How so? Paul says



This seems like the exact opposite of your position. You say Paul knew about covetousness instinctively. He says he would not have known it unless the law had said, "You shall not covet."

What am I missing here?



I agree with this.



I disagree with this. Paul said he wouldn't have known covetousness except the law said, "You shall not covet."



Yes, but they're all wrong. It's only through "Bible study and prayer," to use your expression, that the cause can be correctly identified. The way I would put it is that spiritual things are spiritually discerned, so only by the Spirit of God can the cause be correctly identified. What is the cause for their misery? Not knowing Christ. The sins are simply an outward manifestation of the real cause of their misery.



First of all, your use of the word "instinctively " is too facile. People know things by a combination of genetics and environment. It's very difficult to distinguish between the two, and only God could apportion them correctly, but there's no doubt that both instinct and learning are involved.

Secondly, your point would equally apply to the first four commandments (excluding the Sabbath). People know that using God's name in vain is wrong. People know it's wrong not to acknowledge God and to be thankful to him. Paul makes this point in Romans 1.

So there's no reason to make a distinction between the first four commandments and the last six (except for the fourth, which is clearly unique).

The law spoke to him in several different ways - 1) through every fiber and function of his being, 2) through his parents, and 3) through the Bible. Again, here is how she describes the first of these ways:

EV 265
God has written His law upon every nerve and muscle, every fiber and function of the human body. {Ev 265.4}

OHC 266
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}

TE 213
All nature expresses the law of God, but in our physical structure Jehovah has written His law with His own finger upon every thrilling nerve, upon every living fiber, and upon every organ of the body. {Te 213.5}

In Romans 7 Paul is describing the spiritual aspects of the law. This aspect didn't dawn on him until later on. Listen:

SC 29
Paul says that as "touching the righteousness which is in the law"--as far as outward acts were concerned --he was "blameless" (Philippians 3:6); but when the spiritual character of the law was discerned, he saw himself a sinner. Judged by the letter of the law as men apply it to the outward life, he had abstained from sin; but when he looked into the depths of its holy precepts, and saw himself as God saw him, he bowed in humiliation and confessed his guilt. He says, "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Romans 7:9. When he saw the spiritual nature of the law, sin appeared in its true hideousness, and his self-esteem was gone. {SC 29.3}


Again, he knew it because of the fruit it produced, namely, he felt miserable. Plus, he knew it because his parents told him from the time he was old enough to comprehend it. But in cases where people haven't been told about the 10th commandment they are still able to put two and two together, that is, they know from experience that coveting something that's not theirs to have makes them feel miserable. No one has to read about it in the Bible before they come to this conclusion, as if learning about it in the Bible is what makes them feel miserable. They feel miserable because that's how God designed them. Surely you agree with this insight?


True, most secular books do not teach that the reason people feel miserable when they covet what's not theirs to have is because God designed them that way. But they correctly teach that coveting makes people feel miserable. Do you agree?


I agree. But this is true whether they realize it or not. The reason they are able to identify covetousness as the cause of their misery is because the Holy Spirit is wooing them.


True, not knowing and abiding in Jesus makes us miserable. But so does covetousness. Are you saying covetousness is one of the inevitable fruits of not knowing Jesus? Are all non-believers covetous by default?


I'm glad you agree.


How do they know? If both instinct and learning are required, as you observed above, how would they know the truth about God if they hadn't read about Him in the Bible? Can they learn about God through the natural world? If so, please cite a tribe that correctly concluded the truth about God through studying nature alone. Most tribes have concluded there are many gods, and they are terrified of them. Listen as Sister White talks about it:

CG 47
Only in the light that shines from Calvary can nature's teaching be read aright. {CG 47.3}

SC 10
God has bound our hearts to Him by unnumbered tokens in heaven and in earth. Through the things of nature, and the deepest and tenderest earthly ties that human hearts can know, He has sought to reveal Himself to us. Yet these but imperfectly represent His love. Though all these evidences have been given, the enemy of good blinded the minds of men, so that they looked upon God with fear; they thought of Him as severe and unforgiving. Satan led men to conceive of God as a being whose chief attribute is stern justice,--one who is a severe judge, a harsh, exacting creditor. He pictured the Creator as a being who is watching with jealous eye to discern the errors and mistakes of men, that He may visit judgments upon them. It was to remove this dark shadow, by revealing to the world the infinite love of God, that Jesus came to live among men. {SC 10.3}

Only the spiritual aspects of the law matter. This is all I've ever been talking about. If a person keeps the law in a spiritual manner, all is well. If he doesn't, he is condemned.

So we are agreed then that from a spiritual standpoint it is not the case that people know the last six commandments instinctively?



This is what I've been saying all along, from my very first post on the subject. I'm glad *you* agree!

The whole time I've been arguing against a theory that says:

a.The first four commandments are learned.
b.The last six are instinctive.

My position has been (again, starting from my first post on this subject) that commandments from both tables (with the Sabbath being a special case) involve both instinct and learning.

SC 29
Paul says that as "touching the righteousness which is in the law"--as far as outward acts were concerned --he was "blameless" (Philippians 3:6); but when the spiritual character of the law was discerned, he saw himself a sinner. Judged by the letter of the law as men apply it to the outward life, he had abstained from sin; but when he looked into the depths of its holy precepts, and saw himself as God saw him, he bowed in humiliation and confessed his guilt. He says, "I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." Romans 7:9. When he saw the spiritual nature of the law, sin appeared in its true hideousness, and his self-esteem was gone. {SC 29.3}


Correct. No one knows instinctively that the law condemns sinners and that if they do not repent they will be resurrected, judged, and punished in proportion and in duration to their sinfulness in the lake of fire.

I'm glad we agree, but this isn't what I've been sharing. Again, here is what I believe:

1. People are born with the law of God written on every nerve and function of their physical being.

2. People know instinctively that dishonoring their parents, murder, adultery, stealing, lying, and coveting makes them feel miserable.

3. People feel miserable violating the first four commandments but they cannot identify the cause or source until they learn about it through Bible study and prayer.

And, the reason I have been sharing these insights is to say it is impossible to violate the second half of God's law without realizing it makes them feel miserable and is, therefore, morally wrong. Sins of ignorance can only apply to the first half of the law.

Ok, good, because this is what I've been speaking of when I've been saying that it is not the case that the last six commandments are known instinctively.



Well, this is a different subject. You could open a thread to discuss this.



Ok, so when you've been speaking about the last six commandments being known instinctively, you've been thinking in a non-spiritual sense.



This would be spiritual, though, wouldn't it? So we can throw this out.



What you are asserting here, it seems to me, is that people know that when they do certain things, like coveting, that doing so makes them miserable. They know they are miserable if they do any of the things included in the last six commanments, but they don't know they are miserable if they do any of the things in the first four commandments. This is what you're saying, right?



This seems to contradict Romans 1, where Paul says that people are condemned because they are not thankful to God.



This implies that anything that makes you feel miserable is morally wrong. Do you really believe this to be the case?



This seems worthy of a thread. I'll see if there's any interest in discussing this.

No. They sense an emptiness, which makes them feel miserable, but they are unable to identify why, nor can they articulate what the source of their misery and emptiness is. IOW, they could not say, The reason I'm miserable is because I have other gods.

But you would say that this doesn't apply to the last six commandments, right? That is, if they covet they have a sense an emptiness, which makes them feel miserable, which they could identify: "I feel miserable because I covet!"

Some questions and comments.

1.Paul says he wouldn't have known covetousness if not for the law. So it's not something he knew by instinct.

2.Even if it were granted that people could identify their miserableness as being due to coveting, what makes you think this is something instinctive as opposed to learned?

3.You assumption that people cannot identify why they feel empty if their emptiness is due to the first 4 commandments looks to be contradicted:



This says they suppress the truth, that they know of God's divine nature, and that the reason that they know the truth is because God has made it plain to them.

4.The difficulty I've seen with your position the whole time is you make two (what look to me to be) artificial and unfounded assumptions for which you offer no proof in saying that men know the last 6 commandments instinctively but not the first 4.

The first is to want to make a clean separation between instinct and learning. The truth is that what man knows is a combination of instinct and learning.

The second is to make a distinction between the first 4 commandments and the last 6.

I haven't seen any evidence presented for either of these ideas.

Again, people are born with the law of God written upon every nerve and function. That's the proof. We both agree with this inspired insight. Where we disagree is whether or not people can instinctively identify the cause of what makes them feel miserable. We both agree it requires both instinct and learning. You make no distinction between the first and second half of the law (excluding the Sabbath commandment). What I'm not clear on is why you think people know naturally the first three commandments. How do they arrive at these truths?

If the statement said people were born with the last table of the law of God written upon every nerve and function, that would be evidence. As it is, the statement is evidence against your position, as it includes both tables of the law, whereas you only include one.



This is something you just introduced recently. For either commandments in the first or second table a person will have some instinctive knowledge that what they are doing is wrong, and some learned. It's simplistic to say for the last table the causes are 100% identifiable instinctively.

Polygamy is an example that this isn't the case. People seem not to know instinctively this is wrong. Also living with someone without being married. It would seem absurd to assert that one would know this is wrong, since that would imply one knows by instinct what marriage is. Surely marriage is something one learns about.



From the SOP statement that the law is written on every nerve and function. Also from Romans 1, which I've already quoted several times.

Let me clarify what I believe. I believe the law of God, all ten commandments, including the fourth, is written upon every fiber and function of our being from conception. People instinctively feel bad when their life is in any way not in harmony with all ten of the commandments, including the fourth.


People are born with an instinctive need for a monogamous relationship. True, they are not born with an instinctive need to get married in a church, or in accordance with one of the many different cultural customs. People also instinctively know it is wrong to have more than one wife when the situation doesn't demand it.


Please cite an example of people arriving at these truths who have never read the Bible, whose beliefs cannot be traced back to biblical truths. Thank you.