Agency

Agency is all about choices and consequences and our right to choose the course of our own life.  We are not puppets in the hand of God.  We are His children and He knows that in order to become like Him and fulfill our potential, it must be the result of our own choice.  We are not animals being "trained".  We are human beings learning to make choices that benefit our growth and development. We are creating our own eternal destinies.  God's role in this is to save us from the mistakes we make that we cannot correct ourselves and ultimately He will do that.  But in order to give us agency, He has to have a hands off kind of parenting.  He cannot intervene with a blessing for each good act and a punishment for each bad choice.  If so, we would be Pavlonian dogs, being trained to respond to a stimulus.  We are here to learn principles that govern human happiness in the laboratory of life. He has to respect the agency He has given us.

"Choice must be a choice of something... Human liberty requires the freedom of doing as we like, subject to such consequences as may follow." p. 54 The Christ Who Heals (Givens)

Here are my favorite scriptures about agency:

2 Nephi 2:11-12  For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption and corruption, happiness nor misery neither sense nor insensibility. Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation.

2 Nephi 2:27  Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh, and all things are given unto them which are expedient unto man. And they 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; for he sick of that all men might be miserable like unto himself

Moses 7:32  The Lord said unto Enoch; behold these thy brethren, they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I; and in the Garden of Eden gave I unto man his agency.

D&C 93:30  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.

I also find this interesting: Agency is one of the Restored Truths. Look in the topical guide. The Bible says little about agency other than references where someone is given the option to make a choice. But all of the restoration scriptures have multiple references to the concept of agency.  Without the complete understanding of the Pre-existence and God's plan for His children, the concept of agency was lost.  Having that understanding back helps me to understand life so much more.  It helps me to understand why God doesn't just intervene and end all human misery.  It helps me to understand why I need a Savior.  It helps me to see how much God loves me and wants me to become like Him.  It gives me faith that I can learn from my mistakes and keep growing and progressing.  I personally am grateful so this Gospel truth.  Hymn # 240 says it well:

Know this that every soul is free

To choose his life and what he'll be. 

For this eternal truth is given 

That God will force no man to heaven. 

He'll call, persuade, direct aright 

And blessed with wisdom, love and light. 

In nameless ways be good and kind 

But never force the human mind.

Freedom and reason make us men.

Take these away, what are we then? 

Mere animals, and just as well 

The beast may think of heaven or hell. 

May we know more our powers abuse 

But ways of Truth and goodness choose. 

Our God is pleased when we improve 

His grace and seek His perfect love.