The Libertarian Latter-Day Saint

Socially liberal, economically conservative, and theologically correct.

THE ANTITHESIS OF FREEDOM IS FORCE

Latter-day Saints are familiar with the saying that, “God will force no man to heaven.” One will search the scriptures in  vain for any mention, however small or insignificant, of behavior forced by the Great Jehovah. We are by the dictates of the  gospel guided, directed, pleaded with, and shown by example of all that is expected of us. Despite of the Lord’s own words which declare that, “It is my glory to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.”, there is only divine persuasion, long suffering, and patience for us to persevere and progress on that holy path. We all knew that it was through our own moral agency and the grace of Jesus Christ that we could succeed in this mortal life. We agreed with that principle. We fought for it in the great war in heaven when Satan promised to save us all. That not a soul would be lost. He would eliminate the freedom of choice. We would make no mistakes and he would have the glory. That idea was so seductive that a third of the heavenly hosts, the sons and daughters of God, agreed with Satan. But there was something wrong with that idea. If we had no choice there could be no virtue in correct choices and no pain and suffering as a result of wrong choices. No growth. No progress. No understanding of the great eternal truths. No way to reach our divine potential as sons and daughters of God. A great war was fought in heaven and Satan and all his followers were cast out. They failed their first estate and lost the chance to enter mortality. Satan has not given up. He works to prevent our success today. He tells us that there is no truth. He denies the opposites in all things. He does not want us to see the good or the evil that is inherent in all things according to our moral agency and the choices that we must make each day. That is the essence of this post. Choice is freedom. Force prevents choice. It is anathema to libertarians. It is antithetical to the gospel plan. It is the crux of the compatibility between The Kingdom of God Upon the Earth today and the system of government and laws laid forth in Doctrine and Covenants section 134.https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/134?lang=eng  Did I say that Satan’s plan was seductive? It is so seductive that he is still using it today with a great deal of success. So let’s take a look at how that happens and what it looks like.

The great Poet Laureate William Wordsworth in his immortal work entitled “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood” wrote the followng:

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
 
It is the sleep and the forgetting that defines the veil of forgetfulness that enfolds the memory of our pre-mortal existence. And that is the point of Satan’s continuing battle against our mortal progress. He entices us with ideas that are forms of his rejected plan to deny the freedom of choice that is our gift of moral agency. Elder C. Todd Christofferson, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, has spoken during a BYU devotional of the gift of moral agency which is the vehicle for the Lord’s plan to bring about the immortality and eternal life of man. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2009/06/moral-agency?lang=eng 
Instead of individual responsibility, we are filled with ideas about group identities, public responsibility, and social justice. We are encouraged to use the power of peer pressure, organised entities of various forms, and government, especially government, to force the behavior that the Lord has pronounced to be our individual responsibility. Our Savior, in the parable of the rich man, encouraged the man to give up his riches and devote himself instead to helping the poor. It is instructive to note that Jesus did not advocate that Caesar, or King Herod, or the Sanhedrin should level the rich man’s wealth. No. Because it would not benefit the rich man’s soul if he did not make the decision himself. That is the principle that Satan rejected and that one third of the heavenly hosts also rejected. And now Satan tries to turn the tables and get us all to accept the idea that we can force others to do the right thing. 
 
Powerful forces in today’s society demean the voluntary works of charity performed by various religions and other charitable organizations. Charitable tax deductions are under attack by elements who believe that it is government’s responsibility to manage our social structures. And while it is government’s duty to act as a help of last resort, it takes the force of government to mandate what a majority of the people deem to be appropriate behavior. So instead of ensuring the unalienable rights of men and preventing physical harm to life and property governments are perverted to force the moral agency that belongs to individuals. That is at the bottom of the drug war and so many moral blue laws. There are powerful political forces today that want to use the power and force of government to control the means of production, establish the range of material choices, and limit the moral behaviors involved in victimless crimes. In so doing they establish the black markets that promote the immoral conduct that we wish to eliminate and create great physical harm, even murder, and crime against property. Satan’s influence against the free choice of moral agency creates the very embodiment of latter-day Gadianton robbers both within and without government. Some of them are even found within the members of various religious organizations including our own Church. 
 
The greatest threat to our moral agency and our freedom is the seemingly honorable desire to ensure that everyone does the right thing. The Prophet Thomas S. Monson has a favorite hymn, “Have You Done Any Good In The World Today”.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/music/library/hymns/have-i-done-any-good

Have I done any good in the world today? Have I helped anyone in need? Have I cheered up the sad and made someone feel glad? If not, I have failed indeed. Has anyone’s burden been lighter today. Because I was willing to share? Have the sick and the weary been helped on their way? When they needed my help was I there?

What a glorious anthem to personal responsibility. What have WE done, personally, to help anyone in need? Not did we make sure that the city, or the county, or the state helped someone in need. If that’s how we think then it won’t get done because who in the city or the county or the state knows who needs something or what they need or why they feel sad? And if they did, they would have to use the funds that were confiscated by government power from people who have never met or heard of the people in need. So if the government has to do it then WE HAVE FAILED INDEED!!

 

 

 

 

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68 thoughts on “THE ANTITHESIS OF FREEDOM IS FORCE”

  1. Marianne Day

    where do you get the information that there was a war in heaven and where do you get the figures that 1/3 were cast out? If people, like you said, chose to be born so they could have free agency, maybe that explains why my mother can’t stand having any one tell her what to do and doesn’t like to follow rule. That seems to be like libertarian? Am I wrong? Are libertarians lawless, and therefore, more holy in you mind?

    Just a few thoughts about your post/blog that came to mind?

    Reply
    1. supportadmin_GVP0

      Marianne, This is standard LDS doctrine about the pre-existence. The war in heaven was between the forces of Jesus and the concept of moral agency in which Jesus would pay the price for our mistakes if we accept Him. The ability to make choices between good and evil is the method that enables us to progress. But Satan rebelled. He did not want us to have our moral agency. He said that he would save everyone. No one would fail because they could not make poor choices. He wanted the glory for himself because he would save everyone. This was very seductive. One third of all the spirits in the pre-existence followed him and a great war was fought. You like to read the Book of Revelations and that war is described in Revelations. John, who wrote it, said that Michael and all his archangels fought for Jesus against Satan and his angels, or spirit beings. Satan lost and was cast out with all of his followers. They cannot receive a mortal body and so their ability to progress is damned, or blocked. Satan is very mad about that and vows to destroy the plan of salvation and progress. This is all standard LDS doctrine. here are two YouTube videos about it. Watch this one first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxEUATS8bx8 Then watch this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ey5_U0t0u8

      Regarding your mother and libertarianism; I don’t think that libertarians are any more holy that anyone else. It’s just that libertarians value freedom which involves free choice in a political sense. it is compatible with the doctrine of the Church because the guiding principle of the Church is moral agency, or freedom of choice between good and evil. But libertarians and the followers of Christ are making choices about different things. Joseph Smith taught that God raised up righteous men to create this nation and write its founding document, the constitution, so that the fullness of the gospel could be restored after it had been lost due to the great apostasy. You were taught all of this but you have had a very difficult time and you may not remember all of it. That is one reason that I am so full of the desire for you to regain the understanding that I think you once had about the gospel of Jesus Christ and the fullness of the gospel in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But you have to read, study and pray. God loves you and wants to reveal the truth of this to you. But you have to have a place in your heart and mind to receive His message to you. I pray for that with all my heart, mind and soul.

      Your mother as a libertarian? I don’t know. There is one personality trait that libertarians possess that is called reactivity. That is a response to threats to liberty. It means that libertarians are prone to object, or debate ideas that are presented to them. They resent it greatly when someone tries to make them do something that they don’t want to do. They try to be the devil’s advocate just for the sake of the argument. Here is a talk by Professor Jonathan Haidt (pronounced like height) on the moral foundations of libertarians. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tT89wp56h8A Watch this and think about your mother. In my opinion she may possess some of these attributes but for the most part she is just angry, disgruntled and maybe feels cheated. But the truth is that most of her trouble has been of her own doing and her thoughts now are exculpatory, meaning that she absolves her self of the blame but retains the feelings of pain and hurt. Examples will have to discussed in private because this is a public forum and inappropriate for such personal information.

      Love you, Dad

      Reply
  2. Marianne Day

    Thanks for your answer. I watched the videos. I still don’t understand how they come at the number 1/3 of heavenly hosts. I wish you could give me the scripture reference and
    number.
    Thanks Marianne

    Reply
    1. supportadmin_GVP0

      Marianne, You said that you like Revelations so here is Rev 12:7.

      War in Heaven
      12:7 Then 20 war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back.
      12:8 But the dragon was not strong enough to prevail, so there was no longer any place left in heaven for him and his angels.
      12:9 So that huge dragon – the ancient serpent, the one called the devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world – was thrown down to the earth, and his angels along with him.
      12:10 Then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, “The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the ruling authority of his Christ, have now come,
      because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, 30 the one who accuses them day and night 31 before our God, has been thrown down.
      12:11 But they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives so much that they were afraid to die.
      12:12 Therefore you heavens rejoice, and all who reside in them! But woe to the earth and the sea because the devil has come down to you! He is filled with terrible anger,
      for he knows that he only has a little time!”

      Then Rev 12:4 His tail swept a third of the stars from the sky, tossing them to the earth. This is interpreted by Bible scholars as referencing Satan and his followers.

      From Doctrine and Covenants 76:25-28 we read:

      And this we saw also, and bear record, that an angel of God who was in authority in the presence of God,
      who rebelled against the Only Begotten Son whom the Father loved and who was in the bosom of the Father,
      was thrust down from the presence of God and the Son,
      And was called Perdition, for the heavens wept over him—he was Lucifer, a son of the morning.
      And we beheld, and lo, he is fallen! is fallen, even a son of the morning!
      And while we were yet in the Spirit, the Lord commanded us that we should write the vision;
      for we beheld Satan, that old serpent, even the devil, who rebelled against God,
      and sought to take the kingdom of our God and his Christ

      I hope that you will study these scriptures in your mind and ask God if they are true. The Holy Ghost will manifest it to you if you ask with a sincere heart and real intent.

      Love, DAD

      Reply
    1. supportadmin_GVP0

      Thank you, Aliza. Just keep coming back. I am working on additional posts now and I hope they will be helpful to you.

      Reply
    1. supportadmin_GVP0

      The idea is to provide a space for reflective study and to ponder these concepts because they are meaningful in our lives. Thanks for your input, Charlie Day

      Reply
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    1. supportadmin_GVP0

      Thank you for your kind comments. The source material and substance of this post on moral agency and the freedom to exercise it are found in the latter-day scriptures and teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Those include the King James version of the bible, the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants (latter-day revelations), and the Pearl of Great Price which includes the story of the restoration of Christ’s Church and other scriptures translated by Joseph Smith such as the Book of Abraham. I have also included talks from modern day apostles and hymns or poetry that I consider inspired and therefore constitute scripture worthy of study. I encourage all who are interested to read these materials, especially the Book of Mormon and pray for a witness from God to the truth of it. Moroni 10:4 states, “And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye should ask God, the Eternal father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart and real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.” I have such a spiritual witness. It is powerful and will change your life, as it has changed mine. But if one is not interested in the gospel oriented elements of this post it is never the less providential to understand the concepts involved in the freedom to choose and the personal progress that derives from doing so. God bless all who step into a state of awareness of these principles and put them into practice. All the best, Charlie Day

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