Outlines of Mormon Philosophy: Or the Answers Given by the Gospel, as Revealed Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, to the Questions of LifeWilson, Lycurgus A. (Lycurgus Arnold)
Religion
Outlines of Mormon Philosophy: Or the Answers Given by the Gospel, as Revealed Through the Prophet Joseph Smith, to the Questions of Life
Wilson, Lycurgus A. (Lycurgus Arnold)
Latter Day Saint churches -- Doctrines
Perhaps our best conception of chaos, in miniature, may be had by
observing the floating, restless, erratic particles of matter to be
seen in the path of a ray of sunshine, when admitted into a dark room.
One's uppermost longing at such a time is to introduce order into this
jarring, discordant sphere. And that condition and that sentiment have
no doubt met before. The psychologist would trace the desire back
to a time before the formation of Kolob, when myriads of eternal,
self-existent spirits lived in the midst of boundless space, surrounded
by unlimited, indestructible, unorganized matter, in a universal chaos.
It may be asked if there ever was such a chaotic condition. So far as
the creations of God are concerned, it would appear that there was, for
we are informed that Kolob is the "first creation." [19]
Turn now from this chaos in the streak of sunshine, chaos in the small,
and let the mind contemplate that chaos at large, before any of the
vast concourse of worlds that roll in space were formed, when the
matter composing Kolob was yet unorganized; and the first desire that
presents itself to the mind is to know how all this beautiful system by
which we are not surrounded was evolved from that riot of matter, where
this order had its inception, how God came to be God.
In what is without doubt the most wonderful revelation ever given
to mankind, in that it reaches the farthest back and states some of
the most important truths, the Prophet Joseph Smith, speaking at the
funeral of Elder King Follett, at Nauvoo, explains in the simplest
terms the sublime conception.[20]
First, however, let him state his purpose:
"In order to understand the subject of the dead, for the consolation of
those who mourn for the loss of their friends, it is necessary that we
should understand the character and being of God, and how He came to be
so; for I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined
and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that
idea, and will take away and do away the vail, so that you may see."
The mind is here carried back to a time antedating anything of which we
have an account anywhere else in the world, and that there may be no
doubt as to the time and the personage referred to, the Prophet is very
explicit.
With reference to the time he says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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