Elder Oaks and Opposition

In April 2016, Elder Dallin H. Oaks gave a talk called, "Opposition in All Things".

Elder Oaks opens the talk by quoting from The Family: A Proclamation to the World: "The purpose of mortal life for the children of God is to provide the experiences needed 'to progress toward perfection and ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life.'"

There are a couple of phrases to note:
1. "Progress toward perfection" is not "achieve perfection" or "reach perfection."  This is something we are moving towards, as an end destination on a long journey, as if getting on the highway are the first steps on a long road trip.
2. "Ultimately realize their divine destiny as heirs of eternal life".
2a. In this phrase, the word "ultimately" suggests the possibility of a long time frame before this is realized.  Also, the use of the term "realized" is different than "achieved."  The wording could refer to something given or something earned, but is ambiguous, perhaps intentionally.
2b. The term "heirs of eternal life" hearkens back to New Testament teachings in Romans 8:17 and Revelation 3:21, that of reigning with God as joint-heirs with Christ, or sitting with God on His throne.  Such sitting does not refer to just taking a relaxing break, but refers to inheriting the rich reward of living God's life and participating in the divine work to bring about the eternal life and immortality of God's children.

This quotation further suggests that life is not a static nor passive experience; it is for progression, movement.  Elder Oaks refers to President Monson in teaching that, "We progress by making choices, by which we are tested to show that we will keep God's commandments."

In other words, how do we move forward?  By making choices which show (or are a type of test to show) that we will keep God's commandments.

Elder Oaks continues: "To be tested, we must have the agency to choose between alternatives.  To provide alternatives on which to exercise our agency, we must have opposition."

We can consider that agency is a necessary prerequisite for choice; if we are not able to choose, and either have only one option, or have only two options, one of which seems so repulsive as to be unthinkable, agency is not possible.  A world of only one choice, would annihilate agency.  Similarly, a world of pairs of choices, where one was always unthinkably bad, would also annihilate agency, as there would be only one legitimate choice.

And so Elder Oaks' final point in this paragraph is that to provide alternatives on which to exercise our agency (to make choices), we must have opposition.

If opposition is removed, our actions are no longer defined by agency.  Life takes on a completely different tone.

Consider a few examples:
1. What would it look like, for instance, if we only had one style of shirt or shoes to wear?
2. What if a restaurant menu had only one option?  What would be the point of a menu?
3. What if we had only one possible career path for us?

As our world includes agency, it includes choices and the opposition to make those choices real. Often, perhaps almost always, we are faced with more than two or three choices, and the choices are not typically good vs. bad, but are often between multiple good things, or multiple ambiguous things.

None of this is to excuse sin or destructive behavior, but we could take some comfort in knowing that choices are designed to be difficult, and that agency requires the best of us.  Part of the structural conditions of mortality are that we will make poor choices, we will make mistakes and sin and fall, but that such has not only been foreseen and had provisions made, but that such negative experiences are part of God's plan.  There must be contrasts for light, joy, peace, goodness, reconciliation, and truth to mean anything.