The way to judge is clear if we have the Spirit of Christ. This is the answer to a potential problem with the powerful principle of agency. If we sit in the middle of the two tugging poles of Good and Evil, how can we know which is which? Mormon has warned us that man often sees evil in the good, or good in the evil. How can we know the difference if they can appear to be interchanged?
While it is true that in eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, the principle of Free Agency was made operative, the eating of the fruit had another important effect. Mankind really did gain the capacity to know Good from Evil. Without the guarantee that humanity was capable of distinguishing between Good and Evil, there would have been no hope in a world where Satan’s influence could camouflage evil in so many attractive packages.
The Spirit of Christ, or the Light of Christ, is a gift of God. It may even be seen as the gift that accompanied the partaking of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The Light of Christ is our guarantee that all humanity has the internal measure against which we may test all experience and know of its eternal goodness or evil.
The Light of Christ does not depend upon the preaching of the gospel, it is inherent to our existence wherever we are. How does this Light combine with the principles of Free Agency and Faith to begin to exalt even those who are ignorant of the teachings of the gospel?
For all peoples in all times, in all societies, there is a right and a wrong. While anthropologists know that the definitions of exactly what is right and wrong may vary from culture to culture, yet there is a culturally defined set which creates a known set of “right” and a known set of “wrong”. Regardless of where or when we live, humans are always in a position to act on their agency. Faith always works to allow the step into the unknown. Both Free Agency and Faith are principles that operate in the mundane world as well as the spiritual.
When men act, they have the opportunity to test their actions against what they know to be right. To the degree that they choose right, they are making the same exercise of proper agency as those who are conversant with God’s plan. To the degree that such people make active choices to follow what they understand to be right, they are, in principle, doing exactly what we are doing when we actively follow the precepts of the gospel.
There may be times in any society, when the cultural definition of “right” is contrary to the definition of God. In all of these cases, there is always the Light of Christ, which knows the difference. All humanity has the opportunity to learn to listen to that eternal measure, and to obey it. We may all choose not only our cultural right, but a higher, eternal right.
Lest we think that this is a farfetched concept for others who do not know the gospel, it is still a principle operative in modern society. Modern American society has a set of definitions about what is “right” in our society. Many of our business practices, many of the books we read, the songs we listen to, may be “right” in the eyes of society, but clearly wrong when measured against the Light of Christ.
All humanity, regardless of their exposure to a knowledge of the plan of God, has the ability to progress by learning to exercise their Free Agency to make correct active choices. All of us have the opportunity to exceed the righteousness of our cultural definitions by listening to the Light of Christ, which can teach us what is right on a higher, eternal plane.