Semper Persolvo

 Good news, I've found myself with I'm cheating on today's entry, this is an email I just sent to a "bloke" from England who's somewhat anti-Mormon, but is surprisingly civil. We've been engaged in a moderately productive back-and-forth for the past few months and I thought I'd start posting my replies to his emails.

Bobby,

Good news, I've found myself with a bit of time to answer a few of your questions. I'll keep it brief this time to avoid deleting two hours of work like last time.

Concerning the origin of Man. I believe that it started before this world was created, at least in a spiritual sense. I believe the reason God has such a vested interest in our salvation is because we are literally his spirit children. My main reasoning behind this is that, if we existed as nothing else but a notion in the mind of God until we existed spiritually, that would mean God created this Earth with the intent to eventually cause us to become in some cosmic way which we don't understand. In other words, why would he bother, what is God's motivation behind creating a bunch of people and putting (at least the first few) on an earth that he, in his omniscience, knew would eventually start to really suck. 

Why would he create beings to be put on an earth where they would suffer, be killed and persecuted, and hate if it didn't have to be that way? What is God's end game? In most theologies (as I understand it) If we do attain Heaven (which is only possible for the maybe 15% of these creations of God that have ever even heard the name Jesus Christ) we will be angels, or servants, or subservients to God, however one might call it. At any rate, I don't know of many religions that believe that God ever created us with the intent of ever allowing us to become "equals" with him. If that is the case, would that imply that this whole painful, troublesome existence is only an inspiration to get us to accept the sacrifice of God's son, so we can be saved and continue to live under his loving and all-knowing rule for eternity. I don't know, something in there just doesn't seem to add up. What do we get out of this? Happiness and peace? Yes, but by that same theology we could have had that without all the trouble, why didn't God create us into a world without the opportunity for sin. Why didn't he just create us right into that state of happiness and bliss that we're all striving for? Especially because, as many believe, Salvation is only through God anyway, why doesn't he just save us from the get-go and save us the trouble? He want's us all to reach Heaven right? He wants us all to be happy?

In my mind, and as I believe, the reason he doesn't is because this life is but a small part of our eternal existence, we lived with God in eternity before this life, and we are striving to return to him after it has ended. The purpose therefore of this life is for us to gain the experience we need, learn what we need to learn, grow as we need to grow, that we may have the beginnings as we exit this life of what we will eventually need to attain all that God hath. If God is the epitome of light, knowledge, and perfection, I can't understanding how a loving being wouldn't want us as his creations to be equally filled with the same attributes if we are capable of it.
I believe this life is equally pointless if all I need to do is believe in Christ, speak his name and accept him as our savior. If that were the case there would be no use for commandments, no need for a punishment, the only people who would believe that the commandments applied to them would also believe they were saved from the punishments of the commandments. I think it was against this exact attitude that Christ spoke when he said, "Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." I from this understand that even those who proclaim Christ as their Lord will not necessarily enter the kingdom of heaven unless they also do the will of the Father, i.e. keep the commandments. 

In summation, I believe God created us first as spiritual beings, and then so that we could progress and attain all that he has, he set in motion the creation, I personally believe (this is not LDS Doctrine, but is also not refuted by LDS doctrine) that the creation took place more in the manner that scientists now call "the big bang" and that the process described in the Bible is metaphorical. I believe that in doing so he set a sequence of events in motion that eventually allowed for tabernacles (bodies) that would be fit to house his spirit children and it was from that point (after the fall of Adam) that we began to be conceived naturally, provided with bodies, and enter into this mortal probation as we gain the experience necessary to progress in our eternal course.

Thanks again for your questions and answers, I look forward to having the time to answer more.

Alex Lystrup