Mortality, a Boon: Man Is Immortal

Mortality, a Boon — Man is Immortal

By James E. Talmage, of the Council of the Twelve

I — Earth Life an Advancement

In the first chapter of Genesis we find an impressive sum-

mary of the creative processes whereby the earth was made ready

for human occupancy. Then, in the fourth and fifth verses of

the second chapter we read that all the great developments of

earlier record, including the creation of man, had been effected

before a single plant had sprung from the soil, and while yet

"there was not a man to till the ground." Two states of exist-

ence or distinct creations are plainly indicated — the first, a spir-

itual and the later an earthly embodiment.

Through the latter-day prophet, Joseph Smith, a more com-

prehensive account of creative events, as originally revealed to

Moses, has been given us. Thus in the section corresponding

a« to subject with Gen. 2:5, we read: "For I, the Lord God,

created all things, of which I have spoken, spiritually before

they were naturally upon the face of the earth." (Pearl of Great

Price, Moses 3:5). Furthermore, following the record of the

creation of man in the flesh, it is written: "Nevertheless, all

things were before created; but spiritually were they created and

made according to my word." (par. 7).

Man in his mortal state, therefore, is the union of a pre-

existent spirit with a body composed of earthly elements. This

union of spirit and body marks progress from the unembodied

to the embodied condition, and is an inestimable advancement

in the soul's onward course. As already shown, the penalty in-

curred by proud Lucifer and his rebel hordes for their attempt

to thwart the divine purpose in the matter of man's agency, was

the doom of being denied bodies of flesh. Mortal birth is a

boon to which only those spirits who kept their first estate are

eligible. (See Jude 6). Expressive of the awful state of the

utterly unregenerate among men, of those who have sunk to

such depths in sin as to become "sons of perdition," the Lord has

applied the extreme malediction, that for such it were better

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never to have been born. (See Matt. 26:24; Doctrine and Cove-

nants 76:32.)

The blessedness of advancement to the mortal state lies in

the possibilities of achievement therein. Mortality is the prepar-

atory school for eternity. Its curriculum is comprehensive and

exacting. In its laboratories we pupils meet the experiences

that test and try to conclusive demonstration the individual

effect of precept and profession. For the founding and main-

tenance of this school the earth was created. In Genesis the

great truth is evidenced by the placing of man upon the earth

as the crowning work of creation; and in Scripture written by

Abraham and given anew to the world through a latter-day

prophet, the sublimity of the divine intent is plainly set forth:

"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; And God saw these souls that they were good,

and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my

rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they

were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou

wast chosen before thou wast born. And there stood one among them that

was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will

go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and

we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them

herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God

shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added

upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the

same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep

their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads forever and

ever." (Pearl of Great Price, Abraham 3:22-26).

The great Preceptor among men is Jesus the Christ, the

Redeemer and Savior, through whom the gospel of salvation has

been introduced, by compliance with which any and every soul

may be saved. His mission is the carrying out of the Father's

plan, the purpose of which is thus expressed in the Father's

words:

"For behold, this is my work and my glory — to bring to

pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Pearl of Great

Price, Moses 1:39).

One may reasonably inquire: If birth be advancement, is

not death retrogression? The decisive answer is No. Satan's

power over the body, as manifested in death, is but temporary.

Through the redemption wrought by Jesus Christ, every soul

shall be resurrected, with spirit and body reunited, even as

Christ literally died, and then appeared "the firstborn from the

dead" (Col. 1:18), His spirit retabernacled in the body of flesh

and bones. In the eternal union of spirit and body lie the pos-

sibilities of salvation and exaltation. Again do the illuminating

beams of later revelations banish obscurity:

MORALITY, A BOON 475

"For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit

and element, inseparably connected, receiveth a fulness of joy."

(Doctrine and Covenants 93:33).

// — Successive Stages of Existence

There are four states, conditions, or stages in the advance-

ment of the individual soul, specified in Sacred Writ. These are

(1) the unembodied, (2) the embodied, (3) the disembodied,

and (4) the resurrected state.

In other words, (1) every one of us lived in an antemortal

existence as an individual spirit; (2) we are now in the advanced

or mortal stage of progress; (3) we shall live in a disembodied

state after death, which is but a separation of spirit and body;

(4) and in due time each of us, whether righteous or sinful, shall

be resurrected from the dead with spirit and body reunited and

never again to be separated.

As to the certainty of the antemortal state, commonly

spoken of as preexistence, the Scriptures are explicit. Our

Lord Jesus Christ repeatedly averred that He had lived before

He was born in flesh (see John 6:62; 8:58; 16:28; 17:5); and

as with Him so with the spirits of all who have become or yet

shall become mortal.

We were severally brought into being, as spirits, in that pre-

existent 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 Abra-

ham, to whom the facts were revealed, as a process of organiza-

tion, 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, Abraham 3:22).

The human mind finds difficulty in apprehending the actu-

ality of infinite or eternal process, either from the present on-

ward 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 hu-

man comprehension cannot be?

In the antemortal eternities we developed with individual

differences and varied capacities. So far as we can peer into

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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 among us while we are

mortal.

"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 dis-

position 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 em-

phasize the facts of heredity to the exclusion of preexistent

traits and attributes of the individual spirit as factors in the

determination of character.

The spirit lived as an organized intelligence before it be-

came the embodied child of human parents; and its preexistent

individualism will be of effect in its period of earth-life. Even

though the manifestations of primeval personality be largely

smothered under the tendencies due to bodily and prenatal in-

fluence, it is there, and makes its mark. This is in analogy with

the recognized laws of physical operation — every force acting

upon a body produces its definite effect whether it acts alone

or with other and even opposing forces.

The genesis of every soul lies back in the eternity past, be-

yond the horizon of our full comprehension, and what we call a

beginning is as truly a consummation and an ending, just as

mortal birth is at once the inauguration of earth-life and the

termination of the stage of antemortal existence.

The facts are thus set forth in the revealed word of God :

"// there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent

than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more

intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed be-

fore, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are

gnolaum, or eternal." (Abraham 3:18).

To every stage of development, as to every human life, there

is beginning and end; but each stage is a definite fraction of

eternal process, which is without beginning or end. Man is of

eternal nature and divine lineage.