Alma emphasizes the “essence for essence” restoration by contrasting it with life’s realities. Alma knows that we are not wholly good in this life, but he tells Corianton that this temporary deviation from the way cannot be used to justify a long separation from the way. Doubtless Corianton’s apostate beliefs relied on the workings of the visible, temporal world as analogies for the ways of heaven. Alma refutes that notion.
Restoration cannot come to anything “opposite of its nature.” Restoration must be like to like. Even though we are temporarily off the way, the requirement is repentance, not rewriting our understanding of God that makes our departure from the way all right.