We often say that free agency is the freedom to make choices but not to choose the consequences of those choices. The problem with this concept of free agency is that there are really very few unique decisions. That is, there are few decisions that we make that are not, to a large extent, determined by previous decisions.
Life is a series of choices and our choice to follow after righteousness is a cumulative one. Consider the following, if sin does indeed make us dead to righteousness, or rather, if the consequences of one decision alters your nature such that all subsequent decisions are tainted by that experience (think of chemical dependence or decisions that jade or disillusion someone) then are we totally free only for as long as don't make any decisions? If free agency is only the ability to choose, but provides no protection from consequences then I would argue we are only really free once, on our first choice. Every choice thereafter is colored by the choices we made before so it would seem that the older we get, the more choices we make, the less freedom we actually have to choose.
Wordsworth wrote of this phenomenon when he wrote Ode to Intimations of Immortality, "There was a time...when every common sight to me did seem appareled in celestial light...It is not now as it has been of yore;...the things I which I have seen I now can see no more."
In religion we talk about it as the consequences of sin. Our sins make us dead to righteousness.
In every day talk, we call it jaded, cynical, discouragement, untrusting, a grudge, revenge, hate, misery, and the desire that all become as miserable as the you. All those feelings that separate you from feeling close to the divine.
It appears to me, the real gift of agency, comes not as a single premortal endowment or inherent gift to the individual but rather in its application to the day to day disillusionment that would otherwise sweep away any ability for us to choose righteousness.
In the secular world, I believe this is what is meant by living in the moment. The ability to act without the weight of past decisions depressing our spirits or clouding our future.
In the religious world we call this repentance and it is the great news of the gospel. We do not have to be captive to our past decisions. We can live above the reality we experience. And that truly is a gift.
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