Paul tells us "While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death." What sinful passions and what members is he talking about? Paul has a very narrow and confused view of life. He goes on, "But now we are discharged from the law, (the Mosaic law) dead to that which held us captive, so that we are slaves not under the old written code but the new life of the spirit." Rom.7:5-6. Paul exchanges one slavery for another, then he puts it another way, "Clothe yourself with a new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness." Eph.4:24. and "Put on the whole armour of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil." Eph.6:ll. This sums up Paul's division within himself. Instead of being an honest and open person, he hides under an assumed virtue of something he thinks is divine "For what the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit and what the spirit desires is opposed to the flesh, for these are in opposition to each other." Gal. 5:17. In seeking to divide his inner self into the flesh and the spirit, and in covering the old self with a new self, Paul is treading a dangerous path of inner conflict and lack of personal unity. This is internal war, a serious schizoid-typic condition. This results in the state of conflict clearly shown in the following statement by Paul written about himself.

He tells us, "I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. ..... But in fact it is no longer I that do it but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is in my flesh. I can will what is right but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good that I want, but the evil 1 do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. .... I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind." Rom. 7:15-23. His members again, what is he referring to? Paul shows very low self esteem.

Every modem day skilled counsellor and psychotherapist knows that their unhappy clients who suffer from such deep inner conflict and lack of unity are in real trouble. Paul disowns responsibility for his action, almost as if he were an innocent victim. He is saying "I am not to blame, but this other thing 'sin' dwelling in me is to blame!" To make totally sure there is no mistake, he repeats his contention of war within himself. Paul paints himself as a weak victim, unable to chose and do what is right.

Paul goes still further into unreality by assuming he can pass his inner conflict over to Jesus. It is such an irrational yet simplistic escape attempt to first personify 'sin' and then treat it as something unattached and separate from the one who is doing the sinning. Paul seems to think that sin can then be passed over to someone else as though it were a package. Here we see how the very dogma of Paulism becomes schizoid-typic. Can you imagine a modem judge's response to a person standing up in court and saying "Yes Sir, I freely admit I did that crime but my friend Jesus who died two thousand years ago has taken responsibility for it, so I now should be regarded as innocent." The judge would regard that as a guilty plea and call for a psychiatrist's report. Sadly this is the basis of Pauline teaching of forgiveness. We see Paul in an unstable mental state. He has irrational and fanciful concepts- Jesus never showed himself as a divided person in the way Paul does. You will have noticed that I do not call this doctrine Christianity.