A Pure Heart and a Pure Mind: Reconciling the Law of Chastity and the Natural Man Part II

After I night and half a day of thinking I finally figured out where I want this series to go. So here we go with the second part of this reconciliation:

Who is the Natural Man?

Now any person who has spent any time in some sort of Book of Mormon class, whether that is Sunday School, Seminary, or Institute, has probably heard the verse found in the 3rd chapter of Mosiah, given to us by King Benjamin in the first recorded General Conference on the American Continent which says: 

19 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. 

Taken from this verse the natural man is an "enemy to God" or you could say the opposite of God. God is good, therefore the natural man is bad. God is honest and pure, therefore the natural man is deceitful and corrupted. You get the idea. It is often taught that because of this we tend to assume that within each of us there are two warring factions, the spirit and the flesh. The spirit being our good side and our flesh being the evil side.

In order to become a saint, all one has to do is "put off" the natural man (whatever that's supposed to mean) or the evil, carnal, physical parts of me. Sounds simple enough, what are some of the things that the natural man desires? All I need to do is get rid of those in my life and I'm good. Let's list some of those desires: food, water, warmth, shelter, sex, survival, friendship, love, peace, hope, belonging. Wait, those ones at the beginning make sense, but how do you explain that last half? Those all sound like things that the spirit wants, not things that are commonly attributed to a natural man. 

Because of certain beliefs from the dark ages that still are a part of us today, we are stuck on the idea that somehow the body and the spirit are two separate entities. They are in fact one being, a whole person or soul. Before we received a body we were not a complete being and after we die and lose our body we are again incomplete. It is only when we are united body and spirit in all aspects of life that we are truly complete.

That I feel is the great fallacy of our time, that these two entities are always opposed to each other and at constant war over who is in control of the person as a whole. To me that doesn't make any sense, we have been sent down here by God to receive a body and to have our faith and resolve tested. The body that we have received is one of the most precious gifts that God has given us, remember we had to earn it and not all of His children managed to do that. If the body is really so great, glorious, and a precious gift of God, then why it is also the source of trouble and sin in our life?

A man much wiser than I am once explained it this way:

"You are always dragging me down,' said I to my Body. 'Dragging you down!' replied my Body. 'Well I like that! Who taught me to like tobacco and alcohol? You, of course, with your idiotic adolescent idea of being "grown up." My palate loathed both at first: but you would have your way. Who put an end to all those angry and revengeful thoughts last night? Me, of course, by insisting on going to sleep. Who does his best to keep you from talking too much and eating too much by giving you dry throats and headaches and indigestion? Eh?' 'And what about sex?' said I. 'Yes what about it?' retorted the Body. 'If you and your wretched imagination would leave me alone I'd give you no trouble. That's Soul all over; you give me orders and then blame me for carrying them out."

--C.S. Lewis

Those things we tend to call "weaknesses of the flesh" are many times actually the weaknesses of our spirits. They just tend to be something that requires the use of a body in order to actually perform the act. While he did write it in the form of body and soul talking with each other, the true man, the complete man, it one with a body and a soul. Therefore, we cannot just separate them and call it good. They must be together for any of this to happen.

So back to my official title of this post, "Who is the Natural Man?" He is the part of our being, both of our body and our spirit, that is not like God. He is the reason I need to be tested, the reason I need to grow and improve, the reason I need to be perfected through the Atonement of Christ. That is the true natural man, he is in each of us, but he doesn't have to stay there.

Again if you have insights for me, please feel free to leave comments (I am not a being with a perfect understanding of all things). I'd love to hear from any/all of you and what you think.

A Pure Heart and A Pure Mind: Reconciling the Law of Chastity and the Desires of the Natural Man Part 1

As a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have taught about and been taught about the various doctrines and beliefs of the church more times than I could ever wish to count. As might be expected of other churches, many of these teachings involve such things as being a good person, doing good acts, and treating others right.

One of the hardest of these commandments to fully understand for me as well as other people I've talked to is known as the Law of Chastity. For those of you not familiar with this particular Law of God, it involves one of the most sacred and influential acts a human being can perform, sexual intimacy. The reason that it is one of the hardest to understand is that it is one of the few with conditions. What do I mean by conditions? It means that some of the provisions and commandments that are part of this law are only in effect during certain stages of life, and in others it doesn't affect you as much. So unlike the commandments such as, "Thou shalt not steal," which is pretty straight forward, it is hard to know exactly what is acceptable by someone striving to follow the Law of Chastity.

We as human beings are constantly looking for restrictions and limits, sometimes we are looking for them in order to push the envelope and discover new things. Other times we look for the limits in order to know where we should not go. A video released by the church in the last few years explains about this concept, with a specific focus on the law of chastity. (You can find it HERE.)

I, like many others, have struggled with finding limits of the the Law of Chastity. I haven't had any of the problems as far as the physical acts of violation go, my main problems have been within my own self, my thoughts and desires. Here's an example, I like girls, I think girls are pretty, hot, cute, beautiful, and all of those other adjectives that are used to describe their attractiveness. They are nice to look upon, they are nice to think about, they are nice to be around, they are nice to associate with, they are nice to attempt to flirt with, and they smell nice too. I am commanded to try and find one of these beautiful creatures, court her, and then marry her, so that I might receive a fullness of joy in the life to come.

Now here's the main question that I've had as far as striving to keep the Law of Chastity is concerned. As a man, who likes women, who thinks that they are pretty, who likes to "check" them out, I'll often find myself looking at one and thinking, "Wow, she's got a nice looking butt (or thighs, or calves, can you tell I'm a leg guy?)." It's at this point that the little voice inside my head that keeps me on the right path chimes in, "Hey now Brian, that's something that the natural man would say and you're not supposed to be one of those. You should be better."

The fact that girls are attractive, I have been told, is a God-given blessing. Not one person I've ever met has ever wanted to date or marry someone that they weren't in at least some way attracted to. So at what point does this God-given attraction become a problem? When does thinking, "this person I like has really pretty eyes/smile/hair/legs," turn into a violation of the Law? It says on this topic in the booklet For The Strength Of Youth: 

“Before marriage, do not do anything to arouse the powerful emotions that must be expressed only in marriage. Do not participate in passionate kissing, lie on top of another person, or touch the private, sacred parts of another person’s body, with or without clothing. Do not allow anyone to do that with you. Do not arouse those emotions in your own body” (For the Strength of Youth [pamphlet, 2001], 27).

This statement seems to refer mainly to the physical acts that are violations of the Law of Chastity. You could maybe interpret the last line, "Do not arouse those emotions in you own body," as a reference to thoughts, but even then there is still a physical act that most people refer to when they think of this part.

It still leaves the questions in my mind of if this attraction is truly God-given, when does it become too much?

Well, I was hoping to have come up with an answer at this point. Apparently it hasn't happened yet and now I'm drawing a blank as to where I should take this next. Looks like this is going to become a series instead of a single post. Good thing there's more sessions of conference in order for me to get this all figured out. Maybe some of you readers will have some insights as well, leave some comments and I may even quote you in the following parts of this series.