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Agency

In the LDS gospel we believe that God created us with the ability to act for our selves but only when we have a choice between good and bad (2 Nephi 2:16). The great battle in the pre-earth life was fought because two opposing plans were presented. Satan suggested that no one would have the ability to make a wrong choice and Jesus said that he would atone for our mistakes so that we could have the ability to choose for ourselves (Moses 4:1-3). This was so important to God that he literally threw away 1/3rd of his children because they wanted the easy way back to his presence (D&C 29:36-37). Which to put that in perspective a Google search links to articles that say our best guess is that 107 billion people have lived on the planet (google). So, if the second coming happened now that would mean God cast out, never to see again, over 53.5 billion spirit children, over the issue of whether or not we should have the ability to choose for our selves. Agency, in LDS doctrine, is a big deal!

Some people argue that appending threats to a choice removes your ability to choose (when choices are disguised as threats). If I tell you that you can choose to eat a candy bar or a celery stick. But, then I add the threat that I'll kill you if you pick the candy bar, do you really have a choice? Is it a choice when God says you can keep my commandments or burn in hell? Does anyone really feel like they were able to make a choice with a threat of eternal damnation appended to the choice? Doesn't this sound like a real choice, you are free to smoke cigarettes if you want, but you risk contracting lung cancer if you do. Smoking now is an informed choice, there is no threat here, just the natural risk associated with a behavior. Here's another example, if you keep the word of wisdom you will be blessed with health, if you don't then you won't get that blessing. Now you have a real choice, you can keep the word of wisdom and get the blessing or you can ignore it and lose the blessing. By adding the threat of never seeing your family again or of going to hell, you no longer have a real choice. 

Despite how important agency is, LDS doctrine adds to every commandment the threat that you won't get to see your family after death or will suffer torment in some kind of personal hell, because you weren't obedient during this life. As members we have very little real agency about which commandments we keep or how. Even the temple recommend questions remove our agency. For example: if you don't keep the word of wisdom or the law of chastity in the way the bishop or stake president thinks you should, then you aren't allowed to go to the temple. Many members believe that if you don't have an active recommend when you die, then you won't be worthy of the celestial kingdom. Thus your entry into heaven is barred by the interpretation and scrupulosity of your respective leaders and your willingness to obey what they think. Real agency would simply ask whether or not a member felt worthy to go to the temple and would leave the interpretation of commandments between the member and God.





Some questions aren't important for our salvation

Growing up in the Mormon Church I was told on various occasions that some questions we might have in this life would never be answered. The reason for this, I was told, was because those questions had no bearing on our ultimate salvation so God wouldn't waste time explaining them to us. See the sources below for 1, 2 and 3. In these sources we read the words of prophets who said there are things God hasn't revealed and that's because they aren't important to our salvation so we shouldn't worry about getting answers to those things. And because of that there are some things for which the church doesn't have an official stance. At the time this seemed reasonable to me. I was ok with the idea that we just had to have faith or wait for science to provide some answers because God wasn't going to. This included answers to questions like the age of the universe, the age of the earth, evolution, dinosaurs and other mostly non-religious questions I had. 

Two years ago when my faith transition started the questions began to include things like, why did Joseph marry women who were already married? Why did he marry teenage girls? Why did he promise eternal life in exchange for a marriage? Why are some elements of the book of Mormon not found in archeology like horses, metal swords, armor, etc..? These questions felt much more important, I needed answers to these or else I couldn't make myself believe the book of Mormon was a non-fiction religious book, I needed answers to these or else I couldn't believe Joseph was a prophet. So, in a sense, answers to questions like this are directly related to my salvation, and the salvation of anyone else who loses faith over the same questions.

Recently I've learned about something called the pure language of Adam, or the Adamic language [4][5]. Supposedly, this is the language God and Adam spoke in, in the garden of Eden. This language interested JS enough that he prayed about it and had a Q&A with God about it. God told JS a few of the words and their meanings [6]. This seems beyond trivial. How does knowing the pure language of Adam pertain to JS's salvation or that of anyone else? Why would it matter for our salvation to know what language Adam spoke in when the world was created? Who cares how to say Angel in Adamic? How does that help us get closer to God? Why would it even matter if we know how to say Son of God in Adamic? It doesn't help us have faith, it doesn't help us come closer to God. And yet, when Joseph asked God this seemingly unimportant question, God answered. God gave Joseph a revelation that included various words and their meanings from the Adamic language [6]

My take away from this is that when we have questions, no matter what they are about, we should be able to get answers. If members take questions to the quorum of the 15 then instead of telling us "it's not something God has revealed" they should be able to take the questions to God and they should get answers.  


Sources:

1 - https://scriptures.byu.edu/#:t11176 look for "does not pertain" BY says you shouldn't talk about things that don't pertain to salvation.

2 - https://scriptures.byu.edu/#:t383 second paragraph.

3 - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/old-testament-student-manual-genesis-2-samuel/genesis-1-2-the-creation?lang=eng page 29, the last paragraph before the new section mentions more things that haven't been revealed.

4 - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/latter-day-saint-history-1815-1846-teacher-material/lesson-10?lang=eng search for Adamic, BY spoke in tongs and JS said it was Adamic.

5 - https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/the-pearl-of-great-price-student-manual-2018/the-book-of-moses/moses-6-1-47?lang=eng search for Adamic, Bruce McConkie talks about how it was the pure language given to Adam.

6 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/sample-of-pure-language-between-circa-4-and-circa-20-march-1832/1