Towards A Better Understanding Of Agency

[Rob Osborn]

http://www.withoutend.org/agency-lds-theology-misunderstood-concept/

Very interesting concepts! It had never entered my mind before this specific angle that "agency" may be defined as the responsibility or stewardship given to us a s"agents" to carry out the Lord's will.This translates literally to we have been given agency (the power and authority to act) to act and perform the will of God on earth. I am going to have to bat this around in my mind a bit because I myself have always tied agency with the gift given to the righteous to act within Gods kingdom.

[Rob Osborn]

Regarding God's all knowing mind let me ask this one question. To we believe that God has the power to make decisions, or makes decisions? Is there anything that God can choose? Or, is choice completely void of God? I tend to believe God makes choices, makes decisions based upon choice and carries out his will based on his well calculated choices. If this is true, then God possibly cant know definitively the future. The flip side is this- God knowingly created Lucifer and put in place the exact actions that would lead to his exact and preordained failure. This robs Lucifer of his free will and makes it impossible for him to make any other choice that doesnt lead directly to wickedness. Thus, if this were true then God is evil and not our God.

[Tiki]

The phrase or name "free agency" is not in the scriptures. It's "moral agency."

You may not be free to choose what you want to do, but in your heart you have the "moral agency" to choose it or to desire it.

You may never be proposed to in marriage, or too limited physically to serve a full-time mission, or your life may be cut short due to this mortal existence, but you still have the ability to choose in your heart good or bad.

This is why the Lord will judge you based on the desires of your hearts as well as your actions, given you had the ability to act.

This is what was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith concerning his older brother Alvin:

D&C 137:7 Thus came the voice of the Lord unto me, saying: All who have died without a knowledge of this gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God;

Thus God knows all things, even your hearts. But His knowledge of all things does not preclude or prevent you from making good or bad choices.

[Tiki]

Regarding God's all knowing mind let me ask this one question. To we believe that God has the power to make decisions, or makes decisions? Is there anything that God can choose? Or, is choice completely void of God? I tend to believe God makes choices, makes decisions based upon choice and carries out his will based on his well calculated choices. If this is true, then God possibly cant know definitively the future. The flip side is this- God knowingly created Lucifer and put in place the exact actions that would lead to his exact and preordained failure. This robs Lucifer of his free will and makes it impossible for him to make any other choice that doesnt lead directly to wickedness. Thus, if this were true then God is evil and not our God.

Your logic is lacking in knowledge. Lucifer wasn't created by God anymore than you were. We are all eternal beings, intelligences that were "organized" before the world was. Lucifer rebelled, meaning he and everyone had agency to choose in the pre-mortal existence.

This is such a fundamental concept of the LDS faith, I'm surprised that you do not know it.

[Rob Osborn]

Your logic is lacking in knowledge. Lucifer wasn't created by God anymore than you were. We are all eternal beings, intelligences that were "organized" before the world was. Lucifer rebelled, meaning he and everyone had agency to choose in the pre-mortal existence.

This is such a fundamental concept of the LDS faith, I'm surprised that you do not know it.

Look again at what I am saying. I am stating that God cannot know everything because if he did then God is evil because he created Lucifer to be an evil being and that Lucifer has no power of agency being foreordained to become Satan by God. That is not the truth. God created Lucifer the same as Christ and all the rest of us- innocent and not foreordained to fail.

[changed]

...The flip side is this- God knowingly created Lucifer and put in place the exact actions that would lead to his exact and preordained failure. ...

 

God did not create Lucifer, anymore than He created us.  God is cleaning up a mess He did not create.

The King Follett sermon is a good one to read...

"

Intelligence is eternal and exists upon a self-existent principle. It is a spirit from age to age and there is no creation about it. All the minds and spirits that God ever sent into the world are susceptible of enlargement.

The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself."

 

...This is why the Lord will judge you based on the desires of your hearts as well as your actions, given you had the ability to act.

Alma 14:10 And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained; and he said unto Alma: How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the ^apower of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.

11 But Alma said unto him: The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand; for behold the Lord receiveth them up unto himself, in ^aglory; and he doth suffer that they may do this thing, or that the people may do this thing unto them, according to the hardness of their hearts, that the ^bjudgments which he shall exercise upon them in his wrath may be just; and the ^cblood of the ^dinnocent shall stand as a witness against them, yea, and cry mightily against them at the last day.

Some could say "I might have thought it, but I would never have actually done it"... it seems actions/works are necessary to reveal our true inner character... to me, time is like taking a cube, turning it around, and looking at the different sides of it - bouncing it against the wall and seeing how it reacts etc. etc.  the cube does not change, but you don't know what it is made of until you see it in comparison to different situations.  This is like our own character - what our own will would do, it's not revealed who we really are until we are placed into different situations, who we are (and always were) is revealed in the fire.

Edited December 2, 2013 by changed

[webbles]

God did not create Lucifer, anymore than He created us.  God is cleaning up a mess He did not create.

 

 

He didn't create him but He did give him a spiritual body which allowed Lucifer to do what he did.  And since God knew perfectly what Lucifer would do when He gave him a spiritual body, then doesn't that mean that God created evil?  It would be similar to if I knew perfectly that the next child that I conceive would become a mass murderer.  If I conceive the child, am I just as bad as my child since I knew what he was going to do and I still allowed it.

 

I'm with Rob on this one.  I do not believe that God has perfect knowledge of the future.  He might have something in the 99% range but not 100%.  Don't we have the belief that Christ could have chosen not to go through the Atonement?  If you say that God has perfect knowledge of the future, then no, Christ didn't have that option.  He maybe had an illusion of choice but he physically would not have been able to make that choice because it was already decided for him before he made the choice.

[CV75]

Rob, RE: post #9

 

https://www.lds.org/ensign/2013/12/come-let-us-adore-him

 

"

Seven hundred years before that first Christmas, the prophet Isaiah penned a messianic prophecy that the Savior later read to His fellow villagers of Nazareth: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me 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; see also Luke 4:18–19).

 

When we read of Christ’s mission to proclaim liberty to the captives and open the prison to those who are bound, we probably think first of His ministry in the spirit world among the dead. But we are all captive—captive to the corruption and weakness of mortal bodies and subject to the temptations of the flesh, to infirmity, and, ultimately, to death—and we all have need to be set free.

 

Whatever binds us—sins, circumstances, or past events—the Lord Jesus Christ, the great Immanuel, came to set us free. He proclaims liberty to the captives and freedom from the bonds of death and the prison of sin, ignorance, pride, and error. It was prophesied that He would say to the prisoners, “Go forth” (Isaiah 49:9). The only condition of our freedom is that we come unto Him with broken hearts and contrite spirits, repent, and seek to do His will."

 

 

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/28316/Suffering-deprivation-can-be-agency-of-growth.html

 

""Hardships can deprive mortals of the power to act. But at the same time, hardships can be the means of eternal growth in attitude and desire. If endured with the right attitude and accompanied by righteous desires, suffering and deprivation can be the agency of great growth in our spirits.

 

"Viktor E. Frankl describes this principle in his account of tragic experiences in a Nazi concentration camp. He concludes that no matter how much is taken away in human freedom, no matter how severe the persecutions, no matter how terrible the conditions of psychic and physical stress, man can preserve what Frankl calls `the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.' Frankl writes:

 

" `Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him - mentally and spiritually. . . . It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful. . . .

 

" `The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity - even under the most difficult circumstances - to add a deeper meaning to his life.' " (From Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor L. Frankl. Revised edition copyright 1962 by Viktor Frankl.) "

[changed]

He didn't create him but He did give him a spiritual body which allowed Lucifer to do what he did.

Gave him a spiritual body?  Where is that written?  Satan and his followers were specifically not given physical bodies so that they could do no physical harm - that's the point of outer darkness, if they aren't going to play nice, don't give them a physical body, right? 

Anything I have seen are mere speculations as to the intelligence to spirit transition... I think we were just adopted by God through something similar to baptismal covenants - that we made covenants, and through these covenants became Their children, just my opinion. 

 

 

Christ’s mission to proclaim liberty to the captives and open the prison to those who are bound

The above is the only problem I see in my interpretation (that the future is set in stone - but we set it in stone, so it is still our agency) it's almost like we're trapped by ourselves - no one else is controlling our life, or forcing us to have a given character or personality - we can't blame anyone else for who we are, but can we escape who we are?  Some have the ability to change, while others do not?  I would rather believe in a scenario that limits us, than a scenario that would limit the knowledge of God though.

 

Edited December 2, 2013 by changed

[Rob Osborn]

Another thing to think of is the term "moral agency" and what it truly means. It is found only once in scripture, in D&C 101:78-

 

78 That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral ^aagency which I have given unto him, that every man may be ^baccountable for his own sins in the day of ^cjudgment.

 

The word "moral" is a modifier to the word agency. Many have supposed that this adds accountability to the term but I disagree that this is how this modifer is used. We place "moral" in front of a lot of words, in fact hundreds of them. A few off the top of my head are- Moral law, moral leadership, moral compass, moral choice, moral obedience, moral principle, etc. In each and every case the word "moral" here modifies the word into the context of doing that which is good. If I have "moral principle" this means my principle on the matter relates to a righteous or good ideal. And so is it also with "moral agency", where "moral" modifies agency into being defined as "the power of action in doing that which is right".

 

 

In that modified definition I think it ties in nicely with stewardship and means what agency really does mean in that context. God has given us each a stewardship over earthly and spiritual things, people, etc. Before we came here we were all instructed with light and knowledge. When we come to earth and grow into our mature bodies we gain accountability. We are then given, or also given, this moral agency which is a gift pertaining to our stewardship. this gift allows us the free exercise of actions, done in righteous manners, that allows us to be instruments in God's hands in bringing to pass much righteousness. This gift has qualifications though. We are allowed this free gift as long as we exercise it righteously. As we do so we can remain free to act. But, if we go against God's law then he removes this gift and we instead become encircled with the chains of hell which give the devil power to captivate us and rule over us. We then become "acted upon".

Edited December 2, 2013 by Rob Osborn

[Ahab]

A perfect knowledge of the future cannot be known, not by us, not by God nor any other being. Prophecy works because decisions are made that help shape that prophecy or will it into reality. The key word or action here is "decision". Being able to decide or make "choice" in a matter defines what agency is. It means that something, in this case the future, is not already perfectly determined in every facet connected with it. I may decide to walk into a store and have several options of which order to fill my shopping list. In the end I still meet the requirement of the goal even if there are an endless set of ways to get from point A to point B. God does not necessarily know, nor can know, exactly which order I will choose all of my list items especially if I know beforehand that I am intentionally going to mix things up to make it harder to know. God can and does use his angels to persuade us and use us as instruments to do his will but this does not mean that he can know exactly how many steps I may take in exact sequence that leads to fulfilling the goal.

It's an awesome concept to realize but yes God does in fact know everything there is to be known, and a moment from now he will still know everything there is to be known, and yet again, and again, on into eternity forever.  There are only so many things to be known, don't cha know. 

 

Every choice you can make is among all of the choices you can possibliy make while choosing which option you are going to choose as your own decision, and while you may miss one or two possibilites because you don't know it is something you could think about, God knows every single angle, every possibly perspective, and every possible althernative among all of the alternatives anyone can possibly choose from, with there being nothing he doesn't think about or know about as an option.

 

Your agency gives you the power to make a choice as an agent of either God or Satan, even though you may not realize it all comes down to what you know about good and evil and which is more appealing to you.

[Rob Osborn]

It's an awesome concept to realize but yes God does in fact know everything there is to be known, and a moment from now he will still know everything there is to be known, and yet again, and again, on into eternity forever.  There are only so many things to be known, don't cha know. 

 

Every choice you can make is among all of the choices you can possibliy make while choosing which option you are going to choose as your own decision, and while you may miss one or two possibilites because you don't know it is something you could think about, God knows every single angle, every possibly perspective, and every possible althernative among all of the alternatives anyone can possibly choose from, with there being nothing he doesn't think about or know about as an option.

 

Your agency gives you the power to make a choice as an agent of either God or Satan, even though you may not realize it all comes down to what you know about good and evil and which is more appealing to you.

God may indeed know all of the possibilities that can exist for a given matter, but he cannot know exactly which option will be chosen on every given matter. This makes God just a deterministic machine possessing no decision capabilities. It would mean that everything ever going to happen, down to how and where a fly craps at exactly the right nanosecond, is already written in stone. These writings also would include all of the thoughts and actions that God himself will ever do on into an ever endless future. It thus means that all things, no matter how insignificant they may seem are already foreordained and locked into exactly that which has been written and there is no possibility that it could ever be even slightly different. It means that agency, choice, etc. are just figmants of our imaginations and instead we are only acting out what is set in stone. This is ridiculous!

 

We do have choice, God has choice- He can choose to send Christ a day early or a day later depending on how he is feeling at the time- thats hos God works- he chooses, he decides from multiple options, he creates all things in the faith they will do as he wishes them so of the which some of his creation choose not to obey. Thats the life of Gods- doing whats in their power to control and know about. It is true that God knows everything possible to be known, he just doesnt exactly know everything because everything will never exist it goes on and on forever and eternity is not written.

[CV75]

It's an awesome concept to realize but yes God does in fact know everything there is to be known

God may indeed know all of the possibilities that can exist for a given matter, but he cannot know exactly which option will be chosen on every given matter

I don't think God knows the spirit children He will yet bring forth, or the spirit children that others in His circle will bring forth, or His exalted children's' circles (or their children's circles, etc.) will yet bring forth.

 

From D&C 93, I think when God gave us agency, He gave us the truth (and the knowledge and the light or intelligence thereof). Since agency is the only thing we can give back to Him, in a sense we possess knowledge He does not have until we surrender ourselves to Him.

 

Additionally, I think He gave us agency by presenting Himself to us as co-eternal intelligences with Him (as intelligences, we already possessed sufficient agency to be aware of our existence), so we could see what we could yet choose to be. If He were not God, the intelligences who are co-eternal with Him would have to look to or gravitate to Another and be co-eternal with Him.

[changed]

...This makes God just a deterministic machine possessing no decision capabilities. ...

Can you please explain why you think "determining" your own path, is not "deterministic"? 

[Ahab]

God may indeed know all of the possibilities that can exist for a given matter, but he cannot know exactly which option will be chosen on every given matter.

Do you agree that with his knowledge of all of the possible options that he thus knows that whatever choice anyone makes it will be one of those possible options?  Or possibly even more than one of those options, since a person can sometimes choose to do more than one thing at a particular time?  If so, then how can you say he doesn't know everything?  Which option do you think he has never considered before?

 

Btw, in my use of the word "God" at the moment I am referring to our Father in heaven, but I could likewise use the word God to refer to all persons who are the same kind of being he is.  As mski would probably state it, what is there that none of us have ever experienced?  What is it that none of us knows?  God our Father may not know some particular person who is the same kind of being he is but he does know that there is no person who can know more than he knows.  At most another person can only come to know as much as God knows, with God knowing everything that can possibly be chosen or experienced.

 

This makes God just a deterministic machine possessing no decision capabilities. It would mean that everything ever going to happen, down to how and where a fly craps at exactly the right nanosecond, is already written in stone. These writings also would include all of the thoughts and actions that God himself will ever do on into an ever endless future. It thus means that all things, no matter how insignificant they may seem are already foreordained and locked into exactly that which has been written and there is no possibility that it could ever be even slightly different. It means that agency, choice, etc. are just figmants of our imaginations and instead we are only acting out what is set in stone. This is ridiculous!

Apparently there is more than one way to look at this issue than you were aware of when you wrote this statement.

 

We do have choice, God has choice- He can choose to send Christ a day early or a day later depending on how he is feeling at the time- thats how God works- he chooses, he decides from multiple options, he creates all things in the faith they will do as he wishes them so of the which some of his creation choose not to obey. Thats the life of Gods- doing whats in their power to control and know about. It is true that God knows everything possible to be known, he just doesnt exactly know everything because everything will never exist it goes on and on forever and eternity is not written.

There will never be anything new that God has never experienced before.  No surprises.  No new knowledge about anything.  Just more of the same with more people getting involved. Another person isn't a new thing to him.  Just more of the same with people having their own children and then those chidlren having their own children, etc.  With all of us connected in an eternal family tree, whether we're talking about the same kind of being we are or some other kind of being.

[Ahab]

 

I don't think God knows the spirit children He will yet bring forth, or the spirit children that others in His circle will bring forth, or His exalted children's' circles (or their children's circles, etc.) will yet bring forth.

 

From D&C 93, I think when God gave us agency, He gave us the truth (and the knowledge and the light or intelligence thereof). Since agency is the only thing we can give back to Him, in a sense we possess knowledge He does not have until we surrender ourselves to Him.

 

Additionally, I think He gave us agency by presenting Himself to us as co-eternal intelligences with Him (as intelligences, we already possessed sufficient agency to be aware of our existence), so we could see what we could yet choose to be. If He were not God, the intelligences who are co-eternal with Him would have to look to or gravitate to Another and be co-eternal with Him.

 

D&C 93 is generally misunderstood by many people.  We received our agency from God when God created us as his children, at which point we were the same kind of being he is.  Not that we were created from nothing, but created from what God is.  Thus the intelligence God has is the same kind of intelligence we have, as each kind of intelligent being has the same kind of intelligence as another being of the same kind.  Not that we are as intelligent as our Father in heaven, but that our intelligence is of the same kind.  And intelligence is not created in the sense that it is not created from out of nothing, and not created from something other than another intelligence of the same kind.  Like begats like, and our intelligence comes from us being the same kind of being as our Father in heaven.  Not of the same order, or degree, or glory, but of the same kind.   The glory of God is intelligence and all of us are the same kind of intelligent being God is even though not all of us are of the celestial order or degree of intelligence.  Thus we are to become as perfect as our Father in heaven by being as intellgent as he is, if we will perfect ourselves as he did.  At which point we will know all that he knows, while he still knows everything, just as all other beings of the same kind who are as intelligent as our Father know everything there is to be known.

[Rob Osborn]

Can you please explain why you think "determining" your own path, is not "deterministic"?

What I meant was that if God knows everything he is nothing but a mere machine moving, acting and doing only those exact things already written down. He would thus be like a computer program only doing exactly what the program already says. He would pissess no choice, face no decisions and no free will.

[Ahab]

What I meant was that if God knows everything he is nothing but a mere machine moving, acting and doing only those exact things already written down. He would thus be like a computer program only doing exactly what the program already says. He would pissess no choice, face no decisions and no free will.

Do you know enough to know you should change your perception about that now?

 

You know a lot of things.   Do you think that makes you some kind of robot?

 

And the fact that God knows everything wouldn't necessarily mean he always does the best thing for him to do, anyway.  For that he would also need to be as intelligent as our kind of being can be so that he would then always put his knowledge to the best use.

[changed]

What I meant was that if God knows everything he is nothing but a mere machine moving, acting and doing only those exact things already written down. He would thus be like a computer program only doing exactly what the program already says. He would pissess no choice, face no decisions and no free will.

 

 

The glory of God is intelligence... to act without knowledge is to just act randomly - random actions are not born of free will, chaos is not free will.... The opposite of determinism - the absence of determinism, is uncaused random chaos - something acting without a cause or a thought or a reason.

Our will is what we would do if we had knowledge to make an informed choice. 

Sorry, but I cannot see how something that is not predetermined, not thought out, not informed, would be considered free will...

Edited December 3, 2013 by changed

[webbles]

The glory of God is intelligence... to act without knowledge is to just act randomly - random actions are not born of free will, chaos is not free will.... The opposite of determinism - the absence of determinism, is uncaused random chaos - something acting without a cause or a thought or a reason.

Our will is what we would do if we had knowledge to make an informed choice. 

Sorry, but I cannot see how something that is not predetermined, not thought out, not informed, would be considered free will...

 

Deterministic and "determining your decision" are not the same thing.

 

Deterministic means that previous actions cause the current action.  A pool ball is deterministic.  If you hit it at a specific angle, it will bounce off the poll table edge at another specific angle and hit the cue ball as you plan.  You can determine the final action based on the preceding actions.  If a human being is deterministic, then if you know all the preceding actions of that person, plus the environment that that person is in, then you'll know exactly what that person will do because he/she is just reacting to the preceding actions.  He/she is just like a pool ball that must move in the specific route.

 

"determining your decision" is where you get to choose which path you want to take.  If I knew everything about your preceding actions and the environment, I wouldn't know which decision you will make.  I might have a pretty good idea which choice you will make but I won't know perfectly.  It would be like you hitting a pool ball and it determining to go a different direction than the expected deterministic outcome.

 

I've kind of started to calling agency as a non-deterministic, non-probabilistic thing.  It is neither deterministic nor probabilistic.  It is something else that allows those who have it to make decisions.

[webbles]

Gave him a spiritual body?  Where is that written?  Satan and his followers were specifically not given physical bodies so that they could do no physical harm - that's the point of outer darkness, if they aren't going to play nice, don't give them a physical body, right? 

Anything I have seen are mere speculations as to the intelligence to spirit transition... I think we were just adopted by God through something similar to baptismal covenants - that we made covenants, and through these covenants became Their children, just my opinion.

 

Adopt, birth, etc.  Whatever method that made us go from intelligence to spirit and become His child doesn't change the point that if God knew the future perfectly, He brought evil into the world by adopting, birthing, etc Lucifer and He knew that He was doing it.

[Rob Osborn]

Do you know enough to know you should change your perception about that now?

 

You know a lot of things.   Do you think that makes you some kind of robot?

 

And the fact that God knows everything wouldn't necessarily mean he always does the best thing for him to do, anyway.  For that he would also need to be as intelligent as our kind of being can be so that he would then always put his knowledge to the best use.

I am sure God can know of anything going on in our world right now- we cant hide anything. I am also sure that he can know man's thoughts and actions they commit. The pleasent thing about life is not knowing the future and that I can make active decisions that have an impact on myself and my surroundings. I am sure that God can see the future pretty well to some extent- as far as can be known through probability odds, etc. I honestly believe that God acts and reacts according to things that happen by other agents- he adjusts, he plans multiple scenarios to play out depending on our choices, etc. In the case of Lucifer I am sure he had a plan in place that both allowed for someone to fall such as Lucifer. I also believe he had a plan to run if someone like Lucifer didnt fall.

Edited December 3, 2013 by Rob Osborn

[changed]

Deterministic means that previous actions cause the current action.  A pool ball is deterministic.  If you hit it at a specific angle, it will bounce off the poll table edge at another specific angle and hit the cue ball as you plan.  You can determine the final action based on the preceding actions.  If a human being is deterministic, then if you know all the preceding actions of that person, plus the environment that that person is in, then you'll know exactly what that person will do because he/she is just reacting to the preceding actions.  He/she is just like a pool ball that must move in the specific route.

 

"determining your decision" is where you get to choose which path you want to take.  If I knew everything about your preceding actions and the environment, I wouldn't know which decision you will make.  I might have a pretty good idea which choice you will make but I won't know perfectly.  It would be like you hitting a pool ball and it determining to go a different direction than the expected deterministic outcome.

 

I've kind of started to calling agency as a non-deterministic, non-probabilistic thing.  It is neither deterministic nor probabilistic.  It is something else that allows those who have it to make decisions.

The difference between a pool ball and a person with free will is "what" determines the actions, not "if" the actions are determined or not.  Both systems are deterministic, but humans differ in that their actions are self-determined, rather than environmentally determined.  You would have to know more than just a person’s proceeding actions to be able to predict what they will do next - you would have to know their heart - and God does know our heart, so He does know what we will do.  God knows our future, our future is set in stone - but God does not cause our future - we are our own cause - this is our agency.

Edited December 3, 2013 by changed

[changed]

Adopt, birth, etc.  Whatever method that made us go from intelligence to spirit and become His child doesn't change the point that if God knew the future perfectly, He brought evil into the world by adopting, birthing, etc Lucifer and He knew that He was doing it.

 

• Romans 8:15

  15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.

  The scriptures tell us that it was through a process of adoption, not of "birthing".  ...

  

  God did not "bring evil into the world." He really is cleaning up a mess He did not make.   He did for Satan what He has done for all of us, tried to teach, guide, change, and do everything He could to make us all better save take away our agency.  You are upset that He has not imprisoned Satan yet? Don't worry, He will. 

   

Edited December 3, 2013 by changed

[CV75]

We received our agency from God when God created us as his children

I think we always had agency; He gave us greater opportunity to use and expand it. In this sense He gave us agency. Giving our agency back to Him means giving Him greater opportunity to increase in glory by joining Him, by submitting to Him in all things.