16 November 2016
Definition of the word “agent”: Webster: 1. A power that acts; a moving force; as by some other than human agent. 2. One who acts or performs an act or who has power to act; as, a free moral agent.
To be an agent, one needs to have three things:
- Be intelligent, having the power to believe and to choose.
- Have a knowledge of alternatives among which one may choose in a given situation.
- Have the power to carry out what one has chosen to do among the available alternatives.
We humans are agents in degree, and our agency is always situational. The degree depends upon how much knowledge we have of our alternatives and how much power we have to implement those alternatives. Our knowledge and power vary with each situation. Only God is fully free.
When Adam was placed in the Garden of Eden, he was given agency by God. But he had very little agency. His agency was limited to partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, or not. Adam used his agency to partake of the forbidden fruit, and by so doing greatly increased his knowledge of alternatives. This increase came because of his having followed Satan in partaking of the forbidden fruit, which gave Satan full access to tempt Adam in every choice, not just to partake of the forbidden fruit. Thus after the Fall, Adam had the opportunity to choose and follow either God or Satan in every matter in which he knew what God wanted him to do.
What kind of being is a human? We are given to understand that a human being is three in one:
- Each human is an intelligence which has always existed.
- Each human intelligence was clothed in a spirit body by our Heavenly Parents.
- Each human spirit body was then clothed in a physical body by Jesus Christ.
What is the real person in each human? It seems to be the intelligence clothed in a spirit body. The physical body is but a temporary housing and facilitator. All humans will be resurrected, but only some are promised to have the same body in the resurrection.
How do human beings increase in knowledge and power, to gain more agency? Christ is the source and giver of all truth and power. Persons who are faithful to Christ gain more knowledge and power until they have a fulness of both. Satan’s role is to tempt humans to believe in falsehoods instead of truth, and to use the power each has from Christ to hurt others (to sin). Christ increases agency. Satan tempts people to misuse their agency, which misuse eventuates in the loss of agency. But the temptations of Satan supply the full value of faith in Christ, for without Satan’s opposition, faith in Christ would not be nearly as note-worthy or rewarding.
How do human beings gain knowledge? Most of what humans think they “know” is actually only belief. What one knows is limited to things one senses with the physical body and understands correctly. One can sense something and not understand it, so in that there is no knowledge. One can sense something and think they understand it, but can be wrong; so in that there is no knowledge. To sense something and understand it by the light of Christ is to have true knowledge.
How do human beings gain the power to act? All power to act comes from Christ. In Him we live and move and have our being. When any person sins, they do so by using the power Christ has given them to obey the prompting from Satan. That is one reason each must stand before Christ as judge and account for each sin. Having used God’s gift for evil, each must satisfy God’s demand for justice in accounting for each sin. Justice demands that the sinner suffer an amount of suffering equal to the amount caused by each instance of sinning.
So how do human beings use their agency? Every agent person has two choices in every act. A person may obey Christ or obey Satan. What makes each an agent is having these two choices. If a person does not have both choices available at a given moment, at that moment they are not an agent.
Do human beings affect each other’s agency? Yes. No human being of normal intelligence over eight years of age lacks the influence of Satan, so that is always in place. Humans can reinforce the temptations of Satan under the influence of Satan, which is a use of the reinforcer’s own agency. But what the person being tempted is responsible for is how he or she reacts to the direct temptation of Satan, not for what some other human entices them to do. Everyone is free to reject the evil influence of other persons if they have the influence of Christ within them. And if they do not have the influence of Christ, they are not agents.
But the most important influence one human can have on another is to help or hurt their opportunity to have the light of Christ within them. Parents who know of Christ and do not teach their children to have the influence of Christ are denying agency to those children. This is a sin for which the parents will have to answer. But if parents truly teach their children of Christ, so that those children actually come to enjoy the influence of Christ in their lives, those parents will have contributed greatly to the agency of those children. In Christ, and in Him only are we made free. Parents who teach their children about Christ and help them to gain His influence greatly affect their children’s agency by enlarging it.
Because God loves each of His children, each human being will eventually be taught the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and thus will have the full opportunity to gain full agency, whether or not their parents teach them so or not.
Thus it is that no person can control the eternal salvation of any other person. One human can help or hinder another person’s timing of coming to know of Christ, either hastening or slowing the time when the person is set free in attaining their own personal witness of the life and mission of Christ. But no person has the power, in the long run, to give or deny agency to any other person.
Thus every human is or will be an agent, and will choose his or her own eternal destiny, regardless of any environmental influence other than the influence of Christ and Satan.
Pertinent scriptures:
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; 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. (Pearl of Great Price 4:3–4)
And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit; And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom. (2 Nephi 2:28–29)