| Laurel by Anne Osborne Poelman Amulek Alternative: Exercising Alternative in a World of Choice Page 2 |
| Our loving Father promised that He would not leave us without guidance, alone and comfortless. We would not walk without assistance. To help us find our way, He would give us His word through the scriptures and inspired counsel from holy prophets. We could then choose to make life's decisions based on the Lord's plan rather than the worldly opinion of others. In mortality we could also learn to seek personal revelation through fasting and prayer. As we grew and gained experience, we would learn to trust the promptings of the Holy Ghost. Our maturing spiritual instincts would tell us whether or not we were heading in the right direction. With the Holy Ghost as our guide,k we could choose to follow righteous but narrow paths, less-traveled roads who proximate twists and ultimate end would often be hidden from our limited mortal view. God's design for us, immortality and eternal life, would be the destination. We would be free to choose this path of growth toward godhood. There would be times ehn, try as hard as we could to obey the commandments and make the right choices for ourselves, we would experience the unwanted consequences of someone else's exercise of his or her own agency. The gift of agency and choice would of necessity cut both ways. Patient endurance would be an essential part of the celestial equation. There was no alternative to the great plan of salvation. In the premortal existence, Lucifer proposed a fundamental modification of the Father's plan. It was a deceptively easier and more expedient concept. He, Lucifer himself, would predetermine the outcome and guarantee the results. But in so doing, he would destroy our agency and claim the glory and honor for his own. Elder Dallin H Oaks describes Satan's modification: He would save all the spirit children of God by eliminating the possibility of sin. He would assure that result by removing their power to choose (Moses 4:1,3). Lucifer's modification could not be accepted because his proposed means were repugnant to the end sought to be achieved. In the world of ends and means, ends are inexorably shaped by the means used to achieve them. The objective of eternal life for the children of God could be attained only by the methods God would approve. As he has said in another setting: "It must needs be done in mine own way." (D&C 104:16). Lucifer's methods could not achieve God's objective. They would corrupt it. Saving everyone at the price of taking away everyone's agency would deny God's children the growth toward eternal life they were intended to receive from the creation of the world and their venture into mortality. (The Lord's Way--Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1991, pp. viii-ix) The scriptures record that Satan's selfish proposal was rejected. As spirit children of God, those of us who subsequently came into mortality participated in rejecting that modification. Satan rebelled in anger and induced one-third of all the hosts of heaven to follow him. For those who chose to follow Lucifer, the Father's "plan of happiness" was unacceptable. Perhaps the risk seemed too great and the way too difficult. They may have wanted an easier, safer path, the guaranteed results that were promised by Satan. The price might well have seemed deceptively small; loss of our power to choose. But the power to choose--our moral agency--is absolutely essential to the plan of happiness and the further progression we must seek in mortality. With agency, we can learn, grow, improve, and progress. We are free to choose our own path. We can decide what we will do and who we will become. The crucial importance of agency is reaffirmed again and again in teh scriptures: "Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself" (2 Ne 2:16) "Remember that ye are free to act for yourselves--to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life" (2 Ne 10:23) "Behold I gave unto him that should be an agent unto himself" (D&C 29:35). The Lord's servants have repeatedly reminded us that agency is a "sovereign principle. According to the plan of salvation, agency must be honored. It was so from the beginning" (Boyd K Packer, Conference Report, April 1988, p. 82) The scriptures indicate we probably have had our agency--and that God Himself honors and has vouchsafed it--at every stage of our existence. Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also: otherwise there is no existence. Behold, here is the agency of man... D&C 93:29-31 The war in our premortal existence was fought over the issue of agency. As spirit children of God, we clearly had agency. We chose to follow the Father's plan, rejecting Satan's proposed modification that would have guaranteed the results but at the price of destroying agency. (Moses 4:3) We also have our moral agency in mortality. The Lord said to Adam and Eve, "Thou mayest choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee" (Moses 3:17). To Enoch he said, "Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency" (Moses 7:32; italics added). |
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