In your point 3, you remark insightfully as to the doctrine of agency that: “The unexamined assumption of LDS soteriology, that salvation by grace alone involves God ‘forcing’ human beings to act as they do, requires the blasphemous metaphysical presupposition that the touch of God is a harmful, exterior imposition upon the will. In fact, the Creator moves his creatures in ways that are intrinsic to the creatures themselves, without violence, without destruction of freedom.]”
My stake like many others (most others?), the week of Pioneer Day, holds for the youth (ages 14 to 17) a reenactment of the trek by handcart. As you may know, but perhaps others here at CAF might not know, the youth are divided into “families” and for several days each family pulls a loaded handcart over rough, sometimes hilly and sometimes rocky terrain. They camp out in the open each night. On the last day, Pioneer Day, they arrive at the rural site of the stake Pioneer Day celebration, somewhat rough for the wear, but cheered by the assembled stake. This experience gives the youth a clue about the real 1,000+ mile Mormon Trail of the 19th century.
One of the Young Men gave a Sacrament Meeting talk the next day about the trek reenactment. I was impressed that this 16 year old Priest’s talk was as evocative and insightful as I would expect from a person much older. I believe that his talk was the way that the Holy Ghost showed me how I might respond to you in a constructive fashion. In any case, I am going to synopsize what he said as to one episode during the trek reenactment.
Rocky hills are the bane of handcarts. As the steepness of a slope increases arithmetically, the difficulty of moving the handcart increases exponentially. On rocky slopes, the wooden wagon wheels (familiar from Westerns) can lose traction, causing the handcart to slip backwards or to pivot. On the third day, the four handcarts came to a point where the trail led up the steepest rocky hill on the trek. At that point, the adults who were along to supervise (but not help), had all of the Young Men leave the handcarts. They had come to the Women’s Pull, and the Young Women would pull the handcarts up the hill by themselves. The Young Women struggled to get the handcarts, one at the time, up the hill. There were the setbacks and stumblings that were to be expected. Some of the Young Women were groaning and more than one cried. Later, they all testified that they prayed to have just a fraction of the strength of the widows who pulled handcarts the length of the Mormon Trail and that, for every one of them, their prayers were answered. As a result, they were able, just barely, to get all four handcarts to the top of the hill.
The young Priest who gave the talk said that, with respect to the Women’s Pull, two specific things impressed him the most. First, after the Young Women got the first handcart to the top of the hill, he expected to see them fall to the ground and rest for a time. Instead, they immediately came back down the hill for the second handcart. They seemed to be stronger than before. Second, he saw two of the adult men who had accompanied the youth, who were fathers of two of the Young Women, with tears streaming down their faces. Nonetheless, the fathers remained still because they were possessed of the wisdom to know that, if a single male hand had pulled, or a single male shoulder had pushed, then there would have been a harmful, exterior imposition upon the will, with violence to the spirit and destruction of freedom.
Murdock
P.S. Thank you for taking the time to respond so thoughtfully to my previous post.
