Humanity was created in the likeness of God. According to Judaism, God is incorporeal. It does not imply that man has a physical nature like God, but its nature resembles God.
God built the good and evil impulse within human beings. The former is the moral conscience that reminds one of God’s law. It acts as an inner voice that reminds human about God’s teaching or warns one against actions that are considered forbidden (Newsom, 2012). The latter is the selfish desire to satisfy personal needs, without considering the moral implication of fulfilling those desires (Van, 2014). For example the desire to have food and shelter. Notably, evil impulse is not the desire to do wrong, but the senseless harm that human beings cause.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
According to Judaism, the two impulses function all-together. It is out of the desire to satisfy personal needs that a man marries, buys clothes, builds a house, or buys clothes. However, desires can lead to wrong actions when they are not controlled (Satlow, 2006). For example, being hungry is not wrong, but it can influence one to steal food. Hence, the good impulse helps to control the evil impulse to create morality and ethics.
People have the free will to choose the impulse to follow. In essence, people have the ability to make choices, which determines the impulse to follow (Nevid & Rathus, 2016). The idea of good and evil impulse helps me to consider the moral implication of my choices before making a decision on my desires, which guides my ethical life. For example, I would not allow desires that cause me to break any of the Ten Commandments to prevail.
In conclusion, God created humanity with the good and the evil impulse. The good impulse guides one to do what is considered to be moral. On the other hand, the evil impulse may lead one to wrongdoing, but it is usually controlled by the good impulse, which leads to an ethical life.
References
Newsom, C. (2012). Models of the Moral Self: Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Judaism. Journal of Biblical Literature, 131 (1), 5-25. doi:10.2307/23488209
Nevid, J. S., & Rathus, S. A. (2016). Psychology and the challenges of life: Adjustment and growth .
Satlow, M. L. (2006). Creating Judaism: History, tradition, practice . New York: Columbia University Press.
Van Voorst, R. E. (2014). RELG: World . Nelson Education.
