One of the most disputed issues among so-called Christian theologians has been the question of the basic nature of man. Some of these theologians have argued that man is born evil into this world as an infant; thus the only way this evil can be removed is by receiving the sacrament of baptism. Still other theologians have argued that man is born innocent and remains basically good; some of them thus conclude that inasmuch as man is basically good he has no need for a redeemer to atone for his sins.
It should be clear to students of the Book of Mormon that the prophets definitely reject both the doctrine of the natural depravity of man and the doctrine that man is so good by nature he has no need for a redeemer. Benjamin, the prophet and king of the Nephites, said that “an angel from God” taught him that although infants are born in a state of innocence, after they become accountable they can become enemies to God if they do not accept the saving principles and ordinances of the gospel.
In explaining how man can be born innocent but yet can become an enemy to God, David H. Yarn has written:
In a modern revelation the Lord said:“Every spirit of man was innocent in the beginning; and God having redeemed man from the fall, men became again, in their infant state, innocent before God. And that wicked one cometh and taketh away light and truth, through disobedience, from the children of men, and because of the tradition of their fathers.” (Doctrine and Covenants 93:38, 39.)
Thus, from the beginning of man’s mortal existence the wicked one, the devil, has engaged in taking away “light and truth.” He has done this through men, individually and collectively—individually through disobedience and collectively through the tradition of their fathers.
Fundamentally the revelation teaches us that infants are innocent, but that they are born in a mortal world where men are agents unto themselves; where various factors influence decisions; and where, through the exercise of agency, men individually and in varying degrees have chosen to acknowledge or to deny God, to accept and practice His principles or to reject them. Consequently, although babies are innocent, by the time they reach the age of accountability they have become acquainted, through their own weaknesses and those of others, with a fallen world. Although not comprehending these words, they no doubt quite adequately understand that man has his failings. Perhaps this is in part what King Benjamin had in mind when he said:
“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19.)
Other scriptural passages speak of the natural man as carnal, sensual, and devilish. (See Alma 42:10; Moses 5:13.) These words may seem harsh, but it is probably impossible for us even to guess what the corrupt state of man would be had there not been periodic restorations of the Gospel in man’s history and some glimmer of spiritual knowledge trickling down through the centuries.
It is important that the teaching of King Benjamin be distinguished from the apostate doctrine of depravity. Man is not born evil, but innocent. He is innocent until he reaches the age of accountability, but he grows up in a world of sin and as an agent makes choices from among a vast complex of enticements; and when he becomes accountable and refuses to make his will submissive to God by accepting Him and making covenants with Him, he is “carnal, sensual, and devilish.”
An explanation of the matter suggests, however, that the words carnal, sensual, and devilish, must not be limited to their more narrow and specific connotations, but that they are accurately, though more broadly, interpreted by the scriptural phrase “enemy to God.” That is to say, not all men who have not made the covenants with the Christ are given to indulging in degrading practices which are appropriately designated carnal, sensual, and devilish in a dictionary sense. Yet all men, regardless of how moral and how pure they may be with reference to such practices, are enemies to God until they yield to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, accept the Atonement of the Lord, and are submissive to His will. A significant point here is that what we conventionally call basic personal and social morality are not enough. In addition to these things one must do other things which are binding upon him by virtue of his covenantal relationship with the Father and the Son. Or, putting it in another way, for one not to be an enemy to God he must endeavor to do all things whatsoever the Lord his God shall command him. (See Abraham 3:25.)
Summarily put, the natural man (he who is carnal, sensual, and devilish, he who is an enemy to God) is the man who has not humbled himself before God and made covenants with God by receiving the revealed ordinances at the hands of God’s authorized servants; or the man who, having done these things, has failed to live according to the covenants made in baptism and to the injunction given when he was confirmed a member of the Church—“Receive the Holy Ghost.” (Gospel Living in the Home [Deseret Sunday School Union], pp. 50-51.)