Google Voice: Musings on Our Premortal Existence and Other Things

I am really beginning to like this Google Voice thing!  It allows me, using my smartphone, to "put my thoughts down on paper" as it were, much more quickly than if I had to type everything.  Here are some things that that I told Google Voice today about the Mormon doctrine of premortality.


What we refer to as the light of Christ is simply an eternal power or presence that has existed forever in conjunction with the material intelligence that makes up the infinite universe. What we refer to as the commandments of God are simply eternal laws governing the way the universe works. If we ever desire the ability to govern the material intelligence that makes up the universe in such a way to have dominion over it, we must learn how to live by the laws that have been established for the governance of it. In attempting to usurp God's glory, and to replace God's plan of salvation for something different, Lucifer became Satan by trying to disrespect and get around the eternal laws that have governed countless other gods and other earths throughout the history of eternity.

Romans chapter 8:29-30 teaches that God foreknew us in premortality and called us to certain assignments and responsibilities in mortality. Mormons have a tendency to think that only a small select group of Mormons fit that category. However it's much more optimistic, expansive, and correct, I think, to imagine that billions of God's children who will never experience Mormonism on this earth were also given certain special foreordinations and assignments in premortality to fulfill here on the earth, for example the great inventions that have improved technology that allows us to live in comfort and allow the gospel of Jesus Christ to be shared in a much more effective manner across the earth.

When Abraham chapter 3 ( in the pearl of great price) talks about the many noble and great ones who helped organize the earth in pre mortality I think Mormon folklore has a tendency to conjure up a limited view in the minds of its members of who that might've been that helped to organize the earth. First of all we seldom think of women as having had that opportunity, but I think that just as many women helped organize the earth as men, and maybe more. Secondly we seem to think that only those who were valiant enough to have become Mormons in this earth life were valiant enough to have helped organize the earth, which i think is incorrect.

Page 28 and 29 of the teachings of Harold B Lee says that the spirits were organized by our Heavenly Father and dwelt with him while the earth was being formed--and then he says “now may I ask you a simple question: could there have been a father in heaven without a mother?” He goes on to say that if you consider carefully the words of Genesis chapter 1 verses 26 and 27 where it says in whose image and likeness male and female were created, I wonder if you will not also discover the organizers [plural] of intelligences in the world of spirits. You know that our heavenly mother had just as much to do with the organization of spirits and the teaching of the spirits in pre mortality as our heavenly father did.

Where did we--and I think other religions--get this idea that a limited number of God's children will make it back to the presence of God? I think it can largely be found in a misinterpretation of Christ’s statement that “straight is the gate and narrow is the way and few there be to find it”. If we confine ourselves to an understanding of how many people find the truth and the gospel in this life, then I think that's an accurate interpretation of what Christ meant, but I feel like in post mortality there will be millions and billions of people who receive the first chance since pre mortality to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, and when they recognize the truth, will accept the truth because this is the same truth that they accepted in what Mormons call their first estate as pre mortality and the second state being earth life and I suppose we could refer to the Third and final Estate as that immortality following earth life.

Ezra Taft Benson taught that nothing will be more pleasantly surprising than how familiar our heavenly fathers face is to us when we return to him again, and I think by extrapolation equally familiar will be the face of our Heavenly Mother. In the book of Revelation it says that those who overcome and succeed in this life will have the privilege of partaking of the tree of life. Looking back at the symbolism of the tree of life referring to our Heavenly Mother that is quite a magnificent statement. We know relatively little about her, but one of the things that we do know is that she exists. Another thing we know is that she is our mother that she loves us, and that we are familiar with her face, and that we will see her again, and that we will greatly enjoy her company again, as we did in premortality.

We commonly used the word intelligence to refer to how smart someone is. Modern day revelation refers to it with two other definitions: one is the infinite quantity of matter that exists throughout the universe that can be organized and shaped into entities that can have sentence and self-determination. The other definition regards those intelligent entities themselves, that have the ability to move and think and have their agency to make choices and to experience life.

A word that I think Mormons by culture and tradition regularly misuse is the term valiant. I'm a bit disappointed by the performances that came out when I was a kid entitled Saturday's Warrior and My Turn on Earth, because these plays gave off the impression that only a small few Mormon-type people had been valiant enough to come to earth in what we refer to as these latter days to share the Gospel with those millions of other people who apparently were far less valiant than we were. This is a terrible mistake in my opinion and it does not comport with the doctrines of the Church. It is very likely that people with disabilities, people who live in much less favorable circumstances than I, etc. were far more valiant in pre mortality than I was. But I think the most important point here is to have the optimism and the expansive perspective that far more of our heavenly Father's and heavenly mother's children were valiant than we traditionally give credit for in Mormon culture.

So in Matthew chapter 24 and in the Doctrine and Covenants where it talks about Christ's return when the Saints still living on the earth will be caught up to meet him when he returns, I think it makes a lot more sense to think that there will be millions of non Mormons who fit this category who rise up to meet Christ at his return and I suspect that there will be a few Mormons who don't rise up who aren't interested in meeting Christ when he returns.