Posted by:
imaworkinonit
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Date: December 20, 2014 04:10PM
Henri Bemis stated: " . . . . .There is no Mormon doctrine that states that the spirit and body are physically correlated such that the DNA of the body somehow dictates the properties of the spirit, or that the properties of the spirit somehow dictate the DNA of the body. (However, there is some suggestion that the appearance of the spirit "looks like" the appearance of the body, suggesting some type of correspondence.)"
(end quote).
It's hard to pin down LDS doctrine, even if it's stated on their website and their scriptures. And if it doesn't make sense, they'll try to weasel out of it. But it's there, in print.
According to LDS.org:
https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/spirit"The spirit body looks like the physical body (1 Ne. 11:11; Ether 3:15–16; D&C 77:2; 129)."
The key scripture in that set is D&C 77:2, which says " . . . that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal; and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual; the spirit of man in the likeness of his person, as also the spirit of the beast, and every other creature which God has created."
If the spirit always looks like the body, then one must dictate the other. Matching appearance of the spirit and body couldn't happen by happy coincidence for every person that has ever lived. (And now, I'm suppressing my disbelief that there even is a "spirit", because I have seen no proof that such a thing exists, separate from the body).
Personally, I'm going to go with the proven fact that DNA dictates physical characteristics. So, as the original poster stated, we have a problem. How does God know what every spirit body should LOOK like, if the person has not been physically conceived yet? What if a spirit's designated parents, John and Mary, decide not to have children? What if they have too many kids? Where do the extra spirits come from, and does God have to alter the appearance of someone ELSE'S spirit child, or change the DNA to make them match their new family? What if Mary dies in an accident and never bears the spirit children who were meant to come to her? What if John marries Zelda who is short, has red hair and is has hemophilia, instead of Mary, who is blond and 6 feet tall? Won't his children look different than they would have?
The only way to make this whole idea of preexistence, with pre-created spirits of unborn children work, we would have to assume that there is no free will, or that God knows everything that will EVER happen in every life. Which runs counter to the idea of free will. But so does the idea of the atonement, where Jesus suffers for sins that haven't been committed yet.
It all comes back to magical thinking.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/20/2014 04:11PM by imaworkinonit.