known to those of us who have been in the Church a very long time than to anyone who is young. The Church lesson manual could easily have included this sort of material in the discussion about Abraham 3 or D&C 130. But we don't get any of it because it has been excluded. In the long run, I don't have any issues with people who speculate on this. I think in some ways, the questions are natural - precisely because our historical collection of statements are diverse and do not offer any sort of complete sense of what is going on. This whole idea of a potential pre-spirit entity leads to a very different understanding of Jeremiah 1 which ends up in a lot of discussions in early LDS literature of multiple mortal probations (a topic that also touches on Brigham Young's Adam-God theory). Included here is the idea that Outer Darkness is simply a place where man is broken back down into his eternal components, which are reused for another try. The challenge is that there is no authoritative version of any of this. Could it be accurate? Sure. Can we know if it is accurate? Not with what we currently have. And the Church seems to be distancing itself from these speculations. Perhaps this is because they aren't meaningful. Perhaps it is because it creates conflict with what is being taught. Perhaps it is because they were really dead-end theological speculations - ideas that could be drawn only from poor understanding of the text. I think it is the incompleteness and the otherness of things like this that tend to draw people in to them. They like to take these theories and build out entire cosmologies (just look at this thread). But if we cannot understand even the most basic parts of this stuff in an accurate way, the things we build on our inaccuracies are almost always going to be wrong. My beef is only with the presentation of these things as true doctrines of the LDS Church.

But they don't supercede the D&C 93 - and in fact, any interpretation of D&C 93 which the Church puts forward would be considered to be more authoritative in every way than any interpretation of the King Follett Discourse. But here is the much bigger problem for you (and the others here). If we are forced to fall back on the King Follett Discourse as a way to explain or define our theological speculations rather than on some current content endorsed by the Church, we can assume with certainty that our speculations are not orthodox but are at best heterodox. You should look at this. There is nothing here that claims that Intelligence is equivalent to man. If intelligence is "the light of truth" then the claim is being made that truth is eternal - it is not made, it is not created, and it cannot be made or created. If man was in the beginning with God (and remember that in general terms, the "in the beginning" is a reference to Genesis 1:1 and Moses 2:1 - we could suggest that it also refers to Abraham, but the Book of Abraham wouldn't be produced for years yet). And then this: Here again, intelligence is equated with truth - not with some sort of personhood. On two levels, we have a problem with this reading. The first is that there still in no basis for this in LDS theology. In fact, LDS scripture says (2 Nephi 2) that sin only occurs when there is no law: "if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness." Further, the Book of Mormon teaches that for many there simply is no law. And those without law cannot sin. The law must be external to us. And so sin isn't "acting in direct defiance against who and what they really are at the core of their being". Moroni 8:22 - "For behold that all little children are alive in Christ, and also all they that are without the law." If the law is something that is at the core of our being, this makes no sense. What does make sense is to understand that as we accumulate or grow in intelligence (in light and truth), our understanding of the law grows and our capacity for sin increases. Which, I think, is a better description of LDS theology than the one you put forward here. You seem to also be missing the idea that "intelligence" as the "light of truth" also has no beginning and it doesn't have an end - but what is fascinating to me is that we can find discussions contemporary with the King Follett Discourse that discuss how spirits can lose their intelligence (and this leads to a lot of early speculations on outer darkness and multiple mortal probations - all of which is also not a part of orthodox LDS theology). And while you suggest here that man in his native primeval state is composed of a combination of purse spiritual light and truth, this doesn't actually fit with what the LDS Church teaches - that our spiritual body was organized from eternal matter so that it could become a vessel that would hold intelligence (eternal light and truth) and that as it gathered more and more of this, it would progress towards the divinity of our Father in Heaven. All of this present interpretation of the Church accounts for these details in scripture - but does so in a way quite different than what is being suggested here. I have a final important thought. It is fairly easy to find references on the LDS Church's website (in their authorized content) that backs up my contention. Not just in scriptural passages, but in the commentary associated with it. There is nothing on the LDS Church's website that discusses this idea as commentary on scripture - that before the spiritual creation there was something that each of us was - an intelligence - with a set of attributes. There is no set of attributes assigned to these intelligences. We have discussions about "the spirit realm" but we don't have a single reference to an "intelligence realm". And all of this makes it a lot harder to swallow the idea that this is in fact the true doctrine of the Church, hidden away, available only to those who have properly studied it out. I'm not buying it.

No, they aren't. They are dealing with the problem that occurred because Joseph Smith used the term spirit and intelligence (at least in this sense) anonymously early on. That is, Joseph Smith never envisioned some sort of intelligence as a personhood that exists apart from the spirit. I am not contradicting the teachings of the Church - you are misunderstanding them. Nowhere does the Church create this distinction between personhood and attributes that you are presenting here. If they did, we wouldn't even need to have this discussion. In fact, we don't even see this word "personhood" used in these discussions from the Church. You want to have two kinds of intelligences - one that is some sort of person that preexists the spiritual creation, and one that is an attribute of spirits. But the Church doesn't make such a distinction. What the Church suggests is that intelligence means spirits in certain early texts, and in the current understanding, it means an attribute. But there is no discussion of personhood prior to the creation of spirits in LDS theology. The church never discusses this sort of thing - because there is no basis for it in the accepted authoritative historical record. You are also misreading Joseph Fielding Smith. After all, speaking of this passage in Abraham 3, President Smith suggests that over the history of our existence as spirits, some were able to become "more intelligent" than others. This is a specific reference to how we could have Moses say "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was;" and refer to the spirits before the creation of the mortal world. Spirits are "organized" in LDS doctrine. Not intelligences. You seem to be reading Abraham with the idea that the intelligences were organized into spirits rather than the intelligences were the spirits that had been organized from eternal matter, and which had gained that intelligence as they developed in the ages of the pre-existence before the work of mortal creation began. Your idea that the spirit body is merely an attribute isn't LDS doctrine. But you are welcome to point to something that says that it is in some clear fashion. I don't mind being corrected here.

You should read the explanation of Abraham 3 as published by the LDS Church. You are welcome to disagree with the leaders of the Church. But I am taking their position, not my own. And their position explains what the text in Abraham 3:18 means - and it does so explicitly: Spirits have intelligence - they aren't intelligence. And because it is something that they obtain through their actions, it means that some can have more than others. But this text in Abraham does not do what you say it does. And your interpretation is not consistent with LDS theology or doctrine. It is not until the pre-existence (which occurs after the spirits are organized from pre-existing matter) that they begin to acquire intelligence. And this acquisition of intelligence in the pre-existence is what differentiates one spirit from another in the vision that Abraham sees.

The King Follett Discourse is not considered an authoritative source of doctrine. We should start with this. You have this backwards. The current formal explanation provided by the LDS Church contradicts this understanding of Joseph Smith's views given in the King Follett Discourse. In the question of orthodoxy, the current views of the Church always trump past views - especially those given as opinions. We need to remember this principle. The LDS Church has provided a current (orthodox) understanding of the sermon: This view does not contradict what I have written. But the LDS Church does not endorse anything similar to what you are mentioning. Now, I am going to repeat something that you put forward: The challenge that you have is that intelligence here (or mind) is something that we don't start with. We accumulate it. The Church teaches that our spirits were "brought together, organized, and capacitated to receive knowledge and intelligence". And that this intelligence that we receive is eternal with God Himself. Now, you might notice that the LDS Church does not, in its article that I posted, reference the composite text of the King Follett Discourse. It references the individual accounts. So, for the Clayton version, we get this - and you can see that this isn't as straight forward as you seem to be suggesting: Now perhaps this is right. Perhaps there is no spiritual creation - all of us were spirits, and God the Father somehow became God through the accumulation of intelligence - and then invented this plan of creation to help the other spirits gain intelligence and so evolve to become like Him. Perhaps this is what Joseph Smith meant in all of this - that we all became spirits at the same time that God the Father did (or that we always were) - however, this is not what the LDS Church teaches today. And let's also be clear - Joseph Smith is speculating here. And I am not sure that I agree with his underlying interpretive principle - that something that has a beginning must always have an end. If nothing else, our understanding of science has taught us that this isn't so. When a molecule absorbs energy, its electrons jump to higher energy levels. Eventually, that electron orbit decays, and falls back - and when that happens, the energy that is released creates a photon. And that photon can travel forever (only ending when it collides with something and gets absorbed as energy). We have some sense of this because our best telescopes have captured photons that have been traveling for more than 13 billion years. Now perhaps, you can say, it is all a closed system. That energy existed before it became a photon - it simply changes form - and perhaps you would be right. But my point I think remains. We can easily conceive of something that has a distinct beginning and doesn't have a predetermined end. Joseph Smith is careful though. He does point out that this is his own speculation. The "But if I am right" is, I think, still an open question. And the LDS Church today does not view this idea that mankind's spirits have existed co-eternally with God's spirit. The LDS Church teaches that we are in some way created (or organized) by God. The matter from which our spirit is organized may be eternal (much like Joseph's discussion of creation), but God the Father does something to organize that matter to create the spirit that we are. So ... I think that we should leave the King Follett Discourse in the realm of speculation and privilege what the Church recognizes over it.

Orson Pratt also said this: While Pratt was known to speculate a lot (his The Seer was formally disavowed by Church leadership), I think that Orson Pratt believed that our known universe was God the Father's creation. Each of the stars that you could see (either with our own sight or using telescopes) was, he believed, circled by planets that were made to be inhabited by God's children. I think that were he around today, he would claim the same thing, although he might recognize that not every star necessarily has inhabitable planets (or he might speculate that some of those planets would have children of God whose physical forms were better adapted to the conditions in which they found themselves). I think in this sense, it is possible to understand Pratt's view of God's creative period - as having a beginning and an end in the creation that we participate in. Is he right? I think that it is hard to escape the logic that he uses (and that Joseph Smith and others use) that the universe as we know it is simply to vast in terms of being a creative act to only have its purpose in us as humanity on our planet earth. So I'm open to this.

You are right. I have not provided a clear statement from the Church on the nature and origin of intelligences AS YOU DEFINE THEM. But the Church doesn't define them that way. I have pointed to statements published by the Church in regard to Abraham 3 that explain that what is being said about intelligences here in this forum by some people is clearly wrong. But, I'll put them up again: And then in the same source, this: Here is another section: The matter that makes up the spirit of mankind is eternal. But this is not the intelligence - that matter is "capacitated to receive knowledge and intelligence". Whatever the source of our personhood is, it is not, in LDS doctrine, these self-aware intelligences, infinite in number, roaming around an infinite universe (perhaps not even roaming - just waiting) ... we don't have a full understanding of all of this - but reading Abraham 3 in a way that makes intelligences a proto-spirit is to understand the text in a very different way than the LDS Church has suggested is appropriate. Instead, what the LDS Church suggests is that there is this eternal spirit matter. And God organizes that matter in someway creating his spirit children. And God does this by organizing that matter in such a way that it is receptive to intelligence (the light and truth of God). As these spirits grow in intelligence, they gain limited agency. And then that limited agency is put on display during mortality. The soul that they start with is eternal and made of eternal matter, but in mortality, the physical body is not subject to these same conditions - a physical eternal body is given to these spirits only in the resurrection. Now was this spiritual matter before God organizes cognizant? Was it self-aware? Did it have agency? Could it accept or reject the organization of God? We have no idea - and anything that can be said about that is pure speculation. It is not speculation (according the statements above) that mankind does not exist until they are organized from that pre-existing matter as spirits. But to talk about the idea that our universe must be uncreated, must be infinite, and must contain an infinite amount of material intelligences (proto-persons) all waiting for their turn to be organized into a spirit body - this is decidedly not what the LDS Church teaches. You are welcome to demonstrate otherwise ...

Right - I knew that you believed this. I don't. And I believe that authoritative LDS doctrine generally seems to support my view. The LDS Church teaches that in early texts like the Book of Abraham, that when it refers to personal intelligences it means spirits: The challenge here is that if I don't agree with your assumptions, then there isn't going to be much space for discussion on the rest of it. As I noted, if we believe that personhood comes with being created/organized into a spirit, then the number of persons can generally be considered to be finite. I see. So, since I don't agree with you, I should simply engage in more careful reading/studying/pondering until I do? This is not TRUE doctrine as taught by the LDS Church. I am not making the wrong difference here. The challenge you have is that you are trying to create a distinction where none exists. The LDS Church uses the term 'creation' to discuss the beginning of our spiritual existence. I am perfectly fine sticking with their language. No. I am not implying that the "universe" is infinite. In fact I explicitly suggested that the universe was finite. What I am saying is that your definitions are wrong. There is no pool of "intelligences" that are candidates. There is only a pool of spirits (that have been created or organized - it really doesn't matter which term you use). And God continues to create. I keep telling you that I find your distinctions to be wrong. I will quote again from the LDS Church's material: We are created - and we are organized to receive intelligence. The intelligence that we receive is eternal. But just as we can receive intelligence, we can also lose it. The intelligence is not our personhood (as you seem to be suggesting). It is what gives us the potential for divinity. And only when we have enough of it can we progress further. It is in this sense that we could be arranged in the pre-existence by our intelligence, with God having a greater intelligence than the rest of us (as described in Abraham 3). To explain it in a different way, God doesn't take some personal intelligence and then give it a spiritual body - rather, he creates a spiritual person and gives it the capacity to receive intelligence. Since I am trying to avoid speculation, I'll probably skip on the discussion of outer darkness for the moment. It gets mired down in the early discussions of multiple probations (and the early LDS interpretations of Jeremiah 18:1-10). Personally, I am not sure you understand it. Increase can be expressed in many different ways. You seem to be interpreting it to match your theory and not the other way around. Avoiding the whole reference, I want to point out the fact that the LDS Church is arbiter of what is authoritative or not. The problem here is that your theory doesn't fit well with that authoritative position. Now, the LDS Church could be wrong (they have been wrong before) - but - in this case, when the Church leadership has authorized statements that support the consensus, it is an entirely different situation.

I think that part of the issue is that you seem to think of intelligences as some sort of individuals that have eternally existed. We have this problem with terminology. The term intelligence is used in the early LDS Church (by Joseph Smith) as equivalent to spirit. When we get this in the Book of Abraham we see this problem. Abraham 3 tells us about the: "intelligences that were organized before the world was." But in the language we use today, we would state this as the "spirits that were created before the world was". Intelligence as we define it now (light and truth) is eternal, and it is potentially infinite, but it is not infinite in the sense that there are an infinite number of intelligences running around someplace, waiting to become spirits. Spirits are created in part using intelligence (this light and truth) and spirits gain glory as they accumulate intelligence (in this definition), and some spirits lose all of this intelligence (light and truth) ending up in outer darkness (which is another discussion). But we can have a finite number of spirit children without diminishing in any way the remaining intelligence - because intelligence isn't quantifiable in the same way. You bring a bunch of assumptions to this discussion that you don't articulate - and if the rest of us don't share those assumptions, questions like yours start to become problematic. Challenging the assumptions (as @Calm does here) makes questions about your last two phrases meaningless.

Again though, I think that this is a problematic route. To use an example, lets look at plasma (that narrator mentions). It is discovered in 1879. As a general principle, Joseph Smith simply cannot be referring to plasma when he speaks of spirit as matter. For us to understand Joseph Smith's discussion (i.e. what Joseph Smith meant), we don't ask about the ways in which it can be explained through physics or through our modern knowledge. We have to ask ourselves what did Joseph Smith think of the language he used. When he uses it, he is speaking to a specific audience - and we ask what did that intended audience think of the language that he used. The moment that we move this language into our discussion is the moment that we separate it from its intentions. And while this isn't itself bad, what is bad is for us to draw some conclusions about the meaning of these words - divorced from their context - and then to push those conclusions (the meaning that we create) and pretend that this is exactly what Joseph Smith meant. The same problem exists for scripture. And this creates a second problem. As much as we don't like the idea of ambiguity, such a way of looking at scripture or truth requires us to believe on some level that we have arrived at the truth - that we have (through our experience and knowledge) become uniquely prepared to understand it (in its original context). And yet, in another few decades, we will have a new group of people with new experiences and new knowledge that feel the same way, completely displacing our own perspective of being uniquely prepared to receive that knowledge. It is okay to liken scripture unto ourselves - but we have to recognize that we are recontextualizing it and changing its message. It is not nearly so appropriate to suggest that all scripture was meant especially for us - and not really for anyone who came before (especially those first audiences) or anyone who will come after.

When Moses has God speak to Him from the burning bush, was there a bush that was on fire? It wasn't consumed. (By the way, in our search for details, there is a lot of history behind the belief that the bush was in fact a blackberry bush). Does God have to appear in a specific way or in a specific form? Could Jesus alter His appearance (assuming that he had one)? There was, when I was younger, that myth going around about the painting of the red-robed Christ, and it's accuracy. If we go by most of our art, Jesus was Caucasian, right? I think that what we see in these experiences isn't what other would see if they had those same experiences. This is part of my fascination of the narrative of Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life (and the comparison of it to Lehi's vision of the same thing). The fact that Christ may have appeared to Nephi before He (Christ) was born isn't some indicator that what Nephi saw is exactly what Jesus would look like in His mortality. It wouldn't matter one way or another. We get that other thing - which is that we get hung up on Hebrews 1:3 - and assert that Jesus being the express image of the Father means that Jesus looks exactly like God. And this brings us to that perpetual conundrum. Were Abraham's descendants favored because they looked like God (has the same ethnic features that God the Father does) or did they come to develop those ethnic features because God favored them? And at this point, we start realizing that perhaps all of this is problematic in its own way. Literalist interpretations drawn from texts that weren't written to convey that meaning moves us into strange territory. We hang on to bad interpretations because we tend to favor these literalist ideas. But they don't always really work (and just see where that has taken this forum in terms of speculation in recent years). We don't get to get both the "not one hair will be lost" in the resurrection and the correction of birth defects at the same time. (Not to mention having to ask if that means all of the hair we have grown or if there is some sort of perfect length). I had a roommate in college my second year who used to joke that everyone would achieve that perfect height in the resurrection: 5 foot 4 inches (which coincidentally was exactly how tall he was). I think that if Jesus were to appear to us, a great deal of that appearance would conform to our expectations. Our self-identities in the pre-existence and in the resurrection are not going to be driven, I think, by our perceptions of our own flawed physical forms. And yet, it is easy for people to assume that somehow, everything in the pre-existence was predetermined. Our place of birth, our ethnicity, the color of our eyes - all of this was predetermined so that our mortal genetics would conform to that spiritual creations. I don't believe it.

How would I know ... on any of these questions. These are not things on which we have authoritative statements. What I do think is that any scriptural references to these issues come from contexts which do not match up to our current knowledge - and so are actually less than helpful in developing real understanding. No, I don't think that I agree with this. I think that there is a great deal that is unknown (and probably - at least in our current context - unknowable). No. And in fact, all of the evidence that we have points to a finite universe. One of the great challenges here (in all of this speculation) is that we all start with assumptions that aren't generally articulated. Could God create a universe? Mormonism's scriptures contain flawed cosmological models. There is something truly flawed with trying to understand those cosmological models in scripture in terms of our own modern understanding. And in another couple of hundred years, our expectation should be that our understanding of our universe will make today's knowledge seem very poor and very outdated. It's not hard to believe. In my lifetime we have overturned historically certain ideas about the nature of the earth with new theories that have proven to be much more accurate. There are lots of alternate theories to the big bang - that include a finite nature of the universe. My personal favorite is that our universe is the leading edge of a nova from a massive 4th dimensional star turned super-nova. The fact that I like the theory doesn't mean that I think it is the best explanation. But what I do believe is that our universe is a finite space. And if God is responsible for the creation of our universe, then He is responsible for all of it. There may be other universes that have been created. But, we have nothing to do with them - and at this point in time, we have no way of proving or disproving their existence. The assumptions we bring to all of this about God and about the nature of creation determine much of how our arguments are formed. The thing is, the scriptural accounts (as I mention above) aren't really useful in creating theory, or in defending theory. We can only try to reinterpret scripture to fit our theories - and I find that such exercises don't have any real point to them.

I'll try not to derail this thread - but I will make a couple of points. 1: LDS theology currently suggests that "All things were created spiritually before they were created physically." 2: "The glory of God is intelligence, or light and truth —a fulness of which can be obtained by mortal man only through obedience to eternal laws. ... Intelligence (the light of truth) has always existed and cannot be created. Members of the Church can lose light and truth through disobedience." 3: "Each person on earth has a dual nature and is composed of a mortal, physical body born to earthly parents and of an eternal spirit created by our Heavenly Father in the premortal life. Our spirits were organized to receive knowledge and intelligence (see Abraham 3:18–19, 21; see also Hebrews 12:9; D&C 88:15; 93:29–38; Moses 3:7; Abraham 5:7). ... Inasmuch as questions arise concerning the nature and origin of “intelligence,” it is imperative for the gospel teacher to consider the following statement by President Joseph Fielding Smith: “Some of our writers have endeavored to explain what an intelligence is, but to do so is futile, for we have never been given any insight into this matter beyond what the Lord has fragmentarily revealed. We know, however, that there is something called intelligence which always existed. It is the real eternal part of man, which was not created nor made. This intelligence combined with the spirit constitutes a spiritual identity or individual” (Answers to Gospel Questions, comp. Joseph Fielding Smith Jr. [1963], 4:127)." Given this, Spirits are created in a process that adds something (our spirits) to intelligence. Our post creation existence (including mortality) is a process of our increasing the intelligence (the light and knowledge of God). Our expectation is that God went through a similar process. And if intelligence is the glory of God, then exaltation is our being given that same glory (the same intelligence) that God has.

Except that this itself is an interpretation. Why do I say this? Because the generally accepted viewpoint is that Genesis 3:16 doesn't describe God's expectations or teaching of correct principles, but rather the outcome of the fall - a part of the curse - and thus the inevitable conflict that comes to fallen people. After all, having your sorrow increased isn't exactly a way "to have a productive partnership in raising a righteous family" is it. This text isn't advice. It isn't about how God wants anyone to do anything. In fact, those who are arguing that it should mean something like this are in fact arguing for what can only be considered (in LDS thought) a terrestrial state - a fallen state - and nothing at all like what we should be aiming for as a Celestial condition. This creates a real, and subtle, challenge. Because what it means is that when you argue that this is what God wants, you are putting ideas into God's mouth that represent your desires - your beliefs and expectations. I think that the best discussion of this idea comes from a parable written by Søren Kierkegaard. It is called the parable of the love letter. He wrote this: So, 35 years ago, now, that I took my first biblical Hebrew class in university. My professor was a strict traditionalist in his way of reading and understanding the text (he was an assyriologist). I still know more than a little bit of Hebrew. And I don't need to use a lexicon to understand what I am looking at.The problem with the word "with" in English in the text of Genesis 3:14 is that it is a preposition - a single letter in the Hebrew text. And the question of the meaning of the preposition doesn't change the problem of the sentence in Hebrew in the verse - which makes the material you are discussing a part of the curse. Sure we can discuss the implications of the preposition. Here is the short version. Hebrew has several different prepositions. The prefix b- in Hebrew can mean "with" when it is used to express the instrumental use of something. If I kill someone "with a sword", the prefix b- is used. When I hit a nail "with a hammer", the prefix b- is used. There is no sense of "with" in terms of a partnership. So in the OP, we get this question: The word that is translated as "rule over" is יִמְשָׁל-בָּךְ. So the part with the proposition is just that last bit: בָּךְ - the 'you' comes in the last letter. Kah is the Hebrew second person singular pronoun. It is used as a suffix in this way, and is attached to nouns, verbs, and propositions to indicate that an action is directed at a single individual or a possession belongs to a single individual. Since this isn't attached to a noun (but to a verb), we have an action and the action is attached to the individual referenced by the pronoun. We can see something akin to the suggestion of "with" in the similar word in Nahum 1:15 (or 2:1 in the Hebrew text): לַעֲבָר- בָּךְ - and here the translation is "through thee" (through you). This is the implication of the "with" as instrumental (See @PacMan earlier). If we read "rule with you," then the "you" is the instrument of the rule. A king might "rule with you" in the sense that the king has given you the power to rule in his place. The king rules with/through you. But it would never be a situation where we have a partnership or an equal relationship. Such a reading makes no sense in any context in Genesis 3:16. Any other reading requires us to emend the text. Given the textual difficulties earlier in the verse, the focus is usually there - but, I suppose we could talk about changing the verb to שׁלב. It would be easy enough to see the loss of the final bet in the verb because of the subsequent prefix. This verb means "to join" and you could work something out about being "joined to him". But in the end, the first concern about the idea of the curse is just really to much to overcome here - that problem would remain even if we proposed an emended Hebrew text that would imply something other than "to rule over you". What LDS teachings? Like this one? The problem, from my perspective is not about social justice (I love you toss around these politically loaded terms as if they really mean something). It's about what the gospel really teaches. I think that part of our problem is that we are unwilling to recognize that (as Elder McConkie pointed out) we don't have to accept past scripture as trumping modern revelation. We don't have to take extraordinary steps to reinterpret scripture to make it fit. We can simply recognize that sometimes scripture represents a past understanding that we now know is incorrect. And we move forward without having to try and find a way to force those scriptures into our new beliefs, and we can embrace the gospel as we understand it today (and recognize that we will yet receive more light and knowledge that helps us remove other problematic ideas from the past). That men should have dominion over women in some way. (This isn't a direct poke at anyone on this forum). It's not a new issue - it's one that's been discussed my entire lifetime ... but it is an issue that has gotten new life in recent years.

The problem here, Calm, is that we have a mixed audience. If this were entirely an LDS audience, I think I would accept this critique. But it isn't a purely LDS audience. In another thread right now, we have this discussion in which it is being asserted (on the basis of the King Follett Discourse) that all intelligences were uncreated, and were in some way equal with God. Consider this statement: This isn't LDS doctrine. It comes from an interpretation of the King Follett Discourse, but the King Follett Discourse isn't an authoritative source. If you challenge ZealouslyStriving on this, you get mocked. I have absolutely no expectation of convincing our borderline (and even not so borderline) fundamentalists here that their perspective is wrong. They are not my audience - even when I am responding to them. And because they are not my audience, I don't particularly feel the need to try and persuade them of the error of their thinking. In fact, I am not sure that there is anything that I could write that would convince them. I think that these posters are convinced that I am on my way to hell. I mean, look at @teddyaware's comments earlier about "Modernist members of the church ..." Modernism begins in the late 1800s. I am not a modernist member of the Church. I am a post-modernist member of the Church. But this is part of the core notion that we attribute to religious fundamentalism: a push towards a literalist understanding of scripture that wants to recontextualize it back into the pre-modern era. And in part of this is the idea that somehow there was a moment in time when the early LDS had some perfect understanding that has since been corrupted by all of us modernist (and perhaps post-modernist) Mormons. The reality is that the LDS Gospel is, in my view, a post-modernist religion (something I have argued about for decades now). It cannot be a living gospel if it is still rooted in outdated beliefs and ethics of the past. And often (as I find in the discussions here lately) it isn't even a real reflection of those early LDS beliefs but a strange mix of stuff that represents neither the religion that was practiced in the days of Joseph Smith and Brigham Young or the religion that is practiced today. So that's where I am coming from. The challenge is that in the moments where my own discipleship is being challenged, I feel that it is appropriate to push back. But, as I pointed out earlier, I also think that there is an issue here - and you are contributing to it. You want me to hold the higher standard than these other contributors. But, why? Should these other be allowed to make personal attacks in an uncontested way? I don't often take this route - but I think that sometimes it can be helpful to express what I think rather than simply bottling it up. The fact that you have given up doesn't meant that we shouldn't actually keep addressing the issue from time to time ...

I see. I don't think that he does this. This is always a problem with the King Follett Discourse which is (in the text we normally use) a composite built from a series of notes taken by four different individuals. What this version says is: I don't think that Joseph Smith is passing judgment on any translation he was unfamiliar with. His own guide as to what makes a good translation was simply the inspiration he had received. The point of this has never been to suggest that Luther's translation was the best translation available. In fact, Joseph's goal wasn't to find the best translation and use it, it was to create the best translation, working from the original text. And even there, Joseph had this issue because for him, the JST pointed to problems in that original text. Rather, for Joseph Smith, the availability of revelation was understood as having the potential to make all translations obsolete. The texts could be read through revelation to repair their shortcomings. The reason why this quote is often used is to make the point that I made. Joseph Smith wasn't particularly enamored of the King James text. The LDS Church wasn't particularly enamored of it either - until the first decade or so of the 20th century when the place of the KJV was challenged by the creation of the RV (which was a superior translation to the KJV). And having said that, the KJV is still an important text for us because of the intertextuality that exists between it and the other scripture and writings of early Mormonism. But that importance shouldn't be taken to mean that the KJV is an exemplary text. The biggest problem we run into is this idea in reverse. The belief (that has persisted within Mormonism) that the Book of Mormon actually presents a perfect translation of the Biblical texts it quotes, and does so using the exact same language as the KJV - not because it relies on the KJV, but because it is validating the KJV as a perfect translation.

And then: These things are irrelevancies to the topic. It's almost as if you have this prepared pattern of deflection away from the real question here. Which isn't, after all, about feminist ideas, but about whether or not women need to be ruled? About whether they have some sort of divinely ordained role as being subservient to their husbands? Somehow, of course, it is the men who believe this that are baffled that women generally don't want to marry them ...

Look, I really don't care if you agree with the way that I said things. You and I have had a lot of disagreements in the past, and I have generally been (I think) quite reasonable about it. However, @teddyaware regularly posts comments that are dripping with disdain for those he disagrees with. So, why don't you start calling him out on it as well ...