This essay, though perhaps very complex at points, demonstrates how it is possible to be exactly obedient to “God’s” commandments (yet perhaps in way that tradition will likely only see as “disobedience”). One implicit critical question that is raised is how important are the written laws of God—even when these written commands can license one to not obey all of God’s commandments with exactness. On one hand, writing as essay like this causes me to want to go into a religious context to see how such an understanding will play out; yet, on the other hand, after writing an essay like this I find myself wondering—what difference would it make.
Historical Consciousness
A significant point in my evolution of understanding and applying the correct ideas of God to my life was when I realized that I was over-obedient. This occurred at the beginning of my 2-year Mormon mission. To correct my method of over-obedience I appropriated the idea that there was “a letter of the law and a spirit of the law.” I hence understood that the reason I had become over-obedient was because I was only focused on keeping the written letter of God’s laws. In juxtaposition, the spirit of the law understood that although it was written in the letter of the law, “though shalt not do this or that . . .,” in the practice of applying these written letters of the law there were times that the letters of the law could be consciously disobeyed to fulfill a higher or more important commandment or divine purpose.
Reconstructing the Past
Now I realize that some Mormon’s will productively discredit such a realization. They will claim that in obeying the spirit of the law, as I have outlined above, the written letter of the law should never be disobeyed. In this view, to disobey one rule to obey another rule is not to disobey. Therefore, if I was to claim that I realized on my mission that I could ignore or disregard God’s written laws that would not be exactly correct. Hence, to “disobey” to obey a higher and more important rule is not disobedience but a more complex obedience. And, moreover, if in obeying a more important rule such a rule was written as a “letter of the law,” my realization that there is a spirit of the law looses its efficacy because I was, in this reconstructed view, obedient to the written letter of the law—not the spirit—even if for some time I assumed there was a spirit of the law in addition to the letter of the law. Therefore, from this perspective, my realization that there was a spirit of the law and a letter of the law was more so a realization that I didn’t understand the written law. Hence, my over-obedience, as I reflect on it from my new horizon of understanding, was more accurately a beginning assertion that I didn’t understand the written letter of the law enough to understanding how to avoid being over-obedient to a misunderstanding of the written letter of the law.
Although I once discredited this alternative view, I have come to value it as a more accurate view of the possibility of a spirit of the law because it seems to more accurately describe the type of religious based intellectual liberation I experience when I realized that there was a spirit of the law in addition to the written letter of the law. Meaning that when I realized that there was a spirit of the law in addition to the letter of the law I did not realize that my actions could exceed the written laws of God understood in a more robust and thorough ever-expanding unity.
As such, the development in my method of being obedient to all of God’s commandments with exactness—which led to over-obedience—was not and should not be classified as a mere picking and choosing of what commandments I desired to follow because it was convenient for a particular relative purpose at a particular point in time. Moreover, nor was this evolved method of obedience and its development into over-obedience the result of disobedience or consciously rebelling against God’s commandments. It was in a desire and application of being obedient to all of God’s commandments with exactness that I experienced severe negative emotions. And, it was in realizing that my method of being obedient to all of God’s commandments with exactness was part of the epicenter of my severe negative emotions that I understood that my growing understanding of God’s method of being obedient was in need of further understanding. Hence, my lifestyle which grew out of this experience of realizing that my method of being obedient to all of God’s commands with exactness, which method still desires to remain obedient to all of “God’s” laws with exactness, was not a lifestyle of picking and choosing what to follow but rather the result of a more wise more robust thorough understanding of what God desired for my method of exact obedience to his laws (in whatever form these laws manifested themselves).
In other words, post realizing that there was a spirit of the law in addition to a written letter of the law, my righteous method of desiring to be obedient to all of God’s commandments (which came from my understanding of “God’s” written commandments) evolved to understand some of its contingencies. Two such contingencies that presupposed one’s being exactly obedient to all of “God’s” commandments are: first, that in applying the method of being exactly obedient to all of God’s commandments, “it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength” (Mosiah 4:27), and secondly, as “God” further claims, when applying the method of being exactly obedient to all of God’s commandments, “It is not meat that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant” (D&C 58:26). Thus, when “God” claims that to serve him righteously you aught to serve him with, “all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day [emphasis added]” (D&C 4:2), an understanding and application of this method of obedience should not allow one to feel “compelled” to be obedient and also not be more obedient than they have strength to be obedient. Similarly, the same contingencies apply to the imperative that we aught to obey all of God’s commandments with “exactness” as did the Ammonites in The Book of Mormon did and as we must do if we like them wish to received the blessings of the God to be protected from the evil powers that surround us (Alma 57:21, Bednar). In other words, to realize that I was overly obedient was also to realize that I misunderstood the letter of the law to which I was being obedient too—which partly governed my method of obedience. Had I better understood what God desired for me in the written letter of his laws, I would have likewise possibly been able to see that it was possible to become over-obedient to obeying God’s. Because, if it was possible for man to, “run faster than he has strength,” and was additionally possible for, while running faster that one has strength, to feel unwisely “commanded” and hence “compelled” in all things it would also have been possible for me to understand that consciously not following all of God’s rules with exactness is not disobedience—that is, in the right context.
Put another way, before my mission it was possible for me to understand that if in obeying God’s commandments I started “running faster than I had strength” or started feeling unwisely “compelled” or forced in my exact obedience to all of God’s commandments, it was also possible for me to understand how not obeying all of God’s commandments with exactness could still be obeying the letter of the law—and hence was not disobedience.
Non-conclusion Conclusion
Therefore, to sum up where I have arrived in the last few paragraphs I assert that according to a thorough understanding of “God’s” holy scriptures there are times when disobedience (meaning not obeying all of God’s commandments with exactness) is exact obedience if such behavior derives from a reconstructed experience of honestly trying to be obedient to all of God’s commandments with exactness. Hence, if in honestly trying to be obedient to all of God’s commandments with exactness such a person starts experiencing their method of exact obedience negatively or as someone who is compelled or forced or “running faster than they have strength”—such people can obediently, because it is according to the letter of God’s law, not strictly obey all of God’s laws with exactness. As paradoxical as this righteousness may seem contradictory it cannot be classified as “disobedience” if it manifests itself in the right context. This “right” context for which righteousness could righteously not be obedient to all of God’s commandments with exactness would be when it grows out of the process of desiring to be exactly obedient to all of God’s commandments after one has realized that they feel compelled and/or realize that they are running faster than they have strength in the way they are experiencing being obedient to their understanding of God’s commandments.
Works Cited
Bednar, David A. “Receive the Holy Ghost.” 2010 General Conference; The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed March 8 2011 at: http://lds.org/general-conference/2010/10/receive-the-holy-ghost?lang=eng&query=exactness
Smith, Joseph. The Book of Mormon. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed March 8 2011 at:
-Mosiah 4:27: http://classic.scriptures.lds.org/en/mosiah/4/27a
Smith, Joseph. Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Accessed March 8 2011 at:
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