Choice and Freedom

    Jon Low, in his most recent post, quoted from an article on developing an active versus passive mindset: "The hard truth is that most things in your life – good and bad – are your fault. The sooner you realize that, the better things will be." 

    In a similar vein, John Wilder's most recent post was on the subject of "You Get To Choose Your Mood. Why Not Be Happy? No Assembly Required." He observes that the simple act of smiling makes you feel happier. "Smiling makes you feel better.  Smiling is good for you.  Smiling changes your mood.  Change your mood?  Your output is better.  Not only more, but better." Wilder goes on to quote from St. Philip Neri: “A joyful heart is more easily made perfect than a downcast one.”

    I bring these up not just because they are profound bits of wisdom, but that they tie into the theme of a book I recently started called Satan's War On Free Agency by Greg Wright. I've just started the book, so I am sure that there will be many profound things to come from it, but even only being a few chapters into it, there is already much to think about, some of which I wanted to share. 

    The greatest gift that we have been given in this life is free agency--the freedom to make choices of consequence. Wright takes the first bit of his book to explain the freedom is more than the ability to choose, but to make choices that have different outcomes. That is, if we can make choices, but the outcome does not vary, we don't actually have freedom. He uses other examples, but I think of it as something like sitting down to watch television, but every channel having the same program. You could have a 100 channels, and you could choose which channel to watch, but there is no freedom because it does not matter which channel you choose because the programming is the same. 

    Wright discusses a bit how this fits into the war in heaven and Satan's tempting us by offering us sin without consequences; or, as you could rephrase it, equality of outcome. And, I assume, this will be the subject of most of the book.

    But I found his insights on Christ's atonement to be profound, so I wanted to share that with you. As is my wont, I will provide a lengthy quote from his book because I doubt I could do a better job of explaining it:

    How does the Atonement provide freedom? Wouldn't we still be free to choose even if there was no Atonement? The answer is no. We would still have choices without the Atonement, but not freedom. The reason why is because only through the Atonement do we have different results from our choices. This is explained by Jacob:

Save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. ... And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. .... If the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell. ... And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presents of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself. [2 Nephi 9:7-9]

    Without the Atonement we could still make whatever choices we wanted, good or bad, wicked or righteous, but it would all be for nothing. We could be good, but it wouldn't do any good. Regardless of all our best efforts to qualify for heaven, we would have all been doomed to hell, to spend eternity in misery with Satan. In other words, there would have been nothing but penalty regardless of our choices. Our choices would not have been limited without the Atonement, but the results of our choices would have. There is only one result for all of us without the Atonement: we all go to hell--we all suffer eternal death. 

    So the Atonement makes us free, not by increasing the number of choices, but by increasing the number of results. It is because of the Atonement that a different result from eternal death becomes possible: eternal life. Eternal life is only possible because of the Atonement, not because of our choices. This is why it is by grace and not by our works that we are saved. Our works are only important now that Christ has made an atonement, offering us different results for different choices. In other words, doing good now does some good, thanks to Him. He has done His part, and now it is up to us to do ours by choosing good rather than evil. Doing good can now result in eternal life because the Atonement has made eternal life a possibility.

To sum up, our choices have consequences. That is freedom. We can choose to smile, with the consequence that it will make us feel happy. We can choose to be good, with the consequence of eternal life thanks to the Atonement. So smile ... and do good.