Destroying the Agency of Man

In the same talk I mentioned yesterday by Robert Matthews, he made this statement about the premortal council in heaven: “I think we often miss the real issue of the contention in the spirit world that eventually led to the War in Heaven.  We talk about it as though Lucifer was going to force everybody to obey.  He said, ‘I will save them all,’ and we interpret that as meaning that he was going to have forced obedience.  It has seemed strange to me that a third of all the spirits that could have been born into this world have favored a plan that would cause them to have force3d obedience.  Most of us do not like to be forced.  As I see it, the real issue was not so much one of force as it was that Lucifer said he would guarantee their salvation.  He promised salvation without excellence, without effort, without hard work, without individual responsibility.  That is the lie he promulgated in the pre-earth councils” (see here).  That makes a lot of sense to me and would explain why Lucifer’s plan was so appealing to so many people—they did not want any risk, any works, any sacrifice in coming to earth.  And clearly that is an attitude that is prevalent in our world today—we all want the shortcut, the something for nothing, the easy way out.  And yet we cannot change our natures and become like our Father in Heaven without paying the full price that the Savior requires.  Rome, as they say, was not built in a day. 

                There are in fact very few scriptures that actually tell us what took place in the Premortal Council and what Lucifer’s offer really was.  We know that “he rebelled” against the Father and that “a third part of the hosts of heaven” were turned away by him (D&C 29:36).  He “sought to destroy the agency of man,” a description which likely one of the reasons that we have generally understood his plan to “force us to do good,” but a plan which would render inutile all choices (because everyone is saved anyway) could likewise be described as destroying our agency.  In fact, as soon as you really allow agency and choice that have real consequences, you have to allow the fact that there may be some who will not be saved.  Perhaps the best description we have of his plan was this: “I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost” (Moses 4:1).  He said nothing about making us do good or be righteous or make correct choices.  His plan it would seem was like that of the school teacher that says, “You don’t need to do anything—I’ll make sure you all get an A.”  No learning, no work, no struggle takes place, and the A is meaningless just as Lucifer’s plan would have brought us back to the Father absolutely unchanged and unimproved.  Elder Oaks put it this way, “This requirement of individual responsibility….  Is in sharp contrast to Satan’s plan to ‘redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost.’  The plan of the Father and the Savior is based on individual choice and individual effort” (see here). 

                So I guess the message for us is that we have to be vigilant against this idea in our own lives.  There is the temptation all around us to try to cheat the system or avoid work or take shortcuts.  For example, in some situations where we need to make a choice we often say, “I wish the Lord would just tell me what to do!”  But in reality most of the time He wants us to struggle and search and pray and try to figure it out to the best of our ability.  He’s probably much more concerned about that process itself than the final decision we make, because the process helps us become as we are to become.  As Brother Matthews said, “Only by serious and strenuous exertion do we improve in character and in spiritual growth….  We are still fighting the War in Heaven with the same participants and the same issues, but we are fighting it on new territory and on a different battleground.”