2 The Choice to Sin or to Love?
By conditioning agency with words like moral, free, or relational we frame the space of our agency. These words can limit agency or even misapply agency if misunderstood. While ‘moral agency’ provides some valuable framing, I worry that using the phrase as the primary foundation of agency distorts other doctrines of the restoration.
One of those doctrines is the Fall through Adam and Eve’s enticing of Lucifer to partake of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Another, is the the disconnect of obedience to love and relationships. Let’s go a little farther into each of these topics and how they relate to moral and relational agency.
2.1 Partaking of the Fruit
And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
Genesis 3:22
And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the Lord. Genesis 4:1
For they are carnal and devilish, and the devil has power over them; yea, even that old serpent that did beguile our first parents, which was the cause of their fall; which was the cause of all mankind becoming carnal, sensual, devilish, knowing evil from good, subjecting themselves to the devil.
Mosiah 16:3
And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.
2 Nephi 2:22-23
2.2 Quotes
The sin in the Adam and Eve story is mistrust and disobedience of God that results in fractured relationships, in estrangement from God, from each other, from some animals (e.g., the snake), from creation (e.g., the land). Sin (though, let’s remember the word is not used in the text of the story), in other words, is defined in relational terms, not ontological terms. What I was taught in church and college did not come from the Genesis story.
Toews, John. The Story of Original Sin (p. 14). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
The bottom line is that the theologians of Israel believed that sin was the willful mistrust of God, rebellion against God, breach of relationship with fellow human beings. Sin was understood in relational terms.
Toews, John. The Story of Original Sin (p. 93). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Since human creation in the image of God means reflecting the nature of God, who is a social Trinity, sin is ultimately the disruption of community with God, fellow human beings and the created order. Sin as failure, that is, missing the mark or “falling short of the glory of God” finds its ultimate expression in the fracturing and destruction of community.
Toews, John. The Story of Original Sin (p. 106). Pickwick Publications, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Like [Jesus’ disciples questions about the blind man’s sins], I assumed that suffering could be deserved. I assumed that suffering was a punishment and love a reward.
Miller, Adam. Original Grace.
to know opinion, view; knowledge; wisdom; intelligence