Wednesday, June 22, 2016

Why Doesn't Everyone Know, and Why Do We?

One thought I had during this Stake Conference is a two-part question about God's plan for our happiness, the Plan of Salvation. I'm not sure if this question has a definite answer, and I'm not going to try to come up with one this afternoon, but it's an interesting question, and I thought I'd raise it here, just to give us all some food for thought.

If it's important for us to know God's plan, why did the veil of forgetfulness make us forget all about it? And if it's important for us not to know the Plan of Salvation, why would God reveal it?

There are some reasons why the veil of forgetfulness makes sense. Life is supposed to be a test. It's something like a practical personality quiz. Rather than presenting us with hypothetical scenarios and asking us what we would do, life puts us in real-world scenarios and keeps track of what we actually do. The purpose of this is not the determine what our spirit animal is, or what color our auras are, or which element we would control if we had the magical ability to control an element, but rather, the personality quiz of reality is meant to determine what kind of people we really are, specifically in terms of righteousness. Are we Celestial material, or are we more the Terrestrial or Telestial type? When it comes to difficult decisions regarding right and wrong, what decisions would we, or do we, really make?

Of course, having a prior knowledge of God's plan would influence our decisions. Even an evil-hearted person could act like a saint for a short while, if he knew he would gain eternal benefits from it. We had to not know about God's plan, and the potential punishments and rewards, or it wouldn't be a real test of character. Knowing God's plan changes the question from "Are you righteous enough to do the right thing, even though it's hard?" to "Do you want the blessings badly enough to do the right thing, even if you don't want to?" Thus, knowing the purpose and potential outcomes of God's plan kind of defeats the purpose of the plan.

Then, why would God reveal His plan to us? For starters, His plan requires some faith to accept. Knowing about the plan may make life more of a test of faith than a test of moral fiber, but we need both faith and moral fiber, so I guess it makes sense to test for both. Plus, following this plan is pretty important. Yes, God has contingencies if we go off the rails, but He'd rather that we didn't, and some of us need a little bit of extra incentive to stay on track. Knowing that there is a test gives us more incentive to try and pass it. However, since knowledge comes with accountability, knowing about God's plan also raises the stakes for us. Knowing about the plan makes it both easier and more important to follow it.

I don't really know why God would reveal His plan to some people, and invite them to share that information with others, but not outright tell everyone the plan right from the start. My only guess is that maybe some people weren't meant to know about the plan, and that there must be some benefit that ignorance gives them, though I'm not quite sure what that benefit might be. To me, it seems to be important for people to know about the plan, so we can be better-prepared to follow it. Yet, God has more wisdom than I do, so if His plan involves a veil of forgetfulness, there must be a good reason for that.

I have no idea why God would make it so some people know about His plan and others don't. Perhaps that's one of the many things I'll understand better when I pass back through the veil of forgetfulness and recall all the details He shared with us about the plan when He told us the plan in the first place. I know He told all of us His plan, and then deliberately made us forget about it, so there must have been a reason for that, and then He directly revealed information about His plan to select people afterward, so there must have been a reason for that to. I'm sure that God's plan includes a very good reason for some people to know about it and others not to, but I am truly puzzled trying to find out what that reason is. Why would God deliberately remind some of us of what He deliberately made us all forget?

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