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JEFF - In the pre-existence two plans were submitted. Satans plan would force us to return because we would be denied agency, but
Jesus's plan lets us choose for ourselves. Why does satan not realise that all he has to do to win is to stop participating. Jesus's plan needs a
Satan, a tempter, an advasary, to work. Without temptation, there is no need for agency, and therefore we are reduced to returning without being
tested, basically satans plan.
JOEL - What you say makes some sense. In the D&C we read:
"It must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter
they could not know the sweet." (D&C 29:39).
Which seems to support your theory. However, I'm not so sure that human beings always need satan involved for every sin they commit; I think we
are completely capable of doing it on our own.
The Psalmist said:
"The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." (Psalms 58:3)
Paul said:
"Wherefore, as by one man(Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: (Rom 5:12)
And the brother of Jared:
"because of the fall our natures have become evil continually;" (Ether 3:2)
The point of these scriptures being that, because of the fall of Adam, man became natural and carnal and is such or has the potential to be such
from the moment he is born. The propensity for and susceptibility to sin are implanted in our nature at conception, just as death is. Both death
and sin are present only as potentialities at conception, and therefore neither is fully evident at birth. Death and sin do, however, become actual
parts of our nature as we grow up. Sin comes spontaneously, just as death does.
Satan does want to see us fall and therefore can and does certainly place temptations in our way to accelerate the process, but as King Benjamin
said:
"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the
Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man... (Mosiah 3:19)
Therefore I don't think Jesus' plan "needs" a satan, but because satan knows that man is "carnal, sensual, and devilish," (Alma 42:10), he can
take advantage of that fact to effect the fall of men through temptations that lead to commission of sin.
In addition to all this, good and evil are eternal concepts. I don't think you can have one without the other:
"For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass,
neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad." (2 Nephi 2:11)
Because of this eternal principle, Satan has no agency now to choose to not participate. He does what he does and always will. His true reason in his plan in the pre-mortal world for forcing all to be saved had an alterior motive; to receive all the glory for doing it. But he didn't get his way so he is taking his revenge out on us now to make everyone as miserable as he is.
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