Mormonism teaches that the Fall of Adam, which brought sin and death into the world, was a necessary step for the progression and redemption of mankind.  If Adam did not fall, if he’d continued to live with Eve in the state of innocence, then for us to come to earth would be purposeless.  We needed to have the ability and the reason to make choices.  We needed agency.

Agency, also called free will or free agency, is an important part of Mormon doctrine.  Ultimately, our purpose in life is to try our agency, to show whether we will use our ability to choose for good or evil, to show whether we will obey the commandments of God or dismiss them. 

To have the power of choice, however, is also to have consequences.  Although consequences are part of choice, we don’t have the power to choose the consequences of our actions.  However, to choose well is to choose happiness, to choose wickedly is to choose misery. 

Mormons believe that we are completely responsible for our decisions.  They do not believe in original sin.  And as they believe that, as God’s spiritual children, our eternal nature is good.  However, because we are also the descendants of Adam, our mortal bodies are subject to sin and death.  This does not mean we are not born sinful.  In Mormon belief, we are not capable of real sin until we are eight – we are innocent.  All children who die before eight are saved through Christ’s mercy.  Those who are mentally challenged or otherwise unable to make choices between right and wrong are also saved in this way.  After eight, we are capable of sin and none save Christ has been able to resist the temptations of the mortal body and of the devil.  But we are, again, not sinful by nature.  If we had no choice but to sin, we couldn’t be accountable for our mistakes. 

Another principle of agency is opposition.  Opposition means that both good and bad exist in the world.  Mormons believe that opposition is necessary.  The Book of Mormon says “For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so . . . righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad” (2 Nephi 2:11). Without good and the bad to choose from, there could be no choices, no agency.  And the Lord must see His children use their agency righteously in order to prove them.

Sometimes, it’s hard to withstand the evils and sorrow in the world. But Mormons believe that suffering is a part of the test of mortality – and that peace and comfort is promised to the faithful. This doesn’t mean that the faithful will never have trials or sad times.  This doesn’t mean that the faithful will never feel badly – sickness, loss, difficulties, mental illnesses such as depression – these can fall on anyone regardless of their choices.  But comfort is promised, if we turn to Jesus Christ, if we turn to God.  “Search diligently, pray always, and be believing, and all things shall work together for your good, if ye walk uprightly and remember the covenant wherewith ye have covenanted one with another” (Doctrine and Covenants 90:24).