We are told that there was a spirit war in heaven, before we came to this earth to inhabit our mortal bodies. There were two plans being fought over- Gods and satans. Supposedly, 1/3 of the hosts of heaven followed satan and 2/3 chose God’s plan. Because we are here, we chose to follow God’s plan and Jesus Christ. This is part of the Plan of Salvation taught by the LDS church and it missionaries.
The main scriptures used to support this doctrine are found in Revelations 12:
7 And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, 8 And prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. 9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
Revelations 12: 4 And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born.
And also in D&C 29: 36 And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;
If you notice in Revelations 12:4 and D&C 29:36 above, it does not say one third, it says a “third part,” was drawn away by Satan. So what happened to the first part and the second part? What did they do? Which part chose to follow God’s plan? If you have a third part you can have a fourth part and a fifth part and on and on. I bet a whole lot of spirits decided they didn’t want to participate in God’s plan or to follow satan in his rebellion. I think they probably chose to stay the way they were or maybe to do something else entirely. If you have agency you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. You don’t have to choose either A or B. You can choose C or D or Z. Why take a risk you aren’t comfortable with? Maybe they were happy in their current state. No reason they had to choose one plan or the other at all. It was their (our) choice.
There has been no clarifying revelation from God elaborating on this either. God has never revealed the numbers or percentages of Spirits who chose one or the other or neither. The whole 1/3, 2/3 split is just something repeated over and over without any real basis in fact, by the people in charge, who misread the scriptures and made the easy assumption which resulted in another example of dogma. The scriptures don’t say that. If any of you reading this believe you know of any revelation refuting this please point to it.
Joseph Smith said our spirits are eternal and thus have always existed and God didn’t create them, but he was the most intelligent of them.
Abraham 3: 18 Howbeit that he made the greater star; as, also, if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal. 19 And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.
God, gave us as less intelligent, less advanced and capable spirits, the opportunity to become more like him and a created a pathway for that to be made possible. As eternal spirits or autonomous intelligences we already had agency and the ability to choose for ourselves, although limited in our capacities. God never gave spirits agency, He gave agency only to man, His creation. Spirits always had agency and always will.
Moses 7: 32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge , in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency;
D&C 101:78 That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgement.
A man or woman is a combination of an eternal spirit and a mortal body. Only God could create our mortal bodies and the process which allow our spirits to enter them. Therefore, He gave man agency but not the Spirits inside man their agency. We had to have had agency in order to choose to come here, right? We also would have had to have had agency to choose either one of the plans put before us or neither if that seemed the better decision. We used our agency to enter our mortal bodies in order to become “man.”
If you still think God gave spirits their agency at some point then when would He have done that and why isn’t it mentioned in scripture? It stands to reason you would have to have the ability to choose for a long time in order to learn to use it wisely enough before making such a consequential decision as choosing to follow God or satan, right?
When this council in heaven was held were there only two plans? Were there only two choices? Did each free spirit have to choose to follow satan or Jesus? Is that really a choice then? I would submit there were other options available and no force or coercion was involved in any individuals choice. One of those options was logically the option to choose neither plan. What if there were spirits who didn’t want to do anything different. What if they were comfortable doing what they had been doing? What if they didn’t want to take the risks both plans entailed?
Would God have then said each free spirit must choose either Plan A or Plan B? Why? What would have been the penalty for not wanting to participate in either one? If satan’s plan was based on force, which was one of the key reasons why God and us rejected it, and God doesn’t use force He couldn’t very well turn around and force an eternal spirit to do anything, could He?
We really have no idea how many or what percentage of the spirits present chose to follow God or satan, or instead chose to do something else. And that is a very big dichotomy between the official position of LDS Inc is and what the scriptures actually say.
Right Reason 