I once asked a sage I know, \u201cDo Mormons believe the nature of man is good or evil?\u201d
\nHe answered, \u201cYes.\u201d How wonderful, how zenny, how true.
\n
\nThe Gospel is full of paradoxes. Why should this matter be any different? While we teach that we are not to be punished for Adam\u2019s (or anyone else\u2019s) transgressions, we also teach that \u201cthe natural man is an enemy to God.\u201d The term \u201coriginal sin\u201d is not used in Mormon nomenclature. There are conditions of our mortality that have made our human experience conflicted. Here are two of my favorite scriptures on this topic:<\/p>\n
For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father (Mosiah 3:19)<\/p>\n
\u2026to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would, I do not; but the evil which I would not, that I do\u2026.For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind\u2026Oh wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord\u2026Romans 7:18-25.<\/p>\n
I sense in at least the culture of Mormonism the assumption that humans are good by nature and the freedom to choose doing “good” over doing \u201cevil\u201d is what eventually will “prove” our worthiness. (Yes, I’m being a little provocative here.) The Romans passage especially resonates with my experience, with my recognition that my best efforts are always flawed, with my frustration, awe and gratitude. <\/p>\n
Accepting the given that Christ\u2019s grace makes up for our lack, why then are we (especially in the scriptures) prone to divide people into \u201crighteous\u201d and \u201cwicked.\u201d Where did the idea come from that obedience (not love) is the first law of heaven? Our critics claim we stress morality to a fault \u2013 faith without works may be dead, but works without a loving faith? Where does that get us? Did I really read an Ensign article making it sound is if the unconditional love of God is in fact conditional on our obedience\u2026which apparently by the nature of our human condition is impossible for us by dint of will.<\/p>\n
Gospel living is more than a dint of will, duty, effort, a Sisyphean exercise to be obedient enough. Here\u2019s a C.S. Lewis quote whose tone I\u2019d love to hear in more talks over LDS pulpits:<\/p>\n
Morality is indispensable; but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be re-made. All the rabbit in us is to disappear \u2013 the worried, conscientious, ethical rabbit as well as the cowardly and sensual rabbit. We shall bleed and squeal as the handfuls of fun come out; and then, surprisingly, we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real Man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise beautiful, and drenched in joy.<\/p>\n
As long as our watchword is \u201cstrive\u201d instead of \u201csurrender\u201d will we ever understand that kind of Divine Life?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I once asked a sage I know, \u201cDo Mormons believe the nature of man is good or evil?\u201d He answered, \u201cYes.\u201d How wonderful, how zenny, how true.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-496","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy-and-theology"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10381"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}