Procreation
According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, “procreate” is defined as “to beget or bring forth offspring.”[1] The Family: A Proclamation to the World teaches that ‘’’procreation’’’ is the commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth” and that the powers of procreation are “sacred” and “are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.”[2] Procreation, then, as God intends, is connected to chastity.
Elder David A. Bednar has taught:
- After the earth was created, Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden. Importantly, however, God said “it was not good that the man should be alone” (Moses 3:18; see also Genesis 2:18), and Eve became Adam’s wife and helpmeet. The unique combination of spiritual, physical, mental, and emotional capacities of both males and females was needed to enact the plan of happiness. “Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord” (1 Corinthians 11:11). The man and the woman are intended to learn from, strengthen, bless, and complete each other.
The means by which mortal life is created is divinely appointed. “The first commandment … God gave to Adam and Eve pertained to their potential for parenthood as husband and wife” (Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2010, 129). The commandment to multiply and replenish the earth remains in force today. Thus, marriage between a man and a woman is the authorized channel through which premortal spirits enter mortality. Complete sexual abstinence before marriage and total fidelity within marriage protect the sanctity of this sacred channel.
- The power of procreation is spiritually significant. Misuse of this power subverts the purposes of the Father’s plan and of our mortal existence. Our Heavenly Father and His Beloved Son are creators and have entrusted each of us with a portion of Their creative power. Specific guidelines for the proper use of the ability to create life are vital elements in the Father’s plan. How we feel about and use that supernal power will determine in large measure our happiness in mortality and our destiny in eternity.[3]
- Elder Dallin H. Oaks explained:
- “The power to create mortal life is the most exalted power God has given his children. Its use was mandated in the first commandment, but another important commandment was given to forbid its misuse. The emphasis we place on the law of chastity is explained by our understanding of the purpose of our procreative powers in the accomplishment of God’s plan. . . .
- “Outside the bonds of marriage, all uses of the procreative power are to one degree or another a sinful degrading and perversion of the most divine attribute of men and women” (“The Great Plan of Happiness,” Ensign, Nov. 1993, 74).[4]
Growing out of the commandment and ability to bear children is the responsibility to care for them, also taught in the family proclamation.
- Parents have a sacred duty to rear their children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, and to teach them to love and serve one another, observe the commandments of God, and be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Husbands and wives—mothers and fathers—will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations.
- Procreation is a divine partnership with God, and Church leaders counsel husbands and wives to seek his inspiration as they use their agency to bring children into the world even in difficult situations and circumstances (see Birth Control). The responsibilities of procreation include providing for the child's temporal well-being (1 Tim. 5:8), as "children have claim upon their parents for their maintenance until they are of age" (D&C 83:4). [5]
President Jeffrey R. Holland taught about the connection between procreation and chastity in his talk, “Of Souls, Symbols, and Sacraments”.
- As president of Brigham Young University, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles offered three reasons for choosing chastity. First, according to scripture, the soul consists of both body and spirit (see D&C 88:15). “In trivializing the soul of another (please include the word body there), we trivialize the Atonement. … Exploitation of the body (please include the word soul there) is, in the last analysis, an exploitation of him who is the Light and the Life of the world. . . . So in answer to the question, “Why does God care so much about sexual transgression?” it is partly because of the precious gift offered by and through his Only Begotten Son to redeem the souls—bodies and spirits—we too often share and abuse in cheap and tawdry ways. Christ restored the very seeds of eternal lives (see D&C 132:19, 24), and we desecrate them at our peril. The first key reason for personal purity? Our very souls are involved and at stake.
- “Second, may I suggest that human intimacy … between a man and a woman is … a symbol of total union: union of their hearts, their hopes, their lives, their love, their family, their future, their everything. … But such a total … union … can only come with the proximity and permanence afforded in a marriage covenant, with the union of all that they possess—their very hearts and minds, all their days and all their dreams. … Can you see then the moral [fracturing] that comes from pretending we are one, sharing the physical symbols and physical intimacy of our union, but then fleeing … all such other aspects … of what was meant to be a total obligation?”
Third, “sexual intimacy is not only a symbolic union between a man and a woman—the uniting of their very souls—but it is also symbolic of a union between mortals and deity, … uniting for a rare and special moment with God himself and all the powers by which he gives life in this wide universe of ours. … Surely God’s trust in us to respect this future-forming gift is awesomely staggering. … We carry this procreative power that makes us very much like God in at least one grand and majestic way.”
- Abuse of the powers of procreation has serious consequences. However, procreation within the bounds defined by Heavenly Father brings great blessings. It “enables mortals to become cocreators with Him in the divine Plan of Salvation, which stretches across the eternities and includes the opportunity for the faithful to participate in family life and eternal increase.”[6]
