The Importance of Agency in God's Plan
The idea of agency is so central to religious thought that it can be considered a centrifugal force of faith and belief.
In the theology of most Christian traditions, and, indeed, in most religious doctrines across the world, there is an acute importance placed upon the idea of the agency of man. This idea is so central to religious thought that it can be considered a centrifugal force of faith and belief. For, how can any person choose to be good or evil if they don’t have agency? How can good and evil even be said to exist if there is no choice between the two?
The Latter-day Saint Position
I begin with a consideration of the Latter-day Saint tradition, not only because, it being my own tradition, I am most familiar with its precepts but also because, being a church established in the modern age—a latter-day faith—its developments and prescription were in answer to modern questions predicated upon modern notions.
The 11th Article of Faith of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints states: “We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.”
This article of faith finds its genesis in the Latter-day Saint understanding of the War in Heaven. The Latter-day Saint tradition holds that God the Father called a great council in heaven, at which His two most prominent spiritual children, Lucifer and Jehovah, presented their plans of salvation to Him. Lucifer promised a plan in which “one soul shall not be lost.” Lucifer’s plan was rejected because it would “destroy the agency of man,” and Jehovah was chosen to be the Redeemer of mankind. One-third of the host of heaven rejected Jehovah and desired Lucifer’s plan. A war was fought, one that ended with Lucifer and his followers being cast out of heaven.
The significance of this revelation regarding the importance of agency cannot be overstated. God the Father was willing to lose one-third of his children before the very foundations of the world in order to ensure that man, once upon the earth, had the freedom to choose whether to follow God’s commandments or not.
One of the common phrases among Latter-day Saints, paraphrased from 2 Nephi 2:13-14,16, & 26, is that man is sent to earth to “act, not to be acted upon.” Unless we can choose God freely, unless we adopt the path of righteousness of our own free will, we are not truly disciples nor can we truly gain any form of righteousness. The choice between good and evil must be equally open to us for the choice to be good to truly change our hearts and transform our fallen nature.
Agency is the essential ingredient in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are sent to this mortal existence to exercise agency, to be tested, to “prove [ourselves] herewith, to see if [we] will do all things whatsoever the Lord [our] God shall command [us].” (Abraham 3:25) Christ himself bled in Gethsemane and gave his life upon the cross at Golgotha to “bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” (Isaiah 61:1) Truly “the Spirit of God…is…the spirit of freedom.” (Alma 61:15)
The Catholic Position
Much of the Catholic understanding of free agency, beyond the demonstrations of the scriptures themselves, is predicated upon the philosophies of St. Augustine.
In “On the Free Choice of the Will,” Augustine presents us with a Socratic dialogue between himself and Evodius. In its early pages, they arrive upon “the sore point” in considering the origination of sin: “We believe that everything that exists comes from the one God, although God is not the author of sins. But this is the sore point: If sins come from the souls that God created, and those souls come from God, how is it that sins are not almost immediately traced back to God?”
This is where Augustine introduces the principle of agency. “Evil could not occur without an author…evil people are the authors of their evildoing.” Sins do not trace back to God, nor is it a force outside of man that acts upon him independently of his nature. Evil does not exist ex nihilo, it derives from men themselves, through their exercise of agency: “Evildoings are redressed by God’s justice. It would not be just to redress them unless they come about through the will.” Thus, we observe that God gave his children the agency to choose, and what evil exists in the world comes not from God but from the exercise of agency to commit sin.
But if God gave us agency, and agency affords us the ability to commit sin, could God still be an author of evil? No, replies Augustine, for agency is merely a tool and we, not God, are accountable for how we use that tool. Because agency can be exercised toward righteousness, it must come from God, for “all good things whatsoever, no matter how great or small, can exist only from God.”
As Thomas Williams observes in the introduction of his translation of On Free Choice of Will: “Without metaphysical freedom, the universe is just a divine puppet show. If there is to be any real creaturely goodness, any new and creative act of love, rather than the merely mechanical uncoiling of a wind-up universe, if there are to be any real decisions other than those made in the divine will, then there must be metaphysical freedom, and such freedom brings with it the possibility of evil as well as the promise of goodness.”
Thus, we see why God gave us agency, despite the possibility that it can be exercised toward sin, for “unless the will itself is set free by God’s grace from the servitude in which it was made the slave of sin…mortals cannot live rightly and religiously.”
The Protestant Position
While there are various approaches to theology in the Protestant position, and some which seem to question the existence or importance of agency in God’s plan, many nevertheless build upon the premises of Augustine as established in the Catholic Position from which they broke off in the Reformation.
John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was a consistent defender of agency's role in the plan of salvation. “The God of love is willing to save all the souls that he has made,” said Wesley, “But he will not force them to accept of it; he leaves them in the hands of their own counsel.” God, says Wesley, “strongly and sweetly influence[es] all, and yet without destroying the liberty of his rational creatures.”
In one of Wesley’s most famous sermons, On Working Out Our Own Salvation, he begins by citing Philippians 2:12-13: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God that worketh in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure.” God, Wesley argues, “enlightened everyone that cometh into the world” (John 1:9), thus affording all men the wisdom to discern good and evil and the agency to choose which path to follow. Wesley points to the presence of truth and justice even in the heathen laws and among the writings and wisdom of heathen nations, even if only “a spark of knowledge glimmering here and there.” God, then, gave us our freedom and gave us our will, and it is through this gift that we are able to choose righteousness, to “work out [our] own salvation.”
Wesley echoed Augustine in saying, “God breathes into us every good desire, and brings every good desire to good effect.” If it is our agency that allows us to follow good desires, then that agency must come from God. But this gift from God is not compulsion. When it comes to following the gospel path, Wesley warns that “you yourselves must do this, or it will be left undone for ever.” He didn’t see this as being in conflict with the necessity of being saved by grace, for he viewed the gift of agency and the possibility of seeking righteousness as one where “God works; therefore you can work.” Gods grace is a free gift to all, thus, “no man sins because he has not grace, but because he does not use the grace which he hath.”
Freedom is indispensable in the plan of salvation, for “inasmuch as God works in you,” says Wesley, “You are now able to work out your own salvation. Since he worketh in you of his own good pleasure, without any merit of yours, both to will and to do, it is possible for you to fulfil all righteousness.”
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The Political Ramifications
It should first be understood that no Christian doctrine necessarily calls for a specific form of government. Indeed, from the lips of Christ Himself, echoed by the words of the Apostles, and then within each of the traditions considered in this essay are the expectations of Christians to submit themselves to the laws of the land in which they reside.
To the Pharisees, who asked, “Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar,” Christ said, “Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matt. 22:16). Peter tells us to ”Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord’s sake.” (1 Peter 2:13) In Paul’s epistle to the Romans, he admonished, “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.” (Rom. 13:1)
In the Latter-day Saint Articles of Faith discussed previously, we find the 12th article stating the following: “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” In the Book of Mormon, a dying king ponders that “if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, who would establish the laws of God, and judge…according to his commandments—I say unto you, if this could always be the case then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.” (Mosiah 29:13)
In the Catholic tradition, we can quote Thomas Aquinas, who said, “In human affairs, in virtue of the order of natural and divine law, inferiors are bound to obey their superiors.” And also, “Obedience to a superior is due in accordance with the divinely established order of things.” And finally, “Faith in Christ is the origin and cause of justice…wherefore faith in Christ does not void the order of justice, but strengthens it. Now the order of justice requires that subjects obey their superiors, else the stability of human affairs would cease. Hence faith in Christ does not excuse the faithful from the obligation of obeying secular princes.”
And for the Protestant tradition, we can quote a most excellent sermon by Samuel West, a Congregationalist preacher, in 1776:
“Though magistrates are to consider themselves as the servants of the people, seeing from them it is that they derive their power and authority, yet they may also be considered as the ministers of God ordained by him for the good of mankind….[Therefore,] subjects are…bound to obey magistrates, for conscience' sake, out of regard to the divine authority, and out of obedience to the will of God; for if magistrates are the ministers of God, we cannot disobey them without being disobedient to the law of God; and this extends to all men in authority, from the highest ruler to the lowest officer in the state. To oppose them when in the exercise of lawful authority is an act of disobedience to the Deity.”
Can we suppose, then, that though God has granted the gift of agency to man, civil authority may nevertheless take agency away from mankind in the name of justice, however defined and by whatever process of government is established? Should Christians wield the power of government, if they can achieve such power, in a way that uses the arm of the state to force virtue upon a people, to mandate, through the threat of official violence, that the gospel path be followed? No, that is not what the above statements are saying.
The same Book of Mormon king who praised kingship if held in virtue nevertheless abolished the monarchy and set up a form of republic, saying:
“Because all men are not just it is not expedient that ye should have a king or kings to rule over you….For behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed….And…ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood….And now I desire that this inequality should be no more in this land, especially among this my people; but I desire that this land be a land of liberty, and every man may enjoy his rights and privileges alike….Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.”
Returning to Aquinas, he states, “All laws proceed from the eternal law.” And further, "Human law has the nature of law in so far as it partakes of right reason; and it is clear that, in this respect, it is derived from the eternal law.” Finally, “Every human law has just so much of the nature of law, as it is derived from the law of nature. But if in any point it deflects from the law of nature, it is no longer a law but a perversion of law.”
And to quote Samuel West further:
“Societies should form themselves into politic bodies…that every member of society may be protected and secured in the peaceable, quiet possession and enjoyment of all those liberties and privileges which the Deity has bestowed upon him. This shows that the end and design of civil government cannot be to deprive men of their liberty or take away their freedom; but, on the contrary, the true design of civil government is to protect men in the enjoyment of liberty. From hence it follows that tyranny and arbitrary power are utterly inconsistent with and subversive of the very end and design of civil government.”
So, while each Christian tradition holds that Christians should submit themselves to whatever form of government they find themselves under, there is an important limiting principle. For laws to be just and thus owed obedience by the faithful Chrisitan, they must be predicated upon natural law, which, if discerned appropriately according to the right reason, will reflect the divine law of God (Aquinas). Thus, for any form of government to be legitimate in the eyes of God, those who administer it must “carry on the same benevolent design towards the community which the great Governor of the universe does towards his whole creation” (West). So, we can see why Christians would submit themselves to be “subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates” so long as “the laws…are correct, and…given…by the hand of the Lord” (LDS Articles of Faith/Mosiah).
And so, we can conclude that in virtually every Christian tradition we can consider, God is the “author of our liberty.” The divine law has decreed that mankind is free to choose good or evil, to freely follow the path of sin or righteousness, and to act rather than be acted upon. It is self-evident in the observed natural law that men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…[and] among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” And we can conclude that the established law must “secure these rights” for the laws to be just and worthy of obedience. (Declaration of Independence)
Agency is fundamental to God’s plan for his children, and what gifts God has bestowed upon man, no man has the right to take away. If God refuses to compel men to become virtuous, no man has the authority to coerce his fellows toward virtue either. Any form of government that attempts to rob the agency of man, who arrests the divine gift of freedom, or who attempts to wield the force of the state to mandate virtue has violated the sacred law established by God himself from the foundation of the world and makes a mockery of the blood of Christ shed to ransom mankind and set him at liberty.
And so, one of the first duties of a Christian, regardless of the tradition they follow, is to uphold and preserve the freedom of mankind and to establish and preserve liberty under whatever form of government they find themselves under. For a Christian carries with him the Spirit of the Lord and, “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.” (2 Cor. 3:17)
Justin Stapley received his Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science from Utah Valley University, with emphases in political philosophy, public law, American history, and constitutional studies. He is the Founding and Executive Director of the Freemen Foundation as well as Editor in Chief of the Freemen News-Letter. @JustinWStapley