Some are called to be leaders, Hegelian “world historical persons” who make a significant difference in the world. The scriptures also teach that a major way in which God participates in human history is the manner, place, and timing of those He brings to earth, what callings, gifts, and inspiration He gives them, as well as when their days are to end, all according to His own will and plan. But in all, He is an integral actor in human history, seeking, above all, to promote eternal rights and privileges-His own true principles-including the moral agency and accountability of His children. More often He participates with a quiet subtlety on a universal scale similar to the manner in which the Holy Ghost influences us individually (see 1 Nephi 13:12–14, 18, 19 D&C 20:11–12 101:80). He participates in what happens on this earth, sometimes directing and even intervening in revealed and dramatic ways-as we are told in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants and by modern prophets-as in the cases of Columbus, the Reformers, the Pilgrims and Puritans and the American Founding Fathers. He is the creator and governor of the universe. Thus, as ancient and modern prophets have proclaimed, God is the active, caring director of the world and its history. I, the Lord God, make you free, therefore ye are free indeed and the law also maketh you free” (D&C 98:5, 8). God has clearly affirmed these freedoms as part and parcel of all human dignity, stating unequivocally that “that principle of freedom in maintaining rights and privileges, belongs to all mankind, and is justifiable before me. God has endowed each child with some of His own inherent abilities, rights, and capacities, including the right to life, the right of moral agency and freedom (see D&C 98:5, 8), the right to choose and be held accountable, the right to strive for happiness-the purpose of this life-and other basic human rights, many of which are enshrined in the divinely inspired U.S. This is a major crisis in the world-life of man. God will work out in His own due time and in His own sovereign way the justice and right of the conflict, but He will not hold the innocent instrumentalities of the war, our brethren in arms, responsible for the conflict. In our dispensation, writing in the dark days of World War II, the First Presidency of the Church reaffirmed the divine role in history: “We bear witness to all the world that God lives, and still rules, that His righteous ways and His truth will finally prevail. for in him we live, and move, and have our being as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring” (Acts 17:24–26, 28 emphasis added see also D&C 45:1 Abraham 3:21). giveth to all life, and breath, and all things and hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. To philosophizing Greek skeptics on Mars’ Hill who postulated what to them was an “unknown God” and whose sophistries and doubts remarkably correspond to their modern counterparts, the equally learned Apostle Paul taught: “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth. Both the Father and the Son continue to care for and direct the earth and its inhabitants both are involved in directing what happens on the earth and to its people according to Their own divine laws and timetable. Prete (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2005), 461–94.Īs a Latter-day Saint and a historian, I believe in a living, personal God who acts in history and in His Son, Jesus Christ, a historical being who is, in fact, both the apogee and focal point of all human history. Tobler, “Good from Evil in the Twentieth Century: Transcending Totalitarianism, Wars, and the Holocaust,” in Window of Faith: Latter-day Saint Perspectives on World History, ed.
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