PS - I'm going to be away again for awhile. See ya when I get back.

Tom, you seem to be saying Paul did not understand the 10th commandment before his conversion. As a learned Pharisee, what did he think it meant? It's hard to believe he was totally clueless. What changed just before he was converted? Certainly he was aware of the law before his conversion. The question is - At what point was he cognizant of it, namely, aware that covetousness is debilitating?

The following passages reiterate the idea I've been espousing, that people are born with a moral knowledge of what is right and wrong as defined by the last six commandments:

"God has written His law upon every nerve and muscle, every fiber and function of the human body. {Ev 265.4}

"His law is written by His own finger upon every nerve, every muscle, every fiber of our being, upon every faculty which has been entrusted to man. {OHC 266.2}

"As through Christ every human being has life, so also through Him every soul receives some ray of divine light. Not only intellectual but spiritual power, a perception of right, a desire for goodness, exists in every heart. (RC 106)

"The human mind is endowed with power to discriminate between right and wrong. (DA 458)

"Every careless, inattentive action, any abuse put upon the Lord's wonderful mechanism, by disregarding His specified laws in the human habitation, is a violation of God's law. wonderful. {CD 17.2}

Paul would have been aware of the sinfulness of selfish, sinful desires. No one is ignorant of the fact such desires are destructive and counterproductive. From a very early age people are able to put two and two together, realizing that coveting the things other people have, knowing they cannot have it without taking it by force, makes them feel lousy.

"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's." {PP 309.4}

"The tenth commandment strikes at the very root of all sins, prohibiting the selfish desire, from which springs the sinful act. He who in obedience to God's law refrains from indulging even a sinful desire for that which belongs to another will not be guilty of an act of wrong toward his fellow creatures. {PP 309.5}

MM, Paul said he would not have not known covetousness if it weren't for the commandment which said, "Thou shalt not covet." How do get from this the idea that Paul didn't understand the 10th commandment before his conversion?



This one doesn't. It is no way distinguishes between the first 4 and last 6 commandments.



Nor this one, for the same reason. Ditto for the next 2.



This may be your opinion, MM, but it doesn't agree with what Paul actually said himself, right? Paul said:



This is pretty much the exact opposite of your idea, isn't it?

I don't know why you quoted PP 309.

Anyway, none of the statements you quoted in any way supports your assertion that the last 6 commandments are instinctive and the first 4 ones aren't, right? Take this one, for example:



Wouldn't you have to interpret "His law" as "the last table of His law" in order to agree with your idea?

Tom, my question to you is - At what point in Paul's life was he aware of the debilitating affects of covetousness?

Also, I agree with you that the quotes I posted do not differentiate between the two tables of the law. But they do clearly teach that the law of God is written within us from birth. Reality teaches us which commandments are known from birth without having to read them in the Bible.

"debilitating affects of covetousness". What is this?

Paul said he would not have known covetousness if not for the law. Isn't this the direct opposite of what you've been saying?



This hasn't been disputed. What's under dispute is your theory that the first 4 commandments are not instinctive but the last 6 are. Indeed, the quotes you presented, as well as your comments here, are further evidence against your theory.

People who covet things they can't have are miserable, it is debilitating. When did Paul realize coveting things he couldn't have was one of the sources of his debilitating unrest and unhappiness? When did he put two-and-two together, that is, when did he see in the law the relationship between coveting and feeling miserable? Was it before he became a Pharisee? Before he became an adult? Before he become a youth? Did he know it instinctively from birth? When?

The point of this thread is to address the question - Are we born again with uncrucified, cultivated sinful habits?

I'm not talking about sins of ignorance. In other words, I'm not talking about the fact many sincere believers are born again ignorant of the truth about Sabbath-keeping. Nobody knows from birth, nobody knows instinctively that the Son of God died on the cross to impress and empower believers to keep holy the Sabbath day, to avoid taking His name in vain, to avoid fashioning icons to represent Him.

However, everyone able person of sound mind and body knows instinctively from birth not to murder, not to steal, not to lie, not to commit adultery, not to dishonor their parents, and not to covet. These aspects of the law were written on every fiber of their being at conception.

True, not everyone can articulate this fact until after they see it in the Bible, nevertheless, they know they feel miserable when they violate anyone of them. That is, before they see it in the Bible they would not be able to say, "The reason I feel miserable when I do this or that is because it is forbidden in the law of God, because we were not designed to sin, to break the law of God."

I don't understand why you are asking all these questions about when Paul knew what regarding covetousness. My point was simply that Paul said that he would not have known covetousness if not for the law, which is directly contrary to what you've been saying, which is that he instinctively knew about it, since it's one of the last six commandments.



Not Paul!



The biggest flaw I perceive in your theory is the separation you make between the first 4 commandments and the last 6. For example, the quote you presented from EGW speaking of the law being in every fiber of our being makes no such distinction.

You are assuming Paul did not have the 10th commandment written on his heart and mind at conception and that that is why he knew the law forbade coveting. Paul was a Jew, thus, he knew about the 10th commandment from very early on.

Even if people cannot explain coveting violates the 10th commandment, they are, nevertheless, cognizant of the fact coveting makes them miserable. People are wired from conception to feel miserable when they covet, when they break any one of the 10Cs.

There is a difference, though, between the first 4 and last 6 commandments so far as people knowing instinctively what makes them miserable. IOW, they are not able to identify breaking the 4th commandment as a source of what makes them miserable. OTOH, they are instinctively aware coveting makes them miserable, even though they do not know why, even though they do not understand it's because they are violating one of God's commandments.

God designed us to feel bad and miserable whenever we violate one of His commandments. It matters not that people do not understand breaking the law is what makes them miserable.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm just taking Paul at his word. He said he would not have known coveting if not for the law.

This is diametrically opposed to your theory, right?

The rest of your post you simply reassert your ideas, but don't offer any proof. Why do you distinguish between the first 4 commandments and the last 6? The EGW quote you cited earlier includes all 10.

I, too, am taking Paul at his word. You seem to think, though, that he's not talking about knowing it instinctively, knowing by experience that coveting somehow breaks one of the commandments of life and living. You seem to think he's only referring to when he learned about it sometime later on in life, when he learned about it from his mother and father as a child.

I'm saying people realize coveting makes them miserable early on in life, before they learn about it through Bible study and prayer. True, they wouldn't know it except for the fact the law was written in every nerve and fiber of their physical and emotional being at conception and birth. Paul speaks of the law written in our flesh in the following passages:

"Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Rom 6:13. "I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." Verse 19.

"For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death." Rom 7:5. "But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." Verse 23. "So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." Verse 25.

I am also saying this fact is true of each one of the ten commandments - not just the last six. God designed us to feel bad and miserable whenever we violate one of His commandments. It matters not that people do not understand breaking the law of God is what makes them miserable.

In the case of feeling miserable because they are breaking the first half of the law, they are incapable of identifying the cause of their misery before learning about it through Bible study and prayer. But when they break the last half of the law, they are able to identify and articulate the behaviors that make them feel miserable. The shelves are full of secular books on the subject.

For example, people know naturally that dishonoring their parents makes them feel weird and miserable. People know instinctively that murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting are wrong and leave them feeling miserable when they fail to resist committing them. There is no shortage of worldly books and therapists to verify these findings and observations.