NATHAN - What are “Intelligences?” And if we first existed as Intelligences and God formed our Spirit Bodies from these Intelligences, why are some individuals in this world so good and others are so evil? Were we able to choose for ourselves (Agency) as Intelligences?

JOEL - I will quote president Hinckley on this one:

"That gets into some pretty deep theology that we don't know very much about."
(SUNDAY INTERVIEW -- By Don Lattin, Chronicle Religion Writer The San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday April 13, 1997)

Sometimes the term "intelligence" is used to describe the spirit body:

"Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;
And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born."(Abraham 3:22-23)

These scriptures appear to equate intelligences with spirits, which God did create.

At other times it is used to describe the eternal individual entity before spirit birth which cannot be created:

"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)

Elder Joseph Fielding Smith gave this caution in 1936:
"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." (Smith, Joseph Fielding. Progress of Man. Salt Lake City, 1936)

There has only been speculation as to whether or not our pre-spirit entity had agency or not. But be it intelligences or spirits at some point in time we were able to choose for ourselves in the pre-earth life. Some chose to follow Satan and the rest of us chose to follow Jesus. We know that we were not all the same in the pre-earth life because there were those whom God called His "noble and great" ones who were fore-ordained to certain responsibilities here on earth:

"I observed that they were also among the noble and great ones who were chosen in the beginning to be rulers in the Church of God. Even before they were born, they, with many others, received their first lessons in the world of spirits and were prepared to come forth in the due time of the Lord to labor in his vineyard for the salvation of the souls of men."(D&C 138:55-56)

I don't think anyone was foreordained to be evil on this earth. That happened after they got here and will be judged according to what they did with the life they were given.

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