Intelligence and Spirit

I have increasing been confronted with an unfortunate misunderstanding of LDS Doctrine that has been propagated on the Internet recently. Some antagonists to the LDS church have been spreading a misunderstood description of LDS eternal life using imagery that makes it sound like the final destiny of LDS woman are that they are to become eternal, spirit-baby-making factories. Our opponents try to equate our doctrine with God telling Eve, " I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception." Whatever the mechanism involved with clothing self-existent intelligence with a spirit body, I am positive it is associated with a "fullness of joy" and not a "multiplicity of sorrow." I had always considered the LDS doctrine on women in eternity to honor women with an equal position together with their husbands. If that is so, where does this misunderstanding come from?

"God has made His children like Himself to stand erect, and has endowed them with intelligence and power and dominion over all His works, and given them the same attributes which He himself possesses. He created man, as we create our children; for there is no other process of creation in heaven, on the earth, in the earth, or under the earth, or in all the eternities, that is, that were, or that ever will be." (Journal of Discourses 11:122-123).

I think this process of creation that Brigham Young is more referring to is the process of parenting and nurture of a child by a loving father and a mother. In context, this is how God endows His children with intelligence, power and dominion by nurture and not just nature. Physical mechanisms don't pass on intelligence, power and dominion alone. Therefore, the mechanism of pro-creation or creation here is not necessarily speaking of a physical mechanism, sexual reproduction, uterine gestation, or pregnancy but of parenting, love, and nurturing. This important distinction differentiates pro-creation from reproduction. Pro-creation refers to the spiritual process of parenting while reproduction infers physical mechanisms.

Parenting is the process of creation in the heavens, on earth, and in all the eternities. Remember it takes more than just making a baby to raise a child and this is what Brigham Young was teaching. The eternal role and destiny for men and women is to be spiritual parents who are given spiritual stewardship over spirits who will pass through morality as we have. But these spirits according to Joseph Smith have always existed and are co-eternal with God and us. Therefore, a physical, tangible, resurrected, glorified, spirit parent doesn't necessarily need to gestate an intangible spirit in a uterus, but to nurture them as God nurtures and loves us. The important issue here is that whatever process was involved in the organization of the spirits of man; it was an act of generation and not just creation.

Also, the fact that our spirits are co-eternal with God is how the Bible can say that Christ purchased us, and how we are expected to give our whole souls to God. How can we give what is not ours? Why would God buy what is already His? Also, the fact or our self-existent nature and will is why God is not responsible for the evil of Satan. God did not create a defective spirit.

Joseph Smith clearly taught that the spirits of man were not created but are self-existent and co-eternal with God in the King Follett Discourse:

"We say that God himself is a self-existing God. Who told you so? It is correct enough, but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? (Refers to the old Bible.) How does it read in the Hebrew? It doesn't say so in the Hebrew; it says God made man out of the earth and put into him Adam's spirit, and so he became a living body. The mind of man is as immortal as God himself. I know that my testimony is true; hence, when I talk to these mourners, what have they lost? Their friends and relatives are separated from their bodies for only a short season; their spirits existed coequal with God, and they now exist in a place where they converse together, the same as we do on the earth. Is it logic to say that a spirit is immortal and yet has a beginning? Because if a spirit has a beginning, it will have an end. That is good logic. I want to reason further on the spirit of man, for I am dwelling on the spirit and body of man--on the subject of the dead. I take my ring from my finger and liken it unto the mind of man, the immortal spirit, because it has no beginning. Suppose I cut it in two; as the Lord lives, because it has a beginning, it would have an end. All the fools and learned and wise men from the beginning of creation who say that man had a beginning prove that he must have an end. If that were so, the doctrine of annihilation would be true. But if I am right, I might with boldness proclaim from the house tops that God never did have power to create the spirit of man at all. God himself could not create himself. Intelligence exists upon a self-existent principle; it is a spirit from age to age, and there is no creation about it. Moreover, all the spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible to enlargement. The first principles of man are self-existent with God."

The Biblical says that God created everything visible and invisible. However John 1:3 says "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made." The last part "that was made" suggests that not everything was made. Everything was made by God which was made. But somethings were not made but eternal, and self-existent and didn't require making. Either that, or the Bible is being terribly redundant.

Okay. So, where did this idea come from? This is really our own fault. This misunderstanding comes from a mistaken differentiation between intelligences and spirits. Abraham says in the Pearl of Great Price: " 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;" (Abr 3:22). Now some have taken this concept of intelligences and made a distinction between intelligence and spirit where no distinction is made. Some interpreted intelligence as some sort of eternal building block by which Eternal Parents reproduced and spirit-children were made using the same mechanisms as physical reproduction.
However, In my opinion, Abraham doesn't differentiate between spirit and intelligence and neither does Joseph Smith in the King Follett Discourse. Intelligence = Spirit, Spirit = Intelligence, and Spirit and Intelligence are co-eternal and co-existent with God. While God and exalted beings retain powers of literal physical reproduction, Christ is the only begotten of the Father and spirit children of God become like our Heavenly Father through the nurturing mechanism of eternal parenting.

While I am of the opinion that the scriptures do not differentiate between intelligence and spirit, however, there are some LDS quotes on this issue, there is an semi-authoritative quote which does make a distinction. Melvin J. Ballard is quoted as saying "In due time that intelligence was given a spirit body, becoming the spirit child of God the Eternal Father and his beloved companion, the Mother in Heaven. This spirit, inhabited by the eternal intelligence, took the form of its creators and is in their image" (Ballard, Melvin J. Sermons and Missionary Services of Melvin J. Ballard, comp. Bryant S. Hinckley, p. 140. Salt Lake City, 1949). So, it seems clear that Elder Ballard did make a distinction however there is no specific mention of mechanism by which raw intelligence was given a spirit body only that both the Eternal Father and the Mother in Heaven were involved. However, I am not sure where this quote comes from and when it was said, I am not aware of other recent quotes by the General Authorities on this issue.

Again, I object to is how some equate our doctrine with God telling Eve, " I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception." Whatever the mechanism involved with clothing self-existent intelligence with a spirit body, I am positive it is associated with a "fullness of joy" and not a "multiplicity of sorrow." I believe that the organization of the spirits of man was an act of generation and not just plain creation. I believe the process necessary for the organization of the spirits of man involved an act of generation and not just creation. Also, I do believe that Our Eternal Father is the Living God and the God of the Living and along with other resurrected, celestial beings, by definition, retains the sacred powers and abilities of both literal physical reproduction and literal spiritual pro-creation.