Latter-day Satyagraha

LUCIFER: I want you to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that your eyes may be opened, for that is the way Father gained his knowledge. You must eat of this fruit so as to comprehend that everything has its opposite: good and evil, virtue and vice, light and darkness, [peace and war], health and sickness, pleasure and pain. Thus your eyes will be opened, and you will have knowledge.

EVE: Is there no other way?

LUCIFER: There is no other way.

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…and they taste the bitter, so that they may know to prize the good

In this second part of the sixth study chapter, we will look at the plan of happiness versus the plan of the adversary because Father Lehi believes that “there needs be opposition in all things”. These chapters are probably essential to what we could call the Mormon philosophy on life and death, as well as good and evil. Lehi makes allusion to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and the fruit of the Tree of Life. He explains that we were created with the freedom to act for ourselves and not to be acted upon. We have become free forever, according to him, to choose between good and evil – and act as creators of our own destiny…

“And the Lord spake unto Adam, saying: …even so when [thy children] begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts, and they taste the bitter, that they may know to prize the good. And it is given unto them to know good from evil; wherefore they are agents unto themselves…” (Moses 6:55-56)

I think to remember that I was at a birthday party as a kid. I can’t have been older than 8 or 9 years old. I do not remember the details of what happened, but the setting is vivid in my mind and so are the feelings I had. During the birthday party, all the kids were gathered around in a circle. We were playing some game. The birthday boy said something to me or about me that I experienced as rather humiliating. I do not remember what he said, I just remember my reaction. I looked at him, and thought in my head, full of anger: “how can I best get back at him?” I stood up, went over to him where he sat on the ground, walked past all the other kids and hit him in the head! I then ran away, ashamed of what I had done and afraid of the consequences. The birthday boy understandably both surprised and probably hurt started crying.

I ran as fast as I could through the apple orchard, symbolically enough through the trees of knowledge between good and evil, and think that I definitely tasted the bitter – the bad. That day, I resolved never to hit anybody again. I cannot remember if I ever did, but I remember feeling or knowing that what I had done had caused more harm than good. It might have redressed my dignity for a short millisecond, but from the moment my hand touched his cheek the harm was done and all the good I thought it would do vanished. The birthday boy’s mother ran up to the balcony of the house that overlooked the apple orchard and shouted to me “come back, come back” after having shouted my name repeatedly. It was a shame for both her and me that the birthday boy had been the cause of my feeling hurt and for me to be the cause of him feeling hurt. Which “sin” was most severe? In my mind, it is not really the sin that matter, as much as it is the lesson I learned. Hitting the birthday boy is not very Christ-like.

I believe I was quickly reconciled with the boy, and he probably never made fun of me again – but the lesson was eternal. It was probably around the same time that I saw the movie “Gandhi”. My mother, perhaps recognizing an opportunity to teach me a powerful principle, made sure that I saw the movie. The seed of nonviolence was then planted in me. Is the story of our first parents in the Garden of Eden a metaphor of our relationship to God? Did they hide because of their shame, because they realized the consequences of what they had done, not for having disobeyed but rather for having done something that taught them a specific lesson about good and evil and for which they thought there would be no forgiveness? We could say that knowledge of good and evil is like the knowledge of peace and war, and that the human family realized at an early point that there is indeed a difference between engaging in one (war) or working for the other (peace). What many of us think is that there is no forgiveness and no reconciliation. Jesus taught us differently.

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…and the way is prepared from the fall of man, and salvation is free

And men are instructed sufficiently that they know good from evil. And the law is given unto men. And by the law no flesh is justified; or, by the law men are cut off. (2 Nephi 2: 5)

As the Book of Mormon teaches, every man and woman is endowed with the Spirit of Christ so as to be able to judge between good and evil: “For behold, the Spirit of Christ is given to every man, that he may know good from evil; wherefore, I show unto you the way to judge; for every thing which inviteth to do good, and to persuade to believe in Christ, is sent forth by the power and gift of Christ; wherefore ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of God. But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him”. (Moroni 7: 16-17)

Lucifer, the father of all lies, is understood in Mormonism as the antithesis of peace. This coincides with Galtung’s definition of violence. Galtung thinks that the best way to understand peace is by defining its antithesis: violence. So the best way to understand the plan of happiness is for us to understand the plan of the adversary, according to Father Lehi. “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. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one”.

It must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter. Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other. (2 Nephi 2: 15-16)

The starting point is Johan Galtung’s ABC Triangle or triangle of violence.

The direct violence, physical and/or verbal, is visible as behaviour. But human action does not come out of nowhere; there are roots. Two roots are indicated: a culture of violence (heroic, patriotic, group-thinking etc.), and a structure that itself is violent by being too repressive and/or exploitative.. The popular misunderstanding that “violence is in human nature” is rejected. The potential for violence, like love, is in human nature; but circumstances condition the realization of that potential.

The big variations in violence are easily explained in terms of culture and structure: cultural and structural violence cause direct violence, using violent actors who revolt against the structures and using the culture to legitimize their use of violence as instruments. If the violence triangle was to be linked to the ways we treat ‘the other’ (Love your neighbor) – attitudes towards the other, behavior towards the other, conditions towards the other – the ABC triangle would look like this:

Gordon B. Hinckley gives a fair explanation of the plan of the adversary: “That war [in heaven], so bitter, so intense, has never ceased. It is the war between truth and error, between agency and compulsion, between the followers of Christ and those who have denied Him. His enemies have used every stratagem in that conflict. They’ve indulged in lying and deceit [cultural violence]. They’ve employed money and wealth. They’ve tricked the minds of men [structural violence]. They’ve murdered and destroyed [direct violence] and engaged in every kind of evil practice to thwart the work of Christ”.

LUCIFER’S PLAN

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What is interesting from the above analysis, is the link between means employed and ends achieved by Satan in his fight against the plan of redemption. It is a work of destruction and must be understood therefore as our destructive attitudes-behavior-conditions towards the other.

The effects have great and unfortunate consequences for the plan of redemption, as we (1) become alienated from each other, (2) as we shorten humanity’s probationary state and set it at risk and (3) perpetuate temporal and spiritual misery through unequal distribution of resources.

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they are redeemed from the fall

And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon. (2 Nephi 2: 26)

James E. Faust said in his conference address Acting for Ourselves and Not to Be Acted Upon: “The danger you young men face is not so much physical; but rather it is the danger of being personally deceived and misled. This danger is, in some ways, more subtle and difficult and requires more strength and courage than facing physical danger. We can choose to let external forces push us forward to a destination not of our choosing or, instead, to take what comes and continue to chart our own course, pursuing goals we define, completing projects we choose to complete, notwithstanding our external environment”.

What I hear here is probably not what others hear, but I hear Late President Faust say: “why let external forces decide on whether or not you should join the armed forces or not, and whether or not you should go and kill your so-called enemy? Afghanistan: a destination not of your choosing? Continue to chart your own course – join the fold of the peaceable followers of Christ, where you are free to pursue goals you define, to complete projects you choose to complete, notwithstanding the destruction and the wars that surround you. Your calling is so much nobler, and so much higher than to be an instrument of destruction and to being acted upon”.

Leo Tolstoy himself wrote on the issue of free agency in his book War and Peace. He did not lay the blame on the leaders and “great men” whom he believed were merely puppets of history, a history shaped by the millions of choices made by the countless individuals participating: “Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance”.

Jon Mott in an article entitled To Act or To Be Acted Upon explains on his site The End in Mind:

I push the ‘on’ button and the TV turns on; push it again and it turns off. This stimulus/response is ‘hardwired’ into the equipment. If we allow it, we have buttons also. Certain conditions, words, images, or circumstances that trigger the expected response. What are the triggers for your addiction/character flaw? What is your response to being cut off in traffic? Ever have a ‘bad day?’ Have you ever said: ‘you make me so mad?’ This statement typifies the perspective of life when we allow the stimulus from our environment to determine our response. Our ability to inject analysis in between the stimulus and response is what allows us to control our response. We are not hardwired unless we allow ourselves to be, unless we are acted upon.

Can we begin a [conflict] transformation, to break that automatic reaction that binds us to a particular [violent] behavior or attitude? It can be as simple as recognizing when one of our buttons is pushed and refusing to allow it to control our actions. I would submit that we can find as much joy in this life as we allow ourselves. Joy comes from our ability to not react to our environment but to decide how, if at all, the stimulus will affect us.

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (2 Nephi 2: 25)
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