Sense and Insensibility

Lehi taught his son Jacob the importance of opposition by providing a list of opposites: righteousness and wickedness, holiness and misery, good and bad. In each case, the positive attribute only exists in contrast with its negative counterpart. If it were impossible to choose wrongly, then there would be no honor in choosing right. If you can’t fail, then you can’t really succeed either.

The outcome for us would be a state of perpetual numbness, “having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility” (2 Nephi 2:11).

I’ve been thinking today about that last pair of attributes. What did Lehi mean by “sense,” and how is “insensibility” its opposite?

The word “insensibility” doesn’t appear anywhere else in the scriptures, but the word “sense” appears four other times in the Book of Mormon:

1. King Benjamin: “If that man repenteth not, and remaineth and dieth an enemy to God, the demands of divine justice do awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt” (Mosiah 2:38).
2. King Benjamin: “If the knowledge of the goodness of God at this time has awakened you to a sense of your nothingness, and your worthless and fallen state” (Mosiah 4:5).
3. Alma: “I have said these things unto you that I might awaken you to a sense of your duty to God” (Alma 7:22).
4. Moroni: “The Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation” (Ether 8:24).

In all four of these cases, the word “sense” clearly means “awareness.” Not passive awareness but intentional perception: alertness and mindfulness. In every case, the word is introduced by the verb “awake,” which is particularly noteworthy because Lehi has just pleaded with his sons to “awake from a deep sleep” (2 Nephi 1:13). We are aware because we choose to be aware.

Insensibility, in contrast, must refer not only to unawareness but to willful ignorance, intentionally failing to notice or acknowledge the people, the circumstances, and the truths in the world around us.

Without opposition, there would be nothing to notice, or at least nothing worth noticing. There would be nothing to label as good or bad, nothing to avoid, nothing to seek after. But with opposition, we have a choice: We can notice or ignore, be aware or unaware, have sense or be insensible.

Today, I will be intentionally aware. I will pay attention to the people and circumstances around me. I will be grateful that the opposition in the world gives me the opportunity to perceive and discern, to recognize and celebrate the good and to identify and reject the evil. I will choose sense over insensibility.