Human Development
Perfection of the soul
Description:
According to William Law, the soul can only reach perfection through change and exaltation of its first properties. In nature all things are born and die, unrelated to reason. No good can come to the soul apart from the entrance of the Deity into the properties of its life. Nature has to be set right, its properties enter the process of new birth, and work to the production of light before the spirit of love can be born in it. Love is delight and delight can only arise in a creature if its nature is in a delightful state or possessed by that in which it must rejoice. God must become man because birth of the Deity must be found in the soul, giving to nature all that it lacks, or the soul will never be in a delightful state working with the spirit of love. In its natural life, the soul in a state such as nature without God is in. The properties of nature work in blindness, the soul governed and tormented by restless and contrary passions, in a hell of hunger, anguish, anxiety, contrariety and self-torment. The natural (or "old man") cannot change of itself. Despite rules and moral behaviour, nature is not changed and all that happens is that man learns to conceal his inward evil and appear not to be under its power. Only when Deity becomes man, is born in fallen nature, is united to it and becomes its life can nature be overcome. The work of morality is the doctrine of the cross, to resist and deny nature so that supernatural power of divine goodness possesses it and brings it new light.Related:
Spiritual development