14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.
It may seem self-evident that God exists, after Lehi’s
explanation that if God did not exist then we did not exist. But it’s important
that Lehi testifies to his family that God exists, because couched the way it
is, his testimony of God also testifies of creation, and I mean the creation of
all things. As discussed in verse 13, raw ingredients or elements, such as
intelligence, can’t be created, but they can be organized. There are apparently
different orders or levels of intelligence, and agency is given, or maybe
inherited, according to what order of intelligence is organized in a creation.
In other words, some creations have enough intelligence that they can handle
full agency, or the ability to act according to their choices. Man falls into
this category. Other organisms without that level of intelligence don‘t have as
much, or maybe any agency, and are created to be acted upon according to
someone else’s agency. Maybe rocks fall into that category. And following this
theory to its logical conclusion, there are levels in between with more or less
agency, depending on their intelligence, such as plants, insects and animals.
Then maybe there are further breakouts within those classifications. For
example, primates have a higher level of agency than slugs do. I don’t know
what else would account for a creation’s ability to act or be acted upon, as
Lehi describes here, while still living up to the measure of its creation, as commanded
in the creation of the world (see D&C 77: 3, D&C 88: 25).
President David O. McKay taught: “Although God has created
the universe and all therein, ‘man is the jewel of God.’ This is just another
way of saying that the earth was created for man and not man for the earth. God
gave man part of his divinity. He gave man the power of choice, and no other creature in the world has it.”
(CR October 1969, 6–7. Quoted in Teachings
of Presidents of the Church: David O. McKay, 2003, p. 207, my emphasis). So
maybe my theory is not so far-fetched after all.
