This is an old post from December of 2003. That's from back before I'd finished writing the blogging software and when posts were all on a single page. It's somewhat related to the embodiment post I've linked to a few times. This particular post is a consideration of the LDS notion of natural man. It's a term we find familiar in Paul's epistles, but is very pronounced in the speech of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon. A related post was just before and dealt with Paul's anthropology and the issue of spirits and identity. I'm including both here.
Over at the Times and Seasons Blog there was an interesting discussion by Jim Faulconer on Damnation which quickly led into a discussion of dualism in the scriptures and in Mormon rhetoric. The Book of Mormon is notoriously dualistic, speaking only in terms of damnation or salvation. Many wonder how to reconcile this to Mormon understanding of degrees of glory and being rewarded according to our works. Specifically I am thinking of scriptures like Alma's.
For that same spirit that doth possess your bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to posses your body in that eternal world. (Alma 34:34)
Alma 40:12-14 is even more explicit, adopting very dualistic imagery which admits only good and evil with no gradations in between. Now I don't want to focus on the doctrinal problem of degrees of righteousness verus a good/evil pure dichotomy. I don't think that is much of a problem. Further, as many have pointed out, while Mormons explicitly adopt an ontology of judgement which requires gradations, we speak in dualistic terms. Given that we do this it is a mistake to assume that the ancients couldn't do the same.
What I wish to focus in on is the meaning of this dualism. Specifically Alma's comments about "that same spirit that doth possess your bodies." What spirit is he speaking of? I do not think it is speaking of our "physical" spirits or spirit bodies. Rather I believe that spirit here means inclination. We still use that sense of spirit in our regular speech. We talk of "catching the spirit of the work," or "a spirit of disorder," or even "the spirit of the times." In such vague uses it means a general inclination or set of social intentions. It is that sense which I think characterizes the dualism in both the Book of Mormon and modern Mormonism.
What Benjamin calls the "natural man" is similar to what in Judaism was called the yetzer ra' or the evil inclination. The discussion in the Talmud is remarkably similar to many of the Book of Mormon passages most of us are familiar with. What is most interesting is how one passage in the Talmud shows how the dualism brings about a kind of degree.
It has been taught: R. Jose HaGalili says, The righteous are
swayed by their good inclination, as it says, My heart is slain within me.
The wicked are swayed by their evil inclination, as it says, Transgression
speaks to the wicked, I believe, there is no fear of God before his eyes.
Average people are swayed by both inclinations, as it says, Because He stands
at the right hand of the needy, to save him from them that judge his soul.
Raba said: People such as we are of the average.
Said Abaye to him: The Master gives no one a chance to live!
Raba further said: The world was created only for either the totally wicked or
the totally righteous.
Raba said: Let a man know concerning himself whether he is completely
righteous or not!
(Brachot 61b)
What is interesting is how this yetzer ra' or evil inclination is tied to an opposition in all things. That is, can good arise from evil, as in the LDS concept of the fall?
Nachman said, In the name of Rabbi Shmu'el: "and behold it was very good" (Gen. 1:31) refers to the YETZER RA'. But can the YETZER RA' be "very good"? Amazingly enough, yes-- were it not for the YETZER RA' no man would build a house, take a wife and father children, or engage in buisness; as Solomon said, "I considered all labor and excellence in work and concluded that it comes from a man's rivalry with his neighbor" (eccl. 4:4). (Gen. Rabbah 9:7)
I think that this notion of a general inclination underlies most Book of Mormon theology. Further I think that a lot of the theology of Alma in places like Alma 40-42 or Alma 34 is itself highly influenced by 2 Nephi 2 and 2 Nephi 9. I think as well that the "two churches" fits into this discussion of the two inclinations.
I introduce this topic because I think it has some important philosophical implications. However I hope to get to those an other day. One other link I wish to point out is an excellent discussion of Paul's "psychology" which I think actually parallels Mormon use of terms rather well.
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When we speak of spirit, we tend to be biased by the past few centuries where our culture has thought in terms of a Cartesian spirit completely "other" than our body. In a sense our body isn't "really" us, but this spirit it. Obviously Mormons don't accept the notion of a Cartesian mind or spirit, but we still are a product of our culture and I think that way of thinking can come naturally. While the Book of Mormon speaks of a spirit, I don't think it ever considers the body as something fundamentally separate the way Descartes or even Aquinas did.
A related issue is that of choosing. Clearly "we" (whatever that is) choose. But what do we choose? The typical way of speaking of this in modern discussions is in terms of specific states of affairs or actions. The Book of Mormon focus, at least as I read it, tends to be different. Rather than speaking of several unique choices, the choices are reduced to two: good or evil. We tend to think of individual "events" and then morally label them good or bad. And of course, that approach is natural and can be found to a degree in the Book of Mormon. However I think that the Book of Mormon fits more into the old debate over a "divided mind."
The article on Paul's "antropology" I mentioned above touched on these matters somewhat. In the ancient Hellenistic world a divided mind was a mind which oscillated back and forth between two views. To escape this we give our "god mind" reign. We are freed not from choice, but from our divide mind. Paul see himself beholden to the divine because the divine logos is working within him allowing him to act in a lawful fashion. This is actually an old Jewish notion, although clearly Paul is making use of some of the Hellenistic views of psychology of his time. (I notice a lot of Stoic notions, for instance) In his Epistle to the Romans in particular I think he makes use of this. There I think he makes a distinction between being ruled by the law in a primal way and those who see the law in a removed or secondary fashion.
To make an analogy it is the difference between trying to think about how you walk and see all the process you go through or simply walking as we naturally walk. If you have every tried to walk while thinking explicitly about how to walk, you know how difficult it is. Things you are able to do without "thinking" suddenly become laborious and difficult. Try it sometime.
Now one of the big teachings, especially by Alma, is the idea of a restoration. This is taught not only in Alma 11 but also in Alma 40 where all things are restored. The problem that's always appeared to me is one of repitition. I am never fully restored to the same place I once was. No matter what, I've had experiences in the meantime which change the "feel" of everything. I can never be 25 again the way I was at 25. When we speak of our fall in mimicking Adam, it seems that if we are restored, some effects of the fall aren't and can't be taken away. I'll always have the experiences of this life with me. Could I really return to the way things were without forgetting this life entirely? If I don't forget (and clearly the Book of Mormon doesn't think we do) how can I be restored?
Now to bring these things together, I halfway wonder if Heidegger's notion of embodiment won't help us. What is embodied actions? They are actions done in a natural way in which the distinction between us and the action are blurred. When I hammer with a hammer, assuming I'm proficient, I don't think about the hammer. The hammer becomes part of me. We are, in a real sense, one. I think when Paul talks of the law being written in our hearts, he is speaking of us being part of that law, the way the hammer is part of me or the way my car is part of me as I drive down the street. I embody the law and the law embodies me.
I think what this gets to is that our choice isn't a choice among things and our spirit is something far more than merely a spirit body. Rather our spirit ultimately is a kind of unity between us and the things we embody in a more holistic sense. This use can be confusing because, as I said, we're rather biased by our Cartesian culture. Further, within the church, we often use spirit as a short hand for "spirit body" meaning something more physical or ontological. Yet when I drive the car down the road I make no distinction between me and my body. It is all my spirit. Paul's view on choice might be for us to desire the good as the good and not merely a set of goods. We don't simply desire to know what God wants and then consciously choose that. Rather we want a kind of unity with God the way we have a unity with a car or a hammer when we're not conscious of a divide between us and them. We become, for God, a hammer.
The nature of that unity can be taken many ways. It might be habit of doing good in which we mentally work out the patterns of goodness. I think, however, that both Paul and the scriptures suggest something much deeper than that. I don't want to call Paul's teaching mystic, since I think that isn't helpful. Yet there is some action of the spirit as a physical indwelling that goes beyond what I think some limit it to.
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