13 min.

Providential Orchestration and the American Founding

How Premortal Existence Affects Mortal Life

Why I Believe

From a small community of Galilean fishermen to a movement that conquered the Roman Empire and ultimately the rest of the world, the powerful words of Christ, and about Christ, continue to have mature, profound, and undeniable impact. What is it that has made them so irresistible through two millennia? The answer is in the back story; that which took place before the human family began to inhabit planet earth.

We do not realize how much everything we have in this life springs from our premortal existence. Before our names were spoken, before our hearts first beat, something in us already longed for goodness. We sense it still–a quiet pull toward light, a memory we cannot quite place. It is the echo of a life before this one, a whisper that we are more than dust and chance.

Mysteriously, with few exceptions, most cultures and religions in the Western world generally reject the idea of a premortal life of man and the principle of eternal progression. Despite the many inspired references to a pre-earth life, most of modern Christianity reject such notions.

By AD 543, even though there were those who spoke of Old Testament figures being “chosen by God because of merits acquired before this life” the teachings on pre-mortality had been declared heresy in the Roman Church and allowed to wither away. From this date on, the doctrine of man’s premortal state and relationship to God was viewed as heretical and unfounded in scripture.

Continuing today, with far-reaching consequences that affect millions, modern Christendom rejects the notion of a prior existence. Though the spiritual and theological examination of the life before and its impact on mortality have been institutionally silenced, substantial numbers feel strongly that we existed before our present life on earth.

Wrote Macel Proust, a modern French novelist, “Everything in our life happens as though we entered upon it with a load of obligations contracted in a previous existence.” The “larger consciousness” or “larger self” is the spirit of man which was schooled and enlarged upon in a premortal realm and subsequently influences the psychological and intellectual traits of the mortal person.

Employing spiritual terms, Joseph Smith characterized this “consciousness” as “that which was from the beginning,” the premortal teachings we received for the intended purpose of understanding the reasons for our physical creation. These teachings centered on our potential to become like our Heavenly Father, an exalted being with a body of flesh and bones. That man may become perfect as God is and dwell in his presence has stirred great controversy. Yet, it is at the heart of the expression: “My sheep hear my voice.”

With learning at its core, life introduces us to divine knowledge. Flowing from that knowledge we know that the adversary is no idle spirit, but a vagrant, whose motive, cause, and main intention is to ruin man. Following are three reasons why the devil is determined to make us miserable and ensnare us in sin and selfishness:

• First, he will never have a physical body. Consequently, he will use his influence to encourage each of us to misuse and desecrate our bodies.
• Second, he will never marry. As a result, he will do everything in his power to destroy the institution of marriage.
• Third, he will never have children. Through promotion of the philosophies of men, such as abortion–a horrific, inhumane act that produces a calloused and desensitized society–he will author movements of fraud and deception against God’s purpose of multiplying and replenishing the earth.

As we become absorbed in achieving eternal goals from the perspective of the life before, life becomes more abundant. To the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, the formula is straightforward: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.”

Expressed in the theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the doctrine of foreordination. “Before we came to Earth, we were given certain assignments. While we do not now remember the particulars, this does not alter the glorious reality of what we once agreed to” (Kimball). Man was in the beginning with God. We were not created or made ex nihilo (out of nothing). We are eternal and have always existed.

Stated by Santanya, “Life is hardly respectable if it has not generous task, no duties or affections that constitute a necessity of existence.” In one example, a modern-day prophet links premortal life with the preservation of liberty: “I reverence the Constitution of the United States as a sacred document. I testify that the God of heaven sent some of his choicest spirits to lay the foundation of this government, and he has sent other choice spirits–even you who read my words–to preserve it” (Benson).

Published on 22 January 2013 by Canada Free Press, Protestant Mike Jensen wrote an article entitled “Smart Mormons.” He wrote, “Mormons believe that all humans lived a life before mortality. This is where Mormon theology is so intriguing. The greatest of all battles, the war in heaven, was fought over liberty, or as they call it, ‘free agency.’ The battle for liberty is not unique to this life; it is the core battle of the ages. It is a fundamental, eternal concern. God intends for humans to be free and make their own choices and live with the consequences of those choices. The Fathers of this country said essentially the same thing in the Declaration of Independence: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.’ My study has not only given me newfound respect for religion, but it has also made me evaluate my own attitude towards liberty. The fact that I’m here says that I was on God’s side in the war in heaven.”

A long lesson in humility, every man’s life is a plan of God. Your life is your own, and it will be what you have to take into eternity. “Be such a man, and live such a life, that if every man were such as you, and every life a life like yours, this earth would be God’s Paradise” (Phillip Brooks).

Why Origins Matter

Every culture has asked the same questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? Many religious traditions, ancient philosophers, and modern seekers have shared a striking intuition: human life did not begin at birth. Whether expressed through Plato’s “recollection,” Wordsworth’s “sleep and forgetting,” or the universal ache for meaning, the idea persists that our story began long before we opened our eyes on earth. Hence, the more we learn about the life before, the more we can weigh and consider to what end this life is given to each of us.

A Conflict Older Than History

First and foremost, a knowledge of the life before gives us perspective. For example, in recent decades, we have traveled far into the freedom-destroying and soul-destroying land of socialism. Why is this the case?

Here is the answer according to David O. McKay, a religious scholar and former President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “There are two great forces in the world more potent than ever before, each force more determined to achieve success, more active in planning, and on the one side, scheming, than ever before. These two great forces are hate and love.

“Hate had its origin in our preexistent state where Satan was determined to destroy the free agency of man and to supplant God. In the spirit of hate, as is manifest today in the world, the very existence of God is denied, the free agency of man is taken from him, and the power of the state supplanted. Thus, the history of the world with all its contention and strife is largely an account of man’s effort to free himself from bondage and usurpation. Force rules in the world today.” Understanding this conflict gives context to everything that follows–our freedoms, our struggles, our moral choices, and the deeper sense that life is a journey of becoming.

In the beginning, we lived with God as his spirit children. Governed by order, we knew and worshipped him as the Father of Lights. Sensing his exalted state, and aware that certain things could only be experienced and learned in a temporal world, we expressed our aspiration to become like him. Granting our desire, the Lord presented a plan which allowed us to transition from premortal to mortal to afterlife, wherein we could progress and return to his presence. Fundamental to this plan, we would be placed in mortality to pursue divinely ordained possibilities, centering on receiving a physical body, acting according to our wills and pleasures as we choose between good and evil, gaining experience, and being subject to infirmities and physical death.

Eager for the progression of his children, yet with the foreknowledge that his commandments would be ignored, his laws violated, and that some of his offspring would be lost as a result of disobedience and rebellion once we left his presence, God created this world for us. His purpose was to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Established on the eternal principles of agency and consent of the governed, the unfolding events were not without controversy. “The contention in heaven was–Jesus said there would be certain souls that would not be saved; and the devil said he would save them all, and laid his plans before the grand council, who gave their vote in favor of Jesus Christ. So, the devil rose up in rebellion against God [in what is known as the war in heaven]” (Joseph Smith).

As penalty for attempting to destroy man’s agency and usurp God’s power, Lucifer and his followers were cast down to earth, where he became Satan, even the devil, the author of all sin, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto the voice of God. With inspired pathos, Isaiah lamented, “How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will be like the Most High.”

In our preexistent state we lived in an atmosphere of agency and accountability. However, there were, as there are on earth, varying levels of intelligence, obedience, and understanding. We were free to act for ourselves, to think for ourselves, and to receive the truth or rebel against it.

During this period, Jehovah was chosen and ordained to be the Savior and Redeemer of the human race. “At the first organization in heaven we were all present, and saw the Savior chosen and appointed and the plan of salvation made, and we sanctioned it” (Joseph Smith). Filled with wonder and amazement at what was being done on our behalf, our reaction was breathtaking: “. . . the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy” (Job).

Following this series of events, subsequent councils were held to organize, prepare, and further instruct the future inhabitants of earth, on the law of God, the role of mortality, and the plan of salvation. From among our ranks, noble and great souls were chosen to advance truth. Among them were those who would become prophets, poets, philosophers, theologians, scholars, reformers, inventors, innovators, defenders of freedom, and military leaders, as well as other gifted and talented visionaries and luminaries.

Known in the premortal world as Jehovah, Christ would teach the gospel to Adam and make known his truths to Abraham and the prophets, including Moses on Mt. Sinai. He would be the inspirer of the ancient philosophers, Pagan or Israelite, as well as the great characters of modern times. Columbus, in discovery; Washington, in the struggle for freedom; Gibbon in history; Adam Smith in economic principles; Lincoln, in emancipation and union; Bacon, in philosophy; Franklin in statesmanship and diplomacy; Stephenson, in steam; Watts, in song; Handel, Beethoven, Bach, and Mozart in worship through music; Adams, Jefferson, and Madison in constitutional law; Edison, in electricity, and Augustine, Aquinas, and Joseph Smith, in theology and religion, found in him the source of their wisdom and the marvelous truths which they advocated. Likewise, Tyndale, Guttenberg, Luther, Melanchthon, Blackstone, Calvin, Williams, Penn, and others were inspired in thoughts, words, and actions, to accomplish what they did for the amelioration of injustice, the advancement of the human race, and the revolutionary idea of individual freedom.

Addressing the role of those who would be called upon to lead and inspire in mortality, Roman statesman and philosopher Cicero wrote, “There is, I know not how, in the minds of men, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence, and this takes the deepest root, and is most discoverable, in the greatest geniuses and most exalted souls.” Such truths caused David to exclaim, “When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him” (Psalms)?

Providing additional evidence of our pre-mortal existence, Jeremiah quoted the Lord, “Before I formed thee in the belly, I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Provided in God’s way, an evolving moral code has been established through these and many other historical figures. Fully aware that this world was being created for our development and progress, we vowed to make the story of the human family a series of ascending developments.

Mortality as Apprenticeship

It has been said that “everyone is possessed with an irresistible desire to know his relationship with the Infinite” (McKay). The reality of a premortal existence is a curative for the yearnings expressed in music, poetry, and literature, such as, “You’re a stranger here” (Snow), “Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting” (Wordsworth), and these words from Plato: “Your favorite doctrine, Socrates, that knowledge is simply recollection, if true, also necessarily implies a previous time in which we have learned that which we now recollect. But this would be impossible unless our soul had been in some place before existing in the form of man; here then is another proof of the soul’s immortality.”

Such feelings are shared by many, including the belief that man has spiritual roots which reach far back beyond this existence. Proclaimed Rousseau, “Not all the subtleties of metaphysics can make me doubt a moment of the immortality of the soul, and of a beneficent providence. I feel it. I believe it. I desire it. I hope it and will defend it to my last breath.” Declared by Herman Hesse, “We all share the same origin; . . . all of us come in at the same door.” We are brothers and sisters, literal spirit children of an Eternal Father.

Further supporting belief in the immortality of the soul of man, the main character in Alex Haley’s Roots learns of the premortal existence and the life beyond mortality from his father, Osmoro, upon the death of his beloved grandmother.

“He said that three groups of people lived in every village,” explained Haley. “First were those you could see–walking around, eating, sleeping, and working. Second were the ancestors, who Grandma Yaisa had now joined.

“‘And the third people–who are they?’ asked Kunta. ‘The third people,’ said Osmoro, ‘are those waiting to be born.'”

This sentiment was also held by Edmund Burke, the Father of Conservatism, who wrote of the formation of society’s social contract: “It is a partnership between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society, connecting the visible and invisible world.”

In 1776, as he championed American independence in a letter to a friend, John Adams showed why he was considered the colossus of independence. “Objects of the most stupendous magnitude, measures in which the lives and liberties of millions, born and unborn are most essentially interested, are now before us. We are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected, and remarkable of any in the history of the world.” We came here to learn, to choose, to love, to struggle, to grow, to build pathways for those who would follow. We came to build families, communities, and nations that honor the divine spark within us.

The Memory That Awakens Us

Some truths only need to be remembered. The life before is one of them. It stirs quiet moments. It whispers in our longing for goodness. It reminds us that we are more than we appear. It reminds us that we once rejoiced at the chance to come here and become who we are meant to be.

Biblical teachings and much of classical literature undergird the logic of man’s preexistence. The American founding–imperfect yet extraordinary–drew upon principles older than the Enlightenment. Its architects believed that rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were not inventions, but inheritances. They saw freedom as something woven into the human spirit itself. Whether one views this through a religious lens or a philosophical one, the idea is the same: human beings are meant to be free, and societies flourish when they honor that truth.

Concerned with posterity and future generations, the Founding Fathers, with prescient wisdom, declared the right to life as the most fundamental human right, the universal birthright of the human family. It was their conviction that each life was to have its beginning, its growth, and its end. The right to life unlocks the door to freedom and progression for those who were to follow.

In Kirtland, Ohio, in 1835, Joseph Smith linked societal peace with the protection of life: “We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life” (Doctrine and Covenants).

The Human Longing for More

Flowing from our experience in that environment, human mortality has been designed as a team effort. We need not pretend to a divine commission and a sacred destiny. America is part of redemptive history, of divine prophecy fulfilled. The whole world needs such enlightenment.

If we are to survive as a nation and as a Church, to progress, we must counter the evil forces in the world with the guarantees of the Bill of Rights that are set up by our Constitution. There is nothing more important than the First Amendment, because behind all that lies in our lives and all that we do in our lives is freedom of conscience and expression, our religion, our worship, our belief and faith in God.

Fortunately, as noted by National Geographic (2023), “For one-third of all people around the globe–and roughly two-thirds of Americans–Christian values continue to be relevant today.” Springing from commitments we made in the life before, we have a tremendous responsibility to serve as a beacon of hope to people all across the globe. As Americans, we must stand for and teach principles of liberty and righteousness.

This is why I believe.

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