Agency in God's Plan

Agency is the capacity to choose; it has sometimes also been called free will. Conditions of liberty allow the greatest possible "space" in which to exercise Agency; tyranny, by definition, is the attempt to oppress or repress another person's Agency.

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Next to the bestowal of life itself, the right to direct that life is God’s greatest gift to man. … Freedom of choice is more to be treasured than any possession earth can give. It is inherent in the spirit of man. It is a divine gift. … Whether born in abject poverty or shackled at birth by inherited riches, everyone has this most precious of all life’s endowments—the gift of free agency; man’s inherited and inalienable right.
-David O. McKay, Agency and Responsibility

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In the Church, we tend to prefer the term Agency over free will, and I'd guess the reason for that is that modern scripture uses the term in passages like this one:

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And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying -- Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor. 
But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me -- Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.
Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;
-Moses 4:1-3

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This exchange, where Satan attempts to displace our Father, is also referenced by the prophet Isaiah in the Bible, when he compared the ruler of Babylon, symbolic of the wicked world, to Lucifer:

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How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! ... For thou has said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God...
-Isaiah 14:12-13

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There are many passages in the Bible that invite us to use our capacity to choose in order to follow God. The invitation -command- to ask the Lord questions is one of the most frequently mentioned commandments. The Moses very plainly taught this to to Joshua and the children of Israel as part of his final teachings:

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"...I have set before you life and death, blessing an cursing: therefore choose life that both thou and thy seed may live..."
-Deuteronomy 30:19

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But just as clear as the explicit teachings in the scriptures, are the implicit teachings: the things we can learn from observing God's dealings with His children from the stories that have been preserved in the scriptures. Perhaps the most obvious place to start is in the Garden of Eden, where we find that Adam and Eve, once placed in the Garden, were given instructions. The wording of those instructions, where He outlined both His expectations and consequences for noncompliance, makes it clear that God would allow them to choose if they followed them or not:

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"Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."
-Genesis 2:16

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Of course, we know that they chose to eat the fruit in spite of the prohibition, and all the consequences that followed that decision. This episode has become one of my favorite patterns to follow in my parenting: clear expectations and consequences, given in a matter of fact manner.

Additionally, Christ's words in the Garden of Gethsemane show His confidence that His own Agency would be respected: He didn't ask permission to pass on the sufferings; He more asked if the Plan would still work some other way, and at the same time, made it clear that He wished to do it the way that His Father wanted it done.

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And he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
Matthew 26:39

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The interesting thing is that our Father's Plan of Happiness and Christ's gift of Grace presuppose Agency: if our choice is meaningless, then obedience is no different from disobedience, and there is no need for forgiveness and Grace. The whole Plan is built around the choices we make.

What a priceless gift Agency is!
It's the gift to be able to learn, through our own experiences.

We should, therefore, be so very careful to avoid doing things that are destructive to others' Agency.  This can be a difficult principle! It requires us to let go of our efforts to control others' actions and outcomes, which is not at all easy to do. Several years ago, I was working with another sister, helping the Young Women in our ward to get ready for Girls' Camp. We were sewing up some props the girls wanted for the theme that had been chosen that year, and my friend and I both brought in our sewing machines. We had very different styles of helping. One of us sat in the seat doing the bulk of the sewing, and the girls stood next to her, doing a few minor tasks. The other stood on the side while a girl sat down and did the bulk of the work, with instructions coming from the side, and the girl in the driver's seat actually making it happen.

Since then I've thought about that experience, and its parallels to the Plan. Those girls who merely stood next to the machine ended up with cute projects --but they didn't learn a thing. There wasn't really any growth, no gain in knowledge, no learning. When Satan tried to strip us of our Agency, he didn't just try to take our capacity for choice; had he been allowed to go forward, his plan would have stripped us of the capacity for growth: it is in the results, the consequences good and bad, that we learn. In fact, Paul held that consequences are so important that avoiding them is mocking God.

That has serious implications in our interpersonal interactions: if Agency is a gift next to life in value and importance, then to take Agency is a crime next to murder in severity.

Are we as reluctant to be controlling as we are to kill?

Do we consider the effects of our actions in terms of Agency in our family relationships? I can remember wondering if making a reluctant napper go to bed was infringing on his Agency, and determining what is an act of Agency, and when we are being permissive... this is not always easy.

Do we consider the effects of common social tactics on Agency? Guilt trips and social pressure, I'm pretty sure, are not the Lord's way. Bullying, overt or covert, is not what we should be doing.

What about politics? Are we considering the effect of the laws we support on the Agency of the People? It is my studied opinion that when we cross from protecting Natural Rights into mandating our preferred "social contract" we have crossed a line. Remember: if you are looking at a proposal that promises that nobody will be missed and nobody will suffer... we've heard that before, but that plan wasn't adopted: we shouted for joy at the adoption of the plan the permitted the possibility of catastrophic failure, because that Plan was the one that allowed for the possibility of transcendent success and unending growth.


Agency is the bedrock that the gospel of Christ is built upon; His Atonement presupposes that Agency is inviolate. God warns us of dangers, tells us of consequences, and then lets us make the call. And that's how we should treat each other, too.