What is significant about this is that this comes from a work where the author defends the priesthood/temple restriction as being ordained of God (a view I explicitly reject):
Introducing
the erroneous theory of the behavior during the premortal existence
The theory of the behavior during
the premortal existence is erroneous though it is based on a reasoning which seems
logical. It does not match however the fanciful extrapolations which get around
it.
The most exaggerated extrapolation
stated that part of our Heavenly Father’s children who came to earth took a
neutral stand when Lucifer rebelled. It is just the opposite. It was B. H.
Roberts’ opinion (1857-1933) but he was careful to start his reasoning by
<< I Think [Contributor 6:297] >>. Official positions
however, refuted any neutrality. In the Book The way of perfection,
Joseph Fielding Smith, immediately after B. H. Roberts’s reasoning, quoted the
Church’s official position taught as early as Brigham Young’s time: << Lorenzo
Snow asked if the spirits of negroes were neutral in heaven [. . . ]. President
Young said No they were not [. . . ] [Wilford Woodruff’s Journal,
entry of December 1869] >>. In a letter addressed to Mr. M. Knudson, the
First Presidency of the Church, under the direction of the prophet Joseph F.
Smith, answered: << There were no neutral spirits in heaven at the
time of the rebellion [Improvement Era, April 1924, The Negro and
the Priesthood] >>. All those who come to earth proved valiant
before.
According to that they however,
people would have been valiant to different degrees, thus having the right to
more or fewer blessings on the earth. This hypothesis was first used to explain
why some people were chosen to belong to the elect people, favored by God to be
the first to know the Gospel. Apostle Orson Pratt (1811-1881) spoke of:
<<many spirits that are more noble, more intelligent than others [Journal
of Discourses, Vol. 1, pp. 62-63, Celestial Marriage, Elder Orson
Pratt, August 29th 1852] >> kept to be born into the Latter-day
Saint families in our time. Today we still find some remnants of this teaching
in institute manuals, which explains the birth into the Israelite lineage when
it was the first to learn the Gospel [Doctrines of the Gospel, student
manual, chapter 21: The foreordination of covenant Israel and their responsibilities].
In another manual, the argument of premortal valor is also put forth to explain
the time, place and circumstances of our birth [The life and teachings of
Jesus-Christ and His apostles, Chapter 30: God is no respect of person], as
well as the callings to which we may have been pre-ordained [The life and
teachings of Jesus-Christ and His apostles, chapter 41: elected before the
Foundations of the world].
But there can be more valiant
spirits only if others were less so. The less valiant spirits would find
themselves limited as regards the blessings that can be obtained on the earth.
The idea of the blessings would be
granted on earth based on our behavior is not totally groundless. Harold B. Lee
(1899-1973) remarked: << Each one of us will be judged when we leave
this earth according to his or her deeds during our lives here in mortality.
Isn’t it just as reasonable to believe that we have received here in this earth
life was given to each of us according to the merits of our conduct before we came
here? [Harold B. Lee, Understanding who we are brings self-respect,
General conference, October 5, 1973] >>. This reasoning, which seemed
logical then, has now been dropped.
According to this theory, taken to
its logical extreme, our earthly testing environment would depend on how valiant
we were in the premortal existence. The most valiant would receive the greatest
blessings. Thus, on the earth, the unrighteous would obtain a number of
blessings because of their valiant behavior in the premortal existence.
Similarly, blessings received on earth do not prejudge at all how valiant each
one of us will prove and how he or she will be compensated for it in the hereafter.
This justification was once
unanimously accepted. Cham’s posterity’s ban from the priesthood was viewed as
an instance of delayed blessings. The First Presidency of the Church declared
in 1949: << The position of the Church [the ban on the priesthood]
regarding the Negro may be understood when another doctrine of the Church is
kept in mind, namely, that the conduct of spirits in the premortal existence
has some determining effect upon the conditions and circumstances under which
these spirits taken on mortality [Statement by the First Presidency under
George Albert Smith, August 17th 1949] >>.
We must however be careful not to
give these words a meaning which they do not have. True, they tell of a valor
lesser than that of the people who have had the right to know the Gospel and to
hold the priesthood. But regarding Cham’s descendants who were able to accept
the Gospel without holding the priesthood, the level of their valor is higher
than the level of the valor of the vast majority of the people who came to
earth, whatever the color of their skin. (Matthieu Crouet, Brigham Young and
the Priesthood Ban: The Lineage Criterion [trans. Thierry Crucy;
Saint-Thibault-des-Vignes, France: Matthieu Crouet, 2017], 91-93)
