PROVO, Utah — Moral agency is a central element in God’s plan of happiness and “actuates every aspect of our missionary purpose,” Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught newly called mission leaders.
Speaking during the 2024 Seminar for New Mission Leaders at the Provo Missionary Training Center on Friday, June 21, Elder Bednar focused his message on the vital role of moral agency in missionary work and in the lives of God’s children.
“I invite all of us to study, pray, ponder and seek by the power of the Holy Ghost to obtain a more complete understanding of the central role of moral agency in Heavenly Father’s plan of happiness and in our individual lives,” he said.
“As we do so, I promise God will bless each of us with a greater understanding of our missionary purpose and an increasingly comprehensive view of our individual spiritual condition and true relation to God.”
Definition and purpose of moral agency
Defining the words “moral” and “agency,” Elder Bednar said moral agency can be understood as “the ability and privilege to choose and to act for ourselves in ways that are good, honest, virtuous and honorable.” It empowers God’s children to become “agents to act and not simply objects to be acted upon.”
“The very purpose of the Creation and of our mortal existence,” he pointed out, “is to provide us the opportunity to choose and act to become what the Lord invites us to become.”
Referencing the title of the familiar hymn “Choose the Right,” Elder Bednar continued: “We have not been blessed with moral agency to do whatever we want whenever we will. Rather, according to the Father’s plan, we have received moral agency to seek after and act in accordance with eternal truth.”
As “every man may act in doctrine and principle … according to the moral agency” (Doctrine and Covenants 101:78), faithful disciples of Christ conscientiously act as agents in both the temporal and spiritual aspects of their lives and in service to others, he said.
God has divine purposes for blessing His children with moral agency. Quoting Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Bednar said: “Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him.”
Though God’s children are free to choose, they are not free to choose the consequences of their exercise of moral agency, he added. All will be accountable to God for their choices.
Misconceptions about moral agency
“Moral agency is not static; it is either dynamically increasing or decreasing for each of us,” Elder Bednar said. “Righteous choices and obedience expand our moral agency. Unrighteous choices and disobedience diminish our moral agency.”
While Elder Bednar was serving as president of Brigham Young University–Idaho, some students would ask why honor and dress codes were necessary and if such guidelines imposed restrictions on their moral agency.
“I explained that the university and the Church were not restricting their agency. Rather, students simply were expected to honor the commitments they had made as conditions of acceptance into the university,” he said.
Elder Bednar used this example to illustrate that exercising agency is to act as an agent by, first, electing to live in accordance with gospel truths and, second, binding oneself to the blessings, ongoing obligations and consequences of such choices and actions.
“The pattern of making, remembering and honoring sacred covenants is then, in essence, a voluntary yielding of our agency to God,” Elder Bednar explained.
Attempting to justify sinful behavior by saying, “Well, I have my agency” reveals a lack of knowledge about and understanding of the relationship between moral agency and gospel covenants, he said.
“Indeed, we may choose to act in ways that do not honor our sacred obligations, but such action is no longer simply the exercise of individual agency,” Elder Bednar said. “Rather, for persons who previously used their agency to make sacred commitments, such actions violate covenants with God, cause them to turn away from and fail to remember Him, and repudiate His name and the responsibility to represent Him.
“Willful disobedience is rejection of and rebellion against the conditions specified by God for our eternal progress and happiness.”
As individuals strive to keep the commandments and honor gospel covenants, they can be blessed to see that willing obedience is “the sweet fruit of covenant living,” not merely an option or a chore.
“We can more fully recognize the importance of pledging our willingness to come unto the Savior, take upon ourselves His name, and strive to strengthen the covenant connection we have with the Father and the Son,” Elder Bednar said. “And we can gain a deeper appreciation for the privileges and blessings of moral agency in our individual lives.”
