Common Consent
In the common-consent tradition, legitimate authority is treated as something mediated through collective assent rather than imposed unilaterally, so that governance remains answerable to those it binds.
Common consent is the theological conviction that any decision that's binding on a community requires the formal ratification of its members. In practice, it is manifested through the sustaining of leaders and the approval of actions by the uplifted hands of the congregation, ensuring that revelation mediated through appointed channels remains subject to the assent of those it governs. This practice articulates a distinct philosophy of legitimate authority: true governance moves through the conduit of agreement, never around it.
Governed by Assent
Modern revelation makes consent a condition of valid action. “All things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith” (D&C 26:2). No calling stands without the sustaining vote of the general membership, and members reserve the right to withhold assent. This reflects the deeper warning of Doctrine and Covenants 121, which asserts that authority collapses the moment it resorts to control and compulsion.
We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion. Hence many are called, but few are chosen. No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned.”
Consent is the operational safeguard against the abuse of power. It creates a reciprocal bond between the leader and the governed, ensuring that agency is preserved. When a bishop, a stake president, or an apostle is called, the calling is presented to the body of the Church, and members are asked to raise their hands in support, or, if they cannot in good conscience do so, to make that known. The same pattern recurs each April and October when the whole Church sustains the First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, and other general officers of the Church.
The Architecture of Agency
In ordination and sustaining practices, the community is invited to respond openly to a proposed calling, reinforcing the idea that legitimacy depends on assent that can be withheld rather than on silent compliance.
The tradition's narrative of a premortal council centers on the defense of agency against a plan of compelled obedience. A community governed by consent models that exact cosmic commitment, distributing power so that legitimacy is derived upward from the people as much as it is delegated downward from Deity. This paradigm resonates deeply with modern aspirations for decentralized governance and transparent systems that mandate the participation of those they affect. Critically examined, the principle of common consent exhibits a notable divergence from its theoretical framework. Visible opposition is statistically rare, leading internal and external observers to interpret the sustaining vote as a ritual of cohesion rather than a functional restraint on leadership. The theological integrity of this principle, however, does not rely on perpetual friction; it rests on the latent capacity for dissent remaining structurally viable.
Consent Among New Minds
Institutions increasingly govern through automated systems, and the day may come when artificial minds join the social collective as agents in their own right. Common consent offers a resilient ethical framework for that eventuality: authority over intelligent beings should answer to those beings, and no arrangement should bind participants who had no voice in it. That framework, however, raises a question it does not by itself answer: which artificial agents, if any, possess the kind of standing that makes withholding consent meaningful? A thermostat and a hypothetical self-aware mind are not the same kind of participant, and common consent as a governing principle presupposes something akin to personhood—an interior capacity for assent and dissent—not mere functional participation in a system. Mormon Transhumanism does not need to resolve this question in advance, but a serious treatment of the subject should acknowledge it: extending the vote too casually to every automated process would empty the practice of meaning, while withholding it too readily from a genuinely new form of consciousness would repeat the very error common consent exists to prevent.
See also: Accountability, Agency, Covenant, Ethics, Justice, Responsibility