And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him.
-Abraham 3:28I wonder where Lucifer learned to be angry. Does anger come naturally to intelligent beings, or is it a learned trait? What can be learned about the premortal life from this scripture?
Hmm, I would guess that everything has the capacity to be angry, but we have to learn to control it. Just like every negative emotion.
ReplyDeleteAccording to your belief, how could Lucifer or Jesus make a right or wrong choice if they had not yet gone through life in a physical body? If they are children of God, as you claim we are, how could they have the knowledge of right and wrong and furthermore how could Lucifer "get angry" if he had no knowledge or experience from any actual existence in a physical realm? You feel feelings from a psychobiological reaction to a stimuli so how can you feel anything without a physical body?
ReplyDeleteThere are many more obvious questions you should be asking. Such as, am I being lied to?
I like this question Dallin. I would say that something to think on is that we came to earth to gain a physical body so that we can become more like our Heavenly Father. So we aren't perfect yet, which means that we weren't perfect then. We had the ability to choose, which means we also had the ability to feel emotion. Thus, Lucifer and everyone would have the choice to feel content or angry. So I suppose as an intelligent being, "feeling" is a natural part of being.
ReplyDeleteI hope this helped you out a bit.
This is a fascinating question, Dallin. Examining the Scripture, we find that Lucifer was indeed acting in anger. We were sent to this Earth because we'd reached our limit; we could go no farther in the premortal existence without doing so. Does this mean that we could not feel anger at all? I would think not. Perhaps not to the degree that we feel now, but definitely at least the shadow of a feeling. The Giver displays this idea quite well; the ability to be annoyed, but not to feel true rage. Ever felt righteous indignation? It's not quite the same as pure rage. Not only does the body react according to whatever shocks and abhors us, but you can feel your very soul resonating within you. There has to be something else to it. Besides, it seems rather odd to think that there was no emotion at all. That meant we couldn't get offended. Or, if we did, there'd be nothing behind it. Just a "Hey, you've annoyed me" and a "Oh, sorry bro". But then again, it may have seemed like anger to us at the time. I don't know, this is certainly a interesting question...
ReplyDeleteInteresting thought. I was just reading C.S Lewis-Mere Christianity that think explains this quite well. "The two powers, or spirits, or gods—the good one and the bad one—are supposed to be quite
ReplyDeleteindependent. They both existed from all eternity. Neither of them made the other, neither of them has
any more right than the other to call itself God. Each presumably thinks it is good and thinks the other
bad. One of them likes hatred and cruelty, the other likes love and mercy, and each backs its own
view. Now what do we mean when we call one of them the Good Power and the other the Bad Power?
Either we are merely saying that we happen to prefer the one to the other—like preferring beer to
cider—or else we are saying that, whatever the two powers think about it, and whichever we humans,
at the moment,, happen to like, one of them is actually wrong, actually mistaken, in regarding itself as
good.
Now if we mean merely that we happen to prefer the first, then we must give up talking about good
and evil at all. For good means what you ought to prefer quite regardless of what you happen to like at
any given moment. If "being good" meant simply joining the side you happened to fancy, for no real
reason, then good would not deserve to be called good. So we must mean that one of the two powers
is actually wrong and the other actually right" page (27)
I feel that this explains that there is a definite good and evil. If we place our emotions in those categories as well. Happiness (good) vs Anger (evil) then for the more the Anger is already there and always has been and is a part of our intellectual nature.