Fair enough. If you feel you've answered the question, I'll consider it answered, and I won't ask again. So let's address what you've said here...
It matters not whether I say it or not—a being with no agency cannot possibly be blessed for choosing to obey! However, if you can produce any single, solitary shred of evidence to suggest that our agency was the reward for properly exercising agency which God had not yet given us, I'd be interested in seeing it. As it stands, I accept that God gave me agency
before I used it to choose to obey him. That is in harmony with what Elder McConkie taught, and with what President Penrose taught in 1914 General Conference:
For man in spirit form, in his spirit nature, is an independent entity. It is an organized being a son of God or a daughter of God, as the case may be, and in the spirit birth he obtained not only an eternal organization, but power and intelligence by which he can determine and understand light from darkness, truth from error, and choose between that which is right and that which is wrong. In the Pearl of Great Price we read that God gave him that power. (Conference Report, 1914, p. 40)
Well, we can argue all day about what the scriptures
don't say, but I think we should look at what the scriptures
do say about how man got his agency:
D&C 107:78 states that God gave man his agency.
In Moses 4:3, God says that he gave man his agency.
In Moses 7:32 God says that He gave man his agency.
In D&C 29:35 God states that He gave unto man to be an agent unto himself.
In Helaman 14:31 Samuel teaches that God gives to men the choice between life and death (spiritual).
In Moses 3:17 God says to Adam that the power to choose to obey or disobey God's commandment is given him.
And what does the church teach about it? Let's see...
Your Heavenly Father
has given you agency
LDS.org - Support Materials Chapter - Agency
Moral agency (the freedom to act for good or evil) is a
gift from God to all mankind (see
Moses 6:56 ; see also
2 Nephi 2:27 ;
Helaman 14:30 ;
D&C 101:78 ).
Pearl of Great Price Teacher Manual - Religion 327 : Moses 6:48 - 56 - Enoch Preached the Plan of Salvation
Just what Paul might have had in mind may not be too clearly expressed in the translation that has come to us. That he taught that some men are destined to be damned must be rejected; likewise that some were predestined to be saved without a trial of their faith. Those who rejected the truth and rebelled were cast out with Lucifer because of the great
gift of free agency. (Joseph Fielding Smith,
Answers to Gospel Questions, 4:153)
The Life and Teachings of Jesus and His Apostles : 40 - Heirs of God, and Joint-Heirs With Christ
Our freedom can be limited by various conditions of mortality, but God’s
gift of agency cannot be limited by outside forces, because it is the basis for our accountability to him.
Eternal Marriage Student Manual : Same-Gender Attraction
Some of you have children who do not respond to you, choosing entirely different paths. Father in Heaven has repeatedly had that same experience. While some of His children have used His
gift of agency to make choices against His counsel, He continues to love them. Yet, I am sure, He has never blamed Himself for their unwise choices” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1993, 43; or
Ensign, May 1993, 34 ).
Eternal Marriage Student Manual : Parental Success
We have moral agency as a
gift of God.
Eternal Marriage Student Manual : Prophetic Counsel
Sure seems that the scriptures and the church teach that agency was a gift, not a reward. And that is in line with what other prophets and apostles have taught, and with what the church currently publishes on the matter.
But again, all that said, if you've got some quote someplace which contradicts all the scriptural and doctrinal support for agency being a gift, and which indicates clearly that we obeyed one of God's laws in order to be blessed with the ability to obey God's laws—now's the time to produce it. Heaven knows I've asked enough times for it!
Look, the conundrum is yours, not mine.
You're the one suggesting that we obeyed a law to receive the ability to obey laws, not I. If you're having trouble wrapping your mind around that, I really do sympathize. But don't blame the LDS church or its leaders or scriptures, for that certainly isn't
our doctrine!
I have never argued otherwise.