161 Comments »

1. I should say that I am uncertain about the doctrine of a literal spirit birth, but I am hesistant to rule it out. That said, a couple of responses may get the ball rolling. The line in the post that made me laugh the most was:

   Perhaps the best authoritative argument against literal spirit birth is that Joseph Smith never taught it

   First of all, Joseph Smith not teaching something can hardly be considered authoritative evidence against it. The logical fallacy is obvious. Blake points to Joseph’s teaching that the mind of man is self-existent as evidence that Joseph did not believe in spirit birth. Mark articulated a very reasonable way (here)of interpreting all the quotes Blake lists that would not rule out spirit birth. So what we have is: Joseph Smith never addressed the issue directly, and virtually every prophet from then till now has believed in a literal spirit birth. This doctrine has also worked its way into quasi-official statements of church doctrine like the famous 1909 statement of the first presidency and the more recent proclamation to the world on the family. Those statements don’t settle the matter, but let’s not just toss out a deeply ingrained doctrine of the church if the strongest evidence against it is that Joseph Smith never specifically taught it.

   Comment by Jacob — June 18, 2006 @ 9:54 pm

2. I know some have speculated that there is plural marriage in the Celestial spheres but I don’t believe that for a second and frankly find the notion disrespectful to women. As Jacob hinted at in the Book of Mormon, plural marriage might have been expedient for practical earthly reasons in many instances but I do not believe it will be so among exalted persons.

   A very interesting post, though I do hold to the literal viviparous birth doctrine. I also agree with the point made by Jacob (comment #1).

   However, the above quote is something with which I must take issue. I certainly have no desire to practice polygamy, but to say it is not practiced in Celestial realms is obviously false. Harold B. Lee is a fine example, though certainly not the only one (Brigham Young being far more prominent, for instance). Harold B. Lee was sealed to a wife who died. He later remarried and was sealed to this second wife, while still remaining sealed to his first. He wrote this little poem in honor of both of his wives:

   My lovely Joan was sent to me;
   So Joan joins Fern
   That three might be, more fitted for eternity.
   “O Heavenly Father, my thanks to thee”

   I don’t believe plural marriage is a requirement of the Celestial Kingdom (despite some comments from Brigham Young, the exact meaning of which can be debated), but it certainly will exist there.

   But again, I really like this post.

   Comment by Jonathan R. — June 18, 2006 @ 10:43 pm

3. Come on Jacob, the sentence in the post reads: “Perhaps the best authoritative argument against literal spirit birth is that Joseph Smith never taught it and indeed taught many things that are specifically contrary to the notion of a literal spirit birth.” One can try to creatively interpret what Joseph meant (we all do this at times) but it is hard to deny that he said spirits have no beginning.

   I certainly agree with Mark that there are aspects or parts of our spirits/intelligences that are not beginningless and I have shown on several occasions that our current personal identity is fleeting, but I think you will have a very difficult time defending this assertion: “virtually every prophet from then till now has believed in a literal spirit birth.” I will look forward to you to backing that one up — especially with prophets in the last 100 years. Statements about “heavenly parents” are not sufficient to defend literal viviparous spirit birth in my opinion. We can have literal heavenly parents without celestial labor pains after all.

   Comment by Geoff J — June 18, 2006 @ 11:22 pm

4. Jonathan,

   I can see that this subject (plural marriage or not among exalted persons) would likely lead to a major threadjack so I’ll leave alone here. Look for posts and papers related to that subject in the future though. I want us to stay on the subject of literal spirit birth in this thread.

   Comment by Geoff J — June 18, 2006 @ 11:29 pm

5. Geoff,

   Sorry, I didn’t intend to pull a fast one by citing only half of your sentence, but I can see why you would be upset. I took your sentence to be two separate arguments (1) Joseph never taught that there was a spriti birth, (2) Joseph taught things contrary to spirit birth. I addressed these as two arguments, but this may have misrepresented your view.

   I think the fact that Joseph never taught it is a weak argument, as I said. The second half of that argument–that Joseph taught things contrary to the notion of a literal spirit birth–is hardly clear. Mark’s comment (which I linked to) offers a very reasonable way of interpreting the statement of Joseph you offer as evidence that he did not believe in spirit birth. Thus, your “best authoritative argument” consisting of (1) and (2) does not seem to pack much punch for me.

   I will put off defending my statement that ‘virtually every prophet since Joseph has believed in spirit birth’ for a later comment. Frankly, I am surprised you disagree. However, it is possible that research will lead me to recant.

   In the mean time, let me say something about your statement that Joseph certainly said spirits have no beginning:

   In the first quote, Joseph is reported to have said: The Spirit of Man is not a created being; it existed from Eternity & will exist to eternity. Anything created cannot be Eternal. & earth, water &c-all these had their existence in an elementary State from Eternity.” The part I italicized shows Joseph himself making room for a distinction between an “eternal” part of the spirit and a spirit body.

   In another, he is reported to have said: “the mind of man-the mind of man is as immortal as God himself.” The idea that the “mind” is the self-existent part, and not the spirit body, is exactly what a person believing in spirit birth is likely to argue, and here Joseph speaks in precisely this language. Other KFD accounts back up that language.

   So, while I admit that I am trying to understand Joseph’s meaning, I don’t find these quotes definitive as to Joseph’s position, and saying that he “indeed taught many things that are specifically contrary” seems like a bit of a stretch. Of course, I don’t discount Blake’s argument.

   Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 12:03 am

6. This may not be something we want to go into in this thread, but I am much more concerned with the idea of have 100 billion first generation children who then go on to form a completely new family structure with 6 to 8 first generation children each, than the precise mechanics of how a person gets a spirit body. Switching back and forth between a fan-out of 100 billion and a fan-out of 10 on an eternal pedigree chart looks more than a little inelegant to me.

   The second more relevant issue is why does it make sense to have two fathers and two mothers in the long run. It seems to me that our spiritual father will generally yield to our earthly father, and spiritual mother to our earthly mother. Otherwise the doctrine of sealings seems rather without purpose.

   Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 12:04 am

7. That should be “descendancy chart”

   Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 1:17 am

8. I’m sorry to have to do it, but Geoff (in #3) threw down the gauntlet and dared me to back my assertion that “virtually every prophet from then till now has believed in a literal spirit birth” (#1). I went ahead and added an entry for Joseph Smith, just for fun:

   Joseph Smith — “But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.” (D&C 132:63, emphasis mine)

   Now, just what does this phrase “bear the souls of men” mean? I’ll be very interested to see how you interpret this.

   “Several of the Prophet’s associates did not hesitate later to attribute their knowledge of premortal spirit birth to his teachings. Parley P. Pratt, for instance, later recollected that in the latter part of 1839 he spent several days with Joseph Smith in which he learned “many great and glorious principles concerning God and the heavenly order of eternity.” Reflecting back on his impressions received during these conversations with the Prophet, Pratt wrote, “I felt that God was my Heavenly Father indeed, that Jesus was my brother.” Benjamin F. Johnson wrote late in life of Joseph Smith, “He taught us that God was the great head of human procreation–was really and truly the father of both our spirits and our bodies.” (The Development of the Doctrine of Preexistence, 1830-1844 by Charles R. Harrell Fn, BYU Studies, vol. 28 (1988), Number 2 - Spring 1988 89.)

   Brigham Young - As if it’s necessary: “I tell you, when you see your Father in heaven, you will see Adam; when you see your mother that bore your spirit, you will see mother Eve.” (Manuscript Addresses of Brigham Young, Oct. 8, 1854)

   John Taylor — A “hymn written also for the dedication by John Taylor eulogized Joseph Smith in these words: Of noble seed–of heavenly birth” (The Development of the Doctrine of Preexistence, 1830-1844 by Charles R. Harrell Fn, BYU Studies, vol. 28 (1988), Number 2 - Spring 1988 89.)

   Wilford Woodruff — I have nothing for Wilford.

   Lorenzo Snow — We were born in the image of God our Father; He begot us like unto Himself. There is the nature of deity in the composition of our spiritual organization; in our spiritual birth our Father transmitted to us the capabilities, powers and faculties which He Himself possessed-as much so as the child on its mother’s bosom possesses, although in an undeveloped state, the faculties, powers, and susceptibilities of its parent. (14 January 1872, JD, 14:302.)

   Joseph F. Smith - In a statement of the First Presidency: “man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father,”

   Heber J. Grant — I don’t have a Teachings of Heber J. Grant in my GospelLink.

   George Albert Smith - “Children are the offspring of God, their spirits were begotten in the holy heavens of our Father, and they are given to us for our blessing.” (Conference Reports, October 1907, p. 36.)

   David O McKay — Again, no Teachings of David O. McKay on my GospelLink.

   Joseph Fielding Smith - “If we are his offspring, then how did we become such, if we had no mother to give us spirit birth?” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1957-1966], 3: 143.)

   Harold B. Lee - “That great hymn “O My Father” puts it correctly when Eliza R. Snow wrote, “In the heav’ns are parents single? No, the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason; truth eternal tells me I’ve a mother there.” Born of a Heavenly Mother, sired by a Heavenly Father, we knew Him, we were in His house” (Harold B. Lee, The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, edited by Clyde J. Williams [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1996], 22.)

   Spencer W. Kimball - For this one, I do have a Teachings of Specer W. Kimball, and the best it has is: “You [women] are daughters of God. You are precious. You are made in the image of our heavenly Mother.” (Spencer W. Kimball, The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, edited by Edward L. Kimball [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1982], 25.)

   Ezra Taft Benson - “It is a fundamental of our religion that we had a pre-earthly existence. That we are the literal offspring of God has been a cardinal teaching of the Lord’s prophets in all ages.” (Ezra Taft Benson, The Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1988], 23 - 24.)

   Howard W. Hunter - “The brotherhood of man is literal. We are all of one blood and the literal spirit offspring of our eternal Heavenly Father.” (Howard W. Hunter, The Teachings of Howard W. Hunter, edited by Clyde J. Williams [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997], 10.)

   Gordon B. Hinkley - In a statement of the First Presidency “The Family”: “Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny.”

   Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 1:28 am

9. I think Jacob wins. I don’t have the time to research it right now, but statements regarding literal spirit birth seem to abound.

   Comment by Eric — June 19, 2006 @ 5:46 am

10. Look at Joseph’s statements again. I don’t believe that they are ambiguous on the eternity of the spirit:

    “The Spirit of Man is not a created being; it existed from Eternity & will exist to eternity” — “But the idea seemed to be that the soul of man, the spirit, had existed from eternity in the bosom of Divinity” — “the spirit or the intelligence of men are self Existent principles before the foundation this Earth” — -”the soul the inner Spirit-of God man says created in the beginning the very idea lessens man in my idea-I don’t believe the doctrine hear it all ye Ends of the World for God has told me so I am going to tell of things more noble-we say that God himself is a selfexisting God, who told you so, how did it get it into your head who told you that man did not exist in like manner-how does it read in the Hebrews that God made man & put into it Adam’s Spirit & so became a living Spirit-the mind of man-the mind of man is as immortal as God himself

    Joseph could hardly have been clearer. The spirit is uncreated and exists on self-existent principles. Mark’s assertion that the Spirit cannot have a bodily form unless it is spiritually begotten (that Jacob accepts as an argument) is a non-sequitur. I would like to see the argument to support that assertion rather than merely assuming it cannot be so.

    I acknowledge that some latter-day prophets have assumed the notion of a mother in heaven. However, in doing so they are taking Eliza Snow as their prophet rather than Joseph. Look again at the quote from BY in #8. It arises from his adoption of the Adam-God theory. Eliza Snow’s doctrine of a Mother in Heaven viewed Eve as this mother in heaven and Adam as the Father of our spirits. If that is the basis of the doctrine, as I believe the historical documents amply support, then it is not merely contrary to what JS taught, it is also contrary to what those latter-day prophets believed and taught.

    I believe the idea arises from a misunderstanding of JS’s statement in the before 8 August 1839 statement: “He, (Adam) is the Father of the human family & presides over the Spirits of all men, & all that have had the Keys must stand before him in this great Council.”

    So I view the notion of the mother in heaven as originating in a cultural overbelief (a mere ball that got rolling with a misunderstanding of an authoritative statement), was first elucidated as part of BY’s and Eliza’s Adam God doctrine, and then got baptized by Joseph F. Smith. The statement in D&C 132 to which Mark refers only refers to mortal birth in which spirits enter bodies thru being begotten into this world.

    Where is the revelation to support this amazingly new doctrine that contradicts Joseph’s statements that the spirit is uncreated and exists on self-existing principles? Without revelation, the people stumble and walk in darkness. Without revelation, the notion has no more status than a cultural overbelief that got adopted by latter-day prophets who thought that earlier prophets had received a revelation about it when they hadn’t. I acknowledge that Benjamin Johnson claimed that JS taught him such a notion — but his recollections are late and contain many other ideas that are demonstrably later than JS but which are still arributred to him. Johnson has conflated the times he learned doctrines and loaded his later understanding into his very late reminiscenses.

    That said, none of Geoff’s other arguments are cogent for me. In eternity there is plenty of time for begetting if that were what happened.

    Comment by Blake — June 19, 2006 @ 8:03 am

11. I think it wasn’t clear because the comment I linked to had more than one argument. The part of Mark’s argument I am recommending is this part:

    Whether I say “soul”, “spirit”, “being”, or “intelligence” the essential part, the sine qua non, is always the same, an eternal, uncreated personal identity.
    So if I say, the “eternal spirit”, one has to take me to mean the eternal part of the spirit, the part without which a spirit wouldn’t be a spirit. Same with “eternal soul”, “person”, “identity”, and so on. Given the scriptural record, I believe we have to read Joseph Smith the same way, with the proviso that he may have believed that a spirit body was an essential part of spiritual identity, and not a contingent part as I do.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 8:31 am

12. Some of this gets back to what is ‘revelation’. Just for example, what would make something like the KFD more of a revelation than the Poclamation on the Family? Are most of the subsequent prophets out of step on this issue, and Joseph the only one who gets it?

    Comment by Eric — June 19, 2006 @ 8:34 am

13. Blake, I most definitely *did not* make the argument that one must have been begotten (vivaparously) of heavenly parents. If you read my comments in the last thread and elsewhere, you will see that is a possibility I hold open under certain conditions (self-existent intelligence, small number of first generation children per heavenly couple / *lots* of fathers/mothers sharing the same world to send their spirit children to), but that I am inclined in the other direction, towards heavenly parenthood in the pre-mortal life as an adopted spiritual relationship, that we came to this earth to *enter* into family relationships as we know them, and that those relationships will generally preempt whatever familial relationships we may have had prior to this life.

    In short, I believe heavenly fatherhood (and motherhood) is first a matter of presidency legitimized by suffering sacrifice, and only second and as a practical necessity a matter of procreation. Righteous adoptive parents embody more of the essence of parenthood than biological parents who give their children up.

    Is sounds more odd to say of women, “are ye not all mothers?”, but we have been saying that of men, since time immemorial. Fatherhood has always been more of contingent, indirect, and almost purely spiritual relationship than motherhood, which is much more materially obvious.

    And indeed, if one can gain a spirit body, through a quasi-resurrective process, I consider that a rather more likely possibility than spiritual procreation for a variety of reasons, but as I said, I do not consider the mechanism the primary concern, but rather cardinality and structure.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 9:04 am

14. Jacob,

    I appreciate your valiant attempt in #8. Of the quotes you found I think only the Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee quotes imply a belief in viviparous spirit birth. The quotes from the prophets after that are too vague to reveal the nature of our child-parent relationship with deity. The Brigham and Parley quotes seem strongly slanted in the Adam-God direction to me. Based on A/G it is a given that we are literal “children” of God here on earth in the sense that we all have descended from Adam and Eve and Brigham assumed that they also bore our spirits prior to arriving here. So I think Blake’s argument that the entire viviparous spirit birth concept is a cultural overbelief related to the A/G misunderstanding makes a lot of sense.

    Having said that; even though I think Blake’s arguments against literal/viviparous spirit birth are convincing I am anything but in lock step with Blake on the other conclusions he is drawing surrounding this general subject. For instance I think we do have heavenly parents and that the evidence is strong that God the Father of Jesus is united as One with his wife and that all fully divine persons must be so. (Our heated discussion over the Sermon in the Grove covered the qualms I have with some of Blake’s conclusions.) But having heavenly parents does not mean there must be viviparous spirit birth.

    Blake is right that the “it would take a really long time” argument is pretty weak. Mark used it earlier I only mentioned it because I think it is a practical concern. But the objection that a physically resurrected and embodied divine couple could not literally bear children with no physical body at all is strong in my opinion. How does anyone account for that major problem?

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 9:17 am

15. Blake said: Eliza Snow’s doctrine of a Mother in Heaven viewed Eve as this mother in heaven and Adam as the Father of our spirits. If that is the basis of the doctrine, as I believe the historical documents amply support, then it is not merely contrary to what JS taught, it is also contrary to what those latter-day prophets believed and taught.

    I do not agree that the hirstorical documents amply support your conclusion. O My Father was published in 1845, way before Brigham started teaching Adam-God. The section for Joseph Smith in #8 mentions that in the later part of 1839 Parley Pratt says he was learning from Joseph that there was a spirit birth. About the same time, we have rumblings from other close associates of Joseph Smith that they learned from him that there is a mother in heaven. One of Joseph’s wives purportedly learned this doctrine from Joseph in 1839, and Eliza R. Snow (also a plural wife of Joseph) told David O. McKay that she learned the doctrine from the “Prophets teachings” and her role was merely to put it into poetry (See Wilcox, Linda P. “The Mormon Concept of a Mother in Heaven.” In Sisters in Spirit, ed. Maureen U. Beecher and Lavina F. Anderson. Urbana, Ill., 1987.) So, according to Eliza, the people who credit her as being the prophetess in this matter are mistaken.

    Now, I readily concede that none of this is proof that Joseph taught it, but there is evidence that reasonably supports the idea that Joseph was the origin of the doctrine and not Brigham. If you couple the things above with a straightforward reading of D&C 132:63 and D&C 131:4, it adds even more plausibility to the several accounts that Joseph was teaching of spirit birth and mother in heaven as early as 1839.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 9:22 am

16. Geoff said: I appreciate your valiant attempt in #8. Of the quotes you found I think only the Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee quotes imply a belief in viviparous spirit birth.

    Just what do you think “literal offspring of God” is intended to communicate? How many times does a person have to use the word “literal” when talking about God’s parenthood before you accept their clear meaning. The quotes by Ezra Taft Benson and Howard W. Hunter are rock solid despite your refusal to acknowldge it. Especially when these quotes are taken in the context of the well established doctrinal point here. I find your response remarkable.

    Also, no one, yet, has attempted to interpert D&C 132:63 for me.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 9:33 am

17. Jacob, Not all of those quotes support your position, because of the way the scriptures overload the terms “parent”, “father”, “birth”, and “begotten”, Have ye been born of God? Have ye become spiritually begotten sons and daughters unto Christ?

    Indeed, as the scriptures use the adoptive, contingent spiritual sense of divine sonship and spiritual birth *far* more than anything that implies viviparous spiritual birth, the burden of proof, canonically speaking is on the advocates of the latter to demonstrate that is what the scriptural authors really had in mind. Viviparous spiritual birth is a possibility that there is almost no scriptural evidence for. The New Testament and the Book of Mormon teach a rather different conception.

    The closest term is “offspring”, in Acts, and I am not sure that is necessarily viviparous either, given everything else the scriptures say on the subject, and indeed offspring does not entail a direct relationship, but rather leaves wide open the type of relationship we have with Adam or Abraham, or in general any of our righteous ancestors. Heber J. Grant once said that if you cannot be a heavenly father to your own descendants, than who can you be a heavenly father too?

    So even if viviparous spiritual birth is the order of the day, that does not conclude the question of heavenly parenthood. I have three hundred or so good candidates for the father that currently presides over me, to whom I am a direct report, and indeed they might switch things around from time to time, according to who is best suited at any given time. The author of the collected works of Orson Pratt had a strong impression to that effect which he mentions in the preface, literally that the latter person was allowed to become his temporary heavenly father of sorts, in order to aid him with its completion.

    Now on to the first quote:

    D&C 132:63 does not support the idea that women bear the souls of men in the eternal worlds, only that bearing the souls of men is a necessary foundation for exaltation in the eternities, generally speaking. We can hardly enter into family relationships as we know them without a physical body, the means for getting one is apparent, and no doubt there is great purpose behind the standard means of becoming a child who is genetically related to his own father and mother, and the bond procreation creates between mother and child in particular. Indeed the fact that we do not pray to our heavenly mother, or any of our heavenly mothers, is a pretty good indication that this bond is unprecedented - on earth almost any child will approach his mother before his father. She is the mediator between them, as a rule.

    Now this mother-child relationship of a necessity will be more fully realized in the next life. That is what I see as the purpose of being a mother and a father here and now - to set the foundation of parenthood and presidency over ones posterity in the eternities. The standard model of heavenly parenthood pretty much discards the relationship of a mother to her earthly begotten and adopted children in favor of a bunch of new spirits.

    I don’t think that is right - an earthly mothers and a fathers first responsibility is to the children they already have, not an impractical horde in the next life. If they preside over a nation, it will be as Abraham and Sarah, and not as Brigham Young imagined. Patriarchs and Matriarchs, Kings and Queens, Priests and Priestesses, where familial responsibility is shared across the generations, not an eternal nursery school, where the responsibility for umpteen billion unruly kids is born by a single mother.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 9:33 am

18. Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the spirit vs intelligence distinction viewed as particularly bizarre by Harold Bloom in _The American Religion_. Why would the LDS Church espouse both a “intelligences have always existed” doctrine AND a “we are literal spirit children of our heavenly parents” line. I had never thought of the two as duplicative of each other before reading Bloom, which suggests that when you grow up hearing all of this stuff, it often doesn’t occur to you to see the superfluities.

    Aaron B

    Comment by Aaron Brown — June 19, 2006 @ 9:38 am

19. Phelps was the first person to teach Mother in Heaven publicly, not Eliza, as he wrote a song that mentioned her and was sung at the dedication of the 70’s hall in Dec. 1844.

    The thing is that folks like Orson Pratt, who rejected A/G, had their own concepts of spirit birth. There are second hand accounts of Joseph teaching. That said, the literalist fervor which was adopted is foundationless.

    I have argued elsewhere that there are three parent-child relationships initiated between humans and God. Two are obviously not vivaporous in nature: when we become children of Christ through the atonement and when we become heirs to exaltation. The other, our unconditional relationship with the Father in this life (though I imagine that it is conditional for perdition). This pattern coupled with Joseph’s teaching on the eternality of spirits makes the case for non-vivaporous birth quite compelling.

    Comment by J. Stapley — June 19, 2006 @ 9:47 am

20. “Literal” by the way, is much misused term in this context. “Literal” means according to the letter, or in other words according to the baseline semantics of a term. The opposite of literal would be “symbolic” or “metaphorical”.

    Now I have argued that the *primary* scriptural sense of fatherhood, parenthood, birth, and even begotten has little or nothing to do with mechanism, but rather with relationship. Otherwise adoptive parent would be an oxymoron. So far as scriptures are concerned that is the literal and proper meaning of those terms.

    Motherhood, however is not overloaded that way in the scriptures, and so we may more easily conclude that there is a special quiddity or je ne sais quois about earthly motherhood that is not precedented prior to this earth life, and indeed that accounts for the asymmetry between motherhood and priesthood as we know it.

    Now the John Taylor hymn is not explicit enough to conclude non-transitive fatherhood. We can be of the seed of Abraham both by inheritance and by adoption. Paul says this explicitly. No genetic relationship required. That is why we have child-parent sealings and the law of adoption.

    Lorenzo Snow’s statement is also not explicit enough to give evidence for viviparous spirit birth, although it implies something event-like of a sort, and not an adoptive process. Transmission does not have to be an event, however. Discipleship is all about transmission.

    Joseph F. Smith’s, Harold B. Lee’s, and Joseph Fielding Smith’s statements all seem to explicitly indicate viviparous (or at least heterosexual) spirit birth, although the latter’s argument is faulty, because it neglects Heber J. Grant style parenthood.

    Spencer W. Kimball’s statement is not evidence for VSB (viviparous spirit birth) either, although it implies (in my opinion incorrectly) that there is only one mother in heaven. We should say IMO our mothers who art in heaven. Heavenly Mother makes much less sense as a particular individual than Heavenly Father does. I think there is a reason why the term is absent in scripture, and that it is because motherhood is much more closely associated with procreation than fatherhood is. The difference between a father and a priesthood leader is not that big, biological fatherhood is an asterisk in a man’s life, where it is a *really* big deal in the life of a mother.

    President Benson’s, Hunter’s, and the family proclamation statements are not explicit enough to exclude a Heber J. Grant conception of spiritual parenthood via transitive descendancy.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 10:12 am

21. Our relationship with our heavenly father in terms of his responsibility to save us may be unconditional, but the the scriptures testify abundantly that we choose who our father is by our own actions. If we are not righteous the blessings of that relationship are inactive. We can come back, like the prodigal son, and indeed our father searches us out, but the contingency of the relationship is ever present. Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you. The necessity of the relationship is only in terms of or father’s willingness to accept us on condition of repentance - he is no respecter of persons, but he is of fidelity.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 10:21 am

22. So if you ask the question is our Heavenly Father’s love for us conditional or unconditional, the answer is yes.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 10:23 am

23. His loving concern is unconditional, but that concern may be manifested more in terms of what the scriptures call anger, what we would call “tough love”, than in close intimacy, and that indeed his chastening is a necessary pre-requisite for intimacy. No unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of God, nor does he look upon sin with the least degree of allowance. Fire from heaven is the ultimate manifestation of tough love - love that we might more readily interpret as hate, if we did not understand the purpose behind it.

    In short, love cannot be love, unless it is conditional in fundamental respects. A dynamic, patient, emergent unity of cooperation and intimacy, not unconditional acquiesence in the other as they stand. God wants to *change* us. If we are not willing to change, we do not really love him or respect what he stands for at all.

    And indeed God cannot change us except through our willing submission to the discipline he prescribes. If we are stubborn, that is the end of love, or rather it sets a bound on our intimacy with him - we draw a line in the sand and say no further. Our relationship with God is not as with an equal, his perfections do not let him abandon his character to move very far in our imperfect direction. We must journey in his.

    And so how much we *feel* God’s love depends on our orientation towards him - if we move in his direction he smiles upon us, if we move away the light dims, and if we actively hinder the progress of others, we may feel the heat of his anger. Both unconditionally fixed as in stone, or a lodestar, and also rather dynamic and conditional.

    Or in short “love” is not a *thing*, it is a phenomena. Speaking about love as if it has properties that do not vary according to context is silly talk - surely 2400 years after Aristotle we could advance a little. The Hebrews never seemed to have this kind of silliness - didn’t bother them that God’s mercy and justice were dynamic and conditional according to context. We just have the dumbest kind of Greek metaphysics polluting our very thought on the most fundamental of topics.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 10:39 am

24. Aaron (#17) - I agree that most of the tripartite models (intelligence->spirit->body) I’ve heard include seemingly useless redundancies.

    Jonathan (#18) - Thanks for that link. I knew you posted on this subject already but I could not remember when or even where.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 11:03 am

25. Not much to say beyond that I think everyone argues on these issues with a paucity of evidence. We just have far too little regarding Nauvoo teachings: especially those behind closed doors. I think that the fact almost everyone in the Utah period accepted a spirit birth to be significant as well. That’s not to say it is necessarily correct. Just that I doubt it was imagined out of pure aether. There almost certainly was some reason even wildly disparate theologies adopted this as a teaching of Joseph.

    Comment by clark — June 19, 2006 @ 11:08 am

26. J. — Eliza Snow’s doctrine of a Mother in Heaven was merely part of her Adam-God theology: The following words may be found in the work “Women of Mormondom” at the pages indicated in the section of the book on Eliza R. Snow Smith. “Adam is our Father and God. He is the God of the earth.” (p. 179) “Adam is the great Archangel of this creation. He is Michael. He is the Ancient of Days. He is the father of our elder brother, Jesus Christ–the father of him who shall also come as Messiah to reign. He is the father of the spirits as well as the tabernacles of the sons and daughters of man–Adam!” “Michael is one of the grand mystical names in the works of creations; redemptions and resurrections.”"Michael was a celestial, resurrected being, of another world.” ” ‘In the beginning,’ the Gods created the heavens and the earths. In their councils they said, ‘Let us make man in our own image.’ So, in the likeness of the Fathers, and the Mothers–the Gods–created they man-male and female. When this earth was prepared for mankind, Michael, as Adam, came down. He brought with him one of his wives, and he called her name Eve.”"Adam and Eve are the names of the fathers and mothers of worlds.”

    “The grand patriarchal economy, with Adam, as a resurrected being, who brought his wife Eve from another world has been very finely elaborated by Brigham from the patriarchal genesis which Joseph conceived.” (p. 181)

    “Brightest among these spirits, and nearest in the circle to our Father and Mother in heaven (the Father being Adam), were Seth, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus Christ-” (p. 191)”These are the sons and daughters of Adam-the Ancient of Days-the Father and God of the whole human family. These are the sons and daughters of Michael, who is Adam, the father of the spirits of all our race. These are the sons and daughters of Eve, the Mother of a world.”

    “When Brigham Young proclaimed to the nations that Adam was our Father and God, and Eve, his partner, the Mother of a world-both in a mortal and celestial sense-he made the most important revelation ever oracled to the race since the days of Adam himself. This grand patriarchal revelation is the very key-stone of the ‘New Creation’ of the heavens and the earth. It gives new meaning to the whole system of theology-” (p. 196)

    Further quotes of Eliza R. Snow Smith from other sources identifying Adam or Michael as our Father in Heaven: “Adam, your God, like you on earth, has been Subject to sorrow in a world of sin: Through long gradation he arose to be Cloth’d with the Godhead’s might and majesty.
    And what to him in his probative sphere,Whether a Bishop, Deacon, Priest, or Seer? Whate’er his offices and callings were, He magnified them with assiduous care: By his obedience he obtain’d the place Of God and Father of this human race. “Obedience will the same bright garland weave, As it has done for your great mother, Eve, For all her daughters on the earth, who will All my requirements sacredly fulfill. And what to Eve, though in her mortal life, She’d been the first, the tenth, or fiftieth wife? What did she care, when in her lowest sate, Whether by fools, consider’d small, or great? ‘Twas all the same with her-she’d proved her worth- She’s now the Goddess and Queen of Earth. “Life’s ultimatum, unto those that live As Saints of God, and all my pow’rs receive; Is still the onward, upward course to tread-To stand as Adam and as Eve, the head Of an inheritance, a new-form’d earth, And to their spirit-race, give mortal birth- Give them experience in a world like this; Then lead them forth to everlasting bliss, Crown’d with salvation and eternal joy Where full perfection dwells, without alloy”
    (Eliza R. Snow, An Immortal, pp. 188-189; Poems of Eliza R. Snow 2:8-9)

    “Father Adam, our God, let all Israel extol, And Jesus, our Brother, who died for us all.” (Eliza R. Snow, Mill. Star 17:320)

    “Zion’s Poetess,” Eliza R. Snow: “Very different is Mormon Theology! The Mormons exalt the grand parents of our race. Not even is the name of Christ more sacred to them than the names of Adam and Eve. It was to them the poetess and high priestess addressed her hymn of invocation; and Brigham’s proclamation that Adam is our Father and God is like a hallelujah chorus to their everlasting names. The very earth shall yet take it up; all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve shall yet shout it for joy, to the ends of the earth, in every tongue!” (Women of Mormondom, p. 180)

    You are of course correct that Phelps also taught of a Heavenly Mother in a song he wrote in Dec. 1844. However, it is unclear whether it is anything more than poetic license. Moreover, the doctrine was not accepted because Phelps sang it. It was accepted because of Eliza’s poems and BY’s theology.

    Comment by Blake — June 19, 2006 @ 11:24 am

27. I am familiar with Eliza’s Adam-God beliefs and agree that it was the Eliza-Brigham couplet that popularized the belief. This doesn’t, however, change the fact that Orson Pratt, who went to the mat in opposition to Adam-God believed in spirit birth just as adamantly.

    Comment by J. Stapley — June 19, 2006 @ 12:49 pm

28. Re Blake (#26)

    It is true that Eliza bought into the Adam-God doctrine whole-heartedly. It is obvious that having done so, she would incorporate her belief in spirit birth / heavenly mother into her new theology. However, it is not at all clear that Adam-God was the source of the spirit birth doctrine for her. In point of fact, she published the O My Father poem in 1845, long before she became steeped in Adam-God theology. Thus, your conclusion (that the heavenly Mother / spirit birth concepts originate with Adam-God) does not follow from the quotes you provide. I think it is noteworthy that Pratt says he learned about spirit birth from Joseph Smith at about the same time others report the same thing. All of it predates Adam-God, which seems to undermine your claim rather directly.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 1:11 pm

29. Aaron: wasn’t the spirit vs intelligence distinction viewed as particularly bizarre by Harold Bloom

    I don’t see it as any more bizarre than saying we have a self-existent part (the “mind of man” according to Joseph Smith) and also a physical body. There is no categorical difference. If I can exist without a physical body, and I can progress by obtaining a physical body, why is it implausible that the same could be true of a spirit body?

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 1:15 pm

30. Jacob: Eliza didn’t begin with one view of a MinH and then later adopt AG; rather, her view was that Eve was the MinH. Just when do you claim that she became “steeped” in AG theology?

    Comment by Blake — June 19, 2006 @ 1:50 pm

31. Blake,

    The AG theology was not advanced by Brigham until the 1850s. O My Father was published in 1845. What am I missing?

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 2:39 pm

32. I have seen enough evidence to suggest that Joseph Smith believed that Adam or Michael does indeed *preside* over us in the heavens, as the head of the human family. However, I have not seen anything to suggest that Joseph Smith believed that Adam was the “biological” father of our spirits. The whole doctrine about the status of Adam and Eve seems rather to be a parallel with Abraham and Sarah, presidency by descendancy, not presidency by pro-creation.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 3:05 pm

33. One more radical idea - on the collective progression model, perhaps once the worthy of the current “generation” are all exalted, there will be no more mortal child birth, but rather childre born into immortal, celestialized bodies from then on. Perhaps this world is *in part* a dry run for celestial society, including procreation of bodies of the same order as their parents.

    Then in that generation, celestial birth would not be the ultimate reward, but rather the beginning of learning and progression to an inheritance in the next higher order of kingdoms, the plan for which is still on the drawing board (cf. D&C 130:10)

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 19, 2006 @ 3:16 pm

34. Jacob: what you’re missing is that Eliza Snow’s doctrine of the MinH didn’t change. She always considered Eve to be the MinH.

    Comment by Blake — June 19, 2006 @ 3:47 pm

35. Blake,

    I am unaware of any evidence to support your claim that Eliza Snow considered Eve to be the MinH back in 1845. Maybe you can hook me up with the dates for the quotes in #26. Where those said before Brigham started advancing AG in the 50s? Do you have anything to back your claim that Eliza Snow had already adopted AG in 1845?

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 4:24 pm

36. Mark (Re: #33): That is a radical idea indeed.

    BTW, I am not ignoring your comments from earlier today, I just don’t have time to respond yet.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 4:29 pm

37. Aaron and Geoff (17&24):

    For me, maintaining a difference between intelligenses and spirits is very useful for just this sort of thing. As you are aware I kinda like having my cake and eating it too.

    Uncreated intelligences (which may or may not have had matter associated with them) that have always existed, that at some point in time were provided with spirit bodies through some process, allows for both an eternal uncreated essence, and also a necessary parent/child relationship of the spirit body with heavenly parents. What could be a cleaner explanation?

    I think most of this is a forced either/or which is entirely unnecessary.

    Comment by Eric Nielson — June 19, 2006 @ 6:31 pm

38. Jacob (#16): Just what do you think “literal offspring of God” is intended to communicate?

    It is interesting to see the various responses to this question. Mark holds that “literal” should not be taken to be synonymous with “biological” (in the spiritual sense I suppose) and that adoptive parents are literal parents too. I think that is a pretty solid answer. Blake basically calls the whole notion a cultural overbelief that has been transmitted from one church leader to another starting with Brigham. I think this approach is less desirable than Mark’s but these two approaches could be used in tandem as well I suppose. Another answer is MMP. If we were also inhabitants of former worlds in our eternal progression then we could very well have been literal biological descendants of the Father there. I think this is the cleanest solution but MMP is not a model you go for.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 7:01 pm

39. I should add that a reason to call adoptive Celestial parents literal parents in this case would be to show that there really is no ontological or species gap between us and God. It is to show that we are not the pets of God (as most of creedal Christianity seems to believe) but actual children of God who are of the same “kind” as God and who can “grow up” to be just like God.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 7:09 pm

40. Eric,

    I think the model you are describing is probably the dominant one in the church today. In fact, I was in a seminary classroom recently and was dismayed to see it displayed on the wall. But the concept doesn’t make much sense to me. Maybe you can answer some of my questions:

    Do these beginningless intelligences pass through a veil of forgetfulness when they are born into spirit bodies? If not then it would be like birthing ancient adults into baby bodies. If so, then what becomes of the personal identity they crafted by living forever before this transformation? Is their old self destroyed forever? What about their friends and loved ones and perhaps even families? They lived forever after all so they had forever to develop personal relationships. Are those ties cut forever more and lost to the amnesia of a veil? Christian Cardall once opined that pre-spirit intelligences might actually be in some “dormant” state. Does anyone else go for that idea or was it just his personal idea? Further, how are pre-spirit intelligences chosen to get spirit bodies? Is it random? Do they get chosen based on some kind of merit system? Was there some pre-spirit birth counsel in pre-heaven for them too?

    Part of me feels like the tripartite model is Mormonism displaying a bit of creation ex nihilo envy. What I mean is that beginningless is a difficult concept to think about so we create a beginning with this concept of spirit birth. Doing so lets us simply take creedal Christian ideas and simply push them back one step to a pre-mortal beginning. But as the author Aaron mentioned points out — spirit birth only places another step between us here and the beginningless forever that we have existed.

    Do you see why I don’t see the value or appeal of this tripartite model as commonly described? Can any of y’all tripartite model believers help me out here?

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 7:35 pm

41. Jacob, I think you are pushing the right button with Blake by pressing the question about a belief is a Mother in Heaven pre-dating Adam-God notions. I also think Stapley is right to point out the fact that Orson Pratt was convinced about the existence of a MiH too and yet he openly rejected Brigham’s A-G teachings so the two concepts are not inextricably connected. Of course they all also believed in literal spirit birth so that presents an extraction process for those of us who doubt that part in any case… It is interesting to see how those of us who talk about these things take different positions on many of these individual questions.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 9:21 pm

42. Q: What if our Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother begat spirit children while THEY were still in THEIR pre-mortal existence? Then, would we be their “Spirit Children”?

    A: _____________ (a simple: Yes/No)

    If no, please explain…

    Comment by Simple-Simon — June 19, 2006 @ 9:21 pm

43. Mark, (Re: #17)

    I hope you are not misunderstanding the point of all the quotes in #8. I am not trying to prove VSP by citing a bunch of prophets. Your paragraph about the “burden of proof” misconstrues my purpose, which is merely to illustrate that the doctrine of VSP has been taught consistently latter-day prophets over many decades.

    D&C 132:63 does not support the idea that women bear the souls of men in the eternal worlds, only that bearing the souls of men is a necessary foundation for exaltation in the eternities, generally speaking.

    I am glad someone took a stab at offering an alternate interpretation of D&C 132:63. The verse does say “that they [the ten virgins] may bear the souls of men.” I can’t tell what you think this bearing of the souls of men refers to.

    (#20) “Literal” by the way, is much misused term in this context.

    This statement, and the line of reasoning following it, seems to be more concerned with parsing words than ascertaining the meaning of the speakers. In traditional Christian theology, the fatherhood of God is understood to be figurative. The addition of the word “literal” (as in Howard W. Hunter’s quote: “The brotherhood of man is literal. We are all of one blood and the literal spirit offspring of our eternal Heavenly Father.”) is clearly intended to communicate that the parenthood is not figurative.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 9:25 pm

44. Geoff (#39)

    I think you make a good point here. The most important doctrinal implication of God being our father may be that we have the potential to become like God. I suppose another important implication is that this gives us a basis from which to understand God’s love for us (those of us who are parents understand the love of a parent for a child).

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 9:51 pm

45. Mark, I should say that I agree with you that a parent who adopts a child is the “literal” parent of that child. It is just that I don’t think the speakers thought of that when they used the word literal. So, I guess that means I have to agree with you further on your point that they are misusing the word literal.

    Comment by Jacob — June 19, 2006 @ 10:15 pm

46. Jacob: The notion of spirit birth is not necessary to sustain the view that we have god-like potential or are of the same species as God. If we are uncreated like God, then it is inherent in the very notion of being uncreated that we are ontologically the same kind as God, so some literal spirital begetting is superfluous.

    Further, you are of course correct that the notion of a MinH can logically be separated from the AG thesis. However, I believe that in fact they are tied together in historical origin. Can you show me where Eliza Snow adopted the notionof AG and then integrated it into the view that the MinH is Eve? It seems most plausible that she viewed the MinH as Eve throughout. Of course it is logically possible that she added that accretion of thought later; but there is no evidence of such a change in her views.

    Now for the dodge that you have ducked long enough. Where is the revelation to ground the doctrine of a MinH even among prophets after JS? Do we just accept it because Eliza Snow taught it? I suppose that it can be argued that if we are like our Father, and we must be married to be exalted, then God too must have been married. However, that seems to take things rather too far. Christ was God before having a body — and the ordinances of marriage are performed only for those embodied and/or who have passed from mortality. What Christ and the HG show is that it is not necessary to be married to be fully exalted and fully divine. So this argument to support the MinH fails.

    Further, I’m still waiting for an even half-way decent explanation of how the spirit can begin at spirit birth and yet be uncreated and exist on self-existing principles as JS stated.

    Comment by Blake — June 19, 2006 @ 10:28 pm

47. Simple-Simon (#42),

    If there were such a thing as a fully divine and already married pre-mortal “spirit couple” then it would make logical sense to claim they could procreate and create spirit children.

    But if that couple were fully divine already why would their children not be also fully divine already too? Further, if they then came to a mortality via mortal birth like we do they would not be a couple any more in that mortality — they would just be babies — so what would keep them from getting sealed to someone else? (Even Brigham assumed Adam and Eve arrived here with exalted resurrected bodies after all.) Further, since all of us on earth are not fully divine yet and we will have resurrected bodies after this life your suggestion would preclude all of us from ever bearing spirit children in the eternities to begin with. Further, your hypothetical divine spirit couple would also be unable to bear spirit children again after a mortality.

    So basically, your question/suggestion has all kinds of problems. What did you have in mind with it?

    Comment by Geoff J — June 19, 2006 @ 11:52 pm

48. Geoff (#40), there are fundamental theological reasons for maintaining the eternality of souls - they are the locus of free will, moral responsibility, and eternal identity in particular. If we get rid of self-existent intelligences, a very large can of worms opens up. In particular it becomes nigh unto impossible to distinguish a person from a machine, it makes it possible to clone a person, soul and all an arbitrary number of times, it is hard to account for God’s original existence in the first place if he is not a necessary being, and on and on.

    On the other hand it is radically untenable to believe that two eyes and ten fingers are a law of nature, a self existent Platonic form. So the whole problem is how do we get from the bare minimum element of personality/identity/perception/free will to a spirit body.

    Now in my opinion, I don’t think a plain intelligence is very smart, very perceptive, or very capable - in the beginning more like living in a dream, and that the intelligences who became the first members of the heavenly council probably went through an eternity of *creative*, free will based development, gradually developing language in particular, before acquiring the capacity to design the first spirit body as we know it today, that the first spirit body was created of the dust of a “spiritual world”, and the first intelligence, with whatever proto-body it may have had, entered in and became the first living soul.

    I further hold that the original creation account, i.e. prior to the fall, is descriptive of this creation of a spiritual body, and the entering in of the soul of Adam. Then we have the garden account, which is a gloss for a very long period of heavenly history where most everyone else acquired spirit bodies, whether in the same manner or possibly by procreation, and a whole slew of conflicts and disputes descriptive of the classic “human” condition.

    Then to more fully remedy this condition, ensure greater happiness and stability, etc., the next (second) estate was planned, which is this earthly life, we have perhaps a few hundred million years of additional directed evolution with “physical” bodies for a variety of life forms, developed using a combination of engineering and a modicum of natural selection / testing. That finally, at last the first human-like spirits are sent down perhaps 60,000 years ago, and Adam and Eve are presumably born, translated, quasi-resurrected or whatever some 4,000 years ago.

    Or in other words that Adam (the original Adam) was the first to have a spirit body, and may or may not be the Adam/Michael that we know here on our world. I generally read the name Adam as “First Man”, or “First Father”.

    Spiritual procreation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, because I believe this estate was designed to cure ills of the last one, and I believe generally in the collective progression model, not the endless cycle model, celestial beings having spirit children seems like a strange feedback loop - why not give an intelligence the best kind of body we can manage?

    Right now that is a physical body - though mutable and sorrowful, God has a method to his apparent madness - our bodies are fundamentally more capable than ordinary spirit bodies, if not yet coupled with eternal glory, however that is done. VSB makes little sense to me because I believe that entering into a true family relationship preferably genetically based ones for obvious reasons (similarity of course) is nearly the *whole* purpose of this estate.

    Perhaps a life like this one is a necessity for all spirits, but a couple of precepts of LDS doctrine suggest otherwise. Growth and progression with a terrestrial or celestial body, from infancy, seems to be a real possibility.

    There is also the possibility that only some pre-mortal intelligences had spirit bodies and participated fully in heavenly civilization, and that the others are born directly into physical bodies. I have a really hard time picturing a council in heaven without spirit bodies, of course.

    That is my very speculative quasi-theory at this point.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 20, 2006 @ 12:52 am

49. I will leave open the idea of spirits entering into an unknown number of different *spiritual* body types before settling on the human form. The whole problem of course is switching from one body to the next without getting lost or losing ones capacity. I imagine a bit of social cooperation could manage the scheme - however it seems *highly* likely that a change of body for an *intelligence* entails a loss of memory. Scary indeed - great trust in ones transferrors required.

    We might well consider that physical birth entails discarding one’s spirit body (if any), and that is the reason for the loss of memory, aka the veil. But death does not - the spirit body retains its form and structure, and of course all memories.

    Resurrection is much different than birth because the spiritual form is preserved - no need to discard it to become an embryo again. I don’t think the idea of squeezing a full size spiritual body down onto an tiny human body is all that tenable.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 20, 2006 @ 1:02 am

50. Jacob (#43), Let’s discuss the D&C scripture:

    But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.
    (D&C 132:63)

    Notice why the virgins are “given” unto him - to multiply and replenish the earth. The soul bearing is going on here, *for* their exaltation, this is the way the work of the Father is continued. Classic Heber J. Grant style exaltation scheme - exaltation no over VSB children, but eternal descendancy - a descendancy whose living edge is here on earth, not in heaven. As I said, I see no reason why an intelligence cannot be born straight into a physical body, making VSB superfluous, if it happens at all. Celestial children born (VCB) to celestial parents makes much more sense than spirit children born VSB to celestial parents. I generally think that VEB however is the order of the day, not VSB or VCB.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 20, 2006 @ 1:15 am

51. One thing that I don’t understand, is how anything can be considered eternal. How can something have no beginning or no end. That makes no sense. Even it (some eternal entity) had to be created at some point to exist in the first place.

    The whole spirit birth thing never made much sense to me either. Concieving, gestating and giving birth to a spirit? Especially with the parents having tangible bodies?

    Perhaps everything does have a beginning and an end. When we die that is the end of our mortal existance, and when (if) we are resurrected, that is the beginning of our eternal existance.

    If you take 2 elements (in this case intelligence and spirit body) and somehow join them together, aren’t you, in essense, creating something?

    I certainly don’t have all (any) of the answers. I just know what does and doesn’t make sense to me.

    Comment by Bishop Rick — June 20, 2006 @ 7:48 am

52. How does 1 man and 10 virgins multiply and replenish the earth better than 10 men and 10 virgins? Truth is it doesn’t. That argument for polygamy doesn’t hold water. The only argument for polygamy that does hold water is that it is needed for a God to be able to create enough children to populate a planet. Only problem there is that this reasoning props up man to the status of godhood, and lowers woman to the status of cattle, whose only function is procreate once every year. There can be no bigger insult placed on woman.

    Comment by Bishop Rick — June 20, 2006 @ 7:55 am

53. Rick: The mere fact that something doesn’t make sense to you isn’t any reason for doubting it. Whatis the basis of your lack of comfort of a beginningless intelligence other than it boggles your mind? Relativity and quantum mechanics boggle my mind, but I accept them for other good and sufficient reasons.

    As for polygamy — the only reason to practice it is that God asks someone to do so or one’s culture sanctions it. You’re not really a bishop are you? Why would you adopt a position that you don’t have?

    Comment by Blake — June 20, 2006 @ 8:07 am

54. Blake,
    No I’m not a bishop. I just liked the play on words. I’m not saying that I doubt it, I just want to understand it, and right now I don’t. I’m just not satisfied with accepting something I don’t understand.

    Regarding polygamy, I agree with your assessment, but God would have to ask me personally. Simply having a man tell me that God is asking me isn’t good enough for something that monumental. Don’t take this wrong, but faith is not sufficient reason to blindly follow any man. There are too many men making statements requesting people to blindly follow them, and their followers have all received personal witness that these men are inspired or annointed. Then many of them end up dead drinking koolaid or blowing themselves up, killing innocent people in the name of jihad. Sorry, but I need more than just faith to follow a doctrine. It has to make sense to me. I hope you can understand where I am coming from.

    Comment by Bishop Rick — June 20, 2006 @ 8:46 am

55. Geoff (#40)

    Most of your questions there seem to stem from not likeing the idea of a veil of forgetfulness. It seems quite evident that we are in the midst of that now. What difference does it make whether or not we went through a similar step in a previous transition? It seem one has the same problems either way - so why would this be a strike against the intelligence->spirit->body progression?

    You asked if I thought there might be an intelligence merit system involved in deciding who gets a spirit body. In general I would say yes. Perhaps that explains why Jehova was so advanced. I also feel there is a merit system between spirit and mortal body transition as well.

    I think you fail to see how either case is just as eternal as the other. Just because I think I have a spirit birthday does not mean that the intelligences are not real and eternal. The tripartite(?) model is the most clean way to reconsile eternal beings (intelligences) that match certain teachings by JS, with literal child of God doctrine of the church overall. The only reason to reject it is if you take an extreme stance on some statements of JS and ignore the teachings of other prophets. Why do that? The intelligence->spirit->body progression seems so clean to me.

    Comment by Eric Nielson — June 20, 2006 @ 8:51 am

56. Rick (#52)

    I am sensitive to your concern about describing exaltation in a way that is an insult to women. In fact, when we first started this discussion, it was the very first point I made (here).

    Comment by Jacob — June 20, 2006 @ 9:23 am

57. Mark (#50)

    But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified. (D&C 132:63)

    Notice that linguistically the “ands” divide up parallel statements and the “that” ties the “they may bear the souls of men” to the phrase “for their exaltation in the eternal worlds”. Thus, I reject your interpretation suggesting that the bearing of the souls of men happens here. The wording doesn’t support your conclusion.

    Comment by Jacob — June 20, 2006 @ 9:28 am

58. Jacob (#56)
    I read your initial comment and agree with you. Just failed to acknowledge it. I’m with you brother.

    Comment by Bishop Rick — June 20, 2006 @ 9:32 am

59. Jacob: Let’s just admit that D&C 132:63 is at the very least ambiguous. It seems to me that it does address bearing children in mortality and it is a real stretch to get it to refer to spiritually begetting children (especially be exalted beings that have ressurected bodies). I suggest that only someone reading the text with theological beliefs that developed (or were elucidated) later would give it the interpretation you do. But that is what revelation sometimes does — it foreshadows, so that view cannot be ruled out on the basis of the text. What is certain is that it isn’t very convincing evidence for someone like me who doesn’t believe that JS every conceived of spiritual conception.

    Comment by Blake — June 20, 2006 @ 9:39 am

60. Jacob (#57),

    I beg to differ. “that” connects not to any of the and clauses, but to the original verb of the sub-sentence, which is “given”.

    In other words, if we leave out the middle part the sentence reads,

    “…for they are given unto him that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified.”.

    Now the prepositional phrases I left out, also give purpose to the original verb

    “given” …
    (1) to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment
    (2) to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world
    (3) for their exaltation in the eternal worlds
    “that they may bear the souls of men”

    You are trying to attach “that they may bear the souls of men” to a clause that doesn’t have a verb. I think that is contrary to the rules of grammar, generally speaking. Even if the grammar was ambiguous the “multiply and replenish the earth part” gives a nearly definitive indication that we are talking about birth down here (VEB), and not in the eternal worlds (VSB / VCB).

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 20, 2006 @ 9:50 am

61. Regarding 132:63 - I think Blake is right to say that the text is ambiguous enough to allow for either reading. That ambiguity leaves the door open for those who believe in VSB but is ineffective as a proof text in favor of it.

    Eric (#55) - No I don’t have a problem with veils in general. Remember that I’m a fan of the MMP model of eternity after all. But there is a major difference between the veil we now have over our memories and the alleged/hypothetical veil intelligences would have to pass through at a spirit birth. That crucial difference is that our current veil is conceived of temporary and our former memories are reportedly going to be restored to us after we die. But spirits never die so a spirit-birth veil would be eternally permanent. It would be the equivalent of permanently erasing/deleting the associations and memories and personal identity we created as “intelligences” in the forever prior to spirit birth. That seems highly problematic to me.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 20, 2006 @ 10:01 am

62. Mark, I agree with you — but revelations can be ungrammatical.

    Comment by Blake — June 20, 2006 @ 10:10 am

63. Christian Cardall once opined that pre-spirit intelligences might actually be in some “dormant” state. Does anyone else go for that idea or was it just his personal idea?

    There is no question that 20th century leaders had deep problems with the teachings in the King Follet Discourse, mostly because it was so iconoclastic to the post Brigham theology that was popular. Joseph Fielding Smith was, perhaps, the greatest detractor of the KFD (and Sermon in the Grove). My favorite commentary that echos Christian assertion is by the Joseph Fielding McConkie in Answers: Straightforward Answers to Tough Gospel Questions:

    QUESTION
    Did we have existence (entity and agency) before our birth as spirits?

    ANSWER
    This is a question to which we simply don’t have an answer. It is one of those matters on which good people differ and perhaps with good reasons. The idea that the spirits had entity and agency before their spirit birth is not a doctrine of the Church and should not be taught as such.

    I think I am going to write a book and see if I can come up with a more presumptuous title than those penned by this family.

    Comment by J. Stapley — June 20, 2006 @ 10:24 am

64. Blake (#46)

    The notion of spirit birth is not necessary to sustain the view that we have god-like potential

    I agree with you on this. If this were not true, I would not entertain the possibility of no spirit birth. As I said in #1, I remain uncertain about the idea of spirit birth.

    Further, you are of course correct that the notion of a MinH can logically be separated from the AG thesis. However, I believe that in fact they are tied together in historical origin.

    I have been arguing that they are not, in fact, tied together in historical origin (see #15). Stapley (#19) and Clark (#25) have also offered arguments to that effect.

    I flatly disagree with your assertion that “It seems most plausible that she viewed the MinH as Eve throughout.” It seems most plausible that she learned of a MinH from Joseph sometime between 1839-1844 when he was reportedly teaching others the same concept. Ten years later, when Brigham introduced the AG doctrine, it is totally plausible (and indeed what I would expect) that she would integrate her belief in a MinH with Brigham’s teachings that this MinH was Eve. To accept what you are saying, I would have to believe (contra any evidence I am aware of), that Eliza Snow had developed the AG doctrine as early as 1845, which does not seem plausible by any standard of plausibility.

    Now for the dodge that you have ducked long enough. Where is the revelation to ground the doctrine of a MinH even among prophets after JS? Do we just accept it because Eliza Snow taught it? I suppose that it can be argued that if we are like our Father, and we must be married to be exalted, then God too must have been married.

    I wish I’d known I was dodging/ducking this earlier so I could have conceded the point then. I will readily concede that there is no clear revelatory ground for the doctrine of MinH. I am hasty to add that there are many other doctrines given to use by Joseph Smith (some in the D&C) for which we have no clear revelation. Not long ago, Geoff called D&C 130:4-8 into question on just this ground. Of course, we have *much* better reason to believe Joseph really taught the stuff in D&C 130 than we do to believe he taught the concept of MinH to someone, but it is a fact that we have several doctrines from Joseph Smith which we accept as prophetic despite the fact we are unaware of the time or manner in which they were revealed.

    Further, I’m still waiting for an even half-way decent explanation of how the spirit can begin at spirit birth and yet be uncreated and exist on self-existing principles as JS stated.

    I offered one in #29 and Eric said it better than I did in his last paragraph of #55.

    Comment by Jacob — June 20, 2006 @ 10:24 am

65. Blake, Mark,

    I will concede that D&C 132:63 is ambiguous, and Mark’s analysis in #60 is pretty reasonable way to interpret the verse as well. You win, I will stop badgering you about 132:63.

    Stapley said: I think I am going to write a book and see if I can come up with a more presumptuous title than those penned by this family. — LOL

    Comment by Jacob — June 20, 2006 @ 10:52 am

66. Geoff (#61)

    I do not necessarily believe that there is a veil between intelligence and spirit births. That is more an assumption on your part. Perhaps there is no such thing temporary or permanent.

    Comment by Eric Nielson — June 20, 2006 @ 2:05 pm

67. I thought it was extraordinarily remarkable when a BYU student commented commented here that Joseph Fielding McConkie came out *against* free will theism. How can you be against free will theism unless you are a Calvinist? Mormon Calvinism is a strange breed indeed.

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 20, 2006 @ 4:32 pm

68. It was on Times and Seasons, actually. Here:

    http://www.timesandseasons.org/index.php?p=795 (Comment #58)

    I think a Mormon version of Methodist Arminianism going so far as total inability is reasonable, but Calvinist determinism is beyond the pale. Are we to take the Westminster Confession more seriously than the teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith? (Or even worse a scientific determinism where even God lacks free discretion? Not that JFM would advocate such a thing)

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 20, 2006 @ 4:43 pm

69. Geoff J (#47)
    [So basically, your question/suggestion has all kinds of problems. What did you have in mind with it?]

    Thank you for stating your opinion about “all kinds of problems.”
    I will consider your reponse.

    But, in all honesty - it really was a simple Yes or No question.

    Now, you asked what I have in mind….
    The gospel is simple enough a child should understand it.
    The Savior taught the deepest of doctrine in such a way Children understand it.

    The Universe is one eternal pattern.
    The same models or patterns repeat themselves over and over again.
    Planets, Stars, Galaxies - even Families are forever and ever.
    [From generation to generation.]

    I have also always been taught that we are Spirit Children of Heavenly Parents.

    Please stop for a moment, leave any pre-conceived notions behind….take a deep breath, and think about this one for awhile:
    —————–
    If we were Spirit children before being Mortal children,
    Could we also have been Spirit Parents BEFORE being a Mortal Parents?

    A:_________ (yes / no)

    This may help reconcile the 60 something postings of Eternal Physical Parents trying to then bare dis-embodied Spirit children - AFTER the fact.

    Stones anyone???

    Comment by Simple-Simon — June 20, 2006 @ 5:29 pm

70. Jacob Re #64: With all due respect, the tripartite model does not answer the problem of an eternal spirit for the simple reason that the spirit is not eternal on that model. It has a beginning, it is created through a provess of birth and it is dependent for existence as such on spirit birth. Thus, on such a view the spirit is not self-existent and uncreated as Joseph repeatedly stated.

    Comment by Blake — June 20, 2006 @ 5:35 pm

71. Blake,

    Sorry, I misunderstood you before, but I think I’m with you now. You are asking how a spirit birth can be squared with Joseph Smith’s clear statement that the spirit is self-existent.

    You have been making the point that Joseph Smith and Abraham 3 use several terms interchangably (spirit, intelligence, soul). One way to interpret that (as you have) is to conclude that all of these terms actually refer to the same thing.

    Mark’s way of interpreting that (#11) was to say that the terms are often used interchangably when referring to the essential part they all share, the sine qua non, which is the eternal uncreated personal identity. I think this is a reasonable way of interpreting these statements of Joseph Smith. We must be a bit cautious of assuming that Joseph Smith always spoke with the precision of a metaphysician. When I look at the quotes, I get the impression that this sort of latitude is appropriate.

    Geoff’s original post quotes a big comment from you where you list out several quotes of Joseph Smith. In the first one, Joseph is reported to have said: “The Spirit of Man is not a created being; it existed from Eternity & will exist to eternity. Anything created cannot be Eternal. & earth, water &c-all these had their existence in an elementary State from Eternity.” The part I italicized shows Joseph himself making room for a distinction between an “eternal” part of the spirit and a spirit body.

    In other of the quotes, Joseph Smith seems to zero in more specifically on what the eternal part is: “the mind of man-the mind of man is as immortal as God himself.” The idea that the “mind” is the self-existent part, and not the spirit body, is exactly what a person believing in spirit birth is likely to argue, and here Joseph speaks in precisely this language. Other KFD accounts back up that language.

    So, I don’t want to pin too much doctrinal significance on the wording of one account, when other accounts say that he said it is the mind of man which is self-existent.

    In another report: “he says the spirit or the intelligence of men are self Existent principles before the foundation this Earth.” You take the “or the intelligence” part as evidence that he uses the terms interchangably, but it is quite possible that it is actually a clarification. As in: “the spirit, or more correctly the intelligence, of men are self-existent.”

    Comment by Jacob — June 20, 2006 @ 7:04 pm

72. Jacob: Once again I think your interpretation of “spirit” is a real stretch, but I suppose it is not beyond the realm of logical possibility (tho mermaids are also logically possible). In any event, I hadn’t understood your prior statements and this last statement is much clearer. I’ll go with the repeated and plain statement and if JS mistated, well then he misled me.

    Comment by Blake — June 20, 2006 @ 7:17 pm

73. Geoff J (#1)
    …Another problem is answering the question of how parents with resurrected physical bodies could literally bear children with only spirit bodies. Whatever ever happened to multiplying after ones own kind? And another piece of evidence against literal spirit birth is that we are also commanded to become the children of Christ on earth.

    ===========================

    Simple-Simon says —-

    The timing as to who, what, when, where and how beings are born is the key to be examined here.

    —–

    …Fathers of our flesh….Father of Spirits. Heb 12:9

    I see a simple pattern here:

    IF - Spiritual Parents beget Spiritual children
    And, Mortal Parents beget mortal children

    Then,
    Q: What kind of bodies do Celestial Beings beget?

    A:________________ (hint: it starts with a “C”)

    ———–
    A: “When Father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a CELESTIAL BODY…” JD 1:50 [side note: it never states “resurrected” nor “exalted”]

    ================

    Q: Could Adam and Eve be the immortal Celestial off-spring of Celestial Beings? (Y/N)

    A:__________________ (a simple Y/N will do, thank you.)

    ================

    Comment by Simple-Simon — June 20, 2006 @ 8:23 pm

74. If: And, Physical creations are patterned after Spiritual creations…
    Then: “Cells” are to the physical body, as “Intelligences” are to the Spiritual body.

    Think about it, the lights might come on.

    Comment by Simple-Simon — June 20, 2006 @ 8:28 pm

75. Jacob I agree that is important. While I think Joseph’s discourse is inherently vague I also think it is a kind of vagueness that allows the latter ideas to be read into it. What I see as error is in treating Joseph’s vagueness as if it were determinate ideas.

    Comment by clark — June 20, 2006 @ 10:53 pm

76. Simple-Simon: But, in all honesty - it really was a simple Yes or No question.

    In all honesty - I was just trying to be polite by responding to you at all. I’m beginning to regret that now.

    Look mate, we “delight in plainness” here at the Thang. Or in other words I prefer straight talk; and frankly your comments are coming off like a bad rerun of Kung Fu. If you have something to say or a model to share, please just spit it out.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 20, 2006 @ 11:11 pm

77. Jacob (#71),

    Nice comment. I too think it is necessary to assume that spirits/intelligences do change. There is an essential and irreducible part to us but there are also added parts to our spirits/intelligences/minds. If that were not true it seems hard to imagine that progress is actually possible to me.

    Having said that, I do think those quotes from Joseph along with the logical problems (like the idea of physical couples having spirit babies (though that would make labor easier I guess… [ducks])) come down pretty hard against viviparous spirit birth. Whatever progress spirits/intelligences made prior to coming here it seems highly unlikely it included a viviparous birth into a spirit body.

    Let me add another knock against viviparous spirit birth while I’m at it: If human spirits are created by being born viviparously to Celestial parents then where do animal spirits come from? Is there some Celestial giraffe couple that procreates and convert intelligences into giraffe spirit bodies? If no then it appears that not all spirit bodies are created in the exact same pattern as mortal bodies so why assume that human spirits must be created in the earthly pattern?

    Comment by Geoff J — June 20, 2006 @ 11:31 pm

78. Blake,

    In your opinion do spirits have two eyes and ten fingers?

    If yes, was the human form designed or self existent?

    If not, what do you make of D&C 129?

    Comment by Mark Butler — June 21, 2006 @ 12:26 am

79. Mark: It seems to me that spirits can take different forms — and appear differently from time to time as well. My view is that spirits are eternal and they are different from our material bodies here because they are made of pure and refined matter that has different properties than crass matter that we experience in physics. Beyond that I cannot say.

    Comment by Blake — June 21, 2006 @ 5:35 am

80. Mark (#78),

    Good question, I have been wondering about this as well. Geoff’s giraffe comment (#77) brings up the same sort of question Kent Condie brought up in the previous issue of Dialogue (his article is available online here). We have had a long standing tradition of saying that the the spirit looks like the body, which raises interesting theological questions. If evolution is real (as I suspect most people here accept), then it leads to various strange looking animals, most of which become extinct, or change form over time. If the human form is a product of evolution, then why do we look like God?

    So, it seems to me that Geoff’s question about whether there are celestial giraffes having giraffe spirit children raises issues even larger than those of spirit birth. Do spirits need to be relatively indeterminate in form to account for evolution? Does such and idea make the doctrine of spirit birth obsolete?

    Comment by Jacob — June 21, 2006 @ 9:41 am

81. Jacob (80)
    Interesting questions. Regarding evolution, homo sapiens have always looked pretty much the same (i.e. as you put it, 10 fingers and 2 eyes). As we have evolved, we have achieved better posture, larger brains (up for debate) and have become more attractive (also up for debate) among other things, but I think our form would be consistent enough not to make the doctrine of spirit birth obsolete.

    I still struggle with this doctrine however, for other reasons mentioned on the topic by other posters.

    Comment by Bishop Rick — June 21, 2006 @ 10:08 am

82. Do spirits need to be relatively indeterminate in form to account for evolution? Does such and idea make the doctrine of spirit birth obsolete?

    I don’t know. But if I had to guess I would say yes and yes.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 21, 2006 @ 10:10 am

83. I don’t believe in spirit birth. But if it were accepted it could easily account for evolution. The birth could happen in such a way God simply directs both thru divine power and determines the the form of the body to be like the spirit. So I don’t see that spirit birth is the problem. If the spirit is not an “appearance” such that it is sensible to eyes, then what does it mean to have a form? What does it mean to say that the spirit is like the body? I take it to mean that God can assume the form of a body in spirit — but he can also appear as mere light, or glory, or in the form of a burning bush or dove.

    Comment by Blake — June 21, 2006 @ 10:25 am

84. We had two discussions last summer that I think are relevant to this subject. One was a post called “Our Celestial Media Player” in which I suggested that the key component to revelation is the transfer of intelligence and that the audio/visual portion is tailored to maximize that goal. That was related to the post I wrote called “whether in the body or out I cannot tell” where I noted that visions and revelations need not utilize our natural senses and indeed may almost never do so.

    Comment by Geoff J — June 21, 2006 @ 10:56 am

85. Blake (83)

    I thought God had a ressurected celestial body. Would that not prohibit him from changing his form? Wasn’t it the holy ghost that made the alter appearances? I could be wrong here. Didn’t look up before posting.

    So is it safe to assume that spirits would also be short, tall, fat, and skinny if they take the shape of human body? At least the tall/short part.

    Comment by Bishop Rick — June 21, 2006 @ 12:03 pm

86. I outlined a pretty elaborate theory of all this in #48 and #49 that no one has commented on.

    The key ideas are:

    1) Intelligences are minimally simple, indivisible, of no particular form, but susceptible to improvement

    2) Body radically expands the capacity of intelligence, brain in particular. Indeed *body* (brain) is the primary place where the improvement happens - habits, memories, skills, abilities, instinct, etc.

    3) By and large memory is held not in the intelligence, but in the material configuration of the spirit brain.

    4) Spirit bodies are composed of inanimate spirit material particles bound together, not rubbery, non particulate stuff.

    5) Spirit bodies are not infinitely compressible, perhaps only 10-20%, for roughly the same reason that ordinary matter is not highly compressible - spiritual QM leads to a preferred covalent bond length between spirit particles.

    6) In order to be born viviparously, one must discard the previous spirit body, because it is several orders of magnitude too large to occupy an embryo.

    7) That results in a loss of memory, language ability, and so forth. A child reacquires all habits, language ability, etc from scratch, according to the genetic and cultural inheritance. Generally speaking, only rather stable, and mostly inherent aspects of the intelligence itself are preserved. Additional aspects may possibly be manifested genetically in a three part combination rather than a two part combination, where the third part influences chromosomal mapping of the first two.

    8) As an embryo develops, the intelligence re-acquires a spiritual body overlaid with the physical body, including any large scale abnormalities, etc. (whether an amputee has a spirit arm is an interesting question)

    9) Upon death the spirit and material bodies separate, and all memories are preserved in the spirit brain. The intelligence of course sticks with the spirit body.

    10) Separated from the physical body, the spirit body rapidly heals into proper form, large scale abnormalities “dissapear”, in a fast version of what happens in an effective spiritual blessing of healing - fast because lumbering crude matter does not need to be effected. The ultimate quickening by the spirit.

    11) In resurrection, the healed spirit body, which looks like the body we