Scott's Sunday Thought - The Natural Man

In elders quorum we talked about Mosiah 3:19 and the idea of a "natural man" being an enemy to God. The instructor asked us what we thought that meant. The first thought that came to my mind was of Commander Data from Star Trek: Nemesis. The crew of the enterprise discover another android that had been constructed by Dr. Tsung previous to Data's construction. He reported that the name he had been given was "B4". Anyway, B4 was an early prototype for Data and thus was not as advanced in his abilities. He is like Adam and Eve in the garden - he's a little kid who kind of stumbles around not really growing, progressing, or increasing in understanding, remaining in a perpetual state of innocence. At one point in the movie, Data is speaking with Captain Picard and they are discussing what it means to be human. Data compares himself to B4 and says that while he (Data) tries to improve on his own nature--become more than he is--B4 does not.

That gave me a thought on why a "natural man" is an enemy to God. A natural man is one who allows himself to be governed by the most basic, primal, and natural instincts and motives. He does not seek any kind of higher form of life; he, like B4, does not try to improve upon himself or become more than he is in his natural state. With this in mind, the scriptures teach us that God's work and glory are to "bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." Meeting such a goal required a plan which would allow us to learn through our own experience, choices, mistakes, and repentance how to be like God. A man who is content to grovel on the animal plain is a man who ignores his innate potential for something better, his inborn divinity, and the plan that his Father has so perfectly and mercifully laid out for him at such tremendous cost. Such a man is an enemy to God because such a man will never achieve that for which God has placed him here.