No Beginning

One of the teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith that set him apart from his contemporaries was that when God created the world He did it with materials that already existed.  In other words, He did not create it out of nothing, but rather organized materials into the earth.  He said, “We infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos—chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory.  Element had an existence from the time he had.  The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and re-organized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning, and can have no end.”  In the scriptures this idea is evident in the account of the creation in the book of Abraham: “And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth” (Abraham 4:1).  Nine other times the word organize was used in the description of the work they did to prepare the earth for man’s arrival, clearly emphasizing that the materials that were used to create the earth already existed.   

               Not only did the prophet teach that the elements of the universe had no beginning, he also taught that we had no beginning.  This is stated clearest in the Lord’s revelation to Abraham: “if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal” (Abraham 3:18).  This is a truly remarkable idea—how could we have always existed in some form?  How could time have stretched back infinitely before we got here?  And yet the Lord confirmed this principle in the Doctrine and Covenants: “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).  Our being as intelligences, the scriptural name for our beings before they were “organized” by God “before the world was”—have always existed in some form (Abraham 3:22).  Other scriptures similarly hint at this idea that there was no total beginning of things.  The Lord said in another revelation, “Speaking unto you that you may naturally understand; but unto myself my works have no end, neither beginning” (D&C 29:33).  God affirmed that He, as well as His priesthood, is “without beginning of days” (Moses 1:3, D&C 54:17). 

            While contemplating the idea that there was no true beginning of our being or the matter that makes up the universe is indeed mind boggling, I really see no alternative.  If we were to suggest that there was a beginning point of all matter, then we would naturally ask the question, “What happened before that point?”  To suggest that time began at some point and there was simply nothing before it is, at least to me, just as difficult to fathom as the idea that there simply was no beginning.  Gratefully, our salvation does not depend on understanding these things.  We trust that the Lord knows us, where we have come from, and what our true potential is, and we look forward to the day when the He will “reveal all things—things which have passed, and hidden things which no man knew” (D&C 101:33).