Read this over at Skip Moen’s website.
Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being. Genesis 2:7 NASB
Living Being – Will we ever get past Genesis? Probably not. The depth of this account of creation can hardly be plumbed. Once more we return to the source of our existence to discover additional insights into the Hebrew view of humanity. God created us with inherent duality.
That might not seem like a big deal until you realize how completely this essential dualism opposes our Western view of human being. The Greek view of humanity is reduced to a unitary principle – the principle of reason. In the Greek view, the power of reason reigns supreme. Man is man because he is able to reason. His unitary being is derived from this fundamental. Reason is what makes us human.
This assumption permeates the West. It is the basis of our penchant for scientific exploration and explanation. It is the bedrock of our view of government and law. It is the source of our economic policy and our desire for worldwide agreement. But it is not the biblical point-of-view. In the Hebraic world, reason is a tool to be used for control of choice. Reason is an instrument, not the source. In the Hebraic view, the fundamental constituent of human being is the duality of the yetzer ha’ra (inclination toward evil) and the yetzer ha’tov (inclination toward good). In other words, we are conscious beings precisely because we are in tension between these two elements. We were created with both of these elements. In fact, without both of them, we would cease to be human. Being human cannot be reduced to a single unity because being human means making choices between two competing directions. Being human consists of being the creature with two natures. “Choice itself is not an act of the being, but an act of being.”[1] We are the choices we make. That’s what makes us human, choosing between yetzer ha’ra and yetzer ha’tov.
What this means is that efforts to remove the yetzer ha’ra are doomed to failure. A being without yetzer ha’ra is no longer human but rather a lobotomized, instinctual creature much more like an animal. Prayers asking God to remove my tendency toward evil might as well be prayers asking God to make me a robot. The issue is not the removal of the evil inclination but rather the strength to choose otherwise and the wisdom to improve and accelerate the choices for good. I do not ask God to rescue me out of my humanity. I ask Him to rescue me in my humanity. Choice is who I am. What I need is strength to make the right choice. Reason is one of the tools at my disposal to direct my choices, but reason is also under the influence of the yetzer ha’ra and therefore cannot be the only tool I use. Reasonable men can still make evil choices. Reason will not save me. Only the application of God’s Spirit at the crossroads of choice can save me. And that process will never cease as long as I am nephesh hayah (living person).
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” I do not ask God to rescue me out of my humanity. I ask Him to rescue me in my humanity.”
I Am The Instrument 