Man's Place in God's Plan

My dear brethren and sisters, I with you esteem it is a great blessing to attend this wonderful conference, and especially to listen to the profound and inspiring opening address of our President. I should like to add my tribute to the Tabernacle Choir. It seems to me the choir reached new heights today. ¶

I am sure you all join me, too, in expressing thanks to the Lord for his blessing to President Clark in that he was able to speak to us despite his physical illness. We are thankful that there is no diminution in his great intellect, his wonderful spirit, or his powerful voice. ¶

We express appreciation, too, for what has been said this afternoon by the other Brethren. But all of it together adds to my timidity and makes the necessity of following such men a humbling experience indeed. ¶

As this Church continues to extend its boundaries and increase its membership, we receive an ever-increasing number of requests to explain and distinguish some of the tenets of Mormonism. ¶

Perhaps the two most frequently questioned concepts of the Church have to do with, first, our belief in a living, personal God; and secondly, our understanding of man's unique position and part in his divine plan. It is necessary that one have faith in the first before he can understand and accept the second of these tenets, namely, man's relationship to Deity. If that relationship be real, then certainly man occupies not only a unique but a Godlike status, and it is to that I should like to direct your attention for a moment. ¶

The accomplishments of man in the last one hundred years, his ever-widening search for truth, his insatiable appetite for knowledge, his discovery and partial control of the laws of nature, are convincing evidence of man's supreme position among God's creations. ¶

Did any animal ever gaze into the heavens and wonder? ¶

We are told that in the last one hundred and fifty years, there has been more truth accumulated, more knowledge gained, than the sum total of all truth previously gathered. The fact that man has the genius to discover and partially master the elemental forces of nature causes men to stand in awe and ask again the age-old question, "What is man?" ¶

That question was formulated by the Psalmist when he said: ¶

"When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; "What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? ¶

"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. ¶

"Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. (Psalm 8:3-6.) One wonders when he reads that, how the Psalmist might have framed his question if he had had the benefit of modern facilities as he considered the heavens. I am sure it would have tended to deepen and confirm his faith in the great Organizer of it all. ¶

But as we consider man's increasing knowledge and power, we must not forget that power can be very dangerous. ¶

General Omar Bradley, former Chief of Staff, speaking to a graduating class sometime ago, sounded this warning in the following words: ¶

"With the monstrous weapons man already has, humanity is in danger of being trapped in this world by its moral adolescence. Our knowledge of science has clearly outstripped our capacity to control it. (We have too many men of science; too few men of God.) We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace; more about killing than we know about living. This is our 20th Century's claim to distinction and progress I" ¶

But the question, "What is man?" ¶

was answered long before the Psalmist asked it. In the first chapter of our oldest book here, we read: ¶

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. ¶

"And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." (Genesis 1:2728.) From this it is evident that from the beginning, man had a unique status, an image nature; and that there was assigned to him a participative role in the great plan of redemption. The statement, "created in the image of God," was never made concerning any other of his vast creations. Only man is in his image: only man is his son. ¶

Sometime ago, a sceptical student was heard to say that man is nothing but a fortuitous combination of molecules. ¶

But his older and more modest teacher replied by asking him, "Did any atom or molecule ever have a thought? Did any combination of elements ever give birth to an idea? Did any natural law ever build a cathedral or a temple?" ¶

Within the lifetime of some of us there have come into use such marvels as automobiles, airplanes, wireless communication; and later radio, television, radar, guided missiles, atomic power, etc. As we think of these things, and utilize them, scientists and scholars are turning their attention and their instruments to a consideration of the greatest phenomenon, or, as President Clark has said, God's greatest miracle — man. ¶

We are indebted to an internationally famous scientist, Dr. Henry Eyring, for a learned discussion of man's world. He said: ¶

"We are living in five different worlds, none of which have been fully explored. ¶

They differ from each other in the size of the units of space and time. ¶

"1. In our every-day practical world we go along nicely with such units as feet and seconds. ¶

"2. In the chemical world of molecules and atoms, the electrons complete their revolutions in one hundred million millionths of a second, while one hundred million atoms set side by side extend only a distance of one inch. ¶

"3. Inside the nucleus of an atom we enter a third world where events happen a million times faster still and distances are a thousand times smaller than in the atom. ¶

"4. In the fourth world the astronomers measure revolutions of planets in years and the unit of distance, the light year, in about ten thousand million miles. ¶

"5. Finally we come to the spiritual world where time is measured in eternities and space is limitless, thus in thought we can travel from almost infinitesimally small to the infinitely large." ¶

As we consider the vastness of an orderly universe governed by undeviating law, the majesty of the Organizer and the preferred place of man, we are intrigued into a re-evaluation of the meaning and purpose of life. ¶

Is it likely, for instance, that the most intelligent creatures in the universe are here by chance? Is it possible that God is unaware of man's existence or unconcerned about his fate? ¶

Mormonism asserts on the authority of divine revelation that man is the central figure of an integrated plan, and as Dr. Talmage has said, he is potentially greater and more precious than all the planets and the suns of space; for him they were created; they are God's handiwork; man is his son. The Lord said: ¶

". . . this is my work and my glory — to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." (Moses 1:39.) The injunction of Jesus, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," (Matt. 5:48) clearly envisions an eternity for its achievement, for no mortal man can gain perfection during his brief sojourn upon the earth. ¶

The Savior further stated, ". . . this is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent." (John 17:3.) If, then, we are, in fact, the sons of God, and if it is life eternal to know him, all men should seek him, become familiar with his laws, and bring their lives into harmony therewith. ¶

The Apostle John caught the vision of man's status and exclaimed, "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2.) Man's spirit was with his Father in the beginning; he was designed to be free, and expected to gain wisdom and intelligence in the exercise of his agency. His freedom is, next to life itself, his most priceless possession. He has freedom to think, to explore, to discover, and to act. We encourage men to search for truth, to be unafraid of new ideas which are and always have been steppingstones to progress. ¶

According to the holy scriptures, our earth life was not accidental, it was not only planned and purposeful, but it was voluntary. When the Lord asked Job where he was when the foundations of the earth were laid, he clearly indicated a pre-existent state of man, and asserted that all the sons of God shouted for joy, doubtless at the prospect of earth life. ¶

When men speak of ultimate and satisfying values, their concepts must involve the relationship of the individual to others, to the universe, and to God. Men must not be approached as animals for they are intelligent images of a Divine Father. He has said, ". . . the worth of souls is great in the sight of God." (D&C 18:10.) Man, then, is a child of God, created in his image. He is destined to be free, and, though subject to death, his spirit will continue to live, will again become united with his body, and he will become a living, immortal soul. "Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection." (Ibid., 130:18.) While we have complete freedom to heed or disregard the promptings of the spirit or the teachings of the prophets, let us always remember that we must abide the consequences of our choice. ¶

"For each descent from fair truth's lofty way, For each gross error which delays the soul, By that soul's gloom and loneliness we pay, And by the retarded journey to its goal." ¶

While we may draw near to him through intellectual contemplation of his handiwork, it is more important that we seek spiritual communion, by which alone we may gain a testimony of him and of man's relationship to him. This thought prompts the prayer: ¶

"Help me, O God to hold a high opinion of myself." ¶

This inspired doctrine of man's relationship to Deity involves communication between them, without which intelligent co-operation is impossible. ¶

Continued revelation from our Heavenly Father is a third unique doctrine of the restored Church. We humbly bear witness to the existence of a living, personal God, to man's sonship and heirship, and to continued revelation to the Church through constituted authority, for which we humbly thank God, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶