Spiritual Poverty vs. Spiritual Destitution: More on Matthew 5:3

RayBible, faith, Happiness, Mormon 5 Comments

Debt is an interesting thing. On one hand, it allows us to acquire things we don’t have but need. On the other hand, it allows us to acquire things we don’t need but want. On one hand, our needs are bought and paid for – fully and completely – with no regard for our ability to reimburse our benefactor. On the other hand, our wants are purchased on credit – financed with an interest rate that can become impossible to repay. On both hands, spiritual debt has a significant impact on how we see ourselves and the world around us. This paradox (debt as a provider of both the necessary and unnecessary – as natural and chosen – as freeing and enslaving) has a fascinating impact on spiritual poverty.
Debt is defined as owing for something that is possessed now (conditionally) but will be paid for later – or lost if payment is not made. It occurs when someone who has insufficient money to purchase something borrows from one who has sufficient money to make the purchase – and by definition includes an agreement to pay for that purchase, usually with interest. This means that the “buyer” ends up paying more – often substantially more – for the item purchased than the original, cash cost.

What are the spiritual implications of this situation?

Being “poor in spirit” commonly is defined as being humble – recognizing our inability to make adequate payments to “purchase” our salvation. It includes having to turn to one who possesses enough to make up the difference of what we cannot pay. In this way, we recognize that we are unavoidably indebted to God – that we incurred a debt when we accepted Jehovah’s offer in the pre-existence to be our Savior and Redeemer – both titles that describe our “inherent” spiritual debt.

There is one interesting twist to this formula – and it is in this twist that the paradox of spiritual debt arises.

We are told very clearly that all that is required is all that we are able to give. Not one penny more than our all. We are told that our own efforts will never be enough – that no matter what we do, we still need His grace. However, it also says that we are required to give our all – that nothing less will suffice.

This is where debt enters the picture. We are told to realize that we can add nothing to the grace of God that will earn exaltation; we also are told, however, that we cannot subtract from our offering without affecting the results of that grace.

What is the point of this distinction? Going back to the financial analysis, worldly debt forces us to give money to someone who is already rich (and getting richer from the payments of the poor) – which means that we are unable to give that money to those who need it – to our fellow poor. It means that we lengthen the course of our poverty and put our agency (in how we use our resources) in the hands of people who only extend the credit that binds our potential to do good specifically in order to raise themselves above us and keep us bound as long and as tightly as possible. Rather than being poor voluntarily in order to alleviate destitution in others, we are poor by the explicit intentions of those who are dedicated to encouraging destitution. In summary, debt makes us complicit in the separation and polarization of mankind – in furthering the disunity of our fellow (wo)man.

Spiritually, there are two kinds of debt. The first is that which cannot be avoided by anyone as a simple and natural consequence of the Fall. This type of debt is what the Atonement covers without reservation and without condition, as stated in the 2nd Article of Faith. (our inherited tempers, our addictive tendencies, our insecurities, our weaknesses, our shortcomings, etc.) This is the debt that we must recognize in order to see our natural – and equal – poverty and petition the Almighty for the application of His grace. Redeeming this debt frees us to focus on taking our limited resources and providing them for the work of that Redeemer – sharing our spiritual capacities with fellow debtors – helping them recognize their own purchased state, so they also can share their spiritual capital with their fellow debtors – repeated ad infinitum in an ever-increasing and widening circle of influence and moving a community toward the unity that defines Zion. It is a state of communal sharing of what has been redeemed – what naturally is owed to the Redeemer, but which is placed by Him in His infinite, communal account from which all may draw. It manifests itself in a spirit of sharing – of caring for others enough to forgo individual wants in the pursuit of collective needs.

The second kind of spiritual debt is that which can be avoided – that which we acquire through the conscious choices we make – that which subtracts from our all and keeps us from offering that all to Him. Such debt can be redeemed, but it requires our repentance – the changing of our hearts and the elimination of those choices that cause us to incur those debts. This type of debt puts us in bondage to one who exacts interest – to whom we can end up paying over and over and over again, with no end of payments in sight and with no access to a communal account from which we can draw for support. This eventually leaves us spiritually destitute – unable to provide even the basic spiritual necessities for ourselves and our loved ones and, just as importantly, unable to participate in God’s work and glory of raising and empowering and enabling and ennobling His children. Rather than being partakers in the combined distribution of His grace, we become unable to focus on Him and His will and become consumed in our own misery and deprivation. It manifests itself in an attempt spiritually to “keep up with the Joneses” – to be more spiritual than others – to become proud and condescending and dismissive and judgmental.

Thus, we are told to recognize our unavoidable spiritual poverty – in fact, to become poor in spirit – but we are commanded just as forcefully to avoid spiritual destitution – by avoiding choices that consume our spiritual capital and bind us to a creditor who is interested only in gaining power and glory through our enslavement. We are to recognize our natural, involuntary indebtedness to participate in God’s work and glory while simultaneously avoiding intentional, voluntary spiritual debt that keeps us from being able to do so. We are told to recognize that our all means nothing mathematically to the equation of exaltation, but we also are told to realize that our all still is required.

Giving our all really does mean giving our all – to Him and, by extension, to His children all around us.

Comments 5

  1. “worldly debt forces us to give money to someone who is already rich (and getting richer from the payments of the poor) – which means that we are unable to give that money to those who need it – to our fellow poor.”

    Ray–you REALLY must have an axe to grind with some banker somewhere. You characterize debt this way every time that it comes up in a blog. According to you, debt is all about us paying some rich guy somewhere–never mind that the rich guy gave us a lot of money in the first place. Never mind that those ‘rich’ bankers are currently losing billions of dollars on the bad loans because the ‘poor’ people can’t pay them back. Maybe if you understood worldly debt a little better you’d be in a better position to preach about spiritual debt.

  2. Bill, I have no axe to grind. The facts are that debt payments go to those who loan the money – individuals and corporations – and those individuals and corporations loan the money in order to make more money. It really is that simple.

    We need loans; I said that in the post. Loans and debt can be a very good thing. I said that in the post. What I’m talking about is the debt we compile on unnecessary things – things that then take away from our ability to share the money we are paying to finance our debt with others who are poor. I am talking about the loans that are made without any concern for one’s ability to pay it back – the ARM’s and the interest-only loans and the loans given without regard to income or credit history – the ones where the interest rate doubles if you are late on a payment or your debt-income ratio gets out of whack. This type of debt truly can be enslaving, and it is the slave master who makes a profit off of it.

    Just one more example, do you really think leases on cars were created to help the consumer? Of course not; they were created to make a higher profit for the leasing companies – regardless of how often they end up leaving a payment due after accident – meaning someone can be making payments on a car they can’t drive. Again, it really is that simple.

    Fwiw, I taught economics. I understand worldly debt.

  3. Ray,

    1-“Fwiw, I taught economics.” My high school economics teacher really didn’t have a very good understanding of economics. If you taught at the college level, then I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
    2-Car leases–a number of car companies are eliminating or scaling back their lease programs because they are losing money on the deals. They aren’t necessarily a bad deal for the consumer.
    3-Do you really think that someone who goes in to debt to buy unnecessary things would really have given the money to the poor if it just wasn’t for that evil banker who made the loan?
    4-“I am talking about the loans that are made without any concern for one’s ability to pay it back” This generally leads the LENDER to lose lots of money. The stakes are much higher for the lender, not the lendee.
    5-“The facts are that debt payments go to those who loan the money”. Who else should they go to? Is it such a crime that someone should pay back money that they borrow?

  4. Bill, we are talking past each other to a degree. (and thanks for the benefit of the doubt) For example:

    Your #2 is totally true – for those who would be cycling cars anyway and don’t get in accidents. My example is totally true, as well – for those who would not be cycling cars otherwise and/or do get in an accident.

    Your #3 is totally true in general, but it’s almost impossible to teach people to share with the poor when they don’t have any extra money to share because they are making debt payments for things that aren’t necessities.

    Your #4 is totally true **in this current economy** when millions are defaulting on these loans. The stakes are high for BOTH the lender and the lendee, and for the lendee who never defaults or pays off the “unique” loan, it can be financially crippling for far longer than a standard fixed-term loan.

    Your #5 is totally true, except that I NEVER said it was a crime to pay back the money that is borrowed. Again, you are reading contempt and vitriol and “an axe” into a post that was not meant to include any such feeling – except for “predatory lending practices” that are designed explicitly to bait and switch interest rates. There is a reason “usury” is condemned in the Bible, and those types of loans are ones I truly do despise as “evil”.

    Let me try to clarify one thing:

    I only equate financial lending practices with “spiritual destitution” when those practices are designed by their very nature to enslave. Just as some of the 19th Century lending practices in frontier towns and for sharecroppers were designed to perpetuate debt payments indefinitely, there are some modern examples of lending practices that are intended explicitly to do the same thing. When people get tied into a situation from which it is almost impossible to extricate themselves, it is one thing to argue about their personal responsibility for that situation, but it is undeniable that they are bound within a financial situation in which they simply cannot help others.

    If the church membership as a whole were generally debt-free, except for true essentials, and if that condition was extended outward to our society at large, we would have “enough and to spare” – and the “spare” could be used to bless the lives of those without any “to spare”. As it stands now, MANY of those who might otherwise have enough and to spare only have enough, which is the principle behind avoiding destitution. There is a spiritual application there, I believe, and it is that connection about which I wrote in the post.

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