Many religions and philosophies teach the false doc- trine of “Predestination.” To quote from one such teaching, “God misleadeth whom He pleaseth and guideth whom he will aright.” Those who believe that, or in similar doctrine, also believe falsely that man’s life and being are directed by a controlling god. This concept makes it easy for those who wish to rationalize their wayward behavior. They may say, “It isn’t my fault for what I do or what I am. God is to blame for He made me as I am and I can’t help it!” There is very little reason or incentive to try to improve ourselves or progress in life if we have the false idea that, “I am what God chose to make me.” That’s the Popeye doctrine: “I yam what I yam!”
I have heard people speak, primarily at funerals, as if Heavenly Father had a hand in the death of the individual being eulogized. People, in and out of the church, attribute things to God, such as tragic events or even illness afflicting an individual, events that Heavenly Father had nothing to do with. Heavenly Father seldom intervenes or interferes in the lives of His children in mortality. If He did, then the churches of the world would be correct in their belief in the doctrine of predestination, meaning that God decides who dies and when, who contracts cancer and who doesn’t. That is a diabolical doctrine that makes God out to be a cruel and unpredictable despot.
The restored Gospel of Jesus Christ enlightens us to know that Heavenly Father is a loving, merciful God, who gave us a plan and the light of Christ to guide us through mortality. We agreed to this plan in the pre-earth existence, as His spirit children. He told us that we would experience life’s trials and tribulations and that they would be for our good, that we would learn from them. Latter-day scriptures inform us that without the trials, we would never know good from evil, nor feel the joy that comes from obedience to His laws. Given our agency, we make choices regarding the direction we will take in life in general and even on a daily basis. If we choose to do things contrary to His law, we will suffer the consequences of our actions. We cause the consequences, not God. When our consequences are mostly positive, obviously, we have learned to be obedient and faithful servants. Our whole purpose in life is to one day experience a fullness of joy, knowing that we overcame all things, at least all the hurdles mortality has posed for us.
It stands to reason that if God determined our fate and we could not choose our own direction, to determine our destiny, then whom would we blame for the ills that befall us? Of course, we would blame Him. And rightly so. Many people have lost their faith in a merciful God because they have been falsely taught to understand that He determines everything, and so they blame Him for all earthly suffering. It is often human nature to look for a scapegoat to blame for our problems.
Does God ever intercede? Yes, but only when prayers of faith have been demonstrated and the causes are just. Faith is a power that seems to trump or transcend earthly law and, when appropriate, provides some relief for the faithful.
We must always praise God for this life, this school, as harsh as it may seem at times. Yes, curse our misfortunes, if we must, but not God, and know that we would not be as strong as we are or be progressing, as we should, if we had never experienced our trials and misfortunes. This life is a part of His great plan for His children, to give us experience and to prepare us for future progress in the eternities. Life represents the silversmith’s refining furnace, where we are refined by the heat of our trials and that refining sometimes takes a lot of heat, more heat than we would like.
God foreordained many of His children to important earthly responsibilities, but He does not predestine that they will live worthy to be called to, or to perform the mission they were foreordained to do.
I believe that one of the greatest revelations given to man, through a prophet of God, was that man is co-eternal with God. As an individual entity (Intelligence), man has always existed and always will exist in one form and place or another.
The second most important revelation pertains to man’s relation- ship to God: that we are His spirit offspring whom He loves and wants to bless. As such, we have the potential to become whatever we choose to become. We are limited only by our innate abilities(or talents) and our personal drive to become.
The third most important revelation (I believe) given to man is the revelation that assures us that we are agents unto ourselves, meaning that we have the freedom to choose. God has given us guidelines which, if followed, will make it possible for us to find joy and fulfillment while we sojourn here in mortality. Our agency, however, allows us to choose to be obedient to those guidelines or disobedient. We are also given to understand that with that agency, we are responsible for the consequences of the choices we make. We can’t blame God, or anyone else, for bad choices.
Along with that agency, however, God has provided a way to rectify our mistakes or bad choices, through a process of humbling ourselves, expressing sorrow, and making retribution, where possible. The repentance process leads to forgiveness of the mistakes we make. Man’s destiny is eternal in nature, meaning that while here and throughout all eternity we may aspire to try to become like our Father. We can become whatever we are capable of becom- ing. Progression and/or self improvement should be the modus operandi of those who have been enlightened by these revelations.
The “Plan of Salvation” has several names such as “The Plan of Happiness” and “Plan of Progression.” That name is in reference to our progress from the pre-mortal world to earth life, to the spirit world and then to a kingdom of glory. The Father’s plan calls for us to be progressive. We are meant to learn, grow, and serve throughout all eternity. “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) This was the admonition of the Savior. The statement was hardly meant to be a challenge or a goal to be accomplished while we are yet in this mortal state. Nor does it mean that our perfection can ever equal the Father’s perfection. Our perfection will be limited by our given talents, but it is our responsibility to perfect the talents we have been given.
I believe many of us misunderstand the parable of the talents.
The scripture in Matthew 5:48: “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” is our green light to go for it. But, we have to remember that we are not competing with God. Our perfection will be based on the talents we have been given or the level of our own intelligence, not Heavenly Father’s. The parable of the talents describes very well what each of our responsibilities are. If I have been given 2 talents, I must strive to increase or perfect those two talents. But I am not competing against he who was given 5 talents. We can only perfect ourselves based on the talents or intelligence we were given.
It has been written that “The mind of man is like a captive eagle which forever frets at its hateful tethers.” This is only true for those who can still see the blue sky where they yearn to soar. Take away their dream and sooner or later they will no longer fret at their tethers but rather accept the limitations they impose on them- selves. This is the same mindset that tethers those who believe that man is predestined by a controlling god of their own making.
But, as enlightened latter-day saints, we know that “The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.” And any glory that we may attain unto will come by the same source, light and truth. (D&C 93:36)
In referring to this statement, President Wilford Woodruff said, (paraphrased) “We qualified in the pre-earth existence to come to earth and now, if we can live worthy while here, we will go into eternity where we can continue to grow and progress until at some point in the eons of time we will eventually become perfect.” In President Woodruff ’s mind, that challenge to become perfect, was a challenge for the eternities, not just for this life only.
The Prophet Joseph Smith agreed with that statement as he said, “When you climb up a ladder, you must begin at the bottom, and ascend step by step, until you arrive at the top; and so it is with the principles of the gospel—you must begin with the first, and go on until you learn all the principles of exaltation. But it will be a great while after you have passed through the veil [died] before you will have learned them. It is not all to be comprehended in this world; it will be a great work to learn our salvation and exaltation even beyond the grave.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, P. 348)
The importance of love is one enlightenment that should be obvious. The first commandment is to love God and then one another. The simplicity of it slips right through our minds without us really grasping its importance and significance. If we could only dwell on that one commandment and truly understand it, and then to develop the capacity to do so, nothing else would matter; as Paul said, “All else is no more than tinkling cymbals and sounding brass,” in other words, all else is noise. All the other commandments hang on the first, “that ye love one another—by this ye shall know my disciples, for they shall have love one for another.” As Jacob, the brother of Nephi, says in the fourth chapter of Jacob, “…wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls.” May God bless us to incorporate His principles into our very fabric and life.