The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day SaintsTalmage, James E. (James Edward)
Religion
The Vitality of Mormonism: Brief Essays on Distinctive Doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Talmage, James E. (James Edward)
Latter Day Saint churches; Latter Day Saints
We were severally brought into being, as spirits, in that preexistent
condition, literally the children of the Supreme Being whom Jesus
Christ worshiped and addressed as Father. Do we not read that the
Eternal Father is "the God of the spirits of all flesh" (Numb. 16:22;
27:16), and more specifically that He is "the Father of spirits"? (Heb.
12:9.) In the light of these Scriptures it is plainly true that the
spirits of mankind were there begotten and born into what we call the
preexistent or antemortal condition.
The primeval spirit birth is expressively described by Abraham to whom
the facts were revealed, as a process of organization and the spirits
so advanced are designated as intelligences: "Now the Lord had shown
unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the
world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great
ones." (Pearl of Great Price, p. 65.)
The human mind finds difficulty in apprehending the actuality of
infinite or eternal process, either from the present onward to and
beyond what we call in a relative sense perfection, on, on, without
end; or backward through receding stages that had no beginning. But who
will affirm that things beyond human comprehension cannot be?
In the antemortal eternities we developed with individual differences
and varied capacities. So far as we can peer into the past by the
aid of revealed light we see that there was always gradation of
intelligence, and consequently of ability, among the spirits, precisely
as such differences exist amongst us mortals.
"That all men are created equal" is true in the sense in which that
telling epigram was written into the scriptures of the Nation as a
self-evident truth; for such laws as men enact in righteousness provide
for the protection of individual rights on a basis of equality and
recognize no discriminating respect of persons. But if applied as
meaning that all men are born with equal capacities, or even inherent
abilities in like measure for each, the aphorism becomes absurd and
manifestly false.
Every spirit born in the flesh is an individual character, and brings
to the body prepared for its tenancy a nature all its own. The
tendencies, likes and dislikes, in short the whole disposition of the
spirit may be intensified or changed by the course of mortal life,
and the spirit may advance or retrograde while allied with its mortal
tabernacle. Students of the so-called science with a newly coined name,
Eugenics, are prone to emphasize the facts of heredity to the exclusion
of preexistent traits and attributes of the individual spirit as
factors in the determination of character.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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