Forgotten Promises

I watched Elder John C. Pingree Jr's talk "I Have a Work For Thee" recently, and it got me thinking about something that is almost completely unrelated: Is a person morally obligated to keep a promise they forgot they made? This question was inspired by the situation we are currently in, having made promises we can no longer remember in the premortal world, but we'll get to that later, after having tackled some easier instances of this problem first.

First, the case of a contract. I'm pretty sure that, if a person makes a contractual arrangement, they are legally obligated to hold up their end of the deal, even if the entire deal has slipped their mind. However, if there is a good reason for the forgetting, like an accident-induced bout of amnesia, a just might let that person off the hook. I imagine that God is at least as just and understanding. So, if we make a promise, and then get hit in the head so hard that we forget the promise, I don't think either God or man would consider us honor-bound to keep that promise.

Then, what of the promises we made before passing through the veil of forgetfulness? Are we obligated to keep those? I'm not 100% sure on this, but it looks like maybe not. I wonder, then, what the point of making those promises was. I doubt God would ask us to do something so pointless, so maybe those promises are binding after all. Still, is that fair? Can a person be required to do something they forgot they agreed to do?

In all this conversation, I intentionally exclude liars. Those who only say that they forgot they made a promise are still morally obligated to keep it, but what of those who have genuinely forgotten, especially those who were caused to forget by circumstances outside of their control? I would hope that God would not expect us to keep the promises that we couldn't help forgetting we had made. But then, why would God ask us to make those promises at all?

I'm sure there's a logical explanation, but right now, I'm too tired to figure it out. I'm going to go to bed now and work on this puzzle sometime later, unless, of course, I forget to come back to it.