The Acts of Men

Nephi Writing by Minerva Teichert

In I Ne. 9, the Lord instructs Nephi to make the small plates for a purpose he knows not, but he acts in faith and is obedient.  Two thousand years later those small plates will be needed when the first 116 pages of the translation are “lost.”   I have always wondered why this was necessary.  Why didn’t God intervene with Martin Harris?  Why didn’t he just protect the manuscript?  There may be many reasons but it seems to me that one answer is that God offered that protection as long as the agency of man did not make that protection impossible.  In other words, Joseph Smith could have accepted his first answer and told Martin Harris, “No.”  Martin Harris could have not succumbed to the temptation to break his promise to not show the manuscript to unauthorized individuals.  God’s omniscience foresaw these circumstances and so He prepared another way several millennium earlier. 

God is constrained by the acts of men, meaning that He works within men's agency.  We often say that if God wanted to He could override this or that but I think according to eternal laws though He is omnipotent he does not act outside of those constraints. He inspires a prophet to prepare a record that will be needed many years later.  That prophet chose to respond to the inspiration and “act.”  If he had not done that then I am sure God would have worked in another way within the “acts of men.”  

This underscores how inviolate the principle of individual agency is and painfully so.  We, as spiritual infants so much want God to intervene.  We want him to wave a magic wand and change things.  Yes miracles are performed but they are performed in the presence of men's faith (the acts of men) not just because God decides to exercise his power.   If miracles have ceased to exist it is because faith among men has ceased to exist.   (Mormon 9:18-20, Moroni Chapter7)  God’s purpose is to make us like Him and He can’t do that without allowing us our agency and the painful process of growth through experience.  Ouch!