Friday, March 11, 2022

Matthieu Crouet vs. the "less valiant in the pre-existence" apologetic for the Priesthood/Temple Restriction

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)