So I'm prepping a Sunday School lesson, on the council in heaven as recorded in the BoA, and I come to this realization:

1) The BoA talks about the council in heaven, and some chose to follow Jesus, and some chose to follow Satan.

2) Anyone who has heard anything about the whole Plan of Happiness(tm) knows that a key factor, as seen at http://mormon.org/faq/purpose-of-life, is to "Exercise agency and learn to choose between good and evil."

The two can't be reconciled. If we came from Earth to exercise agency and *learn to* choose between good and evil, then all the people in the pre-existence made an uninformed decision. Of course, since we didn't have agency I guess God picked a random third of the host of heaven and assigned them to Satan against their will.

I need to figure out an innocent sounding way to introduce this to the class and see which heads explode.

Clearly Satan's plan was to give us all free agency, since without his opposition it wouldn't be possible. And clearly God's plan was to strip us of free agency, since he has created a whole series of artificial punishments for arbitrary offenses, and only wants us to read church-approved material.

You know, when God banished Satan forever, Satan could have just walked away. All he had to do to ruin God's plan forever was to simply turn around and go the other direction. However, despite being severely punished for doing "that which has been done on other worlds" and forever deprived of a body, he decided to stick around and dutifully do exactly what was needed to make free agency possible for 6,000 years for all of God's little ignorant pets, because Jesus certainly wasn't going to do it! Talk about a story that doesn't make sense! And yet, God still teaches his people that Satan is the enemy. Honestly, I don't know why he still puts up with it all.

Ask: How do we learn to choose between good and evil?
Write down the list on the chalk board.

Now children, before we came to this earth and learned how to choose between G&E do you think we ever had to choose between good and evil before we were here? Listen to the answers. Discuss if you want to.


Then, maybe change the subject.

I should clarify I teach gospel doctrine, not a junior Sunday School class, so "now children" may come across the wrong way. ;)

Haha. You can just think that part.

Still good questions though. I would be interested to hear the answers when put in that context.

I never thought of that either. I suspect there are a lot of things that when they come together make zero sense in mo land.

The more I learn about Mormonism as I age, the more it looks like Satan's plan and God is testing to see if his children can do the right thing based upon their love for their fellows instead of for a god.

If Lucifer were real, he'd be the most self-righteous prick worshiping himself.

Oy. Would be tempted to stick my face in a hat-rock at this point.

Seriously: what would happen if you, broaching it in humility, simply noted the apparent inconsistency, asking folks if they could see a solution?

There is usually at least one 'smart' pompous know-it-all sitting in the front row.

squeebee Wrote:
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> I should clarify I teach gospel doctrine, not a
> junior Sunday School class, so "now children" may
> come across the wrong way. ;)

Of course GD lessons in the manual are aimed at a sixth-grade
mentality. So thinking "now children" would definitely fit the
milieu.

When God created Satan he was using a traditional marketing ploy. Invent a problem then sell a solution.

I thought we already new about good and evil at the council.

The question was what would we instinctively chose after passing through the veil of forgetfulness?

The whole point of Lehi's "opposition in all things" meant we had to experience evil to appreciate good. Since evil cannot endure in the presence of God, we needed to come to a mortal planet to experience it as well as experience mortal pleasures and pains.

But of course doctrine shifts as sand in the desert.