It's been slow here lately because, in my real life, things are moving quickly. I've landed a job that I am excited about, so it's time to sell the house and begin relocating. Speaking of moving, much of our stuff will be moving into storage tomorrow because we hope to put our house on the market at the end of next week. I'm sure you can see why blogging must take a backseat to life for a while.
Having said that, let me draw your attention to "Premortal Spirits: Implications for Cloning, Abortion, Evolution, and Extinction", by Kent Condie. This essay was published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought last year, but I don't remember it getting any discussion in the bloggernacle.
Premortality is a distinctive and important LDS doctrine, but we really don't know much about it. This essay represents Dr. Condie's attempt to make sense of the spirit world in light of some things we know about the natural world, as well as to solve some theological dilemmas. Dr. Condie's idea is basically summarized as follows:
...a premortal spirit is really a nonspecific spirit in that it is not intended for any specific organism but can be placed in any one of many different organisms in a similar taxonomic group at approximately the same degree of complexity within this group.
Although it is clearly an exercise in speculation, I think the essay is worth considering. I am not persuaded by all of the particulars--in fact, several times I thought a premise was being rush past too quickly--but if the knowedge we have gained from science regarding the natural world is any indication, many of our perceptions of the premortal world are likely to be overthrown when facts are made known. It makes sense to me that spirit creation (whatever it is) is a more elastic and automatic process than we usually think of.
As I indicated above, some of the reasoning proceeds a little too quickly, I think. And I didn't like references to his hypothesis being testable. Sure, they can be compared to the scriptures, but they certainly are not testable scientifically[1]. Also, I squirmed a little at references to evolution as a "random" process. There are certainly random components to it, and I see what he's getting at, but evolution is more than chance. But speaking of chance, I would have included some discussion of Mendelian genetics and conception. After all, chance plays a large role in reproduction. Unless the times and seasons of each gamete are known and ordained by God (something I find highly doubtful), there has to be some flexibility in the correspondence between the physical and spiritual.
Speculative though it may be, Dr. Condie's essay is food for thought.
1. Yes, I know he doesn't mean "scientifically testable," but as much as possible, I would like to keep religion separate from pseudo-science.
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