eretofore shown that the entire human race existed as
spirit-beings in the primeval world, and that for the purpose of making
possible to them the experiences of mortality this earth was created.
They were endowed with the powers of agency or choice while yet but
spirits; and the divine plan provided that they be free-born in the
flesh, heirs to the inalienable birthright of liberty to choose and to
act for themselves in mortality. It is undeniably essential to the
eternal progression of God's children that they be subjected to the
influences of both good and evil, that they be tried and tested and
proved withal, "to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord
their God shall command them."[29] Free agency is an indispensable
element of such a test.

The Eternal Father well understood the diverse natures and varied
capacities of His spirit-offspring; and His infinite foreknowledge made
plain to Him, even in the beginning, that in the school of life some of
His children would succeed and others would fail; some would be
faithful, others false; some would choose the good, others the evil;
some would seek the way of life while others would elect to follow the
road to destruction. He further foresaw that death would enter the
world, and that the possession of bodies by His children would be of but
brief individual duration. He saw that His commandments would be
disobeyed and His law violated; and that men, shut out from His presence
and left to themselves, would sink rather than rise, would retrograde
rather than advance, and would be lost to the heavens. It was necessary
that a means of redemption be provided, whereby erring man might make
amends, and by compliance with established law achieve salvation and
eventual exaltation in the eternal worlds. The power of death was to be
overcome, so that, though men would of necessity die, they would live
anew, their spirits clothed with immortalized bodies over which death
could not again prevail.

Let not ignorance and thoughtlessness lead us into the error of assuming
that the Father's foreknowledge as to what _would be_, under given
conditions, determined that such _must be_. It was not His design that
the souls of mankind be lost; on the contrary it was and is His work and
glory, "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man."[30]
Nevertheless He saw the evil into which His children would assuredly
fall; and with infinite love and mercy did He ordain means