Editor’s Note: A book to help you develop your spiritual nature. See the Introduction and Chapter One.
Into the Wilderness: The Paradise Within
I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste. And after I had traveled for the space of many hours in darkness, I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies. … And it came to pass that I beheld a tree.
1 Nephi 8:7–8, 10
Through the world’s great Architect, their Father, they discovered a plan fraught with intelligence and wisdom, reaching from eternity to eternity, pointing out a means whereby, through obedience to celestial laws, they might obtain the same power that he had. And if, in fallen humanity, they might have to suffer for a while, they saw a way back to God, to eternal exaltations, and to the multiplied, and eternally increasing happiness of innumerable millions of beings. And if, as Jesus, they had to descend below all things, it was that they might be raised above all things, and take their position as sons of God, in the eternal world.
John Taylor 1
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
William Blake 2
At the end of John Milton’s inspired epic poem, Paradise Lost,3 Adam and Eve, under immediate dismissal from the blissful paradise of God, try to linger at the exit of the Garden, each holding a hand of the hastening Archangel:
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
Waved over by that flaming brand. …
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon:
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and providence their guide;
They hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.4
Into the telestial wilderness they descended, the Light receding and their bliss a fading memory. Thorns and weeds, sickness and pain, hatred, and death would obscure their earlier joys. Confusion and chaos would seem to govern the earth.
Milton’s angel had described to Adam the nature of the world they would enter, with its persecution of righteousness and its empty religions. And so it would go, the earth groaning under her own weight, until the day of a Savior’s appearance, Who would raise from the flaming mass of a perverted world a new heaven and a new earth: “Founded in righteousness and peace and love / To bring forth fruits, joy, and eternal bliss.”5 Eden would be restored to the earth. Adam, cheered and “greatly instructed” by the Angel’s prophecy, replied that he could then depart the Garden in peace; that he would seek knowledge and would obey, “And love with fear the only God, to walk / As in his presence … and on him sole depend.”6 The angel replied, foreshadowing another paradise:
This having learned, thou hast attained the sum of wisdom. …
Then wilt thou not be loath
To leave this Paradise, but shalt possess
A paradise within thee, happier far.
Let us descend now … for the hour precise
Exacts our parting hence.7
So now, even with the distant hope of a restored Eden and the mysterious promise of an inner Paradise, Adam and Eve began what must have been a lengthy period of sorrow in their fallen world. Spiritual death was new to them. Where was the promised Paradise as they labored in the earth, “wanderers in a strange land” (Alma 26:36)? Shut out from the Lord’s presence, did they grieve over the state they found themselves in? Did they lament that somehow their situation shouldn’t have been—that they had ruined something or something was ruined for them? Past spiritual experience can be little comfort when it can’t be felt in the present. What good were promises they couldn’t now feel? Would they ever taste joy again?
After “many days” of testing their obedience in the fallen world, the Lord initiated their return to His Presence. Adam’s relief is obvious as his hope for joy in this life is renewed:
“Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the flesh I shall see God” (Moses 5:10). And Eve, comforted at the revelation and full of new Light, rejoices, “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient” (Moses 5:11). Their suffering began to show purpose.
Adam and Eve made a deliberate choice in compliance with the plan of God,8 acting in a conscious saving role for humankind; but that noble choice did not spare them the experience of spiritual death in their sorrowful separation from the Lord’s presence. Did they wonder how long they would have to suffer, shut out as they were? The welcome Voice came to them: “Behold I have forgiven thee thy transgression in the Garden of Eden” (Moses 6:53). It appears that they did not need forgiveness for the transgression itself, but they did need a restoration of the Lord’s presence in order to heal their sorrow and transcend the dreariness of separation. Forgiveness is primarily an issue of Presence, because with forgiveness comes the restoration of the Presence of God. “Forgiveness” may foreshadow here the ordinances that would alleviate the effects of the Fall and begin the reversal of spiritual death. Enoch describes that reversing event as Adam was caught away by the Spirit, carried down under the water, and brought forth again, “born of the Spirit, and … quickened in the inner man” (Moses 6:65). Then came the precious words, “Thou art after the order of him who was without beginning … one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons” (Moses 6:67–68).
Where they may have deeply regretted their earlier situation in their own Wilderness experience, we find them even grateful at their subjection to telestial conditions, reconnected as they are now to heavenly joys. They see the purpose of their reduced circumstances and are led to rediscover Paradise, a more intimate one.
Facing What Is
Is it possible that we too, like our First Parents, must discover the Paradise in the Wilderness? To our finite mind and eye, our primeval memory veiled, the Earth looks like a dangerously random place—we may not see either order or purpose in what we are subjected to. It seems that anything can happen, and we may be fearful and grieve over many things. Unable to see the larger purposes for the Wilderness experience, we resist the things that must be.
Looking to ourselves, how much do we insist on an ideal reality that cannot be realized in this world? Many things do not suit us: people are too much this way, not enough that way; they shouldn’t do the things they do; the things that happen shouldn’t have.
We contract our physical and emotional muscles against greater and lesser circumstances, exhausting ourselves in the face of what comes upon the path.
We get high blood pressure, we have heart disease, we get ulcers, in our refusal to accept what is; we may be shut down by an unrelenting sense of unworthiness, a debilitating self-pity, or depression; we may feel victimized, deprived, and helpless in the face of what presents itself in our world. If we’re not beating on ourselves, we’re beating on others that things have gone so wrong. We create hell for ourselves and for others too. “This is terribly wrong!” “I’m so angry!” “This shouldn’t be!” “This is intolerable!”— and yet it has happened, and there is no changing what has happened. Is it God that is out of step? Is it I?
As Peter said in his grief at the Savior’s revelation of His death in Jerusalem, “Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee,” and to whom the Savior replied, “Get thee behind me. … Thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men” (Matthew 16:22–23). Or as Amulek, who cried out, “How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us,and save them from the flames.” “No,” Alma replied, “The Spirit constraineth me” (Alma 14:10–11). Or as Enoch, who weeping in bitterness of soul cried out: “I will refuse to be comforted”(Moses 7:44). Yet all of those unthinkable things had to be.
A new consciousness is possible that allows us to accommodate that which must be, and even to embrace it. Many of the causes that we think arise in this world were woven into the great plan of the Creator through arrangements and covenants entered into in the premortal world. But the Lord speaks to us as He did to the grieving Enoch when He showed him a new point of view: “Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look…”
(Moses 7:44).
But what shall we look at that could change our view of life? Appearances can be deceiving, and to be free, we must insist on the Truth, which is always kinder than we might have thought. The poet Alexander Pope wrote:
All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee:
All Chance, Direction, which thou canst not see;
All Discord, Harmony, not understood;
All partial Evil, universal Good:
And, spite of Pride, in erring Reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, “whatever is, is right.”9
And so let us look with eyes of greater awareness.
Cosmic Design
William Blake poses an age-old question in the epigraph at the beginning of this chapter: How can the God who made the gentle, harmless lamb be the same God who made the terrible tiger? Could both the lamb and the tiger be His?
It appears that there is a great, benevolent Ecosystem behind all the lambs and also all the tigers on the earth, provided by one wise Creator (e.g., see 2 Nephi 2:14). Scripture and Science indeed reveal that creation is not chaotic but that there is a marvelous intelligent order and purpose in all things above and within the earth. We observe the meticulous arrangement in the great macrocosmic universe and note the repeated design in the tiniest, even microscopic, details of Nature—One Governing Intelligence, operating not only in the vast macrocosm, but also in the details of our personal microcosm. We see system run into system, interrelated force fields in a constant dance of ever-configuring and re-configuring life. And not only is God the orchestrator of all this, He is also the in-dwelling Presence in His creation, filling all, connecting all, blessing all, in conscious, ceaseless divine activity. He is
the light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things. … There is no space in the which there is no kingdom; and there is no kingdom in which there is no space, either a greater or a lesser kingdom. And unto every kingdom is given a law and unto every law there are certain bounds also and conditions. …
[God] hath given a law unto all things, by which they move in their times and their seasons; and their courses are fixed, even the courses of the heavens and the earth, which comprehend the earth and all the planets. And they give light to each other in their times and in their seasons, in their minutes, in their hours, in their days, in their weeks, in their months, in their years. … The earth rolls upon her wings, and the sun giveth his light by day, and the moon giveth her light by night, and the stars also give their light, as they roll upon their wings in their glory, in the midst of the power of God. … Any man who hath seen any or the least of these hath seen God moving in his majesty and power. (d&c 88:13, 37–38, 42–45, 47)
As Alma testified to Korihor, “All things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator”
(Alma 30:44).
A perfect order operates in the tiniest details. Not only is there order in the structures and systems of Nature, in the lifespans and deaths of great stars, in the rhythm of times and seasons, but God has arranged even all the times appointed unto men (see Alma 40:10), and “knoweth as well all things which shall befall” (Helaman 8:8), and has determined the times and bounds of Man’s habitation on earth. Yet throughout all this complexity, as the Apostle says, He is not far from us; in fact, in Him we live and move and have our being (see Acts 17:26–27), as He lends us breath and life and movement and choice from day to day (see Mosiah 2:21). Consider these three scriptures about God’s relationship to us and to things as they are:
1. O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it. (2 Nephi 9:20)
2. Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God? (Mormon 5:23)
3. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2:24–25) 10
By this last scripture we realize that the Fall, as well as all things that pertain to the Fall, have somehow played into the Divine intention for Man’s joy, not just in some distant, otherworld future, but now.
Yes, Man was created to have a joy alive in himself even as he travels through straitened circumstances.Part of the purpose of the mortal probation is to turn Man’s distracted consciousness from the outer world to the inner recesses of joy, to a Paradise, “happier far.”
Chapter 2 will continue next Friday on Meridian.
1. The Government of God (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book Company, 1992), 79.
2. Songs of Experience. William Blake (1757–1827), a British poet, visionary, and painter, deals in this passage with a question to which many have given deep consideration: How can the God who made the gentle lamb (the symbol in fact of His beloved Son) and all the other lovely things of the earth be the same God who made the tiger and many of the terrors of the earthly existence?
3. Paradise Lost appeared in 1667. The setting of the poem was the Garden of Eden. John Milton (1608–1674) knew a great deal about the dynamics of the events that transpired in the Garden and their meaning for humankind. The following quote describes one reception of the poem in Milton’s day: “One day in the autumn of 1667, according to a member of Parliament, Sir John Denham entered the House of Commons excitedly waving a sheet of Paradise Lost still ‘wet from the Press,’ and pronounced it ‘Part of the Noblest Poem that was Wrote in any Language or any Age.’ ” (From the Introduction to John Milton Paradise Lost, ed. David Scott Kastan [Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 2005], xi.)
4. Ibid., 12:641–49.
5. Ibid., 12:550–51.
6. Ibid., 12:557–64.
7. Ibid., 12:575–76, 585–87.
8. Adam and Eve use here the word transgression rather than sin, suggesting the distinction between the two words. The prophet Joseph said that Adam did not commit sin in eating the fruit, because God had decreed that he should eat and fall but also promised redemption from the fall and from death (see wjs, 63). President Joseph Fielding Smith writes, “I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. … This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin … for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!” (Doctrines of Salvation, comp. Bruce R. McConkie, 3 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954–56], 1:114–15; see also Elder Dallin H. Oaks, “The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, November 1993, 72.) President Smith taught on another occasion, “Mortality was created through the eating of the forbidden fruit, if you want to call it forbidden, but I think the Lord has made it clear that it was not forbidden. He merely said to Adam, if you want to stay here [in the garden] this is the situation. If so, don’t eat it.” (Unpublished address given at LDS Institute of Religion, Salt Lake City, January 14, 1961. Typescript approved by President Smith.)
9. An Essay on Man, Epistle 1:294.
10. The question may arise in any discussion of God’s omniscience as to how Man’s freedom of choice can function. Neal A. Maxwell’s comments help resolve the apparent conflict: “God’s omniscience is not solely a function of prolonged and discerning familiarity with us—but of the stunning reality that the past and present and future are part of an ‘eternal now’ with God! (Joseph Smith, History of the Church 4:597). … For God to foresee is not to cause or even to desire a particular occurrence—but it is to take that occurrence into account beforehand, so that divine reckoning folds it into the unfolding purposes of God. … God has foreseen what we will do and has taken our decision into account (in composite with all others), so that His purposes are not frustrated.” (All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1980], 8, 12.)
