Agency or Slavery
Had an interesting discussion the other day with the two Jehovah Witness ladies who have been coming to my door for over a year. It started with my son whose friend joined that church. It got a discussion going between them and I accepted the magazines so that A and I could discuss what he was being told by his friend, what we were reading and what we believed. I should have stopped it months ago but they are nice and I let them come and talk to me.
This time though the article they wanted to have me read was about suffering and why God allows it. Basic upshot is that they believe God didn’t want us to live in this terrestrial world and I believe that he did. From the JW perspective, leaving the Garden was not what was supposed to happen. To the Mormon perspective, it was the plan for us to leave the Garden and get mortality started. And most of this difference of opinion is based on our church’s individual understandings of the Atonement and why we needed a savior in the first place.
But that’s for another discussion.. And you can read my link about Adam and the atonement on the side bar for an overview about it. But what got me and the two ladies disagreeing was the point of choices. My theology calls it agency. The absolute right you have to make your own choices based on the knowledge that you possess. What you don’t have control of, as we all know, are the consequences of said choices. Some choices increase the options you have, and others take them away.
People like to complain that if God wanted to, he could make all the hurting stop and he is negligent for not doing so. This presumes a couple of facts. 1) that God imagined us all up, 2) and that there is no real point for what we experience here. And I can understand that if you have that idea of God. It doesn’t make much sense to imagine up people you know your gonna have to damn anyway. Strike one against the “God is Love” idea. And if we’re just made up, then why not imagine us up in a way that means we’re good all the time. Strike two. It becomes clear that God must have a reason for doing what he’s doing since those two basic ideas obviously don’t work.
I don’t think most people really understand how precious the gift of agency is. You are a unique, independent entity. From the Mormon perspective, agency is the most precious gift that God upholds for you. That’s right, he defends your right to choose. But in that defense, that means that ALL choices have to be allowed to be exercised. And with all choices, comes all consequences. Good and bad. You can’t have some of your agency. You can’t have a God that picks and chooses when its convenient when its okay to make choices or not. You either can make your own choices and learn at your pace, or you can’t make choices and your a slave.
Agency or Slavery.. you can’t have it both ways. Now, you can make choices that make you a slave.. such as starting a drug habit, getting into debt.. but those are consequences of your choice. Sometimes others choices are forced on us. A 9 year old girl who while staying at a family friends house while the parents were out of state on a trip, is molested by the father of said family. She doesn’t choose that. But she can choose how she deals with it. Thanks to wonderful parents and some serious study of the Atonement, I was able to put that experience in its proper place. Took me 20 years to do it, but it taught me one hell of a life lesson, one that I am thankful I have.
Now some will argue that God knows all. So God could have stopped all this. The fact that He hasn’t should give you pause for thought. Knowing that this would be difficult. Knowing that great evil would be inflicted. Makes you wonder what is up. That’s where the Atonement kicks in. A process that evens the score and balances the playing field. As my theology sees it, you are an independent entity that God is raising from an intelligence in the universe to a resurrected, eternal being. A person who will then move on to do whatever else we have coming in our very long lives. We’re given an idea of what we are working towards, but not a whole lots of specifics other than a brief outline. A reason, if you will. A WHY to why God defends and protects your agency.
Your power to choose is not a fluke. And its not some whim of a bored deity that can’t relate to life. And its applied in the same manner as we give our children as they struggle through life. You give some basic rules to minimize the damage, but ultimately you can only let them strike out on their own to see what choices they make and whose lives they touch. Ready to give a hug when they ask for one.
