Agency (LDS Church) - Pre-Earth Life

Pre-Earth Life

A major difference, and a key insight to Mormons' understanding of agency, between Latter-day Saints and other Christian groups, involves the belief of a life before mortality, called the Pre-earth life, Pre-mortal life, or Pre-existence. Latter-day Saints believe that before the earth was created, all mankind lived as spirit children of God. Here, God nurtured, taught and provided means for their development. This preparation would allow them to later become the men and women of Earth, to be further educated and tested in the schoolhouse of mortality in order to return to God's presence and become like Him. Thus the pre-existent life is believed to have been an indefinitely long period of probation, progression, and schooling. Mormons believe that there came a time when we could not progress further without being born into a body and experiencing earthly life.

According to Mormon beliefs, God proposed a plan whereby further progression could take place, a Plan of salvation. Because agency would allow all people to fall in sin, a Savior was necessary to atone for the sins of each person so that they could return to live with their "Father in Heaven." Jesus volunteered to follow the plan as outlined, which preserved agency, accountability for action and the necessary result that some of Heavenly Father's children would never to return to Heavenly Father as a consequence of sin. The second volunteer, Lucifer, attempted to amend the plan by proposing that all mankind would return to Heavenly Father despite their sins—essentially defeating agency and the divine principle of accountability for action. God the Father chose the plan that he proposed with Jesus as the Savior. Lucifer and his followers rebelled against this plan and were eventually cast out of Heaven. Lucifer became Satan.