Premortal Lives

[let’s roll]

The billions with a B who pass through mortality without accountability (die before reaching the age of accountability or never reach it from a mental competency standpoint) to Celestial glory can tell us after we’ve passed through the veil what led them to receive that blessing.  

I don’t think we need to wait until then, however, to gain insight into the principles which explain why that is the lot for so many (roughly 1 in 5) of God’s sons and daughters.

[CV75]

10 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

I don't see why we need to separate the two.  Surely God will use those for Apostles who have previously proven themselves as Bishops, Stake Presidents, or Seventies.  Those who have proven their humility, spiritual strength and earned the trust of God.

I like the phrase, "on the same standing" in the first place (Alma 13:5), with the subsequent mortal calling "for such as would not harden their hearts, being in and through the atonement of the Only Begotten Son..." I don't see this as a function of the righteous meriting the trust of God, for He had the foreknowledge already, and established the foreordination. I see it more as a function of the righteous using their agency to remain on track. Similarly, I do not see "privilege" (13:4) as something that is merited. So I see the dynamic as the the same in both estates.

For example, as spirit children, I see the noble and great ones as having remained on track with their "co-eternalilty" with God, who at that point was very familiar with their divine nature. But as Christ did, they followed the Father, and had a spirit of volunteerism and humble submission.

[The Nehor]

Being chosen and favored of God rarely looks like a blessing. Look what usually happens to God’s chosen people.

Moses was chosen and spent a third of his life in exile and a third of it trying to lead people who resisted at virtually every step.

Lehi and Nephi were chosen and they were vagrants crossing a desert followed by an ocean voyage followed by Nephi witnessing the fracturing of their people.

Abraham was chosen and wandered most of his life with no home such that he had to buy a burial plot to bury one of his wives and was sent into dangerous situations to preach.

We do not know who the strongest amongst us are much of the time. What is more difficult? Being born to well adjusted prosperous parents with access to the gospel early or being born a psychopath with no grasp of empathy beyond the abstract command to be kind? A person who grows in the gospel steadily and is able to take on leadership responsibilities or someone crippled with mental illness or perverse desires incubated in childhood? Where do you send the strongest?

This is not a milk doctrine. Spiritual pride and haughtiness grow like weeds in people who come to believe too early that they are “favored”. You can view examples of the broken husks doctrine makes of foolish people who pervert it to gratify their egos here: https://ldsfreedomforum.com   It is easily corrupted into racism, fascism, and a contempt of the “impure”. It tends to make Gnostics out of those who think they are learned and leads them to the strange paths Lehi saw in his vision and they are lost.

The true doctrine is elevating and explains some of mortality but the wise realize that they cannot use it as a tool to diagnose the premortal status of others. At best some will get some knowledge of their own status and can use it to understand the world and their place in it a bit better and realize that Israel is here to be a light of the world, not to be a divinely sanctioned spiritual aristocracy. 

I will stop there. I have my own theories here but they would come across as elitist. They terrify me to be honest.

[bluebell]

34 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Being chosen and favored of God rarely looks like a blessing. Look what usually happens to God’s chosen people.

Moses was chosen and spent a third of his life in exile and a third of it trying to lead people who resisted at virtually every step.

Lehi and Nephi were chosen and they were vagrants crossing a desert followed by an ocean voyage followed by Nephi witnessing the fracturing of their people.

Abraham was chosen and wandered most of his life with no home such that he had to buy a burial plot to bury one of his wives and was sent into dangerous situations to preach.

We do not know who the strongest amongst us are much of the time. What is more difficult? Being born to well adjusted prosperous parents with access to the gospel early or being born a psychopath with no grasp of empathy beyond the abstract command to be kind? A person who grows in the gospel steadily and is able to take on leadership responsibilities or someone crippled with mental illness or perverse desires incubated in childhood? Where do you send the strongest?

This is not a milk doctrine. Spiritual pride and haughtiness grow like weeds in people who come to believe too early that they are “favored”. You can view examples of the broken husks doctrine makes of foolish people who pervert it to gratify their egos here: https://ldsfreedomforum.com   It is easily corrupted into racism, fascism, and a contempt of the “impure”. It tends to make Gnostics out of those who think they are learned and leads them to the strange paths Lehi saw in his vision and they are lost.

The true doctrine is elevating and explains some of mortality but the wise realize that they cannot use it as a tool to diagnose the premortal status of others. At best some will get some knowledge of their own status and can use it to understand the world and their place in it a bit better and realize that Israel is here to be a light of the world, not to be a divinely sanctioned spiritual aristocracy. 

I will stop there. I have my own theories here but they would come across as elitist. They terrify me to be honest.

Exactly.  I am reminded of the parable of the olive tree in Jacob 5, where the Lord sends some of His chosen into the 'nethermost parts of the vineyard' to be planted into ground that is exceptionally poor.  

Edited January 22, 2020 by bluebell

[JLHPROF]

7 hours ago, bluebell said:

Exactly.  I am reminded of the parable of the olive tree in Jacob 5, where the Lord sends some of His chosen into the 'nethermost parts of the vineyard' to be planted into ground that is exceptionally poor.  

Absolutely true.  I just reject the idea that only God's foresight determines these things.  I believe our first estate had as much impact on our second as our second estate will on our third.

I believe Christ was chosen because of his premortal actions just as the 1/3 part were cast out for theirs and denied bodies.  I believe Joseph Smith and the prophets received their callings because of premortal actions and were in fact literally foreordained.