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G R Kane - I was reading where Bruce R McConkie was talking about Intelligences, where we were in existence years and years prior to becoming a spirit. He said Intelligences were never created nor born and that we had been in existence forever! Hard to imagine that, so if Intelligences are not born or created and have existed forever, does that mean Father in Heaven will never run out of spirits to populate His future world creations?
JOEL - We have to remember that Elder McConkie said some things that were mostly his opinion and not official church doctrine. But there have been others that agree with him.
What's confusing about this subject is that sometimes the words "spirits" and "intelligences" are used interchangeably in the scriptures to describe the same thing(spirits).
But a part of our souls that have been called intelligence has always existed:
"Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. (D&C 93: 29)
The term "intelligence" has received two interpretations by scholars within the Church:
1. as the literal spirit children of Heavenly Parents and
2. as individual entities existing forever prior to their spirit birth.
BH Roberts said:
The difference then between "spirits" and "intelligences," as here used, is this: Spirits are uncreated intelligences inhabiting spiritual bodies; while "intelligences," pure and simple, are intelligent entities, but unembodied in either spirit bodies or bodies of flesh and bone. They are uncreated, self-existent entities. (B. H. Roberts, The Seventy's Course in Theology, 4 vols.)
Joseph Smith taught that "the spirit of man is not a created being; it existed from eternity, and will exist to eternity. Anything created cannot be eternal." (TPJS, 158; 373.) In commenting on this statement, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: "In saying the spirit of man is not created the Prophet without any doubt had in mind the intelligence as explained in the Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 93:29.... From this we gather that the intelligence in man was not created, but the Prophet taught very clearly that man is in very deed the offspring of God, and that the spirits of men were born in the spirit world the children of God." (TPJS, 158, footnote.) When Abraham wrote of the "intelligences that were organized before the world was," he spoke of the spirit children of our Father in Heaven begotten from an eternal intelligence (Abr. 3:22).
Because latter-day revelation has not clarified the meaning of the term, a more precise interpretation is not possible at present.
Elder Joseph Fielding Smith said:
Some of our writers have endeavored to explain what an intelligence is, but to do so is futile, for we have never been given any insight into this matter beyond what the Lord has fragmentarily revealed. We know, however, that there is something called intelligence which always existed. It is the real eternal part of man, which was not created or made. This intelligence combined with the spirit constitutes a spiritual identity or individual.(Progress of Man p. 10, 1936).
Spencer W. Kimball wrote, "Our spirit matter was eternal and co-existent with God, but it was organized into spirit bodies by our Heavenly Father" (The Miracle of Forgiveness, p. 5, 1969).
From all I have read about the subject, I tend to believe we existed as intelligences before we were organized into spirit bodies.Our God the Father is probably not making more spirits since the war in heaven. At that time all spirits had to choose whether to follow God's or Satan's plan and those that didn't were cast down to earth. So if more spirts were created after that they would not be able to use their agency to choose between the two because Satan is no longer there to offer an alternate choice. So to me this means He is not creating more spirits and that all the spirits that have been created are populating this and other worlds in this universe. My opinion.
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