Time: Themes in the Doctrine and Covenants

The Doctrine and Covenants has enough to say about time, once we know how to look for it, that it might well change how we engage the gospel and our lives. Philip Barlow goes so far as to propose that time can fruitfully be imagined as “the 0th principle of the gospel.” Time is, he says, an innate element, a precondition, and a malleable tool not only for principles whose names advertise the fact (such as Sabbath, millennium, preexistence, and prophecy), but also for every gospel precept, including faith, baptism, obedience, and love. Mastery of elements of time, for example, is what enables agency to become real rather than a mirage.