Any love for this document?

[scottyg]

1 hour ago, zil2 said:

Yeah, but I'm pretty sure the 5 year old has a good argument for entrapment - what do you say, @Just_A_Guy?

Is it still entrapment if the goal isn't to punish, but rather to teach and reward good behavior? Our entire earth life could be called entrapment. Even now, though we know there will be consequences, we still sin. We all knew ahead of time that we would, as did God, but we all accepted the plan of having a redeemer.

(In full disclosure...I would also partake of a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Can't resist em 😋)

[zil2]

16 minutes ago, scottyg said:

Is it still entrapment if the goal isn't to punish, but rather to teach and reward good behavior?

I'm waiting for legal counsel before answering.

[prisonchaplain]

I'm sometimes accused of being a minimalist. In this case, I'm trying to find the bare bones difference between creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and pre-existence as it relates to our choosing to follow Christ or not. If I understand @Vort correctly, pre-existence gives more autonomy to humans. It is also easier to say God is just if pre-existence is true, because our eternal intelligence (to the extent we understand it) weighs into our choices. We have less right to blame God for our ignorance or lack of true understanding if there is something of us that existed eternally before. Am I understanding correctly? 

[Vort]

1 hour ago, prisonchaplain said:

I'm sometimes accused of being a minimalist. In this case, I'm trying to find the bare bones difference between creation ex nihilo (out of nothing) and pre-existence as it relates to our choosing to follow Christ or not. If I understand @Vort correctly, pre-existence gives more autonomy to humans. It is also easier to say God is just if pre-existence is true, because our eternal intelligence (to the extent we understand it) weighs into our choices. We have less right to blame God for our ignorance or lack of true understanding if there is something of us that existed eternally before. Am I understanding correctly? 

I would not put it in those terms; rather, I would say that the doctrine of the eternal nature of our own personal intelligence opens the door to resolving the otherwise insoluble dilemma of God our Creator being all-knowing and all-powerful, yet somehow still not responsible for our choices. The doctrine of premortal existence does not directly figure in to this, but does go hand-in-hand with eternal intelligence to suggest the faint outline of a process through which we, using our own (self-existent, uncreated, eternal) faculty of choice, could develop to our present state.

[mordorbund]

On 8/30/2023 at 7:15 PM, prisonchaplain said:

Let me start by noting @Traveler's joining of the doctrine of agency (contrasted with free will) and that of pre-existence. He appears to say that without pre-existence agency could not be understood as the church teaches it. I'd like to hear more if others have thoughts on how closely these two teachings mingle.

I don't know that a premortal existence is necessary for understanding agency, except for the reasoning that @Vort provides: if every part of us, including our will, was created by God then ultimately He is culpable; if we are to bear some responsibility for our choices then there must be something outside of God's creation.

That said, for Latter-day Saints agency is associated with the pre-earth life since that was a core motivation for the War in Heaven. This is from Moses 4: 1-4 (Joseph Smith's inspired translation of the Bible. This excerpt included a revelation in which Joseph was taught that the creation account in Genesis was given to Moses via revelation)

Quote

1 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.

2 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.

3 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;

4 And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.

And in Doctrine and Covenants 29:36-40 it says that the fallen angels employed their agency in their fall. It also states that Adam's fall was a catalyst for his exercise of agency (and by extension, ours as well).

Quote

And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;

37 And they were thrust down, and thus came the devil and his angels;

38 And, behold, there is a place prepared for them from the beginning, which place is hell.

39 And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet—

40 Wherefore, it came to pass that the devil tempted Adam, and he partook of the forbidden fruit and transgressed the commandment, wherein he became subject to the will of the devil, because he yielded unto temptation.

One part I have not seen Latter-day Saints grapple with is the meaning of this phrase "the agency of man, which I ... had given him" from Moses 4. A similar notion is shown in Moses 7:32. 

Quote

32 The Lord said unto Enoch: 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;

I don't believe I've heard the mechanics of God granting agency to man (In fact, I don't usually hear agency spoken of in such a manner). I have a few thoughts on it, but nothing well-formed.

[zil2]

1 hour ago, mordorbund said:

I don't believe I've heard the mechanics of God granting agency to man (In fact, I don't usually hear agency spoken of in such a manner). I have a few thoughts on it, but nothing well-formed.

I believe that agency and (free) will are two different things:

1. Will is self-existing in the eternal being that has sentience.  It has the ability to make decisions as to what it will do.  (I believe that all that is required for this is intelligence and options.)

2. Agency is something offered by another - if I make you my agent, you now have power to act in my name (to the extent of the agency I grant you).

I believe that God gave us agency in that he gave us the option to choose between being agents unto ourselves (and ending up in hell) or acting as agents of Jesus Christ, and ending up in heaven (to keep it simple).

(That's a very rough outline, but it's basically what I think.)

[JohnsonJones]

11 hours ago, mordorbund said:

I don't believe I've heard the mechanics of God granting agency to man (In fact, I don't usually hear agency spoken of in such a manner). I have a few thoughts on it, but nothing well-formed.

 

Not all of the answer, and barely even starting a part of it, but...

If you view the choices of this life, apart from the smaller choices (what color to wear, what should I eat for breakfast), agency in this life boils down to what master you will choose.  Will you make a choice that leads you up the path towards serving the Good Master who grants us freedom, or the Evil Master that only wishes to enslave us.

In that light, the choices that deal with true agency in this life boil down to whether you will choose good or evil.  Another way to phrase it is whether we will choose to obey the commandments we have been given, or choose to disobey the commandments we have been given.  The choice in the Garden of Eden was the first opportunity to either choose to obey or disobey.  They most likely could make small choices in life such as whether to walk to this tree or another tree, but the agency talked about was the choice of whether to choose to obey what they had been commanded, or to disobey.  It boiled down to that choice in the end.

However, as they lacked knowledge they could not truly choose whether to choose good or evil, thus could not sin.  However, by disobeying they could still transgress.  They were given the choice, or agency, between obeying and disobeying.  Once having eaten the fruit, not only did they have choice, but they also had understanding and with understanding came a deeper choice.