Bruce Charlton's Notions

 

I believe that we lived before this incarnated mortal life, that we each had a premortal life as a spirit. 

I am not, however, clear about the details of this life; but there are important general implications if we knew many things before this life, things we did not learn from experience, things that may include divine intentions and plans for human life on earth. 

Foreknowledge of such things might well include what would usually be regarded as prophecy.  

Perhaps most importantly, because of premortal experience, it follows that everybody would be in a position to know about Jesus, to know what Jesus did; and even to know and recognize Jesus. 

If this is the case, then it makes easy sense of the requirement that all Men need to 'follow' Jesus in order to attain eternal resurrected life. 

If it was supposed that we need to learn about Jesus during our mortal lives - this sounds an unreasonable requirement; because people might not have correct information about Jesus - indeed they might have no information at all. 

Yet if everybody already-knows about Jesus, and would recognize Jesus if they met him; then the requirement to know and follow him if we want eternal life becomes a simple choice. 

My assumption is that reincarnation can happen and has happened - but that it is rare and exceptional - and very far from the normal thing for most people.

http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=reincarnation

I state as a starting assumption that the Mormon view of life is correct - beginning as eternal primordial essences; we were made spirit children of God (that is, children of Heavenly Parents); who chose to be incarnated into mortal life and to die in order to enable spiritual progression towards deity - and that after our mortal death we are resurrected to continue spiritual progression, if we so choose and behave thus, towards the ultimate goal of full deity.

As an implication of this, there is a distinction between spirit, body and soul. We used to be spirit beings, but on becoming incarnated into bodies - en route to resurrection to eternal beings with bodies - the soul became a combination of the spirit and the body.

This is why mortal death is a terrible thing from which we needed to be saved by the work of Jesus Christ - because after incarnation, the death of the body is a tearing apart of that which has been fused, and it leaves the remaining spirit in a maimed state. This maimed state was described in the inhabitants of Hades or Sheol along the lines of being a demented ghost, without self-awareness or agency.

Resurrection is therefore a restoration of the unity of body and spirit which we have in mortal life - but (if we accept this gift of Christ) in a perfected and purged unity suitable for eternity.

In some primary sense, resurrection is a restoration of that 'old body' which the spirit was fused with in mortal life. So that resurrection is to be reborn with the same body - but that body made divine and immortal.

My point is that therefore reincarnation can only be either one of two:

1. Restoration. A return of the resurrected (purged and perfected) person to the world of mortal life - with the 'old body'.

The resurrected soul is thus restored to the mortal world instead of going to Heaven - presumably to do some divinely-appointed task (eg. be a prophet or angel).

2. Recycling. Some situation in which the first 'attempt' at mortal life is simply 'scrapped' - and the now-maimed human spirit is resurrected (i.e. has the integrity of its incarnated wholeness restored) but with the 'old body' restored but in a non-divine form.

With 'recycling'; presumably the first 'attempt' at mortal life had been such a failure (for whatever reason - perhaps the person did not live long enough to achieve what was necessary) - and they are simply given a second chance (if they choose to accept it) to experience mortal life a second time, and with what is in some essential fashion the same mortal body they had the first time.

My point is that if reincarnation is to be a return of a person to the mortal world and with a body, then that body must be the old-body restored; either restored in divine form or restored in a non-divine form - but the same body. The fact of having-been incarnated means that it can only be the same person if he also has the same body; and anything other than a completion of the same body represents a maiming.

In other words, our premortal spirit is not incarnated into mortal life as a ghost in a body-machine (the ghost being the real me, and my body merely its temporary dwelling); but that incarnation works by a profound process in which the spirit and body are made-one so intimately and wholly that they can never again be severed without loss of identity.

This is why true eternal life of the human soul is, and can only be, in the form of resurrected beings with bodies. But the consequence of this is that reincarnation can only be a very limited process, to achieve limited goals, as described above. 

What is not possible, I think; is that you or I could be reborn multiple times, in multiple bodies, in order to experience multiple lives for the purpose of some kind of stepwise spiritual progression.

This is impossible if my assumptions are taken as correct; because such a view of repeated reincarnation necessarily assumes that the soul is actually a spirit, which can - and does - inhabit multiple bodies like a diver putting-on and taking-off multiple diving suits.

The classic view of reincarnation is therefore one which requires that we are ultimately, in our essence, only-spirits - and that bodies are no more than secondary and exchangeable garments. And this seriously challenges why - if we are spirits - eternal divine life should be as resurrected and incarnate beings, instead of simply remaining as spirits.

Indeed, the reason for mortal life becomes hard to understand at all. Why should we want or need to gain experience as mortal incarnates (with bodies) if our eternal essence does not actually need a body? Why be resurrected, indeed why be incarnated in the first place?

So - my belief is that resurrection can occur, and has occurred - but only seldom and as an exception. The normal and destined progression is that each life goes through incarnate mortality only once, en route to incarnate immortality and aimed at increasing fullness of deity.

This further implies that the full benefit of mortal life can be, and usually is, achieved from a single mortal life and death; therefore, given that most humans in history have died in the womb or as young chidlren, the main and only essential benefit of mortal life must be the experience of death. 

We probably have much more agency than is usually supposed. And always have had, including in premortal life.

In premortal life there were many whose agency was not aligned with creation, who were opposed to creation. But as premortal spirits living in proximity to the divine, their behavior was good anyway. Like bad young children in a good home, they behaved pretty well despite themselves.

But in order to develop spiritually, they needed to incarnate, and then their innate badness came out as their agency became apparent.

Our capacity, and God's capacity, to influence the disposition of a bad person is less than often supposed. A person with a bad heart may be influenced to behave well, but the heart stays bad - unless there is change From Within.

The special evil of the Modern West may be due to the nature of the people incarnated. A high proportion of people with bad hearts. Most bad people just are that way, and always have been, from eternity.

They are hostile to creation, hostile to Gods hopes and plans, hostile to Love... Motivated be pride, resentment and spite. In general, they are self centred and hedonically motivated.

The root of this, is that basic materialism, reductionism, cynicism etc  which is characteristic of Modern Man.  Such shallow hedonism is innate, because premortal.

The only possible cure for such a deep rooted evil is to allow it to be very fully implemented, in its full insanity, incoherence, destruction and inversion. At the individual level and at the group level.

We are mostly hard cases.We are like the Alcoholics Anonymous who must reach rock bottom, by our own choices, before we can repent and be born-again.

That is what is going on here and now, and has been building for several generations. Our best and only collective hope, is to follow and experience the consequences of our evil natures - and to be denied any external help so that we can only be saved from an inner renewal.

We must change our own natures, must find our real selves, must be born again from the divine in each of us.

We are not being guided or cushioned from our own wicked natures by real churches or good social institutions. Instead they are corrupt and evil, and they encourage our own corruption and evil.

Nowadays we cannot merely exchange one form of external guidance for another. We cannot leave a bad job or atheism for a good job and a real church - because all jobs are/ tending evil and all churches are/ tending corrupting.

As innately wicked spirits, we have the chance to be born again in this mortal life, but only by this toughest of tough loves. And only by developing what God most wants us to develop, which is our own inner, divine, intuitive guidance and motivation.

These are the factors that account for the special aspects of our time. This is God's creation, and has been well designed; the Modern West is fit for purpose - and that purpose is to offer the best chance to some of the most intractably evil spirits ever seen.

The extended section when Jesus speaks of the Good Shepherd* comes halfway through the Fourth Gospel, and probably constitutes the heart of its teaching.

Here Jesus seems to be telling us the 'mechanism' by which he, personally, is offering us life everlasting; here he tells us by a long metaphor-parable just how-it-works.

It is about the Good Shepherd (and no other) saving his sheep from being killed; and we know from the rest of the Gospel that this means saving Man from death, by enabling resurrected life eternal in Heaven. The Good Shepherd leads his sheep through death to Heaven.

We hear about the two-sidedness of salvation: 'I know my sheep and are known of mine'. The Good Shepherd seeks us out, and we each recognise him.

On the one hand, fake shepherds (the hireling) cannot save. On the other hand, those who do not 'know' (believe-in, love, trust, have-faith-in) Jesus will not be saved.


What is led? The soul, after death. But why does it need to be led - why can't it find its own way to salvation? Because after death the soul becomes 'helpless', lacks agency - like a young child, a ghost, a sheep.

If unable to help itself, how then can the soul follow Jesus? Because - like a young child, or sheep - the dead soul still can recognise and love; and 'follow'.

Where does this happen? In the 'underworld'. Without Jesus, the disembodied, ghostly, demented dead souls wander like lost sheep - as described in pre-Christian accounts such as Hades of the Greeks, or Sheol of the Ancient Hebrews.  

But how does Jesus save the dead souls? Everybody has known Jesus as spirits in the premortal world, so everybody can recognise him in the underworld; but only those who love Jesus will want to follow him.

So loving dead souls are the sheep that can recognise Jesus: the Good Shepherd, they can follow Jesus, and Jesus can lead them to Resurrected Life Everlasting. 


Note: Souls that do not love Jesus will recognise him, but will not want to follow him. There are significant nuances to this, relating to love of 'neighbour' and the desires of individual souls; but that is the basic model. 

Further note: This seems to be very hard for moderns to grasp; they seem to think that Jesus ought-to save people even when they don't want it - should compel people to Heaven because that is what is good for them - and if Jesus does not do this, then he is wicked. 

But this attitude is totalitarian - based on the secular ideology of utilitarianism so beloved by the modern Establishment - who like to believe that (being wiser, cleverer and more virtuous people than the masses) they are 'managing' the world, 'for their own good'. 

But Christianity is based around the creative freedom and agency of each individual person. This means that nobody can be saved against their will; each individual can, if he wills, defy the wishes of God. Whether you regard this a a good thing (I do) it is a fact of post-mortal life - Heaven must be chosen. 

*John.10 [1] Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. [2] But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. [3] To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. [4] And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. [5] And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. [6] This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. [7] Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. [8] All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them. [9] I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture. [10] The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. [11] I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. [12] But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. [13] The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep. [14] I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine. [15] As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep. [16] And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd. [17] Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. [18] No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father. [19] There was a division therefore again among the Jews for these sayings. [20] And many of them said, He hath a devil, and is mad; why hear ye him? [21] Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind? [22] And it was at Jerusalem the feast of the dedication, and it was winter. [23] And Jesus walked in the temple in Solomon's porch. [24] Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. [25] Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me. [26] But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you. [27] My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: [28] And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

*

I think that one of the reasons that mainstream Christianity has done such a poor job of defending marriage is that this is an area of fundamental theological weakness - such that marriage does not have a sufficiently secure or central position in the mainstream Christian mode of life to enable it to survive the kind of determined secular-hedonic onslaught of the past century or so.

The root of this weakness is that mainstream Christian marriage is perceived as a merely this-worldly, hence temporary and expedient, institution.

By contrast, the Restored Gospel of the Mormon (LDS) church has been exemplary in its defence of marriage, as well as family; and this is substantially a consequence of its regarding marriage as (potentially) eternal.

Thus eternal marriage is not a defence of 'traditional' marriage - because traditional marriage is a much weaker thing than eternal marriage - the Mormon doctrine of marriage is radical, not traditional.

*

From Adam S Miller Rube Goldberg Machines: essays in Mormon theology  (2012)

Traditionally, marriage is not eternal. Rather the traditional meanings of marriage can be broken into two segments, both of which are rooted in finite interests:

1. Marriage as a hub of economic exchange and social productions, and

2. Marriage as an expression of preference in the pursuit of personal satisfaction.

These traditional meanings are not bad in themselves, but they are certainly not eternal...

*

...The difference is this. In [mainstream Christianity] eternal life is singular. In the context of eternal marriage, eternity splits and pluralizes eternal life into eternal lives.

[Eternal] marriage transforms human sexuality from a merely biological difference into a truth that is both spiritual and eternal...

*

Human sexuality is not reducible to biology; rather, human sexuality is irremediably grounded in the symbolic, spiritual dimension of the 'word'...

Gender, as the Proclamation on the Family ^ reminds us, is 'an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose', and, as such, it is fundamentally a spiritual, rather than a biological, distinction...

*

...Sexuation, in order to be thought as a truth, must be more radically rooted in two discrete relations to... symbolic order.

In relation to the symbolic, there is both a masculine position and a feminine position and these positions are incommensurable...

the feminine mode of grasping the symbolic, the feminine way of knowing the world, is fundamentally different from the masculine position, and vice versa...

Eternal marriage, rather than being the mutual satisfaction of sexuated interests and preferences, is an interruption or a calling into question of these preferences by the incommensurable logic of the other sexual position. 

Love is an experience of the nonrelation of sexual difference. It is an exposure to the gap in being human that is human sexuality. 

**


In sum, for Mormon theology, our souls are, and always have been, and always will be, gendered: to be a man or a woman is part of each person's essence.

Eternal marriage has sexual identity as a primary and irreducible metaphysical reality (or assumption) - which makes eternal marriage between man and woman the most profound unit possible (i.e. the ultimate unit is a dyad).

And from this eternal perspective flows, as consequence, the essential or ideal nature of marriage in this mortal world.

**


^  The Family: a proclamation to the World. 1995.

http://www.lds.org/topics/family-proclamation

*

*

I find the following line of argument very convincing.

Edited, and with bold emphases added, from pages 47-51 of The God who weeps by Terryl and Fiona Givens, 2012:

*

The greatest virtue of the idea of premortal existence, undoubtedly, is in its solution to the problem of human freedom...

If our life carries hidden within its core our own eternal past, then we are free in a way no alternate model of human existence can account for.

*

[The most daunting problem of free will is the challenge to understand..]

how we can freely choose, if God made us - body and soul, mind and will, genes and instincts, predispositions and predilections, tastes and desires?

One can say, God created us and He created us free. But that just substitutes a declaration for an explanation.

No, if God is the sole author of all that is, then we cannot find our way clear to believe He is not responsible for our choices. 

*

The ancients knew that something is free only if it is not caused or created by something else,

[...as JME McTaggart wrote]

If God created our souls, He 'could have prevented all sin by creating us with better natures and in more favourable surroundings... Hence we should not be responsible for our sins to God.'

This is the same logic by which we assign blame in all other instances where there is a creator and a thing created. If a bridge collapses, we hold responsible the person that designed the bridge or executed its construction...

*

But the fact is, as adults with moral awareness, we sense we are responsible for our own choices.

And the reason we know is we are, is because we feel guilt when we do something wrong...

*

The modern era has given us a dozen reasons to explain away those legitimate feelings of guilt we all experience...

But no rationalization can allay the insistent knowledge that we all confess in moments of secret honesty: we do wrong because we make a decision to do so, and feel guilty because we know we could have acted differently.

*

That means we had other options than the one we chose. If we could have acted differently, then we were free to act differently at that moment of choice.

Guilt, the legitimate remorse we feel for the deliberate decision to do wrong, is all the proof we need that arguments about determinism and predestination are a philosopher's game.

Guilt is how we know we are free to choose.

(...)

In our present, earthly form, we are clearly the product of forces outside our control that influence our personality, inform our character, and shape our wants and desires.

And yet we know we are free.

How can this be, unless there is something at the heart of our identity that was not shaped by environment, not inherited from our parents, and not even created by God?

(...)

Some scholars who thought deeply about the nature of sin came to the same conclusion that only pre-existence can explain human freedom.

It is no solution simply to insist God made us free.

Sin must mean accountability... Accountability must mean the freedom to choose.

*

And human freedom can only have its roots [to quote Julius Muller] 'in a sphere beyond the range of time, wherein alone pure and unconditioned self-determination is possible'. 

**


COMMENT

The above seems to crystallize pretty much exactly my own feelings on this topic.

I agree that 'God created us and He created us free' is a pseudo-argument.

I also agree in rejecting the suggestion that free will is one of those things that humans cannot know, but in this matter we must simply submit to (what we imagine to be) God's will - because I find this to be not just an un-Christian, but an anti-Christian conception of the relationship between God and Man.

And I agree that pre-mortal eternal pre-existence solves the problem of free will in the way that nothing else does.

*

Therefore, the only remaining question is whether it is true that the human soul or spirit (of some kind) had a pre-mortal eternal existence (of some kind).

The idea of pre-mortal soul/ spirit existence is compatible with at least some authoritative, albeit unusual (some would say heretical - but that is to beg the question) views of Christianity including some Holy Fathers such as (apparently) Augustine and Origen.

There is also a great deal of indirect experiential subjective evidence implying pre-mortal existence;

and a strong metaphysical argument that if souls are eternal from mortality forwards, then this would tend to imply they are immortal from mortality backwards (i.e. if something exists eternally - as souls do, then it is hard to imagine a time when it was not existing, and was created from nothing. Easy to say this, but hard to imagine it);

and furthermore the alternative times suggested for when the human soul is created (conception, during embryonic development, birth etc) all seem to be arbitrary and implausible.

*

So, I conclude that it is true and the reality is that human souls eternally pre-existed mortality in some form and mortal life is (mostly) shielded from (full and explicit) knowledge of this by a veil of ignorance - such as to preserve the autonomy of mortality on the one hand; while, on the other hand, encouraging us with legitimate hope and sufficient understanding.

*

I have edited the following italicised section from William Arkle’s A Geography of Consciousness pp. 123-4:

Mortal Man’s right to, and experience of, autonomy is a very destructive and dangerous process in that it is paved with ugly and inharmonious desires and ideas. If the Angelic stage of evolution was also open to this reactive phase, the result would be total destruction and collapse of the necessary field of earthly experience.

So, while we Humans make the great sacrifice of suffering and pain to achieve an autonomous and individual divine nature, so the Angels make the great sacrifice which is to create and maintain the necessary ground for our Human experience; and they clean up the mess we make in the course of this experience. This work requires them to remain always in harmony with the divine purpose and aspiration, and consequently does not properly allow them the experience of objective valuation which ultimate understanding requires.

Such is the interpretation given to the parable of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal is the Human who is bound to sin for a reason he does not understand, but which – in the end – gives him knowledge of very great value.

But his Brother, who does not sin and who does not venture off into the wilds of poverty and hunger, does not experience the pain and misery of this hunger; and therefore does not value that which is hungered-for in quite the same way. The Brother [like the Angels] is never lost and never has cause to be rejoiced-over; for he never returns of his own accord with this priceless treasure, and his Father in Heaven never has anxiety about him.


The Prodigal Son represents us - represents mortal Men; the Brother represents the Angels.

Such Angels I conceive to be pre-mortal spirit Children of God (i.e. men and women such as ourselves, but before we were incarnated) – whose ‘job’ includes vital assistance in making and maintaining the earth and creation for incarnate mortal Men to inhabit.

Our world is where we may experience the consequences of our agency and sin; such that we may ultimately repent, return, and bring-home the precious treasures won from our sufferings and death.

That is the sacrifice of mortals.

The premortal Men/ Angels vital role is to help mortal Men, and to ‘clean-up the mess’ created by mortal Men so that mortal life does not rapidly self-destroy and collapse.

Such a job entails absolute concordance with the divine will and purpose; therefore the Angels must have limited agency and, consequently, delayed spiritual progression. They must patiently wait their turn for incarnation.

And that is the sacrifice of the Angels.