Part 3 of 3 – by Greg Christiansen
One dark evening, my wife got in her car and started heading home from work. As she drove, she noticed that the cars around her were behaving a little oddly, giving her the sense that something was off, though she could not quite figure out what. So she shrugged at their behavior, and continued on her way. When she was about halfway home, she suddenly found herself alone on the road and was startled to discover that it was very dark and that she could no longer see the way ahead.
It turned out that her headlights were not on, and they had not been on the whole time she had been driving home. Yet because of the collective ambiance of street lights and the headlights of other vehicles, she had failed to notice the fact until she was suddenly completely on her own on a particularly dark stretch of road.
This experience has stuck with me ever since she shared it. It reminded me of when I was in my twenties, and I had reconnected with some old friends and mission buddies on that new thing called Facebook only to discover that several of them had left the Church. It reminded me also of when I was a teenager, and one of my Church buddies expressed some doubts that the Church was true, or when one of my non-member friends confessed that he was an atheist. With each of those experiences, I remember feeling a little jolt, and thinking, “Wait, aren’t we all believers here?” Each time it called into question my own testimony, and I had to do a light check, because a couple of those lights around me had gone out. Were my headlights on, or was I relying on the ambient light around me…the outward belief of others. With their lights gone, it seemed that mine needed to be a little brighter if I was to have the same confidence in the path ahead of me.
Over time, these things have made me realize that something exists which we might call collective belief. Essentially, it is easier to believe something if everyone else believes it too; and equally, the fewer people there are around us that believe something, the harder it becomes for us to continue to believe. More faith is required to sustain us, until we gain some knowledge of our own to brighten our light, which helps to make it easier again.
The collective belief around us is kind of like a sauce that we marinate in the whole time we are growing up and on into adulthood. For example, I have never seen the viking people of Scandinavia, nor have I witnessed them raiding towns, nor have I been involved in archeological digs that have unearthed evidence of them. Yet never once has it crossed my mind to doubt that they at one time existed, simply because everyone around me has always accepted the belief that vikings were a part of European history. Even so, the plain truth is that I have no authoritative knowledge of vikings that is really my own, and so if I woke up one morning to discover that the rest of the world no longer believed in vikings, it would suddenly become very difficult for me to continue to believe, no matter how real their existence was. To sustain my belief, I would need to go and find some manner of evidence, so that I could know for myself.
Joseph Smith found himself in a somewhat opposite situation. He saw God and Christ, and entertained angels, and beheld visions. Yet those things were not your everyday experiences. Suddenly, his view of reality was drastically different than that of the people around him. What had become ordinary for him were things that others would call crazy. When he shared his experiences it was hard for people to believe, because they would have to go against the grain of the belief around them. To believe Joseph’s crazy claims would make them suddenly alone. It would alienate them from friends and from family members. It would invite ridicule and persecution. You believe in crazy Joe who thinks he talks to God? Are you an idiot? Don’t you recognize a charlatan? Aren’t you a good Christian? Do you want to be cast into hell? Don’t you know that God doesn’t talk to men anymore? Haven’t you read the Bible where it forbids any new scripture? Didn’t Jesus warn us against false prophets?
Surely, most of us do not really understand how hard it was for people to follow Joseph back then. When you’ve been marinating in a sauce of false beliefs for your whole life, new truths can sound both strange and blasphemous. To accept them can cause you quite a bit of discomfort. To the contrary, joining the chorus of those who reject them can be very comforting. Ridiculing Joseph Smith would bring you the approval of the masses, while speaking in his favor would win you scorn and criticism.
Collective belief is this natural inclination to believe what everyone else believes, especially those closest around us. The trouble is that the truth of something is not established by the number of people who believe it, or their proximity to us. Truth is simply things as they really are. For example, not so many centuries ago everyone believed that the earth was flat, and the few people who didn’t were simply weird. Yet the fact that everyone believed a falsehood collectively didn’t change the shape of the earth.
Or we might look back to 1633, when Galileo faced an inquisition of the Catholic Church because he believed that the earth revolved around the sun, rather than that the sun revolved around the earth. On June 22nd of that year they handed down the following sentence: “We pronounce, judge, and declare, that you, the said Galileo… have rendered yourself vehemently suspected by this Holy Office of heresy, that is, of having believed and held the doctrine (which is false and contrary to the Holy and Divine Scriptures) that the sun is the center of the world, and that it does not move from east to west, and that the earth does move, and is not the center of the world.” They sentenced him to three years in prison and he spent the rest of his life under house arrest. The Catholic Church didn’t even admit that he was right until some three hundred years later.
Apparently, the Christians of medieval times thought it was pretty important to believe that man was the center of the universe. And since everyone else in the Church held that belief, it was pretty easy for them to say that what Galileo was teaching was both false and contrary to the scriptures. Yet I don’t know anyone today who would read the Bible and come away convinced that it is teaching that the sun revolves around the earth. And if it did, we would simply say, Well, obviously someone got that wrong.
At the same time, the only reason most of us believe the earth revolves around the sun is because that’s what we’ve been told all our lives. Frankly, I’m not an astronomer, and no amount of staring at the sky is going to help me produce a convincing argument about which thing is moving and which thing isn’t. My beliefs about what’s going on out in space are completely based off of what other people have told me, who claim to have authority as experts, or to have read it in books written by the experts, or who watched something about it on Sesame Street…and since no one seems to disagree with them, I don’t see any reason not to believe them.
Yet the frank truth is, my beliefs about the earth and the sun and the universe have nothing to do with anything that I actually know of myself. It’s just the scientific sauce that I’ve been marinating in my whole life. A sauce that contains both truth and falsehood, blended together in a nice purée. I remember sitting in a planetarium many years ago and watching a presentation where they confessed that everything we knew about the universe is based off of observing light. It made me think, “What? Really? That’s all we’re going off of here? One piece of sensory information?” It made me realize that there was a lot of room left for interpretation. Still, apparently enough people have studied that light over the years that in our day it is collectively a no brainer to believe that the earth is in motion.
It is quite interesting to think that in Galileo’s day, everybody would have regarded him as “that weird guy that thinks the earth is moving around the sun.” Yet what made him weird was the fact that he was the only one who knew the truth, which knowledge he had gained by careful study. In other words, where he measured on the weirdness scale had no connection to where he measured on the truth scale, unless perhaps it is to say that the more truth that you learn, the weirder you are going to be, because eventually you are going to discover things that do not fit in with what most people believe.
Sometimes, weird just means alone. Galileo was weird because he was standing alone against a belief of his day. Indeed, to know truths that others don’t is lonely, and surely the loneliest people in the world have been the prophets. And if they declare those truths to the world, they are often more likely to lose followers than to gain them. Such was the case after Christ fed the five thousand, when he declared to them the doctrine of atonement, which perhaps sounded too much like human sacrifice and the Satanic ritual of eating human flesh for their taste. “From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him. Then said Jesus unto the twelve, Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life” (John 6:66-68).
How lonely it must have been for the Savior, as no one else knew or understood His doctrine. He could not rely on anyone else’s light to enhance His belief, but He had to know for Himself who He was, and what His mission was, and what He needed to teach. His disciples had a similar struggle, in the sense that they had to know for themselves who the Savior was, because they could not borrow that belief from the Jews. There was very little shared light to sustain them in this new circumstance, and when hearing these strange doctrines. They had to be sustained by their faith in the Lord and their belief in Him as a true messenger, until they gained their own knowledge of what He was teaching.
I suppose many of us feel like we are in a similar circumstance today. There are collective beliefs we have as a Latter-day Saint culture and as a Gentile culture, which we have been marinating in for many years. It is the safe territory, where we are comfortably secure in the mainstream of the Church and the mainstream of the world. At the same time, there is another marinade that encompasses the length and breadth of the world, which is the light of Christ. It whispers to us of truths that we may hunger and thirst for, in order to find answers to our Gospel questions. The Spirit of the Lord speaks these things more firmly into our hearts and our minds as we study them out.
This has been my experience with the controversial doctrine of multiple probations, which concept is not something you will find in the Mormon sauce of our day. Yet the pattern of it is evident all throughout the doctrines of Christ, and His condescension to this earth bears witness of it. As expressed by W W Phelps in the fourth verse of my favorite sacrament hymn, O God the Eternal Father:
How infinite that wisdom,
The plan of holiness,
That made salvation perfect
And veiled the Lord in flesh,
To walk upon his footstool
And be like man, almost,
In his exalted station,
And die, or all was lost.
It seems that W W Phelps held the belief that Christ was an exalted being before He came to earth. Perhaps there was a little more Joseph Smith in the sauce he was marinating in back then, which has since been boiled out. To me, the simple fact that Lorenzo Snow stated that “his sister, the late Eliza R. Snow Smith, was a firm believer in the principle of reincarnation and that she claimed to have received it from Joseph the Prophet, her husband,” is enough cause for every Saint to make a serious study of this doctrine before they decide to dismiss it. After all, Lorenzo Snow did not find that it conflicted with the established doctrine. “He said he saw nothing unreasonable in it, and could believe it, if it came from the Lord or His oracle” (Quinn, D. Michael, The Mormon Hierarchy: Extensions of Power, Appendix 5, Selected Chronology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1848-1996). Eliza R. Snow might have been the greatest woman in early Church history, and Lorenzo Snow was an apostle and would later become the President of the Church. Having their support, as well as the support of other early authorities, how can the doctrine be dismissed as incorrect without first giving it the utmost consideration?
Yet my purpose here is not to make an argument for the doctrine, as Eric and I have done that elsewhere. Instead, I would simply point out my suspicion that many of us who believe the doctrine of multiple probations feel somewhat like Galileo, standing before a tribunal of Latter-day Saints and looking pretty weird and even like heretics, and being told that we are believing something that is false and contrary to scripture. We may feel alone, and may have realized that we cannot rely on the ambient light of others if we want to see in the darkness. Our own light needs to brighten.
Indeed, they accused Galileo of being a heretic, yet he had studied the stars and their movements, and had observed the patterns, and weighed and measured how they all interacted, and eventually came to the only possible conclusion. The earth was orbiting the sun, and not vice versa. So he continued to believe, even though the authorities of truth told him that he was wrong.
It is similarly left to us to study the light of heaven, and to weigh and to measure, and to seek out evidence, until we know for ourselves. Otherwise, our beliefs will simply be drowned out by the opposing voices around us, which repeat back the Gospel they have grown up hearing, thinking that they have understanding because of the congratulatory claps of the collective whole that they feel patting them on the back, which allow them to dismiss the doctrine without the need to engage in any sincere study of the matter.
I confess, I find it interesting that so many Saints are content to believe in the finality of heaven and hell because that is what they have traditionally been taught, and yet if they heard tell of an elementary school which eternally held back students who failed the third grade, they would surely be outraged, and would join the chorus in crying out for justice for those poor third graders who deserve another chance. Do we ascribe God to be a being that is less just, less merciful, and less loving than we are? If not, then why would we be so quick to dismiss a doctrine of second chances in the eternal school of progression?
Well, that is fine with me. Let people believe what they want to believe, and let them pursue their own questions as they feel so inclined. Let it also be the same for us who find truth in this doctrine, that we might be free to believe what we believe without persecution or fear of retribution by those who find it contrary to their own understanding. If it is false, then it will eventually be purged from the earth like all other darkness. But if it is true, then there is nothing anyone can do to prevent this ray of morning light from breaking forth, though the devil summon all of his power to conjure up a cloud of darkness.
As I ponder the vastness of all eternity,
I wonder what I would design,
as a Goddess, my plan to be-
What would my worlds look like,
For all of MY Spirit Children to see-
Would it be as Marvelous as Elohim’s?
I love this. The eternities have such endless possibilities…
Yes! I love the analogy. And the Spirit is inviting me to recognize and repent where I am content to simmer in untruths. Thank you!
Thank you so much Greg for your witness and common sense explanation! If God was once as we are and we may become as he now is, I can’t imagine that process without multiple probations plain and simple!!!!! It is going to take me many many lives to learn all that I need to know in order for me to love all people and have the necessary compassion that is required to be a god, either small g or large G… For me this doctrine began to be revealed to me several years before hearing about Julie, Eric or you as I was reading the discourses of Brigham Young. He gives little hints but I was so excited by them that in my minds eye and through the Holy Ghost I could almost see it and then it began to be unfolded a little at a time as the Lord lead me to other writings and with each new piece of the puzzle the light grew brighter… What a sweet experience! Now I cannot go back, the truth of this has completely changed my perspective!!!!! I praise God for this and thank Him everyday!!!! My only regret is that some have made such a mockery of it by teaching it and using it incorrectly and that quite frankly makes me sick!!!!
Keep up your great work, and thank you all from the bottom of my heart! Sue
Awesome! Thanks for these series of articles on multiple probations. I find as I read and study and pray and ponder on this doctrine of multiple probations everything I know becomes easier to believe and more clear. Kind of like your analogy with the headlights. Perfect! More light and truth helps me to see everything with more clarity.
Thank you! ❤
Greg, beautifully written! But, please don’t perpetuate the lie of polygamy! Here you are connected with Eric Smith and Julie Rowe who are waking us up to the infiltration of secret combinations that have risen up into the LDS Church hierarchy, which began with Brigham and the boys bringing polygamy (and idolatry and priestcraft) into the Church in the beginning, but yet you share a Lorenzo and Eliza quote — when Lorenzo was a polygamist!! And there is much proof that much of our “history” is intentional deception, still today, to continue to promote this lie that The Prophet Joseph Smith was a polygamist! The quote you have shared about Eliza, one of his wives, is a lie. Please read the book by Val Brinkerhoff, The Secret Chambers, for the research and facts.
I really like your analogies, headlights, Vikings, earth and Sun, etc. Very good synopsis of our state of thinking and beliefs. Ask almost anyone to explain how electricity works. Most just take it for granted that it does.
Thank you! I love reading something that is so plainly permeated with truth from every angle that it truly makes it simple to see the light through a clear lens, even if you are used to having blinders on!
I love the final paragraph here, it perfectly sums up everything written in this 3 part essay.
Thank you Greg, Matt and Eric for your witness of this truth, it strengthens mine. May the good Lord continue to bless you in your efforts as you stand humbly and boldly for the cause of truth.
Thanks Greg. All of the essays have been great and I thank all three of you. I needed to hear this today. I needed to hear how feeling alone wasn’t wrong. I needed to remember that I wasn’t alone. I love that you said maybe weird means alone, that knowing truth others do not know can make you feel alone. Thank you for sharing your insights and gifts. And I love that quote from Eliza.
Thanks Greg, very well written. I have not had a witness on multiple probations, but logically it makes sense to me. We know that Christ was a god before he came to earth, so he would have had to have a body, right? Also, just the fact that Satan is working so hard against this doctrine, with the twisted way Chad and Lori view it, makes me think it could be true, because Satan always works hardest against truth. I need to study more on this topic, thanks for giving me some food for thought.
Great essay, as always. Here are some words of the Prophet Joseph that relate to the subject:
“More thinking is required, and we should all exercise our God-given right to think and be unafraid to express our opinions, with proper respect for those to whom we talk and proper acknowledgment of our own shortcomings. We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts.” – Millennial Star, Vol. 14, Num. 38, pp.593-595
“The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation or without being circumscribed or prohibited by the creeds or superstitious notions of men, or by the dominations of one another, when that truth is clearly demonstrated to our minds, and we have the highest degree of evidence of the same.” – Letter from Joseph Smith to Isaac Galland, Mar. 22, 1839, Liberty Jail, Liberty, Missouri, published in Times and Seasons, Feb. 1840, pp. 53–54
Those quotes are so relevant to this topic. Thanks, Caleb!
And I am grateful to everyone for the very kind and thoughtful replies so far to this essay. Though we might agree or might disagree as we seek understanding, it is beautiful to be free to share our perspectives and thoughts together.
I love this so much! Thank you for sharing it!
I just found out that the first quote I shared was not actually from Joseph but from President Hugh B. Brown, an Apostle and counselor in the First Presidency. The place where I found the quote sited it wrong. Still a great quote, that is in harmony with what he taught, but not from Joseph.
No worries. Still a great quote, and one that should remain equally true regardless.
This was such a refreshing read. Clear, articulate. Thank you! Too many believe they know when they really just believe. We rightly put emphasis on faith, but that is another cultural limitation in Christianity at the expense of knowledge. Information to belief, to faith, to knowledge, to perfect knowledge, and those who have a perfect knowledge cannot be kept from within the veil (Alma 32, Ether 3). Too often we get stuck at belief and call that knowledge from both a secular and spiritual standpoint.
My first instinct on MMPs was to reject it. But I began to ponder on the nature of God and Satan. God is love and a creator. Satan is hate and a destroyer. By nature, Satan can only destroy what is created and that’s why we have counterfeits. He could not come up with the idea of reincarnation, he could only corrupt the idea of MMPs. And that is why I have begun to believe it could be true, but I’m far from having knowledge as to this thing. Don’t worry, I won’t cast it out by unbelief.
It is inconceivable to me, that the Great Creator maintains order from atom to universe, that he comprehends every detail, element of matter, and law therein, but He can’t figure out a way to secure a path whereby his offspring can come home if they also chose to obey law. If, in His infinite wisdom, He could not figure that out, then it could not be called the plan of happiness. Making Him a liar. Also, if there is no such hope, why is there preaching in spirit prison? I struggle with the complexity of how MMPs can fit into the concept of spirit prison and paradise. From what I’m hearing, you’re saying those who’ve lived prior probations in wickedness can obtain another mortal experience, but how would they access that experience if in spirit prison?
So many questions and I’m rambling. Thanks again.
You ask some great questions, and I don’t have any real understanding of how such things might be administered or such decisions might be made beyond the veil. Like you, I remain open minded about those things. It seems silly to me to put arbitrary limitations upon God concerning what He will or will not do in order to provide for the advancement of His children.
Nice essay. Good, relatable examples.
And being alone is a really hard thing. I’ve always felt bad for the prophets and wondered why they had to be persecuted so much. I’m realizing that it is directly related to the principle that you just outlined.
I have had enough promptings, experiences and answers to comfortably believe in this doctrine. I also believe that “sufficient to the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34) and I am content to wholly focus on my current probation.
However, it helps to better understand why we’re all on such different levels of ability and different levels of trial and difficulty. It also helps to know that even though a 3rd part of the host of heaven made a really bad decision once, that in the vast eternities of heaven, they may have an opportunity to make a better decision in the future.
Thank you for your essay.
Laura
I really like this comment, Laura. I think you have such a well balanced perspective.
I would love some input with this: In Val Brinkerhoff’s book, The Secret Chamber, page 165, he states: “To be saved or redeemed, all people (and the earth herself) must receive both baptisms; the lesser water baptism, and the greater or fuller spiritual baptism (see John 3:3-5, 5:24; D&C 5:16, 33:11-15; 39:6; Mosiah 27:25; Alma 5:6-16, 26-28, 49; 3 Ne. 30:2).
Now I’ve always heard that to repent and be baptized (from Christians in general) means we will be saved and redeemed by Christ. But I am learning, from scripture and Val, that this is not so; to be saved or redeemed, the first water baptism is only part of it. We must receive the second fiery baptism which cleanses us from all sin, which is to be “born again” and receive “the mighty change of heart”.
So in relation to MMPs, I am starting to see that those people who do NOT receive the second baptism, are those that need to basically “do it again” (if they so choose); that in order to progress, we must truly know our Savior! The exception to this would be people that “condescend” for God’s specific purposes. Any thoughts?
Connie, you will find some great input here.
You are definitely headed in the right direction.
https://doctrineofchrist.info/recordings/?fbclid=IwAR3mlsOwTaZAfiUEVTlLieHCassqP-VNTsvriljR_A558Gpl-BeSdhsXvCo
Thank you for your response, but do not feel the need to attend any “meetings”.
Hi Eric, Matt, and Gregory. Thank you so much for these essays. Much of what each of you have shared echoes many of my own thoughts and feelings. The sentiments about being alone certainly pull at the heartstrings, but I find comfort and feel a little less alone in reading these three essays. So thank you for having the courage to shine the light you each have received.
Leilani, it really means a lot to me and to us knowing there are other logs on this fire. Thank you for sharing this. It’s nice to hear from you again.
Eric
This should probably be looked at as the principle of Eternal Lives as Brigham Young calls it. The principle is there but it is not taught and expounded as doctrine. Members probably doubt it so much, as to being worthy enough of obtaining God status, that we are happy just being members.
However, it is taught in the D&C, in the temple and by the prophets of the church.
We are not taught the doctrine of the progress of becoming Gods and Goddesses. This seems to not be discussed because we probably would leave and in the past members have left the Church because of the lessons of Eternal lives. Or put differently, lives in eternity.
We cannot grow enough in one lifetime to achieve Godhood. I truly believe it. I think that before Joseph Smith was born into this life cycle, as the Prophet of this dispensation, he followed God’s commandments and grew in knowledge. He was the chosen one, foreordained, even if the veil kept it from him, he learned who he was as God revealed things to him.
Many of the prophets are told that what they suffer in similatude of Christ.
We choose to follow Christ by his example. He suffered, if we follow we too will eventually suffer as he did, if we are to be Gods also. Well I haven’t had time to do that yet. So I still have some living to do but it’s not going to happen this time around.
Love that you guys are all seeking more understanding, it helps me to seek also. So I am very glad I found you and feel my soul hungering to understand more. Who knows as we grow in understanding that these things may eventually even be something more grand than we can imagine now.
It is my testimony that because of God’s great love for us, He gives us further light and knowledge ONLY when we are ready to receive it. Because They love us and do not want to put more on our heads that we will be accountable for, They open up the windows of Heaven and pour more knowledge into us only when it is time and They have prepared us for more!
Christ teaches us in “loops” as we witness from His parables; line upon line. He first gives us our foundation; decades of hearing the same truths over and over again in church, scriptures, temple, etc. For me, there were holes in that foundation that first needed to be filled in, before I could receive more; I first saw the Vision of my path in the book Visions of Glory, then They put Mike Stroud on my narrow path, to help fill in those holes; then I was ready for more. Your spirit knows when it is ready to open up more and remember more. This is a beautiful plan for us, out of Their love for us. As Julie Rowe says: “Be grateful for your veil”. I now express gratitude for that veil, but also pray each day for it to be removed, because They have prepared me for more!
Very interesting comments, Connie. Thank you so much for sharing.
What I’m starting to notice when it comes to themes like multiple probations…. you can have the best arguments and symbols and scriptures… but there is this little thing from which nobody can escape.. It is the heart and the feelings that come along with something… David Hume, a really good intellectual thinker, said: „As reasoning is not the source, whence either disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.” The act of letting the heart speak is something that every reader has to let happen while reading your texts. Because there will be no change without a touched heart.
Thank you for your courage to make your own interplay between thoughts, intellectual abilities and your heart available to your readers.
May God bless you, Dorothea
I am open to the idea of multiple probations and the possibility of having lived previous lives. It is consistent with my belief in ongoing (a.k.a. “eternal”) progression. Unfortunately, this view can become tainted with beliefs that I consider to be counterproductive and potentially dangerous/damaging. That is the view of some people who are sure that their previous lives were those of powerful and famous individuals. This seems to destroy a sense of humility and breeds an arrogance that can lead to behaviors that are hurtful if not dangerous. For example, I personally have encountered more than one person claiming to have been Melchizedek. What do you make of this variant belief?