I should also point out that this was in 1839. It was not until 1843 (17 May) that we have record of Joseph commenting on the materiality of spirit.

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. Our Savior speaks of Children & Says their angels always stand before my father.

There are a couple of points I’d like to solicit comments on. I realize that this is twist on the neo-Platonic argument and he used it subsequently (e.g., the KFD). I also realize that people have already commented that the logic is not all that compatible with Mormon empiricism (e.g., Sealing families, etc.). I’m more interested, however, in the coupling of the eternal nature of our “being� to earth and water.

In the 1780’s Lavoisier and later Gay-Lussac and Louis Jacques Thenard elucidated the proportion of carbon and hydrogen in organic material by combustion and subsequently measuring the water and carbon dioxide. I don’t know if the Saints where familiar with these concepts of chemistry, but it was obvious to many contemporaries that water and (potentially, depending on how you look at it) earth may be both created and destroyed: organic material + oxygen >> water + carbon dioxide.

From a modern perspective, condensation of the quark-gluon plasma aside, it is obvious that the atoms of this earth were formed in the fusion reactions of stars and super novae. Moreover, they can be destroyed by fission/fusion reactions.

So to get to the whole point of this post, if we are to take the coupling of the eternal nature of our “being� to things who’s parts may be eternal but are not eternal in the form applied by Joseph, can we draw any conclusions on the intent of Joseph and his description?

Futile?

I figure that I have enough work cut out for me working on faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost. Although, a little mental exercise keeps the intellect in shape.

I have been thinking about many of the problems people have that are related ego and the inflation thereof. Are the ego problems manifested by most developing children (e.g. realization that they are not the center of the universe) a reflection of the same sort of development when we were spirit children? Was there a point in our past as a spirit or an intelligence when we became aware that there is a delineation between self and not-self? Or is this an experience that is unique to our mortal development?

No, that’s not really what I’m saying. I think that the spirit body is somewhat analagous to our physical body, in that the physical body houses the spirit, and that similarly the spirit body houses an eternal uncreated self (which some call intelligence, but I recognize that this term could be problematic). When Joseph says that spirits are eternal and uncreated, I am suggesting that this means that there is a part within our spirits that is eternal and uncreated and therefore justifies characterizing the whole the same way.

It also just occurred to me this morning that we can approach this another way. You seem to feel that a birth of a spirit qua spirit means that the spirit thus has a beginning and therefore cannot not be eternal. But let’s think about the other end of the journey–the resurrection. When the spirit and body are resurrected they are eternally fused and we are no longer spirits but are resurrected persons, and thus the spirit is not really eternal in the sense you seem to indicate–i.e., “eternal” means that your spirit form always existed. Otherwise, your position would lead to the conclusion that there is no literal resurrection whereby the spirit and body are inseparably joined and we cease having a spirit form.

What I am suggesting is that the spirit is eternal because there is a part within that is uncreated and self-existent. This part is clothed with a spirit body through a spirit birth by heavenly parents, is then further clothed with a physical body for our mortal probation, sheds the physical body at mortal death, participates in the spirit world as a spirit body, and is then inseparably clothed with a glorified resurrected body. The uncreated and self-existent part of us goes through many transformations. Spirits are not eternal because they stay in the same form; spirits are eternal because some part of them has always existed and always will.

The real issue is our spirit bodies. Ether 3 suggests we have them (although it need not be read that way). Certainly we have something like a spirit body in that when dead people are seen they appear phenomenologically like a body. Are you saying we always had such a form? If not, then isn’t there something akin to a birth giving one a spirit body at some time?

I guess I’m still a little vague on what you are asserting. In certain ways it seems a difference without a difference. I can understand objecting to the sexual interpretation of spirit creation taught by Pratt and Young. However outside of that I’m not exactly sure of the problem.

BTW – regarding Moses 2, something I noticed yesterday that I’d missed earlier was that the entire text, as presented, was dictated to Moses and wasn’t a vision of creation. Thus it may well be much more symbolic, ala the way Brigham Young read Genesis 1.

Joel: I don’t know of anything wrong with the notion of spirit birth per se — aside from the fact that perhaps it is based on a false A/G theology as its underlying justification. Actually, I kind of like the idea — I just don’t see any scriptural justification for it and I see scriptural warrant against it.