“And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (D&C 130:20–21). This eternal law prevailed in the first estate as it does in the second estate. It should not disconcert us, therefore, that the Lord has indicated that he chose some individuals before they came here to carry out certain assignments; hence, these individuals have been foreordained to those assignments. “Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world,” said the Prophet Joseph Smith, “was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. I suppose I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 365.)

Foreordination is like any other blessing—it is a conditional bestowal subject to our faithfulness. Prophecies foreshadow events without determining the outcome, because of a divine foreseeing of outcomes. So foreordination is a conditional bestowal of a role, a responsibility, or a blessing which, likewise, foresees but does not fix the outcome.

There have been those who have failed or who have been treasonous to their trust, such as David, Solomon, and Judas. God foresaw the fall of David, but was not the cause of it. It was David who saw Bathsheba from the balcony and sent for her. But neither was God surprised by such a sad development.

God foresaw, but did not cause, Martin Harris’s loss of certain pages of the translated Book of Mormon; God made plans to cope with failure over 1,500 years before it was to occur! (See preface to D&C 10 and W of M)

Thus, foreordination is clearly no excuse for fatalism, or arrogance, or the abuse of agency. It is not, however, a doctrine that can be ignored simply because it is difficult. Indeed, deep inside the hardest doctrines are some of the pearls of greatest price.

The doctrine pertains not only to the foreordination of prophets, but to God’s precise assessment, beforehand, as to each of those who will respond to the words of the Savior and the prophets. From the Savior’s own lips came these words, “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine” (John 10:14). Similarly the Savior said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Further, he declared, “And ye are called to bring to pass the gathering of mine elect; for mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts” (D&C 29:7).

This responsiveness could not be gauged without divine foreknowledge concerning all mortals and their response to the gospel—which foreknowledge is so perfect it leaves the realm of prediction and enters the realm of prophecy.

The foreseeing of those who will accept the gospel in mortality, gladly and with alacrity, is based upon their parallel responsiveness in the premortal world. No wonder the Lord could say, as he did to Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; … and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations” (Jer. 1:5). Paul, when writing to the Saints in Rome, said, “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew” (Rom. 11:2). Paul also said of God that “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4).

The Lord, who was able to say to his disciples, “Cast the net on the right side of the ship” (John 21:6), knew beforehand that there was a multitude of fishes there. If he knew beforehand the movements and whereabouts of fishes in the little Sea of Tiberias, should it offend us that he knows beforehand which mortals will come into the gospel net?

It does no violence even to our frail human logic to observe that there cannot be a grand plan of salvation for all mankind, unless there is also a plan for each individual. The salvational sum will reflect all its parts.

Once the believer acknowledges that the past, present, and future are before God simultaneously—even though we do not understand how—then the doctrine of foreordination may be seen somewhat more clearly. For instance, it was necessary for God to know how the economic difficulties and crop failures of the Joseph Smith, Sr. family in New England would move this special family to the Cumorah vicinity where the Book of Mormon plates were buried. God’s plans could scarcely have so unfolded if—willy-nilly—the Smiths had been born Manchurians and if, meanwhile, the plates had been buried in Belgium!

The Lord would need to have perfect comprehension of all the military and political developments in the Middle East—some of which are unfolding even now—which would combine to bring to pass a latter-day condition in which “all nations” will be gathered “against Jerusalem to battle” (Zech. 14:2).

It should not surprise us that the Lord, who notices the fall of each sparrow and the hair from every head, would know centuries before how much money Judas would receive—thirty pieces of silver—at the time he betrayed the Savior. (See Matt. 26:15, Matt. 27:3, Zech. 11:12.)

Quite understandably, the manner in which things unfold seems to us mortals to be so natural. Our not knowing what is to come (in the perfect way that God knows it) thus preserves our free agency completely.

When, through a process we call inspiration and revelation, we are permitted at times to tap that divine databank, we are accessing, for the narrow purposes at hand, the knowledge of God. No wonder that experience is so unforgettable!

There are clearly special cases of individuals with special limitations in life, which conditions we mortals cannot now fully fathom. For all we now know, the seeming limitations may have been an agreed-upon spur to achievement—a “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor. 12:7). Like him who was “blind from birth,” some come to bring glory to God (John 9:1–2). We must be exceedingly careful about imputing either wrong causes or wrong rewards to all in such circumstances. They are in the Lord’s hands, and he loves them perfectly. Indeed, some of those who have required much waiting upon in this life may be waited upon again by the rest of us in the next world—but for the highest of reasons!