A Rational Theology, as Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day SaintsWidtsoe, John Andreas
Religion
A Rational Theology, as Taught by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints
Widtsoe, John Andreas
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- Doctrines; Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines; Theology
Lucifer, a great leader in the Council, proposed that, since others
were acting for man in bringing him on and taking him away from the
earth, it was not necessary for man, during his earth-career, to
exercise his own will. Lucifer proposed that, in spite of himself, his
will, his desires and his individuality, man should be placed on
earth, and be taken from it, and without effort, be filled with a
knowledge of earth conditions. All men should be forced into
salvation. Jesus Christ, who became the Savior of men, objected to
this change in God's plan, as it interfered with the essential right
of intelligent beings to act for themselves. Jesus insisted that, as
without will there can be no growth, man, placed on earth through the
agency of Adam and resurrected and brought into a full life through
the agency of Jesus, should retain, during his earth-career, his full
free agency. Though he might walk an forgetfulness of the past, and
have no visions of the future, he would yet be allowed a free and
untrammeled agency as he walked in the clearness of the earth's day.
While upon earth he might learn much or little, might accept a law or
reject it, just as he had been, privileged to do in all the days that
had gone before.
These two views regarding man's part in the plan led, we
are told, to a great difference of opinion among the spirits.
Naturally, the first proposition appealed to many, for it is the easy
way of obtaining victory, if victory it may be called. The other way
seems always somewhat hard and bitter, though in the end the joy
obtained surpasses that attained without effort. Lucifer, who led the
fight for the first method, could not agree to the original plan which
was finally accepted; and so, in that great, dim day, many of the
spirits followed Lucifer, and have not yet entered upon their
earth-careers, but are independently and in opposition to God's
will, following paths that are not leading them onward. The majority
accepted God's law, as championed by the Son, though it is said that
many weak and fearful spirits remained neutral, daring neither to
accept nor to reject either proposition. The hosts who accepted the
plan of God, girded themselves with the necessary strength to begin
the pilgrimage, ending in an earthly death, but reaching, through the
resurrection, into an eternal life of exceedingly great progress.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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