My Favorite October Conference Teaching

[JLHPROF]

My favorite passage of teaching from this Conference came from Pres. Uchtdorf.

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Brothers and sisters, we are eternal beings, without beginning and without end. We have always existed.¹ We are the literal spirit children of divine, immortal, and omnipotent Heavenly Parents!

We come from the heavenly courts of the Lord our God. We are of the royal house of Elohim, the Most High God. We walked with Him in our premortal life. We heard Him speak, witnessed His majesty, learned His ways.

You and I participated in a Grand Council where our beloved Father presented His plan for us—that we would come to earth, receive mortal bodies, learn to choose between good and evil, and progress in ways that would not otherwise be possible.

When we passed through the veil and entered this mortal life, we knew that we would no longer remember the life before. There would be opposition and adversity and temptation. But we also knew that gaining a physical body was of paramount importance for us. Oh, how we hoped that we would quickly learn to make the correct choices, withstand the temptations of Satan, and eventually return to our beloved Parents in Heaven.

We knew we would sin and make mistakes—perhaps even serious ones. But we also knew that our Savior, Jesus Christ, had pledged to come to earth, live a sinless life, and voluntarily lay down His life in an eternal sacrifice. We knew that if we gave our heart to Him, trusted Him, and strived with all the energy of our soul to walk in the path of discipleship, we could be washed clean and once again enter the presence of our beloved Father in Heaven.

So, with faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, you and I accepted, by our free will, Heavenly Father’s plan.

That is why we are here on this beautiful planet earth—because God offered us the opportunity, and we chose to accept it. Our mortal life, however, is only temporary and will end with the death of our physical body. But the essence of who you and I are will not be destroyed. Our spirits will continue living and await the Resurrection—a free gift to all by our loving Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.  At the Resurrection, our spirits and bodies will be reunited, free from pain and physical imperfections.

After the Resurrection, there will be a Day of Judgment. While all will eventually be saved and inherit a kingdom of glory, those who trust in God and seek to follow His laws and ordinances will inherit lives in the eternities that are unimaginable in glory and overwhelming in majesty.

That Day of Judgment will be a day of mercy and love—a day when broken hearts are healed, when tears of grief are replaced with tears of gratitude, when all will be made right.

Yes, there will be deep sorrow because of sin. Yes, there will be regrets and even anguish because of our mistakes, our foolishness, and our stubbornness that caused us to miss opportunities for a much greater future.

 

The plan of salvation is so marvelous, especially when framed using such clear and expansive terminology.
There is more doctrine contained in this few minutes of discourse than we often get to hear in all our yearly lessons on the plan.
This reminded very much of President Taylor's "Origin and Destiny of Woman", a talk I often quote on this board.

To me, this is an example of how to prompt a milk doctrine into being studied as a meat doctrine.  Just think of all the different study areas contained.
 

 

[amertune]

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Brothers and sisters, we are eternal beings, without beginning and without end. We have always existed.¹ We are the literal spirit children of divine, immortal, and omnipotent Heavenly Parents!

Aren't these contradictory statements? In what way would Heavenly Parents literally create children, if those children have always existed without beginning?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, amertune said:

Aren't these contradictory statements? In what way would Heavenly Parents literally create children, if those children have always existed without beginning?

President Uchtdorf is referring to us being spirit children of our Heavenly Parents.  There is no more contradiction with our being earthly children of our earthly parents as a clay embodiment of our spirits, than with the spirit children being created to house our eternal essence -- called "intelligence," something which cannot be created nor destroyed.  All humans are thus tripartite in composition: (1) intelligence, (2) spirit, and (3) physical body.  And we all look forward to that bodily composition someday being glorified and immortal.

[amertune]

When I read Joseph Smith's talks about intelligence and spirit, he seems to be using them as interchangeable terms. Where did the idea come from that spirits are created from intelligence?

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I am dwelling on the immortality of the spirit of man. Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it has a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end. That is good logic. That which has a beginning may have an end. There never was a time when there were not spirits; for they are co-equal [co-eternal] with our Father in heaven.

I want to reason more on the spirit of man; for I am dwelling on the body and spirit of man—on the subject of the dead. I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man—the immortal part, because it had no beginning. Suppose you cut it in two; then it has a beginning and an end; but join it again, and it continues one eternal round. So with the spirit of man. As the Lord liveth, if it had a beginning, it will have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation, who say that the spirit of man had a beginning, prove that it must have an end; and if that doctrine is true, then the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the housetops that God never had the power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself.

Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1971/05/the-king-follett-sermon?lang=eng

Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it.

Why then, do we say that spirits are created from intelligence? I haven't seen anywhere that Joseph teaches that, and it seems to me that it is an attempt to reconcile differing accounts of the creation of man which are not reconcilable. Either Gods are the Father and Mother of our spirits, or God found himself among the spirits and found himself to be the most intelligent of all and organized them and created laws to elevate them to his level. I don't see how both of those could be the source of man's spirit.

[amertune]

Also, if our spirits were created from intelligences (assuming, for a moment, that intelligences and spirits are completely different things), wouldn't that imply that our spirits could also be destroyed and we could revert back to intelligences?

[rongo]

That is what Brigham Young and Heber C. Kimball taught happens to the sons of perdition (those who don't inherit any kingdom of glory). Their physical matter, spirit matter, and intelligence are separated and the intelligence starts over --- losing untold eons of development, but retaining their uncreated inherent evil. In the context of the long view of the plan of salvation, this would be a horrible consequence indeed. 

[strappinglad]

My reading of the scriptures suggests that ' intelligence ' can be obtained during one's mortal existence. An increase of light and truth in one's life builds intelligence. Is this qualitatively a different type of intelligence than that used to infuse a spirit body ?

I was also taught that SoP s were able to rule over Satan and his minions because of the physical bodies which they have. Is this rule only temporary ?

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, strappinglad said:

My reading of the scriptures suggests that ' intelligence ' can be obtained during one's mortal existence. An increase of light and truth in one's life builds intelligence. Is this qualitatively a different type of intelligence than that used to infuse a spirit body ?

I was also taught that SoP s were able to rule over Satan and his minions because of the physical bodies which they have. Is this rule only temporary ?

Yes, the eternal intelligence (essence, entelchy, nous) is fundamentally different than the intelligence in I.Q.

As to unembodied spirits being inferior to embodied ones, that would be a permanent condition by virtue of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  All will be resurrected with glorified bodies, and be assigned to a kingdom of glory -- except perhaps for an occasional assignment to outer darkness.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 hours ago, amertune said:

When I read Joseph Smith's talks about intelligence and spirit, he seems to be using them as interchangeable terms. Where did the idea come from that spirits are created from intelligence?

Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it.

Why then, do we say that spirits are created from intelligence? I haven't seen anywhere that Joseph teaches that, and it seems to me that it is an attempt to reconcile differing accounts of the creation of man which are not reconcilable. Either Gods are the Father and Mother of our spirits, or God found himself among the spirits and found himself to be the most intelligent of all and organized them and created laws to elevate them to his level. I don't see how both of those could be the source of man's spirit.

One problem is that Joseph's funeral sermon over King Follett was never transcribed verbatim.  What we have are various incomplete notes which have been combined and redacted into an apparent whole discourse.  So we don't know whether Joseph himself used some terms more or less interchangeably.  Moreover, even on this board, we find the same sort of confusion on this subject.  The LDS Church website helps clarify things:

From https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/intelligence-intelligences?lang=eng :
Intelligence has several meanings, three of which are: (1) It is the light of truth which gives life and light to all things in the universe. It has always existed. (2) The word intelligences may also refer to spirit children of God. (3) The scriptures also may speak of intelligence as referring to the spirit element that existed before we were begotten as spirit children (D&C 93:29).
 

[halconero]

An absolutely phenomenal talk, and a great one for my friend Jairos' first conference as a new member. We road tripped it down to Salt Lake for it and got tickets for the session. Between that and Elder Christiansen's talk on the significance of the Restoration it was a great way to start him off. I saw his understanding of the Gospel, Priesthood, the Plan of Salvation, and his commitment to live up to all of them explode over the weekend.

On another note, I found it interesting how President Nelson focused on the latter-days once again this conference and how to live through him. April focused on the Price of Priesthood Power, this one on the joy of living the Gospel Principles (the April talk was also the best conference talk I've ever heard personally).

[mfbukowski]

On 10/6/2016 at 5:08 PM, amertune said:

Aren't these contradictory statements? In what way would Heavenly Parents literally create children, if those children have always existed without beginning?

We are eternal intelligences adopted and made the children of Heavenly Father and Mother.

Through baptism we become part of the family of Christ, the author of our salvation and the "second Adam"

Notice you unconsciously answered your own question by defining your question with the word "literally".  That was the error, in my opinion.  They are our parents in the same way that Christ is our Father

I think all this speculation about having literal spirit babies is incorrect,  

[CMZ]

On 10/6/2016 at 7:12 PM, amertune said:

When I read Joseph Smith's talks about intelligence and spirit, he seems to be using them as interchangeable terms. Where did the idea come from that spirits are created from intelligence?

Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it.

Why then, do we say that spirits are created from intelligence? I haven't seen anywhere that Joseph teaches that, and it seems to me that it is an attempt to reconcile differing accounts of the creation of man which are not reconcilable. Either Gods are the Father and Mother of our spirits, or God found himself among the spirits and found himself to be the most intelligent of all and organized them and created laws to elevate them to his level. I don't see how both of those could be the source of man's spirit.

Heavenly Father and Mother took unorganized intelligence matter (which was over yonder) and organized it into spirits. Exalted beings have the power to produce both spirit and body.

[Calm]

There is some debate on what "intelligence"refers to:

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Intelligences