Agency (also referred to as free agency or moral agency), in the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), is "the privilege of choice which was introduced by God the Eternal Father to all of his spirit children in the premortal state". [1] Mortal life is viewed as a test of faith, where our choices are central to the plan of salvation in Latter-day Saint teaching. "It was essential for their eternal progression that they be subjected to the influences of both good and evil". [1] LDS Church members believe that Lucifer rebelled against the God's plan, which resulted in a war in heaven, and Lucifer being cast out of heaven and becoming Satan. [2]
Church members believe that all individuals have the ability to differentiate between good and evil [3] and that Satan and his followers are not able to tempt people beyond the point where they can resist. [4] This implies that mortals can be held accountable for their actions; [5] mortals will be judged by God based on a combination of one's faith and works (with salvation coming only through the power, mercy, and grace of Jesus Christ). [6]
A major difference between the beliefs of the LDS Church and many other Christians involves the belief of a life before mortality, referred to as the pre-Earth life, pre-mortal life, or pre-existence. Latter-day Saints believe that before the Earth was created, all mankind lived as spirit children of God. [7] Here, God nurtured, taught and provided means for their development. This preparation would allow them to later become the men and women of Earth, to be further educated and tested in the schoolhouse of mortality in order to return to God's presence and become like him. Thus, the pre-existent life is believed to have been a period of unknown length of progression, and schooling. Church members believe that there came a time when we could not progress further without being born into a body and experiencing earthly life. [8]
According to LDS Church doctrine, God proposed a plan whereby further progression could take place, a plan of salvation. Since agency would allow all people to fall in sin, a savior was necessary to atone for the sins of each person so that they could return to live with God. Jehovah (the pre-mortal Jesus) volunteered to follow the plan as outlined, which preserved agency, accountability for action, and the necessary result that some of God's children would never to return to heaven as a consequence of sin. The second volunteer, Lucifer, attempted to amend the plan by proposing that all mankind would return to God despite their sins—essentially defeating agency and the divine principle of accountability for action. God the Father chose to send Jehovah as the Savior to fulfill his plan. Lucifer and his followers rebelled against this plan and were eventually cast out of heaven. Lucifer became Satan. [9]
LDS Church members believe that agency was given to all of God's spirit children during the pre-mortal life. Some of the spirit children of God exercised their agency and chose to follow God's law and became "noble and great." This doctrine is called "foreordination". God foreordained some of these spirits to particular stations in life in order to advance His plan to lead humanity back to His presence. [10]
Latter-day Saints believe that these foreordinations were not unalterable decrees, but rather callings from God for man to perform specific missions in mortality. Even these who were foreordained for greatness could fall and transgress the laws of God. Therefore, mortality is simply a state wherein progression and testing is continued from what began in the pre-mortal life.
Church doctrine states that God's plan includes the foreordination of prophets and teachers who have gifts and callings to teach and re-teach correct principles so that agency can be used wisely. [11] God's plan includes the important role of parents to teach their children the path of righteousness and happiness, [12] and the blessing of the holy scriptures to give a foundation of gospel knowledge, including the knowledge of the saving role of Jesus Christ and the importance of ordinances and covenants of the gospel.
In essence, agency is the ability to make choices for oneself, as well as the ability to learn the difference between right and wrong and to make ethical and moral decisions. [13]
David O. McKay, a church president, stated, "It is the purpose of the Lord that man become like him. In order for man to achieve this it was necessary for the Creator first to make him free." Without agency, mortality would be useless. People are ultimately responsible for their own destiny, through their faith and obedience to the commandments of God. "Free agency" therefore should not be interpreted to mean that actions are without consequences; "free" means that it is a gift from God and consequences must necessarily come as a result of choices made. Free agency and accountability are complementary and cannot be separated.
This principle holds that it is wrong to deny someone of his or her free agency unless they have abused it to infringe against the agency of another, as it would bind a person from their own choices. Such offenses logically include crimes such as murder, rape and slavery. Furthermore, a person who prevents an individual from doing what they have been commanded to do (e.g., force them to do something they believe is wrong) will be held responsible for any offense. [14]
Throughout the 20th century, church leaders often equated governments led by dictatorships as being under the influence and control of Satan.[ citation needed ] For example, apostle Ezra Taft Benson often spoke of the "evil" communist or socialist movements that threatened the free agency of mankind: "it is realized that communism is turning out to be the earthly image of the plan which Satan presented in the preexistence. The whole program of socialistic communism is essentially a war against God and the plan of salvation—the very plan which we fought to uphold during 'the war in heaven.'" [15] Other leaders contradicted these statements, often pointing to the church's belief in the "law of consecration" which is a form of socialism practiced by early church members in which all property was held in common and distributed by church leaders based on the needs of each individual. The church is officially politically neutral and today church members around the world subscribe to a variety of political beliefs, including communism and socialism.
Mormon doctrine teaches that many men and women since the beginning of mortal time have used their agency unwisely, limiting their own progress and their opportunity to receive light and knowledge. Beginning with Cain, some have used their agency to inflict harm, abuse, tyranny, slavery, or death upon others, contrary to the will and commandments of God.
The fact that God allows these actions does not mean that He condones them. LDS doctrine holds that agency is an eternal principle, and that God has provided the way through the atonement of Jesus Christ whereby men and women can repent of their wrongful acts of commission or of omission, and come back into the path of receiving further light and knowledge through making right choices. The atonement of Christ and the plan of compassion among men also provides a way whereby those who have been harmed by the sinful actions of others may be healed in a spiritual sense, although this may take great patience and long-suffering, and often requires the help of others.
The Pearl of Great Price, one of the scriptures of the LDS Church, states that Satan, the great deceiver, sought during premortal life to destroy the agency of man, [16] and that he continues to seek to enslave men, women and children in whatever ways that he can in this world, to "lead them captive at his will." [17] LDS doctrine teaches that whatever leads in this world to enslavement, addiction, or forced behavior is ultimately instigated by Satan. God allows these conditions because of the agency he has given to man, but He expects men to overcome evil by doing good among the society in which they live. God holds men and women responsible and accountable in relation to the light and knowledge they have. Every person born into the world is given the light of Christ, also called conscience, to guide each person in choosing good from evil. [18]
LDS doctrine also holds that whenever gospel knowledge has been lost or limited among portions of mankind, this has come about because of the unrighteousness of the people and their leaders, as described by the prophet Isaiah in the Bible.[ citation needed ]
LDS leaders teach that family and societal relationships are a part of mortal life for many purposes, including the need to learn to show love, acceptance, and compassion in ways that continue to allow agency. They teach that unrighteous dominion is never acceptable to God, and that with the agency given to men is the expectation that when they marry, they will treat their wife and children with love, respect, tenderness, and material and emotional support. LDS leaders teach that men should treat women as equal partners in all decisions in the family. [19]
The term free agency is commonly used, and has traditionally been interpreted as meaning that individuals have the ability to choose their actions freely. Many leaders of the LDS Church have pointed out that the term "free agency" should not be interpreted to mean that agency does not have consequences, but rather that agency is fraught with risk and choices (the result of the exercise of agency) determine eternal destination. Some church manuals avoid the term "free agency" and instead refer simply "agency." Some church leaders favor the term "moral agency". [20]
A reference to "free agency" found in the 1886 Revelation has been noted by some Mormon fundamentalists such as Joseph Lyman Jessop, Joseph W. Musser, and Anne Wilde, in order to back up their opposition to arranged marriages in a fundamentalist Mormon context, particularly in response to the so-called placement marriages of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. [21]
It is said that Adam and Eve were the first of God's children to come to Earth. They were created in God's image, with bodies of flesh and bones. God placed them in the Garden of Eden. Here they did not remember their former existence, although they were still able to enjoy God's presence and could have lived forever.
As it is believed the God the Father has blessed all of His children with the freedom to choose, Adam and Eve were given agency to make their own choices on the earth. God commanded them not to eat the forbidden fruit, or the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, warning that such would result in death. Obeying this commandment meant they could remain in the garden forever, but they could not progress by experiencing opposition in mortality and would remain innocent; they could not know joy because they could not experience sorrow and pain. Thus, as a part of the plan, Satan was allowed to tempt Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and they chose to do so. As a consequence, they were separated from God's presence physically and spiritually. Adam and Eve then became mortal; subject to sin and death, and were unable to return to Heavenly Father without his help. They could now experience disease and all types of suffering. They had moral agency, or the ability to choose between good and evil, which made it possible for them to learn and progress. It also made it possible for them to make wrong choices and to sin. In addition, they could now have children, so the rest of God's spirit children could come to Earth, obtain physical bodies, and be proven. All this was in accordance with the plan of God. Only in this way could God's children progress and become like him.
Mormonism is the theology and religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement of Restorationist Christianity started by Joseph Smith in Western New York in the 1820s and 1830s. As a label, Mormonism has been applied to various aspects of the Latter Day Saint movement, although there has been a recent push from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to distance themselves from this label. A historian, Sydney E. Ahlstrom, wrote in 1982 that, depending on the context, the term Mormonism could refer to “a sect, a mystery cult, a new religion, a church, a people, a nation, or an American subculture; indeed, at different times and places it is all of these."
Predestination, in theology, is the doctrine that all events have been willed by God, usually with reference to the eventual fate of the individual soul. Explanations of predestination often seek to address the paradox of free will, whereby God's omniscience seems incompatible with human free will. In this usage, predestination can be regarded as a form of religious determinism; and usually predeterminism, also known as theological determinism.
In Latter Day Saints theology, the term spirit world refers to the realm where the spirits of the dead await the resurrection. In LDS thought, this spirit world is divided into at least two conditions: Paradise and spirit prison:
In Christianity, salvation is the saving of human beings from sin and its consequences—which include death and separation from God—by Christ's death and resurrection, and the justification entailed by this salvation.
In orthodox Mormonism, the term God generally refers to the biblical God the Father, whom Latter Day Saints also refer to as Elohim or Heavenly Father, and the term Godhead refers to a council of three distinct divine persons consisting of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost. However, in Latter Day Saint theology the term God may also refer to, in some contexts, the Godhead as a whole or to each member individually. Latter Day Saints believe that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are three distinct beings, and that the Father and Jesus have perfected, glorified, physical bodies, while the Holy Ghost is a spirit without a physical body. Latter Day Saints also believe that there are other gods and goddesses outside the Godhead, such as a Heavenly Mother—who is the wife of God the Father—and that faithful Latter-day Saints may attain godhood in the afterlife. The term Heavenly Parents is used to refer collectively to the divine partnership of Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother. Joseph Smith taught that God was once a man on another planet before being exalted to Godhood.
In Christian hamartiology, eternal sin, the unforgivable sin, unpardonable sin, or ultimate sin is the sin which will not be forgiven by God. One eternal or unforgivable sin, also known as the sin unto death, is specified in several passages of the Synoptic Gospels, including Mark 3:28–29, Matthew 12:31–32, and Luke 12:10, as well as other New Testament passages including Hebrews 6:4–6, Hebrews 10:26–31, and 1 John 5:16.
According to the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the largest denomination in the Latter Day Saint movement, the plan of salvation is a plan God created to save, redeem, and exalt humankind, through the atonement of Jesus Christ. The elements of this plan are drawn from various sources, including the Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine & Covenants, Pearl of Great Price, and numerous statements made by the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The first appearance of the graphical representation of the plan of salvation was provided in the 1952 missionary manual entitled A Systematic Program for Teaching the Gospel.
The fate of the unlearned, also known as the destiny of the unevangelized, is an eschatological question about the ultimate destiny of people who have not been exposed to a particular theology or doctrine and thus have no opportunity to embrace it. The question is whether those who never hear of requirements issued through divine revelations will be punished for failure to abide by those requirements.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that Adam and Eve were the first man and the first woman to live on the earth and that their fall was an essential step in the plan of salvation. Adam in particular is a central figure in Mormon cosmology. Robert L. Millet, a Latter-day Saint author, wrote of the church's perspective:
Few persons in all eternity have been more directly involved in the plan of salvation—the creation, the fall, and the ultimate redemption of the children of God—than the man Adam. His ministry among the sons and daughters of earth stretches from the distant past of premortality to the distant future of resurrection, judgment, and beyond.
In Christianity, the Devil is the personification of evil. He is traditionally held to have rebelled against God in an attempt to become equal to God himself. He is depicted as a fallen angel, who was expelled from Heaven at the beginning of time, before God created the material world, and is in constant opposition to God. The devil is conjectured to be several other figures in the Bible including the serpent in the Garden of Eden, Lucifer, Satan, the tempter of the Gospels, Leviathan, and the dragon in the Book of Revelation.
Free will in theology is an important part of the debate on free will in general. Religions vary greatly in their response to the standard argument against free will and thus might appeal to any number of responses to the paradox of free will, the claim that omniscience and free will are incompatible.
The War in Heaven was a mythical conflict between two groups of angels in traditional Christian cosmology, attested in the Book of Revelation alongside proposed parallels in the Hebrew Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is described as the result of the Archangel Satan rebelling against God and leading to a war between his followers and those still loyal to God, led by the Archangel Michael. Within the New Testament, the War in Heaven provides basis for the concept of the fallen angels and for Satan's banishment to Christian Hell. The War is frequently featured in works of Christian art, such as John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, which describes it as occurring over the course of three days as a result of God the Father announcing Jesus Christ as His Son.
Mormon cosmology is the description of the history, evolution, and destiny of the physical and metaphysical universe according to Mormonism, which includes the doctrines taught by leaders and theologians of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Mormon fundamentalism, the Restoration Church of Jesus Christ, and other Brighamite denominations within the Latter Day Saint movement. Mormon cosmology draws from Biblical cosmology, but has many unique elements provided by movement founder Joseph Smith. These views are not generally shared by adherents of other Latter Day Saint movement denominations who do not self-identify as "Mormons", such as the Community of Christ.
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other adherents in the Latter Day Saint movement, believe that there will be a Second Coming of Jesus Christ to the earth sometime in the future. The LDS Church and its leaders do not make predictions of the actual date of the Second Coming.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints focuses its doctrine and teaching on Jesus Christ; that he was the Son of God, born of Mary, lived a perfect life, performed miracles, bled from every pore in the Garden of Gethsemane, died on the cross, rose on the third day, appeared again to his disciples, and now resides, authoritatively, on the right hand side of God. In brief, some beliefs are in common with Catholics, Orthodox and Protestant traditions. However, teachings of the LDS Church differ significantly in other ways and encompass a broad set of doctrines, so that the above-mentioned denominations usually place the LDS Church outside the bounds of orthodox Christian teaching as summarized in the Nicene Creed.
In Christianity, sin is an immoral act and transgression of divine law. The doctrine of sin is central to the Christian faith, since its basic message is about redemption in Christ.
In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a son of perdition is a person who will not take part in the glory of God in the afterlife. This is in contrast to the vast majority of people, who will receive a "kingdom of glory" after the Final Judgment, and enter into one of three degrees of glory after the resurrection: celestial, terrestrial, or telestial kingdoms.
Foreordination, an important doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, teaches that during the pre-mortal existence, God selected ("foreordained") particular people to fulfill certain missions ("callings") during their mortal lives. For example, prophets were foreordained to be the Lord's servants, all who receive the priesthood were foreordained to that calling, and Jesus Christ was foreordained to enact the atonement.
Exaltation is a belief in Mormonism that after death some people will reach the highest level of salvation in the celestial kingdom and eternally live in God's presence, continue as families, become gods, create worlds, and make spirit children over whom they will govern. In the largest Mormon denomination, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, top leaders have taught God wants exaltation for all humankind and that humans are "gods in embryo". A verse in the LDS Church's canonized scripture states that those who are exalted will become gods, and a 1925 statement from the church's highest governing body said that "All men and women are in the similitude of the universal Father and Mother ... [and are] capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God."
The concept of premortal life in the Latter Day Saint movement is an early and fundamental doctrine which states that all people existed as spirit bodies before coming to Earth and receiving a mortal body. In Mormonism's eponymous text, the Book of Mormon, published in 1830, the premortal spirit of Jesus Christ appears in human form and explains that individuals were created in the beginning in the image of Christ. In 1833, early in the Latter Day Saint movement, its founder Joseph Smith taught that human souls are co-eternal with God the Father just as Jesus is co-eternal with God the Father, "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be."
