Over at Mormon Evolution, Jeffrey Gilham raises the issue of pre-existence and whether or not it conflicts with evolution. This is a problem because, according to one of the major authorities in the Church:
...every form of life had a spirit existence in that eternal world before it came to dwell naturally upon the face of the earth; and that prior existence, for all forms of life, was one in which the spirit entity had the exact form and likeness of its present temporal body. Animals, plants, fowls, fishes, all forms of life existed as spirit entities in pre-existence; their number, extent, variety, and form were known with exactitude before ever the foundations of this earth were laid. They were all destined to live in their time and season upon this particular globe. There was no chance whatever connected with the creative enterprises.
...continued in full post
This would seem to imply, no need for doctors, since sickness, health, disease, injury, and recovery therefrom, are all predestined. There is no need to prevent accidents or guard against injury or misfortune of any kind, since every living being's exact form is laid out and predestined. There's no need to keep that one-year supply of food (and water, medicine, and money) around the house, since you'll never need it.
I've yet to see a Mormon who behaves as if he believes that. I think any who did all starved to death or qualified for Darwin awards.
However, it seems the modern notion of pre-existence may not be quite the same as that of Joseph Smith.
Joseph Smith did not distinguish between a time before which these spirits/intelligences were organized and a time after they were "born" as "spirit children"--in fact, the contemporary Mormon notion that God is the literal father of individual spirits through spirit birth would probably have been foreign to him. He taught that spirits were eternal and uncreated and used the terms "spirits" and "intelligences" synonymously. <snip> The Book of Mormon inculcated the belief that humanity existed in God's presence--at least, on a mythic level – prior to the Fall, and identified all humans with Adam in a corporate existence.
It's interesting to compare this with the Kabbalah.
The Sefir Yetzirah mentions the notion of ten directions: left and right, forward and backward, up and down, future and past, and a moral axis – toward good and toward evil. Humans can move in three spatial dimensions for six directions. We move into the future at a fixed rate, and can do precious little to stop it. We have some choice over our moral direction.
God (or, if I were a Jewish Kabbalist, I'd be writing G-D) can move freely along all five axes in all ten dimensions. He can move freely in all ten directions. Presumably, he shapes events in such a way that creation is steered toward the maximum possible good.
Perhaps God sees the entire range of possible structures in the five-dimensional universe, and sees all the possible paths spiritual entities can take as they are enter the physical realm, move through their lives, and leave. And indeed, as in the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics, every possibility is taken every time a choice is made. The only real choice that is made is which path the spirit decides to accompany.
Perhaps, while the entire structure exists and is fixed in all five dimensions, infinite in height, width, depth, through all time and from ultimate good to ineffible evil, we, from the perspective of the sparks of spirit that travel this network, have the choice of where we'll go and where we'll wind up.
And then again, maybe it is all random.
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