(Essay on deception by SMSmith, posted in installments, from last to first; #4 of 7. © 2002)
This is the deception that seduced Cain. He completely misconstrued freedom. He gloried in destroying that which annoyed him and stood in his way, and proclaimed his freedom to pursue gain, heedless of all but his own desire, without regard even for his brother’s life.
This is the deception that governs those who override decency, integrity, and the common good for the sake of profit. It motivates cheating, fraud, and theft. It underpins greed, violence, prostitution, oppression, slander, gossip, perjury, abortion, pornography, and the greatest atrocities that mankind has seen and will yet see. Gain is the pursuit, whether in fame, fortune, approval, or power, and whether pursued by one or many.
This is the deception that leads otherwise honorable people into profiting from evil, whether directly or indirectly, because “people must be free to choose.” This is to succumb to the lies Satan has woven all around and through the principles of freedom and agency. It is a telling paradox that Lucifer, who once disdained the risks of agency, should now be such a vociferous advocate for freedom and choice in this world. The not-so-subtle difference is that Satan’s version of agency is to do away with “offensive” moral laws and thus their consequences (i.e., purport to do so as the “father of lies”), whereas the Lord’s plan of agency is ringed and bounded with law and consequence (Alma 42:16-23).
Thus, when it comes to moral law, Satan would have the world believe that the law itself offends agency—a deception that has worked time and again.8 And though overburdened criminal and civil courts are proof enough that even secular law in a free society does not destroy agency, Satan’s ploy is to reach beyond the willfully disobedient to those who are otherwise restrained by law. If he can dismantle the moral law, it loses in both respect and remembrance as many become a law unto themselves. But the Lord has said, “verily I say unto you, that which is governed by law is also preserved by law and perfected and sanctified by the same. That which breaketh a law, and abideth not by law, but seeketh to become a law unto itself, and willeth to abide in sin, and altogether abideth in sin, cannot be sanctified by law, neither by mercy, justice, nor judgment” (D&C 88:34-35).
And so Satan contorts words, ideas, and philosophies in a desperate bid to obscure the truth about agency. The truth as taught by Lehi: “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given 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;” (2 Ne. 2:27; 10:23).
This is an everlasting principle—we choose liberty and eternal life through obedience to God’s law or we choose captivity and death through disobedience. Only obedience preserves freedom because every act of disobedience welds a link of captivity to the habits, addictions, obsessions, weaknesses, egoism, and fears that are hallmarks of the adversary’s path to destruction.
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8 Boyd K. Packer, “Our Moral Environment,” Ensign, May 1992, 66: “While we pass laws to reduce pollution of the earth, any proposal to protect the moral and spiritual environment is shouted down and marched against as infringing upon liberty, agency, freedom, the right to choose. Interesting how one virtue, when given exaggerated or fanatical emphasis, can be used to batter down another, with freedom, a virtue, invoked to protect vice. Those determined to transgress see any regulation of their life-style as interfering with their agency and seek to have their actions condoned by making them legal. People who are otherwise sensible say, “I do not intend to indulge, but I vote for freedom of choice for those who do.” Regardless of how lofty and moral the “pro-choice” argument sounds, it is badly flawed. With that same logic one could argue that all traffic signs and barriers which keep the careless from danger should be pulled down on the theory that each individual must be free to choose how close to the edge he will go.”
