Can My Brother Become My Dad?

[tld]

I believe that I had a pre-mortal existence in the spirit world and that when I die I will have a post-mortal existence in the spirit world. In my pre-mortal existence as a spirit being it seems reasonable that I associated in a meaningful way with other spirit beings, possibly forming groups with other like-minded spirit beings. Since we all had a common source (God) we were all siblings (brothers and sisters). While time and space in the spirit world may be different from time and space in our physical world, I can imagine that the relationships I had with other spirit beings existed for “eons” of time.

 

At some point, one of these spirit beings incarnates, grows up, gets married, and starts to have a family. I decide to incarnate and to become one of the children in that family. So now my brother in the spirit world has become my father in this physical world.

 

Eventually my earthly father dies and returns to the spirit world, and later on I die and return to the spirit world. Assuming that we reunite in our relationship with each other, what is that relationship? Has the whole organization of what was before I incarnated, composed of siblings, changed to an ancestral organization, in which my spirit brother is now my spirit dad? Does a relationship that existed for eons of time change based upon the brief period of time that I spent in a physical body?  

 

[thesometimesaint]

Your father will always be your father, but will play a different role. I have Grandkids some I'm in some ways their father. Now I get to spoil them rotten and send them home to their parents.

[JAHS]

We are told that those who are exalted will remember the time in the spirit world; which I imagine was a pretty long time(assuming time is even measured there). So I am thinking we will probably remember our father as our brother but will treat him according to how we last knew him as our father.

[tld]

Your father will always be your father, but will play a different role. I have Grandkids some I'm in some ways their father. Now I get to spoil them rotten and send them home to their parents.

Granted, as long as I am alive, my father will be my father. But the spirit world is my true home, where I have a different father and where my current father was apparently my brother. When I return home, do I return to my previous relationships or will everything  have changed?

[Ahab]

Yes, and it changed the moment you were born into his family, when he became your Dad. And that can never be changed because it will have already happened and there could never be anything you could do, then, to change that.

But then there's the question of how you and he will interact with each other in the future, after that biological connection has been formed. Will you subject yourself to him, as your Father? Will you show that you honor him in his role as your Father, which is and will be a different role than he would have had if he had remained only a brother to you? Will you show that you accept him in that role by sealing that relationship with a covenant in a temple of God, supposing you weren't automatically sealed to him in that role when you came to this Earth through birth with him as your Father? It's still up to you to decide if you will honor and accept him as your Father, instead of just considering him to be another one of your brothers, and yet it will still always be true that he was and will always be a biological Father to you.

[tld]

Yes, and it changed the moment you were born into his family, when he became your Dad. And that can never be changed because it will have already happened and there could never be anything you could do, then, to change that.

But then there's the question of how you and he will interact with each other in the future, after that biological connection has been formed. Will you subject yourself to him, as your Father? Will you show that you honor him in his role as your Father, which is and will be a different role than he would have had if he had remained only a brother to you? Will you show that you accept him in that role by sealing that relationship with a covenant in a temple of God, supposing you weren't automatically sealed to him in that role when you came to this Earth through birth with him as your Father? It's still up to you to decide if you will honor and accept him as your Father, instead of just considering him to be another one of your brothers, and yet it will still always be true that he was and will always be a biological Father to you.

So, in this mortal life we could be playing different roles? Rather than my spirit brother playing the role of my mortal father, he could have chosen to play the role of my mortal son? When we have finished playing our particular role in mortal life, do we return to the relationship we had as siblings?

[CV75]

I believe that I had a pre-mortal existence in the spirit world and that when I die I will have a post-mortal existence in the spirit world. In my pre-mortal existence as a spirit being it seems reasonable that I associated in a meaningful way with other spirit beings, possibly forming groups with other like-minded spirit beings. Since we all had a common source (God) we were all siblings (brothers and sisters). While time and space in the spirit world may be different from time and space in our physical world, I can imagine that the relationships I had with other spirit beings existed for “eons” of time.

 

At some point, one of these spirit beings incarnates, grows up, gets married, and starts to have a family. I decide to incarnate and to become one of the children in that family. So now my brother in the spirit world has become my father in this physical world.

 

Eventually my earthly father dies and returns to the spirit world, and later on I die and return to the spirit world. Assuming that we reunite in our relationship with each other, what is that relationship? Has the whole organization of what was before I incarnated, composed of siblings, changed to an ancestral organization, in which my spirit brother is now my spirit dad? Does a relationship that existed for eons of time change based upon the brief period of time that I spent in a physical body?  

We know that our time on earth is infinitesimal in relation to time before and after, yet it is absolutely pivotal in terms of the quality of life on either side. Before mortal birth, the anticipated experience served as the promise for our progress. The experience also defines what we continue to become after death.

 

It is conceivable that if “that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only …coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” in the eternal world, then perhaps that same sociality which exists among us here existed among us in the pre-mortal world, only without being coupled with element, which element we now enjoy.

 

Who is to say that a pre-mortal brother wasn’t instrumental in our pre-mortal progress, thus serving as a “spiritual father” of some kind, in a similar fashion that we consider Christ as the Father of our spiritual rebirth? Regardless of what we may think of our fathers in mortality, as brothers in pre-mortality they may well have helped us along our journey way back then, thus earning a father-type relationship which continued in this world biologically even through the darkest of times, places and apostasies.

 

At the same time, relationships often change abruptly; as the result of our choices in this brief moment of mortality, some may give up their status as sons of God or enhance it as exalted beings.

Edited September 4, 2014 by CV75

[VideoGameJunkie]

My family situation is kind of weird. My brother and I are test tube babies since my dad is sterile and couldn't have children, so biologically my brother and I have 2 different sperm donor fathers, but my dad is the one who married my mom and raised us. The only problem is he's not a member of the church, so we're not sealed as a family yet. But I still call him my dad and hope that relationship lasts through the eternities.

[Ahab]

So, in this mortal life we could be playing different roles? Rather than my spirit brother playing the role of my mortal father, he could have chosen to play the role of my mortal son? When we have finished playing our particular role in mortal life, do we return to the relationship we had as siblings?

My previous post, which you quoted, answers that question, but I'll say it in with some other words.

Each new role we take on adds to any other role we've already had, rather than disappearing completely from our life as if we never had it, so a brother who becomes our father is still our brother and still was our father regardless of any other role that person takes on later in life.

The role of a father is a dynamic role, though, meaning it involves or at least should involve a lot more than begetting or adopting a person, so if a child of a father were to lose contact or refuse to accept counsel or direction from that father the relationship would not be all that it should be.

Parents are responsible for nurturing a child, and that responsibility doesn't end, in God's mind, even when the child becomes 18 or 21 or 92, although a child can not be forced to honor it's parents or interact appropriately within the role dynamics of that family.

[Ahab]

My family situation is kind of weird. My brother and I are test tube babies since my dad is sterile and couldn't have children, so biologically my brother and I have 2 different sperm donor fathers, but my dad is the one who married my mom and raised us. The only problem is he's not a member of the church, so we're not sealed as a family yet. But I still call him my dad and hope that relationship lasts through the eternities.

With God as the judge everything will work out for the best in the best way possible for everybody involved in those circumstances. You can count on that. Hopefully all of you will be happy with his decision for what is best for all of you.

[tld]

Each new role we take on adds to any other role we've already had, rather than disappearing completely from our life as if we never had it, so a brother who becomes our father is still our brother and still was our father regardless of any other role that person takes on later in life.

 

Yes, one would hope that when we play a particular role that it would have a lasting influence upon us, and that when we had finished playing that role and reviewed our performance we would see areas in which we could improve and and others areas in which we accomplished what we set out to accomplish. However, since there are so many possibilities, I just question the extent to which playing a particular role should affect our relationships in the spirit world once we return. In other words, that playing a particular role, according to LDS belief, should have such long lasting and far reaching consequences. Certainly we would hope it to be a learning experience, but for it to have eternal consequences that could severely disrupt our long established relationships in the spirit world seems like a stretch to me. But, then, that is just my personal opinion.

[Ahab]

Yes, one would hope that when we play a particular role that it would have a lasting influence upon us, and that when we had finished playing that role and reviewed our performance we would see areas in which we could improve and and others areas in which we accomplished what we set out to accomplish. However, since there are so many possibilities, I just question the extent to which playing a particular role should affect our relationships in the spirit world once we return. In other words, that playing a particular role, according to LDS belief, should have such long lasting and far reaching consequences. Certainly we would hope it to be a learning experience, but for it to have eternal consequences that could severely disrupt our long established relationships in the spirit world seems like a stretch to me. But, then, that is just my personal opinion.

My wondeings on the issue are more toward what out relationships with each other were like before we came here, instead of how I will think of and interact with my Dad and grand-Dad and great-and-grand-Dad(s) when I go back. It will be a bit complicated if I've advanced more, intelligently, than some of them have, but I'm sure that at some point in my family chain there is someone of my fathers that I will be able to go to for one-on-one counseling while actually watching him do something that I don't know how to do, yet, with him helping me to do it. I know for a fact that we all won't be crowded around in one huge mass around father Adam, or his Father, or Jesus either, to watch them do things. I will want someone I can go to for one-on-one contact, and the best way to organize a system like that is for all of us to be able to go to our next-in-line father, or mother, with him or her being able to fo the same thing with their parents if they don't know how to do something and need to learn that themselves.

Before we came here I imagine that we had individual tutors of some sort for that type of one-on-one assistance, maybe like a really good friend who had already learned how to do something and was willing to help us learn it, otherwise we would have been on our own although probably learning some things in classroom or conference type meetings. I can't even imagine trying to get some one-on-one time with our common father while he had (and still has) billions and billions of children. And yes I know we could talk with him telepathically then just as we can now but sometimes it teally helps to have someone to watch to see how he does things, like Jesus was able to watch father while still in heaven.

[VideoGameJunkie]

Thanks Ahab, I have faith Heavenly Father will work everything out for our family. And I believe I can do my part through temple work.

[tld]

My wondeings on the issue are more toward what out relationships with each other were like before we came here, instead of how I will think of and interact with my Dad and grand-Dad and great-and-grand-Dad(s) when I go back. 

Yes, this can be an area of interest, but my interest in this instance is more on how we relate to each other after our return from having played a particular role in mortal life. We have dealt primarily with the role of father, but as I was just driving to the store I thought about a situation that I am intimately aware of. Suppose an individual is born transgender, such that he or she is certain of being in the wrong body, and goes through a gender change. Is this a role this individual has chosen to play, perhaps so that this person's parents and others can learn tolerance and forgiveness (which actually is happening in the instance I am thinking about)? What will be the situation when this individual dies and returns to the spirit world? Will this individual be complemented by his or her peer group (maybe including the parents) for having successfully played that role and having had a positive influence on others or will that individual be consigned to "outer darkness," as some I think would expect?

[VideoGameJunkie]

No way a poor transgendered person gets punished with outer darkness. God is not cruel.

[rpn]

In the pre-existence, spirits were all just spirit children of Heavenly Parents.   It is on earth that Heavenly Father's Plan organizes eternity into family units (and why it so much matters how mortals do it).   I suspect the emotions that bind family together are part of both the body and the gift of the Holy Ghost (at least to the depth and breadth experienced on earth.  (See Parley P. Pratt's quote on the Holy Ghost which you can find in a google search.)     While clearly we were fully able to choose and we were then as much children of God as we are now, and we had personality (or there wouldn't be a reference to the noble and great ones), I don't see scriptural support for any of the I made a pact with you in the pre-existence to do X, Y or Z on earth ideas of the kind that would precipitate the OP scenario..   

[VideoGameJunkie]

I believe I knew my family in the pre mortal existence.

[tld]

In the pre-existence, spirits were all just spirit children of Heavenly Parents.   It is on earth that Heavenly Father's Plan organizes eternity into family units (and why it so much matters how mortals do it).   I suspect the emotions that bind family together are part of both the body and the gift of the Holy Ghost (at least to the depth and breadth experienced on earth.  (See Parley P. Pratt's quote on the Holy Ghost which you can find in a google search.)     While clearly we were fully able to choose and we were then as much children of God as we are now, and we had personality (or there wouldn't be a reference to the noble and great ones), I don't see scriptural support for any of the I made a pact with you in the pre-existence to do X, Y or Z on earth ideas of the kind that would precipitate the OP scenario..   

I wonder if your emphasis on our being children in the pre-mortal existence detracts from the experiences that we may have been exposed to and the knowledge we may have gained, although you do recognize that there were advanced spirits. If we take literally the statement that everything was created spiritually before it was created physically, then it seems possible that there are advances in the spirit world of various kinds that may greatly exceed where we are currently at here in this physical world. It seems obvious to me that if these advances in the spirit world exist there must be advanced spirits who think them up. 

 

Much of support for the idea that we chose our parents and may have even been aware of some of the aspects of our future life come from individuals who claimed to have experienced some of what goes on in the spirit world. Some of these experiencers are even LDS, such as DeLynn (http://sarahhinze.com/?p=580). This link is a source for many other pre-birth experiences.

Edited September 5, 2014 by tld

[VideoGameJunkie]

I wonder if those who have been abused by their families knew what they were getting themselves into when they chose to come to earth.

[rpn]

I didn't use the term "children" to denote anything other than our relationship with heavenly parents.     I just do not see any way that pre-existent spirits could have make promises to each other in the pre-existence that formed bonds, if we really believe in agency on this earth.   Doesn't appear in the scriptures.   Practically it just is impossible.  

 

(I do concede that others may have personal revelation on the subject.  And that nothing is impossible with the Lord.)

Edited September 5, 2014 by rpn

[tld]

I didn't use the term "children" to denote anything other than our relationship with heavenly parents.     I just do not see any way that pre-existent spirits could have make promises to each other in the pre-existence that formed bonds, if we really believe in agency on this earth.   Doesn't appear in the scriptures.   Practically it just is impossible.  

Whether or not we can make commitments to each other in the pre-existence that carry over into mortal life may be a personal opinion, since there are those who would disagree with you and who may have had experiences that would say otherwise. As far as agency goes, it would seem that once here in mortality an individual can decide whether or not to follow through on that commitment. When it comes to a physical disability or genetic disorder that may be a different thing, such as with DeLynn. I guess I disagree with you regarding the scriptures. I do not think they cover every possibility. I don't understand you when you say that practically it is impossible.

[ERayR]

Re. the title question the answer is yes.  It is really quite simple. All of man are God's children thus we are all brothers and sisters, including your mortal parents.

[VideoGameJunkie]

We could be spiritually older than our earth parents.

[strappinglad]

Time is not linear in heaven. Older and younger have a different meaning.

[mfbukowski]

Can My Brother Become My Dad?

 

Don't know, don't care.

But I am sure he will not become your mom.

Edited September 7, 2014 by mfbukowski