The liberty
principle for this Freedom Friday is the simple fact that the highest form of
liberty is freedom of the soul. Agency, sometime called free agency or moral agency, is an eternal principle and will endure for all
eternity. God gave us our agency in our
pre-earth life and sent it with us when we came to earth. We can use our agency to remain free or we
can misuse our agency to sell our souls to the devil. It all depends on the choices we make.
In an address given in October
1981, President Marion G. Romney, then Second Counselor in the First Presidency
of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints spoke about the “Perfect Law of Liberty.” “…
The sweets of liberty about which we usually speak may be classified as (1)
political independence, (2) economic freedom, and (3) free agency.”
President Romney invited the
attention of his listeners “to a few illustrations in support of the thesis
that, while political independence, economic freedom, and free agency may
contribute to liberty of the soul, they do not guarantee it. He first spoke about “political independence
and power” and used the examples of Alexander the Great and Cardinal Wolsey to
prove his point.
Alexander the Great used his
courage, energy and imagination to become “master of the then-known world. But he was far from enjoying liberty, for of
himself he was not master.” He died at
age 32 “a total stranger to freedom of the soul.”
Cardinal Wolsey learned the hard
way “how little political independence and even political power can contribute
to true liberty…. [H]e gave a long life in the service of two English
sovereigns, enjoying all the while great freedom and political power” but was “shorn
of all his greatness by an impatient king.”
There are many “financial
wizards” who achieve economic freedom. Too
many of them lose their fortunes and die broke.
The disgrace is so awful that some of them commit suicide to
escape. Others spend time in prison for
breaking the law. “All of the men had
obtained temporarily at least, economic freedom, but to none of them did their
economic abundance bring freedom of the soul.”
Even free agency can be
misused. This “God-given right to choose
one’s course of action is an indispensable prerequisite” to “perfect liberty.” “Without it we can scarcely enjoy any type of
liberty – political, economic, or personal.
It is one of our greatest heritages.
For it we are deeply indebted to our Father in Heaven, to the Founding
Fathers, and to the pioneers….
“Free agency, however, precious
as it is, is not of itself the perfect liberty we seek, nor does it necessarily
lead thereto. As a matter of fact,
through the exercise of their agency more people have come to political,
economic, and personal bondage than to liberty.”
President Romney gave numerous
examples from scripture and history of people – Egyptians, Israelites,
Nephites, etc. - making wrong choices and losing liberty. “We ourselves have
gone a long way down this road during the last century. My counsel is that we beware of the doctrine
which encourages us to seek government-supported security rather than to put
faith in our own industry….
“With respect to the loss of
personal liberty through the misuse of free agency, our daily lives are filled
with tragic evidence. We see the
alcoholic with his craving for drink, the dope fiend in his frenzy, and worse,
the pervert with his irretrievable loss of manhood. Who will say that such persons enjoy liberty?”
Political, economic, and
personal liberty are lost through the misuse of agency, but “free agency will
always endure because it is an eternal principle. However, the free agency possessed by any one
person is increased or diminished by the use to which he puts it. Every wrong decision one makes restricts the
area in which he can thereafter exercise his agency. The further one goes in the making of wrong
decisions in the exercise of free agency, the more difficult it is for him to
recover the lost ground. One can, by
persisting long enough, reach the point of no return. He then becomes an abject slave. By the exercise of his free agency, he has
decreased the area in which he can act, almost to the vanishing point….
“Just as following wrong
alternatives restricts free agency and leads to slavery, so pursuing correct
alternatives widens the scope of one’s agency and leads to perfect
liberty. As a matter of fact, one may,
by this process, obtain freedom of the soul while at the same time being denied
political, economic, and personal liberty….
“Freedom thus obtained – that is,
by obedience to the law of Christ – is freedom of the soul, the highest form of
liberty. And the most glorious thing
about it is that it is within the reach of every one of us, regardless of what
people about us, or even nations, do.
All we have to do is learn the law of Christ and obey it. To learn it and obey it is the primary
purpose of every soul’s mortal life.”
I love the message given in a
hymn of our Church entitled “Know This, That Every Soul Is Free” (Hymns, 240). The author of the text is unknown, but it was
apparently written about 1805 in Boston.
It was included in the first LDS hymnbook in 1835. The music was written by Roger L. Miller. The first two verses are as follow.
Know this, that every soul is free To choose his life and what he’ll be;
For
this eternal truth is giv’n: That God
will force no man to heav’n.
He’ll
call, persuade, direct aright, And bless with wisdom, love, and light,
In
nameless ways be good and kind, But never force the human mind.
With our
God-given agency, we can choose to attain the highest form of liberty. It is up to us as individuals because it is
us who decide what we really desire. If
we desire true liberty, we must learn the law of Jesus Christ and then remain obedient
to it. There is no other way to be truly
free. Freedom of the soul IS the highest
form of liberty!
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