I spent the morning today as a volunteer at the American Fork Training Center, where they house people with special needs in Utah County. We pushed them in their wheelchairs to church, accompanied them throughout the meetings, and then pushed them back to their dorms.
I’ve been a few times in the past, but this was the first time I got to actually accompany someone. It was really thought-provoking.
They had us attend an orientation to help us understand our responsibilities, during they told us that on the Church records these people are listed as “unaccountable.” This is based on scriptures from the New Testament, which states where no law is given there is no punishment, and from the Book of Mormon where it says that little children are alive in Christ. These people are like little children, and thus no law applies to them.
The statement was made by the service missionary conducting the orientation that these people are Celestial beings, only here to obtain a body, having previously done all else that was required of them, while in the pre-mortal life. That makes sense to me, having had our own Celestial being with us for a couple of days.
But I got to thinking about their mortal existence. Many of these people cannot care for themselves at all. If they were left to themselves, they would soon die. I thought how interesting it is to consider that these people, Celestial beings, are trapped in a body that allows them no freedom at all. Their entire day is planned for them. They go wherever they are taken. Some cannot even voice a protest.
2 Nephi, chapter 2 speaks about the two types of creation; things which act, and things which are acted upon. Verses 13-16, and 25-57 are of interest to me here:
13 And if ye shall say there is no law, ye shall also say there is no sin. If ye shall say there is no sin, ye shall also say there is no righteousness. And if there be no righteousness there be no happiness. And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery. And if these things are not there is no God. And if there is no God we are not, neither the earth; for there could have been no creation of things, neither to act nor to be acted upon; wherefore, all things must have vanished away.
14 And now, my sons, I speak unto you these things for your profit and learning; for there is a God, and he hath created all things, both the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon.
15 And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.
16 Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other….
25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.
26 And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given.
27 Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.
So, these people are free under the Atonement, but are they kept from exercising their freedom to preserve their status? Or did they volunteer for this temporary prison, to give the rest of us an opportunity to exercise Charity? Or are they fulfilling the same kind of path that Christ took, where they descend below all things, in their case all things that act? It is certainly an interesting question to ponder.
