Thursday 2 July 2015

Reader's Question: Do you think our personalities, traits, and gifts are primarily determined by spirit or genetics

*
My response: The two are linked.

Parental inheritance - mostly, but not entirely, from genetics - of factors such as intelligence, personality, some special abilities, plus physical attributes and diseases - is very important; and there are also ways in which 'spirit' - i.e. divine plan - is significant. However, these spiritual factors we either do not know, or cannot usually access (although personal revelation is a possibility).

This non-hereditary influence is most obvious when a child - perhaps one among siblings - is very different from his parents; but the situation applies to everyone to some extent, because each human is distinct. 

I mean that the identity of our parents is influenced by things like our pre-mortal relationships as spirits, and the fact that we were divinely 'placed' with certain parents - in certain general situations of time and place - for our own good.

By 'our own good' I do not mean our health and happiness during mortal life; but in terms of the secondary purpose of mortal life. The primary purpose is to incarnate and die: everybody achieves that purpose. The secondary purpose is the hope of what we may accomplish, spiritually, during life - what we most need in order to progress towards divinity.

So, common observation - backed up by research - tells us that heredity accounts for much of human differences, but our parents were chosen for us, they are not random - so the spiritual aspect is primary.

This dual influence is vital in binding the universe. We are first sons and daughters of God, and that relationship is literal and makes everyone part of one divine family; then secondly we are sons and daughters of our parents, which is also a real and literal relationship, and gathers our spirits into multiple specific human families.

Then, thirdly, there may be a possibility of marriage, which incrementally links the various human families; and creates further combinations and possibilities.

*

1 comment:

David said...

"So, common observation - backed up by research - tells us that heredity accounts for much of human differences, but our parents were chosen for us, they are not random - so the spiritual aspect is primary."

The idea of pre-mortal choice is a powerful one and one with which I have a strong affinity. It seems, although I am biased, that I could not have had better parents (on the whole) and so I am pleased with whatever choices were presumably made, including by myself in the pre-mortal world. However, I am very conscious that other people (and we do not have to look very far to find tragic examples) have endured horrendous physical, sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of their 'parents' and relatives, and even when the tragedy of these damaged relationships are not as extreme as this, there are many who do not have any bond of affinity with their parents or relatives at all. It is difficult in these cases (assuming my own largely blessed situation since birth is a comparative rarity) to imagine the hand of providence in such circumstances or why I should be more deserving, which is clear to me I am not especially deserving of this blessed situation. I personally find it difficult to make sense of this, and it casts a truly substantial doubt on a set of beliefs and ideas that are so charming I really would like to embrace them with more conviction. It is hard to understand why I have been blessed with good parents whilst others have had their lives ruined as innocent children by abusive parents (sadly more common than I ever wanted to imagine) or relatives. I take it therefore that once the pre-mortal Vale is passed the laws of entropy, chance, agency are such that things are spoiled so frequently that the 'ideal' heavenly happy family is as magnificently rare as a diamond in mortal life. So fragile in the face of even the mildest mortal accident (or is it design? If so it feels like a cruel one, I assume therefore it must be accident). Were it not so I would have had an adult sister (lost before childbirth). I assume and hope therefore that when I die I will be reunited with the sister that I never had, by design or accident, I do not know which. Of course there will be countless millions of such cases, especially a few generations ago and when we leave pre-mortal life, it is a very short trip for some. So when people talk of pre-mortal life, for me at any rate, it has the quality of a tantalizing mirage drawing me towards it, but it evaporates into confused conjecture and imaginings if examined too closely.