Position Statement:
Agency is the ability and privilege God gives us to choose
and to act for ourselves. But is that really so important? Yes. Agency is
essential in the plan of salvation. Without agency, we would not be able to
learn or progress or follow the Savior. With it, we are “free to choose liberty
and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity
and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil” (2 Nephi 2:27). I
know with all my heart that I am here because I chose God’s perfect plan of
happiness. And I know that that includes
pain and suffering and trials, but all for our benefit, learning and growth.
Living
Prophets & Apostles:
1. You and I were among those who used
their agency to accept Heavenly Father’s plan to come to earth, to have a
mortal life, to progress. “We shouted for joy … to have the opportunity of
coming to the earth to receive bodies [for we knew] that we might become,
through faithfulness, like unto our Father, God.” Now we are here on earth, where
opportunities to use our agency abound; for here “there is an opposition in all
things.”
This opposition is essential to the purpose of our lives.
2. Agency used righteously allows light to dispel the
darkness and enables us to live with joy and happiness.
3. Our agency is essential to the plan of salvation. With it
we are “free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of
all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power
of the devil.”
4. Our agency—our ability to choose and
act for ourselves—was an essential element of this plan. Without agency we
would be unable to make right choices and progress. Yet with agency we could
make wrong choices, commit sin, and lose the opportunity to be with Heavenly
Father again. For this reason a Savior would be provided to suffer for our sins
and redeem us if we would repent. By His infinite Atonement, He brought about
“the plan of mercy, to appease the demands of justice.”
5. Some who do not understand the doctrinal part do not
readily see the relationship between obedience and agency. And they miss one
vital connection and see obedience only as restraint. They then resist the very
thing that will give them true freedom. There is no true freedom without
responsibility, and there is no enduring freedom without a knowledge of the
truth. The Lord said, “If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples
indeed; and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:31–32.)
6. Latter-day Saints are not obedient
because they are compelled to be obedient. They are obedient because they know
certain spiritual truths and have decided, as an expression of their own
individual agency, to obey the commandments of God. We are the sons and daughters of God, willing
followers, disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and “under this head are [we] made free.” (Mosiah 5:8.)
Any
Prophet, Apostle, or General Conference Address:
7. “…one of God’s most precious gifts to man is the
principle of free agency—the privilege of choice which was introduced by God
the Eternal Father to all of his spirit children in the premortal state. This
occurred in the great council in heaven before the peopling of this earth. The
children of God were endowed with freedom of choice while yet but spirit
beings.”
8. “Four great principles must be in
force if there is to be agency: 1. Laws must exist, laws ordained by an
Omnipotent power, laws which can be obeyed or disobeyed; 2. Opposites must
exist—good and evil, virtue and vice, right and wrong—that is, there must be an
opposition, one force pulling … the other. 3. A knowledge of good and evil must
be had by those who are to enjoy the agency, that is, they must know the
difference between the opposites; and 4. An unfettered power of choice must
prevail. Agency is given to man as an
essential part of the great plan of redemption.”
9. Men and women receive their agency as a gift from God,
but their liberty and, in turn, their eternal happiness come from obedience to
His laws. As Alma counseled his errant son Corianton, “Wickedness never was
happiness” (Alma 41:10).
10. “Next to life itself, free agency is God’s greatest gift
to mankind.”3 Then it was no small thing
for Satan to disregard man’s agency. In fact, it became the principal issue
over which the War in Heaven was fought. Victory in the War in Heaven was a
victory for man’s agency.
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