Agency

“Agency is essential to the plan of happiness. It allows for the love, sacrifice, personal growth, and experience necessary for our eternal progression. This agency also allows for all the pain and suffering we experience in mortality, even when caused by things we do not understand and the devastating evil choices of others. The very War in Heaven was waged over our moral agency and is essential to understanding the Savior’s earthly ministry.” Elder Quentin L. Cook, Personal Peace: The Reward of Righteousness, April 2013 General Conference http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/personal-peace-the-reward-of-righteousness?lang=eng

“The agency defined in the scriptures is a “moral agency,” which means that we can choose between good and evil. That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment. [D&C 101:78] We feel free to choose our actions and our responses to life’s events and challenges, but we are not free to choose the consequences of those actions.” Elder Boyd K. Packer, Fledgling Finches and Family Life, 18 August 2009 BYU Speech http://speeches.byu.edu/?act=viewitem&id=1856

“God’s gift and commitment to agency never will include a tolerance of sin. God is truly loving and kind. Part of his pattern is to help us use our gift of free agency, but his pattern does not condone sin. When we abuse our agency to choose a life-style contrary to revealed patterns, we must live with the consequences.” Elder Marvin J. Ashton, A Pattern In All Things, October 1990 General Conference https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1990/10/a-pattern-in-all-things?lang=eng

“Why are you here on planet earth? One of the most important reasons is to receive a mortal body. Another is to be tested—to experience mortality—to determine what you will do with life’s challenging opportunities. Those opportunities require you to make choices, and choices depend on agency. A major reason for your mortal existence, therefore, is to test how you will exercise your agency. (See 2 Ne. 2:15, 25.) Agency is a divine gift to you. You are free to choose what you will be and what you will do.” Elder Russell M. Nelson, Choices, October 1990 General Conference https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1990/10/choices?lang=eng

“Agency, or the power to choose, was ours as spirit children of our Creator before the world was. (See Alma 13:3; Moses 4:4.) It is a gift from God, nearly as precious as life itself. Often, however, agency is misunderstood. While we are free to choose, once we have made those choices, we are tied to the consequences of those choices.” Elder Russell M. Nelson,  Addiction or Freedom, October 1988 General Conference https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1988/10/addiction-or-freedom?lang=eng

“All of us commenced an awesome and vital journey when we left the spirit world and entered this often challenging stage called mortality. We brought with us that great gift from God—our agency. Said the prophet Wilford Woodruff: “God has given unto all of His children … individual agency. … [We] possessed it in the heaven of heavens before the world was, and the Lord maintained and defended it there against the aggression of Lucifer. … By virtue of this agency you and I and all mankind are made responsible beings, responsible for the course we pursue, the lives we live, the deeds we do.”  Brigham Young said, “All must use [this agency] in order to gain exaltation in [God’s] kingdom; inasmuch as [we] have the power of choice [we] must exercise that power.”  The scriptures tell us that we are free to act for ourselves, “to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life.”” President Thomas S. Monson, Choose You This Day, October 2004 General Conference https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2004/10/choose-you-this-day?lang=eng

“Recently I received a letter from a friend of over 50 years who is not a member of our church. I had sent him some gospel-related reading, to which he responded: “Initially it was hard for me to follow the meaning of typical Mormon jargon, such as agency. Possibly a short vocabulary page would be helpful.” I was surprised he did not understand what we mean by the word agency. I went to an online dictionary. Of the 10 definitions and usages of the word agency, none expressed the idea of making choices to act. We teach that agency is the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and “to act for [ourselves] and not to be acted upon.” Agency is to act with accountability and responsibility for our actions. Our agency is essential to the plan of salvation. With it we are “free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil.” (2 Nephi 2:27)” Elder Robert D. Hales, Agency: Essential to the Plan of Life, October 2010 General Conference http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/agency-essential-to-the-plan-of-life?lang=eng#2-PD50021411_000_2020

““And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father” (Moses 7:32–33; emphasis added). As we learn in these scriptures, the fundamental purposes for the gift of agency were to love one another and to choose God. Thus we become God’s chosen and invite His tender mercies as we use our agency to choose God.” Elder David A. Bednar, The Tender Mercies of the Lord, April 2005 General Conference http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2005/04/the-tender-mercies-of-the-lord?lang=eng

“Agency was manifested in the Council in Heaven as we chose to follow our Heavenly Father’s plan and come to mortality for this probationary period. Agency allows us to be tested and tried to see whether or not we will endure to the end and return to our Heavenly Father with honor. Agency is the catalyst that leads us to express our inward spiritual desires in outward Christlike behavior. Agency permits us to make faithful, obedient choices that strengthen us so that we can lift and strengthen others. Agency used righteously allows light to dispel the darkness and enables us to live with joy and happiness in the present, look with faith to the future, even into the eternities, and not dwell on the things of the past. Our use of agency determines who we are and what we will be.” Elder Robert D. Hales, To Act for Ourselves: The Gift And Blessings Of Agency, April 2006 General Conference http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2006/04/to-act-for-ourselves-the-gift-and-blessings-of-agency?lang=eng

“We recognize that when God the Eternal Father presented His plan to us at the beginning of time, Satan wanted to alter the plan. He said he would redeem all mankind. Not one soul would be lost, and Satan was confident he could deliver on his proposal. But there was an unacceptable cost—the destruction of man’s agency, which was and is a gift given by God (see Moses 4:1–3). About this gift, President Harold B. Lee said, “Next to life itself, free agency is God’s greatest gift to mankind.” Then it was no small thing for Satan to disregard man’s agency. In fact, it became the principal issue over which the War in Heaven was fought. Victory in the War in Heaven was a victory for man’s agency. Satan, however, was not done. His backup plan—the plan he has been executing since the time of Adam and Eve—was to tempt men and women, essentially to prove we are undeserving of the God-given gift of agency.” Elder L. Tom Perry, Obedience to Law Is Liberty, April 2013 General Conference http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/obedience-to-law-is-liberty?lang=eng