Freedom

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How the Great Father Created Happiness for His Children

My undergraduate major at BYU was Anthropolology; one of my favorite topics was folklore, which for our purposes here means simply “oral history.” If the religious doctrine known as the Plan of Salvation were retold in traditional society, it might have the title cited above. These are a few notes about that plan.

Eliza R. Snow wrote, “I had learned to call thee Father, thru thy Spirit from on high, but until the key of knowledge was restored, I knew not why.” One of the most important of the “plain and precious” keys of knowledge that have been restored is the Plan of Salvation, also called the Plan of Happiness. Bits and pieces are scattered all through the scriptures and especially the apocrypha, but they are brought together into a coherent whole through Joseph Smith. As described anciently, they form a sort of Three Act Play:

Act I–Pre-mortal life, Pre-existence (Abr 3:18, gnolaum)
The Grand Council
Two Plans—the War in Heaven (Abr 3:27 and Moses 4:1-3)
Agency—“sons of god shouted for joy” (Job 38:7)

Act II–Mortal life—central role of the Savior (Alma 11:38-43)
Creation (Abr 3:22-26)
The Fall (2 Ne 2:25-27)
The Resurrection (1 Cor 15:20-22)
The Atonement (D&C 19:15-20, chiasm center on v17)

Act III–Post-mortal life, The Next Life
The Spirit World (Eccl 12:7)
An Anapausis (intermission) (D&C 138, esp 57)
Temple work (D&C 138:48 and 58)
Judgment (Alma 41:2-6 and Alma 12:14—words, works, thoughts)
The Degrees of Glory (1 Cor 15:40-42—sun, moon, stars—D&C 76)

One key to understanding The Plan is to better understand the nature of God. What is it that makes our Spirit Father, God?
All power? (might makes right?)
All knowledge? (a giant hard drive in the sky?)
Immortality? (He just keeps going like the Eveready bunny?)
Surely not!

He is a god of body, parts, and passions—Enoch, for instance, was puzzled to see that God weeps (Moses 7:28-40). Therein lies a clue.

John wrote:
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might alive through him.
Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.
(1 John 4:7-11)

So what was it that caused God to weep in front of Enoch—that His children did not love one another or Him. It is that quality of love that gives meaning and purpose to everything else, and accounts for His Great Plan of Happiness. (Moses 1:39) God wants us to freely love one another and Him as He loves us. I wrote earlier that “It’s all about liberty.” True enough, but the principle that underlies that principle is another sweeping statement: “It’s all about love.”

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It’s all about Liberty.

The key feature of human history, once we look past all the details of names and dates and temporal worries, is the matter of individual choice. Shall the individual be free to choose for himself how and where he lives? Shall he be able to select and mold and edit the details of his own life? Or shall these be imposed to greater or lesser degree by others who are supposedly more wise or learned or insightful, or in an earlier age, of a “better” lineage?

Some things, of course, cannot be changed: DNA, where and when we are born, the circumstances of surrounding society, the natural environment. But these are imposed by a higher than human power, one whose ultimate benevolence, justice, and mercy are matters of faith. They are our “lot in life.” And children by definition need the care of parents until they are mature enough to manage themselves. It’s everything else that is in question, and time and time again the answer by some is, “do what I say, or else.” To which many of us answer, “No”. (That is, incidentally, the second most important word in any language, the first being “love”, but that is a topic for another day.)

This is the underlying theme of my recent book, All Enlisted, A Mormon Missionary in Austria During the Vietnam Era, available at Amazon. Wars are about force; missionary work about free agency–in each case it is a matter of choice. Shall people be forced to obey or be free to govern themselves? Shall people be free to choose to obey God? God desires that we obey Him, but that obedience must be freely given. Since He is the Creator, our willing obedience is all we can give Him because everything else is already His.

It really is all about Liberty.