Reincarnation and Multiple Mortal Probations

Restoration scripture and prophetic teaching open a larger view of probation, progression, previous estates, and the eternal education by which souls are prepared for exaltation. The doctrine of reincarnation or multiple mortal probations must be handled within the Father’s Family Order, not as detached speculation, fatalism, or curiosity.

At minimum, the doctrine requires mortality to be seen as part of a larger eternal order. Spirits existed before this life; callings and birthright promises reach beyond a single mortal moment; judgment is real; and the Father’s work is to bring His children into lawful Celestial family life. The question is not whether souls wander aimlessly from life to life, but how God orders probation, accountability, resurrection, and exaltation in the worlds He governs.

Probation and Eternal Progression

The scriptures teach premortal existence, mortal testing, resurrection, judgment, and eternal increase. Fred C. Collier’s introductory works, especially The Road to Eternal Life and Doctrinal Teachings of Fred C. Collier, Vol. 1, place those themes inside the larger path to Celestial glory.1

Fred’s Abel Paper states the doctrinal logic directly: if souls may rise from lower glories toward Celestial glory, and if entrance into a higher glory requires real proving under law, then such progression cannot be reduced to disembodied instruction alone. It requires ordered probation under the government of God, including mortal probation, by which souls are tested, taught, and prepared for higher inheritance.2 That same doctrine of ascent by degrees, lower glories advancing, further probation, and endless progression from glory to glory was affirmed in powerful form by Joseph Smith, Hyrum Smith, President Brigham Young, President Heber C. Kimball, President Wilford Woodruff, President George Q. Cannon, B. H. Roberts, and Elder James E. Talmage.3

Joseph Smith’s King Follett discourse gives the same ascending pattern in another form. Eternal life requires men and women to learn how to be Gods by moving “from one small degree to another,” “from grace to grace,” and “from exaltation to exaltation,” until they attain the resurrection of the dead and can dwell in everlasting burnings.4 The Prophet then compared the Gospel path to a ladder: one begins at the bottom and ascends step by step, and the full work of learning salvation and exaltation continues beyond the grave.

Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and Saints

A January 30, 1842 discourse preserved by Wilford Woodruff is especially important. Woodruff recorded Joseph teaching that the God and Father of Jesus Christ had once redeemed a world and become the Eternal God of that world; that Jesus Christ redeemed this earth in the same pattern; and that “the Holy Ghost would do the same in his turn & so would all the Saints.”5

That statement does not present exaltation as a static reward. It presents Godhood as a redemptive order: Father, Son, Holy Ghost, and ultimately the Saints learning, condescending, redeeming, and advancing according to divine law. Repeated probations are therefore not a denial of judgment. They are part of the Father’s ordered schooling of His family, by which His children learn what must be learned and become what they must become.

“No More Out” and the Family Circle

The Book of Mormon also gives the doctrine its covenant boundary. Alma speaks repeatedly of the righteous sitting down in the Kingdom of God and going “no more out.” Alma 7:25, Alma 29:17, and Alma 34:36 all witness that exaltation is not endless exile through lower Telestial rebirths, but entrance into the Father’s Kingdom, where the righteous remain within His family order.6

This is why multiple mortal probations must not be confused with the hopeless wheel of rebirth taught in many Eastern traditions. Lower-probation rebirth, separated from sealing, Priesthood order, and Celestial family, is a bondage from which souls must be delivered. The Restored Gospel does not offer escape through apathetic detachment from earthly relation. It offers exaltation through holy relation: sacrifice, union, sealing, charity, and eternal family.

Once sealed into the Celestial Family, the righteous may condescend again in love and redemptive service, as Father Adam and Jesus Christ condescended for Their children. But such condescension is not the same as being cast out of the Father’s Kingdom. It is family service from within the order of eternal lives.

Scripture, Revelation, and Caution

Multiple mortal probation teachings must therefore be read through covenant accountability. A probation is not an escape from judgment. It is a divinely ordered testing, education, and proving. Whatever the Lord reveals concerning previous or future estates belongs to the same work of making sons and daughters fit for the Family Order of God.

These questions should not be treated as sensational metaphysics. They belong beside Adam-God, Celestial Marriage, Adoption, Priesthood succession, resurrection, and judgment. The Father’s work is not merely to extend experience, but to bring His children into lawful kinship, ordered glory, and eternal lives.

Related Study

Notes

  1. Fred C. Collier, The Road to Eternal Life; Doctrinal Teachings of Fred C. Collier, Vol. 1. ↩
  2. Fred C. Collier, The Abel Paper: The Incarnation of Yahweh and Satan at the Beginning of the World, 71–76. ↩
  3. Joseph Smith, April 7, 1844, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 347–48; Joseph Smith, discourse, January 30, 1842, in Wilford Woodruff, “Book of Revelations,” pages 5–6, Wilford Woodruff Papers page 5 and page 6, and Joseph Smith Papers transcript; Joseph Lee Robinson papers, 1883–1892; Autobiography and Journal of Joseph Lee Robinson, 1853–1883; Church History Library, MS 7042, manuscript page 22, Online Catalog image 26; Hyrum Smith statement recorded in Franklin D. Richards, “Scriptural Items,” August 1, 1843, Church History Library, MS 4409, Online Catalog image 36; President Brigham Young conversation recorded in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal 4:333 (August 5, 1855); President Heber C. Kimball, Journal of Discourses 4:119; 1:356; 6:67; 6:63; 4:329; 4:339; 5:271–73; President Wilford Woodruff, Journal of Discourses 6:120; President George Q. Cannon, Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 61, no. 8 (February 23, 1899): 117; B. H. Roberts, New Witnesses for God (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1911), 1:387–88; James E. Talmage, The Articles of Faith, 1st ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1899), 420–21. ↩
  4. Joseph Smith, April 7, 1844, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 346–48. ↩
  5. Joseph Smith, Discourse, January 30, 1842, in Wilford Woodruff, “Book of Revelations,” pages 5–6, Wilford Woodruff Papers page 5 and page 6; see also Joseph Smith Papers transcript. ↩
  6. Alma 7:25; Alma 29:17; Alma 34:36. ↩