What is the "moral" in "moral agency"?

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

Presentism.

They didn't think that way, imo.

They only had "bad habits".    ?

1828 Webster's :

"Addiction

---

ADDIC'TION, noun

1. The act of devoting or giving up in practice; the state of being devoted.

His addiction was to courses vain.

2. Among the Romans, a making over goods to another by sale or legal sentence; also an assignment of debtors in service in their creditors."

 

 

I am not talking about the verbiage. I am talking about it only referring to tobacco and high alcohol drinks. I am not expecting it to warn against LSD. I just think if God wanted to communicate about the dangers of drug use it would have been wise to prohibit the use of opium. Telling the Saints not to use mercury-based medications would have done a whole lot of good. Porn existed too.

It is amazing how much we call the Word of Wisdom that isn’t in the Word of Wisdom. Sometimes I think we sound like idiots talking about something being unconstitutional when you can’t even find it implied in the Constitution. I am okay with the prophet expanding what is prohibited but why do we lump it all in the Word of Wisdom. I remember on my mission I talked about how things were prohibited by the Word of Wisdom with an investigator and he read it and was confused and also asked why I didn’t mention that “Mormons” are vegetarians.

[mfbukowski]

That's the story of my life, hereabouts! 😉

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

I am not talking about the verbiage. I am talking about it only referring to tobacco and high alcohol drinks. I am not expecting it to warn against LSD. I just think if God wanted to communicate about the dangers of drug use it would have been wise to prohibit the use of opium. Telling the Saints not to use mercury-based medications would have done a whole lot of good. Porn existed too.

Sounds like verbiage to me.

Mercury based medications? This is not supposed to me a list of every possible item bad for your body

The existence of a substance does not make it a social problem, until it is one. He could have mentioned syphilis too I suppose, but he already, for thousands of years, prohibited adultery and fornication.

He didn't mention AIDS or genital  cancers either, or frostbite.

All it really NEEDS to say is "Sei Gesund"

 

[The Nehor]

9 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Sounds like verbiage to me.

Mercury based medications? This is not supposed to me a list of every possible item bad for your body

The existence of a substance does not make it a social problem, until it is one. He could have mentioned syphilis too I suppose, but he already, for thousands of years, prohibited adultery and fornication.

He didn't mention AIDS or genital  cancers either, or frostbite.

All it really NEEDS to say is "Sei Gesund"

 

There is not much to the whole Seer thing if you don’t mention it before it becomes a problem. I picked opium and mercury because those were both around and were already a problem and were going to become bigger problems.

[telnetd]

On 11/15/2023 at 1:01 PM, Matthew Andreasen said:

telnetd:

For clarification:  When you ask about Adam and Eve's "pre-mortal life," are you referring to their life in the Garden of Eden prior to the fall and their becoming mortal, or are you referring to their life as spirits prior to their gaining a physical body in the Garden of Eden?  I'm not sure I understand your question "Did obedience or disobedience cause the progression of Adam and Eve to begin in
their pre-mortal life?"

Adding @Pyreaux too as I needed to clarify what I meant in my earlier question.

By pre-mortal life, I was referring to their spirit life before they came to Earth.  Did obedience or
disobedience cause their progression to begin there?

[CV75]

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

Adding @Pyreaux too as I needed to clarify what I meant in my earlier question.

By pre-mortal life, I was referring to their spirit life before they came to Earth.  Did obedience or
disobedience cause their progression to begin there?

All progress is caused by our relationship and interaction with God. Our relationship is such where God places us in circumstances (including estates) to make choices that allow consequences for obedience and disobedience, the aim being to become like Him in the relationship. This is progress. When we obey in faith, we realize the consequence of "tasting" what it is to make a godly choice, part of which is God placing us in the next circumstance (or estate if we are talking about progressing from the pre-mortal to the embodied estate). When we disobey, we realize that negative consequence, and comparing this "taste" to that of obedience, may desire to repent (progress by returning to a functional relationship with God) or to betray Him (retrogress, as the devil and his angels in pre-mortality, or worsening wickedness in mortality).

This cause enabled spirits to progress and come to earth, the first being Adam and Eve. Their later disobedience in Eden had consequences they did not wish to endure or continue, and their relationship with God (as described above) is such that He loves us enough to give us a Redeemer on two levels: one to regain the immortal the bodies that Adam and Eve were given (resurrection); and the next to resume and further a happy relationship with Him forever on  conditions of repentance (eternal life). Where our bodies are immortal by design, we are also resurrected like Adam and Eve. As they continued to choose to obey and repent as the case may be, they progressed to return to the full presence of God. We follow suit.

If you are asking whether Adam and Eve (and we) obeyed or disobeyed as pre-mortal spirits in order to progress, it is reasonable to suggest they did both, including obedience to the gospel principle of repentance when disobedience was exercised. If they never disobeyed in this estate, more power to them -- Jesus never disobeyed in any estate. A third part of the pre-mortal host did not exercise repentance. 

[telnetd]

On 11/18/2023 at 3:36 PM, CV75 said:

If you are asking whether Adam and Eve (and we) obeyed or disobeyed as pre-mortal spirits in order to progress, it is reasonable to suggest they did both,

No.  I was asking what act started their progress prior to coming to Earth.  Was it disobedience
or obedience that started the proverbial ball rolling?

[CV75]

1 hour ago, telnetd said:

No.  I was asking what act started their progress prior to coming to Earth.  Was it disobedience
or obedience that started the proverbial ball rolling?

As I mentioned, it is the relationship with Heavenly Father that got things rolling, not obedience or disobedience in isolation one from the other or from other considerations such as agency and accountability.

They came to earth as immortals in Eden, a voluntary, mutual endeavor with God. I see it as more of an agreement and joint activity than obeying a command to do so.

[telnetd]

On 11/21/2023 at 12:11 PM, CV75 said:

As I mentioned, it is the relationship with Heavenly Father that got things rolling, not obedience or disobedience in isolation one from the other or from other considerations such as agency and accountability.

Does this mean moral agency was not used prior to making a choice on the plan of 
salvation presented at some council in heaven?

[CV75]

4 hours ago, telnetd said:

Does this mean moral agency was not used prior to making a choice on the plan of 
salvation presented at some council in heaven?

The order of your questions in the OP suggests that you understand that moral agency is a prerequisite for moral progress. Those who choose obedience progress, and those who choose disobedience progress when they repent. Our relationship with God drives both agency and progress (and in the refusal of repentance, stagnancy and retrogress). Our relationship with God can be characterized as children and Parent. The opportunity, time and space for repentance are manifestations and gifts of His Parental love for us, purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ as foreordained before the foundation of the world, and as such has been as essential to our progress as agency all along, no matter how moral agency can be expressed given the changing conditions of advancing estates.

[teddyaware]

7 hours ago, telnetd said:

Does this mean moral agency was not used prior to making a choice on the plan of 
salvation presented at some council in heaven?

Throughout all eternity, it has always been impossible for individual intelligences to exist and progress in truth unless they are endowed with moral agency. This means moral agency most definitely existed prior the council in heaven. Doctrine and Covenants 93 makes it clear that moral agency is essential to the existence of all truth and intelligence. This means that without erecting existence on the eternal foundation of moral agency there would be nothing but a void of nonexistence. 

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence. (Doctrine and Covenants 93)

Edited Saturday at 01:40 AM by teddyaware

[Pyreaux]

9 hours ago, telnetd said:

Does this mean moral agency was not used prior to making a choice on the plan of 
salvation presented at some council in heaven?

Adam and Eve's inability to make a true moral choice is thought to only be to their state innocence in which they were incarnated in, like all children subject to the veil of forgetfulness that all souls endure. Their moral agency its thought to be intact prior that, by which whether, where and when they will be born is determined. Adam and Eve were thought to have been morally good and were chosen for their foreordained missions to come into being where and when they did because they made morally good choices. Satan made morally evil choices and so was not born at all.

Edited Saturday at 04:11 AM by Pyreaux

[telnetd]

On 11/24/2023 at 11:04 PM, Pyreaux said:

Adam and Eve's inability to make a true moral choice is thought to only be to their state innocence in which they were incarnated in

Could you speculate on what their first moral choice on Earth was?

[Pyreaux]

9 minutes ago, telnetd said:

Could you speculate on what their first moral choice on Earth was?

Making the fig leaf apron and hiding was a choice they wouldn't normally thought of to do without a sense of propriety.