The way to judge is clear if we have the Savior’s Spirit. This is the answer to a potential problem with the powerful principle of agency. If we stand between the attractions of the extremes 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 appear interchanged?
While it is true that human agency became operative when Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, it had another important effect. Humankind genuinely did gain the capacity to know good from evil. Without the guarantee that we would be capable of distinguishing between good and evil, humankind would have truly been lost in a world where Satan could camouflage evil so attractively.
The Spirit or Light of Christ, is a gift of God. It may even be seen as the gift that accompanied partaking of the fruit. It guarantees that all humanity possesses an internal measure against which we may test all experience and accurately know of its eternal goodness or evil.
The Light of Christ does not depend on knowing the gospel. It is inherent in human nature. 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 such definitions vary culturally, yet each culture creates a known set of “right” and “wrong” actions. Thus, humans are always in a position to act on their agency in choosing according to their understanding of right and wrong. Faith allows such steps into the unknown. Both free agency and faith are principles that operate in the mundane world as well as the spiritual.
When human beings 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 exercising their agency as properly 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 obey gospel precepts.
There may be times in any society when the cultural definition of “right” is contrary to God’s definition. But even in these cases, the Light of Christ knows the difference. All humanity can learn to listen to those eternal promptings and follow that eternal measure. We may all choose, not only our cultural right, but a higher, eternal right.
All human beings, regardless of exposure to God’s plan, can progress by learning to exercise their free agency to make correct choices. All of us can exceed the righteousness of our cultural definitions by perceiving and following the Light of Christ, which will lead us to what is right on a higher, eternal plane.