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| Reality, Principles, and Progression |
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 These four principles
provide a foundational understanding of the Really Real upon which all other gospel principles are founded. They
place us in a context where we are required to understand this earthly reality in terms of something extra-worldly.
Scientific reality can never provide all of the answers, because we are defined as eternal beings, subject to eternal
laws, and on an eternal quest to change from what we were into what we are capable of becoming.It is that path towards our other being that is the subject of this book. We are on a path towards something, and that something is designed to alter our very natures. What the path is, and how we should understand our journey should be the focus of virtually all of our efforts during this life. The better we comprehend what we are about, the better we can prepare ourselves to accomplish it. The gospel is at the same time very simple and extremely complex, depending on whether we look at the requirements of a single commandment, or try to understand how and why the gospel works the way it does. All too frequently we are given glimpses of pieces of that whole without a framework into which we can place that piece. It is as if the gospel were a giant jigsaw puzzle thrown out on the table, with a few pieces which clearly go together, but no clear picture of what the whole might be. In this book the intent is to provide a framework on which the pieces of the gospel can be fit and understood together. The intent is not simply (for example) to say that we should have faith, but to understand why we need faith, how it works, and how it fits in with other principles, such as Agency. Because the gospel transcends this earth life, what we are to do with the gospel in this life cannot be understood without comprehending both what went before, and what will come after, this earth life. Thus the book is organized into sections which deal with the various estates of man. The first estate is defined as the time during which we lived as spirits with God prior to the creation of this earth. The second estate is this earth life, and the third estate describes the conditions after death. |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
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