Questions on Character

February 8, 2009 at 5:16 pm · Filed under Marriage Posts

What makes a defective character?     Wrong thoughts and feelings and the sinful actions that grow out of them create a defective character.  “If the thoughts are wrong the feelings will be wrong, and the thoughts and feelings combined make up the moral character.” {5T 310}  Some people also believe that hereditary tendencies to selfishness or Original Sin cause men to have defective characters from birth.

 When does one start having a defective character, and when does one stop having it?     Many people believe that we are born with defective characters because of our sinful natures inherited from Adam; therefore a defective character starts at birth.  The defective character is taken away at the Marriage when God cleanses the spots and blemishes and takes away our sinful natures.

What processes start/stop a defective character?     Some say the process that starts a defective character begins with the inherited desires for selfishness that we all receive from Adam.  The sins and defects of parents can also be handed down to their children.  “They have inherited the defective characters of their parents…”  {CT 192}  “Many children have inherited selfishness from their parents, but parents should seek to uproot every fiber of this evil tendency from their natures. Christ gave many reproofs to those who were covetous and selfish. Parents should seek, on the first exhibition of selfish traits of character, … to retrain and uproot these traits from the character of their children.”  {CG 132}  “When a child reveals the wrong traits which it has inherited from its parents, shall they storm over this reproduction of their own defects?”  {AH 173,174}  After birth, the natural tendencies to evil are cultivated and selfish habitual thought patterns are formed and strengthened, leading to wrong thoughts and feelings and subsequent wrong actions (and thoughts + feelings = character).  Progressive conversion is the process that stops or takes away a defective character.  “In the human heart there is natural selfishness, which can only be overcome by most thorough discipline and severe restraint; and even then it will require years of patient effort and earnest resistance. God permits us to experience the ills of poverty, and places us in difficult positions, that the defects of our characters may be revealed and their asperities be smoothed away.”  {4T 496}  It is also believed that, to completely take away the defective character, it is necessary to go to the marriage so that God can remove our sinful natures and give us Christ’s perfect character. 

How does one build a character?     To build our characters, we must rightly develop the mental and moral powers which will build our characters.  “The mental and moral powers which God has given us do not constitute character. They are talents, which we are to improve, and which, if properly improved, will form a right character.”  {4T 606.2}  With the help of the Holy Spirit, we must overcome the selfish habitual thought patterns we have and cultivate the unselfish habitual thought patterns God puts in us at conversion and throughout the progressive conversion process.  Before the close of probation we must have overcome every wrong thought, feeling, and action.

Who are the workmen that do the job?        Our mental and moral powers are the workmen that build our characters.  The mental powers include reason, judgment, understanding and memory.  The moral powers include conscience, will, self-control, faith, hope, and love.  “Every faculty in man is a workman that is building for time and for eternity. Day by day the structure [character] is going up, although the possessor is not aware of it. It is a building which must stand either as a beacon of warning because of its deformity or as a structure which God and the angels will admire for its harmony with the divine Model.”  {4T 606.2}

What aspects of the building are we unable to do, and who does them?     It is our duty to put right thoughts into our heads; but we cannot change our desires.  God alone can change our desires.  “Education, culture, the exercise of the will, human effort, all have their proper sphere, but here they are powerless. They may produce an outward correctness of behavior, but they cannot change the heart; they cannot purify the springs of life. There must be a power working from within, a new life from above, before men can be changed from sin to holiness. That power is Christ. His grace alone can quicken the lifeless faculties of the soul, and attract it to God, to holiness.”  {SC 18,19}

Why is it necessary to go to the Marriage before the time of trouble?     If you believe that you are guilty from birth (because of Original Sin), you would decide that it was necessary to go to the marriage because your character would not be counted perfect at the Investigative Judgment because of the spots and wrinkles on the heavenly records.  You would need to go to the Marriage to have those spots and blemishes (selfish desires) removed by God, thus finally perfecting your character.

How could your understanding of character make you a part of those who believe in spiritualistic theories?     Those who believe they can perfect their characters by works alone make man his own savior and join with those who believe in spiritualistic theories.  “These theories, followed to their logical conclusion, sweep away the whole Christian economy. They do away with the necessity for the atonement and make man his own savior.”  {8T 291}  People who believe in Original Sin would also say that a belief that the character can be perfected before the Marriage is a spiritualistic theory because it does away with the need for the final atonement or removal of our sinful natures.

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