Created and Organized

One of the contributions to the Creation story from the account in the book of Abraham is the use of the word organize instead of create.  The word is not used in the other two scriptural creation accounts that we have.  Joseph Smith explained that the Hebrew form of the word used in the Genesis account implied a type of creation in which the elements were organized instead of created out of nothing: “The word create came from the [Hebrew] word baurau which does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter” (see here).  In the Abraham account the word organize is used 10 times; the Gods organized “the heavens and the earth,” they “organized the earth to bring forth grass,” they “organized the lights in the expanse of heaven, etc.  At the core God did not create the elements from which He made the earth.  Just as we might say that we created a castle with the sand on the beach (and yet we didn’t create the sand itself), so to we say that God created the earth even though He didn’t in reality create the elements from which the earth was formed—He put them together and organized them, but He didn’t create them from nothing. 

                This doctrine is probably taught most clearly in the scriptures in D&C 93.  We read, “Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be” (D&C 93:29).  My understanding is that we were in some form called intelligences before the Father organized those intelligences into spirits.  When the Lord showed Abraham a vision of the premortal life He showed him “the intelligences that were organized before the world was” (Abraham 3:22).  So we were from the beginning in some form called intelligences, and the Father “organized” those beings into spirits before we finally came to earth to have a body.  The Guide to the Scriptures puts it this way: “The scriptures also may speak of intelligence as referring to the spirit element that existed before we were begotten as spirit children.”  Matthew McBride summarized Joseph Smith’s teachings related D&C 93 this way: “Echoing the words of the revelation, he taught that men and women were co-eternal with God and could become like Him by ‘going from a small capacity to a great capacity,’ until eventually they dwell ‘in everlasting burnings.’  Speaking with revealed assurance, he taught: ‘The soul, the mind of man, whare did it come from? The learned says God made it in the beginning, but it is not so.  I know better.  God has told me so.’”  To think that we have always existed in some form is certainly beyond my ability to comprehend.  I have the same problem imagining a future that never ends—everything in life that we experiences has a beginning and end, and so mentally breaking out of that framework of time is extremely difficult.  But to know that God did not fully create us allows us to understand how He is not responsible for the evil that His children do—we are indeed our own agents, and though He organized our spirits and placed us on earth, our soul at the core has existed as long as He has.