Photo by Torsten Dederichs on Unsplash
How many times have you heard the sentiment that life isn’t fair? I would like to make the case that life is actually very fair.
Let’s look at some backstory as to who is here on earth with us and why. This makes a difference in why I maintain that life is fair. In our premortal life we had a great separation of those who professed to want to follow God, and those who rejected God in favor of Lucifer. Those who favored Lucifer were cast out of heaven for their rebellion, and those who promised to adopt God’s plan and support the Redeemer of His choice, Christ, were allowed to come to earth.
Coming to earth brings with it certain conditions and blessings. In Abraham 3:22-23 we learn that Abraham was shown all the intelligences (souls) that lived in the presence of God, and he was shown that among all those people were “many of the noble and great ones.” These are the people God chose to be the earthly leaders in His kingdom. They were noble and great because they were righteous. Everyone else was evidently less so.
22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the and great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast before thou wast born.
In Abraham 3:25-26 the Lord says that the purpose of this life is to prove those who come to mortality to see if they will be obedient to all of God’s commandments.
25 And we will them herewith, to see if they will all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them;
26 And they who their first shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second shall have added upon their heads for ever and ever.
In verse 26 we learn that everyone who comes to mortality will receive the reward of those who kept their first estate. We are promised that because we kept our first estate we are guaranteed we will receive a resurrected and glorified body in the day of our resurrection. All of us have that promise, no matter how badly we fail to be obedient in this life. This is our promise from our first estate, our premortal life. It is only those who keep this second estate who will be exalted and “have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.”
So the first big separator, if you will, of sheep and goats, took place in the premortal life. One third of God’s children were lost in that battle of good and evil. This life acts as a sieve that separates the rest of the masses from those who truly want exaltation. The masses in this life have already earned their eternal reward, as far as their promised resurrection and glory, because Christ fulfilled that promise at the end of his atoning sacrifice. So it doesn’t matter to most people how they live here in mortality, as far as getting their resurrected body goes, for that is guaranteed to everyone who made it this far. The only difference we will see in this life is how much glory we receive in the eternities. If we are a total hedonist, bent constantly on earthly pleasures and evil deeds, we will still get some glory in the next life. Not much, but some. If we are good people and try to follow Jesus we will receive more glory. Only those who keep God’s commandments, make covenants with Him and keep those covenants will be exalted to live with God again.
Conditions of mortality
The whole point of mortality is that we are cut off from God’s presence. In His presence goodness prevails. Order prevails. Goodness is always rewarded, and evil punished. But out of His presence in a life where we can all exercise our agency for a time with little accountability to God until the judgment day, chaos reigns.
People are people, and we all do stupid things. Those who do evil favor those who also do evil. Those who do good favor those who also do good. That is normal. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who come to earth are raised by those who don’t live by God’s laws, have rejected them, or haven’t even heard of them. God’s laws are completely foreign to them. They are born, raised, and die believing as the Anti-Christs of the Book of Mormon taught, that whatever a man does is not wrong. We prosper according to the “management of the creature.” In other words, if you are more clever than your neighbor, your neighbor should watch their back.
The conditions of this life are equally chaotic for the evil and the good. Life is just as unfair/fair for both. But since we are overwhelmingly surrounded by those who embrace the philosophies of man, and Satan, the support of this world is heavily on the side of the wicked. Though even the wicked devour one another in their bid for power and wealth. This life offers us just a glimpse of what the universe would be like without the justice and mercy of God to temper the chaos.
Ray of hope
If we only look at mortality as the whole scope of our existence then we do, indeed, have cause to feel sorry for ourselves. Being good in mortality is like the salmon that has to swim upstream to spawn. It is an uphill battle all the way, and it can only end in death. (Wow, that sounds morbid.) That is why it is so important that when we choose to make and keep covenants with the Lord that we endeavor to learn how to look beyond mortality to the promises exaltation offers us in the hereafter. We need to learn to live for the eternities, and not for the pleasures of today. This is difficult, and takes a lot of work to achieve. It is also the only way to maintain our hope.
The promises made by the gospel of Christ are not all meant to be experienced in this life. Most of what we look forward to won’t come to us until after this life. So this life really is a testing and proving time to see if, despite our lack of vision of the eternities, we are willing to be obedient to all that God requires of us. This is why mortality requires faith in God, for faith is action on belief for which we don’t have current proof.
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Good article! Love the new picture!
One of the first things my children said when they could talk was, “It isn’t fair”!!!! How do they know what that means?????????
Your article is very good and enlightening. I would add one thing.
Life is fair if we all started our second estate identically the same (same intellect, same physical abilities, no abnormalities, etc) but we are all vastly different and that leaves individuals with trials others never have to experience. The question is how is it all going to even out in the end?
One answer.
Jesus Christ is the great Equalizer. He will fill in the gaps in our life’s where it was unfair and in the end we can all be judged by the one who personally suffered all of those sins which caused that inequality.
This life is fair only for one reason Christs atonement.
All we need to do is be on the right road moving forward repenting and keeping our Heart striving to obey even if we fall short. We will be judge by our desires of the Heart. See you at the end…
Mortal life may seem to be unjust to many, especially when we have the life of the Saviour and others as examples. However we don’t recall to what we agreed to and whatever comes along, we need to endure. Yet although we as mortals experience life, none of us can even grasp, to what the Saviour endured for us. So can we really state that mortality is fair to each of us?
I disagree with you that the world’s earthly leaders are chosen from the noble and great ones, before the world began. These leaders are often very corrupt and often get to their places through domination, intimidation, fear, and copious murder… They’re the ones that allow Satan to reign with blood and horror. I believe some world leaders are the chosen from the noble and great ones, given their place at pivotal moments in history to make sure events unfold the way Heavenly Father wants them to. As for the noble and great ones, the scripture says, “These are the ones I will make MY rulers”. They are leaders in the gospel: the prophets throughout the dispensations.
Okay. I missed the distinction you made with “earthly leaders in His kingdom.” I saw “earthly leaders”, and started thinking of worldly leaders. Perhaps you could make this more clear.
The second sentence of the second paragraph is completely redundant and should be removed.
I also noticed problems with commas. When a sentence has the structure of “If this, then that” there should be a comma between the two clauses. You have many sentences of this type, but some of the commas are missing. Others are in strange places. For example, there’s one between “the philosophies of man, and Satan” which doesn’t work well when the next comma is between clauses.
But first of all, I disagree with your premise. A couple of years ago when I gave a talk, I made the point that the whole reason that we come here to this Earth is because life is not fair. I mentioned what another commenter said, that very young children say, “That’s not fair!” Life is not meant to be fair. The unfairness gives us opportunities to learn, grow, and choose in a situation where many options, including varying levels of evil, are present. In the end, Christ and Heavenly Father will be just in their judgment and right the many injustices of this world. The rest of your article I agree with: In heaven, all is perfect, and that it is faith that is needed in order to overcome here below, despite not getting immediate rewards for our just actions in this world.
Our opportunity — and our test — in the second estate is to show our level of righteousness by dealing truly in unjust circumstances. And we also find ways to work to do what we can to make this world a fairer place. In finding a cause, we truly show our use of agency in the unique ways we develop our talents and choose to serve our Heavenly Father and our fellow man (D&C 58:27-28).
If in his presence, goodness and order prevail, then why did 1/3 of his children rebel against him? It has always escaped my understanding how a perfect God could have imperfect children. This bothers me a lot. Since we were all with our perfect father what did we have to rebel against? And if we did rebel, then with him being perfect why didn’t he know how to reach us and turn our hearts back toward him? What would there have been to cause any of his spirit children to be less valiant? There was no alcohol, no pornography, no drugs, no money, nothing I can think of to cause rebellion against a perfect father.
I have nine adopted children. Five of them are siblings who were in a very abusive home. They have suffered greatly and continue because of the abuse. Their biological mother was sexually abused by her stepfather from the time she was eight years old when her mother married him. He is the father of her first three children. Her first child by him was born when she was 14. Her mother was raised by an alcoholic father. How is any of this fair? What determined in heaven if we were valiant and came to a home on earth with loving parents or if we were not valiant why were we not, since we had perfect father? When I have had challenges and heartache over my children I have prayed and fasted diligently and faithfully to ask how many father how I could help them and reach them. I don’t understand how he could not reach the hearts of his spirit children. I try to put this all aside and not worry about it because there are no good answers. This is the first time I have ever voiced these questions. I don’t know why I’m doing it now.
Cheryl, you bring up some good, and I dare say, universal thoughts about agency that we have probably all puzzled over at one time or another. It is difficult for me to fathom how someone can be in the presence of God and reject Him, especially knowing that rejection of He who made and controls the universe will cast you out and punish you for your rebellion. Yet, that is apparently what happened. We don’t remember all the details because of the veil of forgetfulness that we all live with. Agency, I am sure, is at the heart of it all. Our Father will not force love from anyone. All love and obedience must be voluntary. And our exaltation must be because we want it more than anything else. He lives in a state of the highest form of happiness, yet He still experiences sorrow from the choice and actions of others. I suppose mortality is our experience with that suffering and sorrow, but without that perfect love to temper all things. His commandments offer us the path back to experience His kind of happiness that makes life, even with suffering, so worth while. These are my thoughts on the subject.
Kelly
Thank you for acknowledging my thoughts and for sharing your own. I know there are many things for which there are no answers and thus we must go forward in faith.
I think part of the difficult reason fairness does not always make sense is bc we don’t have all the details. If we did we probably would not understand them anyway. For example, we know that God somehow took intellegences that he did not create, which embodies our nature, and gave it a spirit body. I don’t think he knew what that nature was like until it was given a spirit body and was offerred choices. From there on He could predict their outcome but still could not force their outcome. Our pre-existance entailed lots of learning and then a test (first estate) that Fairly sorted out some that were hopeless and those who had potential to become like him. At that point God knew our outcomes but unless we experienced a life of Faith we could not progress and He couldn’t do it for them. The second estate provided that environment and it continues up until judgement including spirit prison and paradise. Judgement is where fairness is fully realized. Before that fairness started at spiritual birth not at earth life. For example little children that die before the age of accountability will achieve exaltation. Their first estate was enough to prove their qualification for eternal life. Do they need the Savior? Probably so. We can only guess on all this bc we don’t have details. Is life equally fair? Yes, I believe so but that does not mean we all have equal experiences. God gives us what we all fairly need to develop. We cannot judge what fair is for each person so how can we fully judge whether we all get the same amount in this life only? The person who is tortured for years vs the person who lives a life insulated from pain. Both could be equally tested by their experiences. We are told that God will have us prosper if we keep his commandments. Are the 11,000 saints in Kiev Eukraine prospering right now? I believe they still will if they are faithful but I have no idea how that will happen. When the wicked do wicked things to others, are the others prospering? They might be the ultimate victom of the wickedness but “all is well” bc God will make it all fair in the end. Fairness can only be judged by considering the whole of our spiritual lives, not from the snapshots of each part.
Thank you Michael. Great comments.