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One of the most intriguing LDS doctrines is the doctrine of the pre-mortal life, and for a long time I liked the doctrine. It was mystical and I liked imaging possible scenarios of what happened there. It meant that I was more than just crude matter. I drew the bubbles many times for the “plan of salvation” and the doctrine seemed to complete the pieces of the puzzle. As in my last post about the afterlife, I’d like to know if people here believe in a pre-mortal life. I started thinking about it because the premise that this life is a continuation of the pre-mortal life and that the state we are born into is a result of our valiance and effort in the last life began to fall apart for me. It fell apart because it just couldn’t explain the bad situations (and the good ones) that some people were born into.
For example, if a child is born into poverty and doesn’t have enough food to eat, the doctrine of pre-mortal valiance would say that the child didn’t make the right choices in the last life and so was born into poverty; thus, the child deserves to starve because the child is receiving the rewards for his/her choices in the pre-mortal life by a perfectly just God.
Obviously, I don’t believe that any child deserves to be born into poverty. But the doctrine of pre-mortal valiance seems to imply it.
We can run this same example with any situation generally considered undesirable: if a person is physically unattractive, born with a birth defect, lacks musical ability, has abusive parents, etc. it’s because they weren’t valiant enough or didn’t put forth enough effort to develop the right talents to deserve a better status at birth. If a person is born into a bad situation (or even lacks talent in a certain area) and this life is a direct continuation of a pre-mortal life, then each of these individuals is receiving the due rewards of their deeds (or reaping the problems that are the result of their lack of hard work.)
We can also run the example with genetics: if guy is born handsome and muscular, does it mean that he spent his time in the pre-mortal life working out and becoming good-looking? If a guy is born scrawny and unattractive, does it mean that he was lazy in the pre-mortal life and didn’t develop the talent of being physically attractive?
On the other side, there are plenty of morally destitute people who have been born into much better situations than they probably deserved.
So I’d be interested to hear whether or not people believe in a pre-mortal life. It also connects with the idea of an afterlife: if there was a pre-mortal life, it would make sense that there is an afterlife. If there probably wasn’t a pre-mortal life, then I’d like to try to understand where each human spirit comes from and what exactly it is that might carry on after the death of the brain.
Quote:I started thinking about it because the premise that this life is a continuation of the pre-mortal life and that the state we are born into is a result of our valiance and effort in the last life.
Yes, I believe in a pre-mortal existence, but I think much of your issue with it now stems from a faulty foundation that is not “pure Mormonism” but rather a mutation that stemmed from the earlier attempts to justify the Priesthood ban and on-going attempts to claim that we in the LDS Church are special. I see both of those justification motivations as the result of simple pride.
Those are two very different premises. The first one (a continuation of life) in no way depends on the second one (some kind of valiance determinant), and the second one is only stated directly in our scriptures about “the noble and great ones” (in Abraham) and implied about some in places like Jeremiah 1, Alma 13 and D&C 138. There is no indication whatsoever anywhere in our scriptures to support the idea that someone born into poverty or with a disability of some kind was less valiant in the pre-existence than someone born into wealth or full health. In fact, in the one case where disability is mentioned in the same passage as a pre-mortal life, Jesus said the blind man was born that way to manifest the power and glory of God.
So, even if we take the scriptural accounts literally, which I generally don’t do, the idea of varying degrees of valiance in a pre-mortal life affecting birth into mortality for the vast majority of people who have lived and now live just isn’t there. I believe that we, as a people, needed a justification to deny black people access to the temple (not just a Priesthood ban), so our former leaders bought into the whole curse of Cain nonsense that was being preached in the congregations of their upbringings (since they all were converts originally) and used that to develop a uniquely Mormon version that expanded the apostate belief to include valiance in the pre-mortal life. We also wanted a reason to claim special status as individuals, so we took the Protestant idea of pre-destination and the general idea of the noble and great ones being fore-ordained and morphed that into every person who is born or baptized into the LDS Church was fore-ordained because of pre-mortal valiance.
So, in short, I believe in a pre-mortal life, but I don’t believe in varying degrees of valiance in that life that are exhibited in this life. I think our temple theology annihilates the idea of varying valiance (or, at the very least, that it matters in any way whatsoever after this life), and I also like Bruce R. McConkie’s statement after the ban was lifted that said we need to forget every justification that was uttered by anyone, no matter who they were, to explain the ban – that “we” spoke from limited light and knowledge. For me, that includes the idea that pre-mortal valiance played / plays any part in the circumstances of our mortal birth.
Ray, thanks for replying. It seems that my afterlife thread is much more popular. It’s true that a pre-mortal life where the details are unknown gives people an opportunity to make unsubstantiated and untestable assertions about their pre-mortal superiority to gain various advantages in this life; this is something akin to the “divine right of kings.” It would seem that the doctrine of the pre-mortal life has evolved a great deal. I confess that I have become a little annoyed with the doctrine recently; when I was a kid in Sunday School, some good speculation went on about the pre-mortal life, but since the Church does not seem interested in any more pre-mortal speculation, I find that the doctrine has limited value because it doesn’t tell us anything at all about why things are the way they are now, which is part of what I thought the doctrine was for. I once imagined a complex pre-mortal life and a whole huge set of pre-mortal factors (including individual behavior) that created the diversity of human predicaments we see in front of us. But that has fallen apart for me, and I’d like to know if there is value in believing in a pre-mortal life when we can’t make any specific statements about the pre-mortal lives and situations of any individual. I agree that pre-mortal valiance is not a good explanation for the wide range of situations that people are born into. But if pre-mortal valiance is not the explanation, then another explanation is needed, at least in my opinion. I don’t expect anyone to answer that question.
Ray, you also mentioned “pure Mormonism.” I’ve seen a number of people who seem to believe in pure Mormonism, which seems to be the belief that the Church as restored by Joseph Smith was indeed the one true church, and the Church has apostatized from this. I’ve seen the “pure Mormonism” blogspot, and Damon Smith indicated some kind of belief in pure Mormonism at the end of his interview with John Dehlin on Mormon Stories. Of course, if there has been an apostasy from pure Mormonism, there would need to be a Restoration and perhaps another prophet of a Restoration. But this seems like it would need another thread for discussion.
All I mean when I use the terms “pure Mormonism” is Mormonism stripped of all the cultural stuff that gets in the way of a pure understanding of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I don’t mean anything else by it, and I certainly don’t pine for a time of purity early on in the Restoration – since I don’t believe such a time ever existed. Life is messy; the Restoration was and continues to be messy; there is no “pure LDSism” from an institutional standpoint, imo. It’s all theoretical and subjective the way I use that term.
I just wanted to agree with Ray’s comments on “pure Mormonism” and add that this quote for me is the general idea of what that term means: Quote:”Mormonism is truth; and every man who embraces it feels himself at liberty to embrace every truth: consequently the shackles of superstition, bigotry, ignorance, and priestcraft fall at once from his neck; and his eyes are opened to see the truth, and truth greatly prevails…” also “Mormonism is truth, in other words the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints, is truth. . . . The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men…” Joseph Smith RS/P manual p.264
In other words wherever our interpretations or culture have taken us away from real truth we have strayed. Our “pure” objective is not to prove present or past ideas were correct – but to leave behind false traditions and embrace authentic Godly truths.
I’ve always wondered if those of us born into impoverished situations or developmentaly disabled folks were, in fact, the more valiant. Maybe they are here to teach us charity and compassion toward others….whether they be poor individuals, groups, or nations. No scriptural backup….just speculation.
“the last shall be first” and all that stuff.
Bruce, I’ve thought about that and heard speculation about that. I’ve even heard one story where a guy got a patriarchal blessing that said that he was afflicted with Down Syndrome because he was the one who physically cast Satan out of heaven during the pre-mortal war. I would guess that the story is an urban legend, but even if there was an individual who had such a blessing, I don’t at this point believe that a war in heaven existed. And the majority of speculation about the pre-mortal life that I’ve heard has been on the side of more pre-mortal valiance translating into a better birth situation. I have a hard time buying into the idea that God would give more valiant pre-mortal spirits tougher mortal situations because that would be punishing good behavior and rewarding bad behavior. I would have a tough time trusting a God who was so unpredictable.
InquiringMind wrote:Bruce, I’ve thought about that and heard speculation about that. I’ve even heard one story where a guy got a patriarchal blessing that said that he was afflicted with Down Syndrome because he was the one who physically cast Satan out of heaven during the pre-mortal war. I would guess that the story is an urban legend, but even if there was an individual who had such a blessing, I don’t at this point believe that a war in heaven existed. And the majority of speculation about the pre-mortal life that I’ve heard has been on the side of more pre-mortal valiance translating into a better birth situation.
I have a hard time buying into the idea that God would give more valiant pre-mortal spirits tougher mortal situations because that would be punishing good behavior and rewarding bad behavior. I would have a tough time trusting a God who was so unpredictable.
A few thoughts:1. The fact that we believe in personal and corporate revelation means that people in authority seek such inspiration in their callings. Patriarchs, particularly, try to seek inspiration.
2. As much as we would like to think that god directly reveals his will word for word in person to the prophets, the reality is that it happens in the mind and heart of the prophet or patriarch.
3. A person’s ‘mind and heart’ are notoriously subject to confirmation bias, personal feelings, agendas, preconceived notions, and hunches that sometimes, maybe even often, are wrong.
4. God cannot override free will. I know that recently, LDS correlated teaching accepts that ‘god’ is the same as the omni-whatever of christian theology, the reality is that the opening revelations of god in this dispensation were a little different than that. LDS leaders have summarily rejected the idea that god is imperfect or evolving, yet you cannot have mormon theology without ‘eternal’ or ‘endless’ progression. Moreover, LDS concepts of a god subject to natural law (section 88) mean that god cannot override free will in this world. Therefore if a prophet or patriarch speaks something from his mind and heart that isn’t correct, god cannot override the expression of free will. As painful as this concept may be, it is there in LDS theology if you look deeply enough.
So if you have a problem trusting a god that is so unpredictable, you probably aren’t alone. Yet, throughout the history of ‘god’ in this world, god has been capricious, arbitrary, and indeed at times evil — when viewed upon as the single god that controls everything. When we lose the god-concept of traditional christianity, and realize that god operates within law and within us, then we have to realize that the outcomes are going to be messy, imprecise, and at the same time absolutely gloriously wonderful: Imperfect humans, doing their best, can somehow participate in divinity. what a concept!
I sometimes think that the theories that Aliens made us makes a lot of sense.
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