The Shame Cycle: When All Good Comes from God and All Bad Comes from You

There's a pattern woven throughout Mormon scripture that took me decades to see clearly. Once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it.

But even if I didn't see it for what it was, I still internalized the harm in it.

It's the doctrine of divided credit: everything good comes from God, everything bad comes from you.

Not shared responsibility. Not mutual participation. A clean split where you get blamed for wickedness that's supposedly inherent to your nature, but you can't claim credit for goodness because that's borrowed from or granted by God.

Let me show you what I mean.

The Scriptural Evidence

Here's what the Book of Mormon teaches explicitly:

"All things which are good cometh of God; and that which is evil cometh of the devil" (Moroni 7:12)

"Everything which inviteth and enticeth to do good, and to love God, and to serve him, is inspired of God" (Moroni 7:13)

"All things which are good cometh of Christ; otherwise men were fallen, and there could no good thing come unto them" (Moroni 7:24)

"The natural man is an enemy to God" (Mosiah 3:19)

"Whosoever perisheth, perisheth unto himself; and whosoever doeth iniquity, doeth it unto himself" (Helaman 14:30)

"God has said a man being evil cannot do that which is good" (Moroni 7:6)

Read those again. Really sit with them.

Notice the pattern?

If it's good, God did it.

If it's bad, you did it. Because you're inherently wicked, fallen, evil, an enemy of God.

The Insidious Trap

The trap isn't just in what these verses say. It's in what they take away.

You cannot claim ownership over your goodness.

When you act with kindness, that's God working through you.

When you show compassion, that's Christ's influence.

When you resist temptation, that's divine intervetion.

When you make a moral choice, that's the Spirit guiding you.

Every good impulse, every generous act, every moment of integrity, none of it belongs to you. It's all borrowed. All channeled through you from an external source.

But your wickedness? That's yours.

That's your nature. Your default state. Your inheritance as a fallen being.

The natural man, the human you, is an enemy to God. Evil. Incapable of good without divine intervention.

The Shame Cycle

This creates a perfect shame loop:

1. You're taught you're inherently wicked
2. You try to be good anyway
3. When you succeed, it's credited to God
4. When you fail, it's blamed on your nature
5. You feel ashamed for being what you were designed to be
6. You need God to overcome what God made you
7. Repeat indefinitely

You can't win. The game is rigged.

If you do something good, you're a vessel God chose to work through. But you can't take credit because your nature is evil. You just happened to submit enough that God could use you despite yourself.

If you do something bad, that's the real you emerging. The natural man. The enemy of God. The evil that's always lurking beneath the surface.

There's no scenario where you get to be genuinely good.

Because according to this theology, "a man being evil cannot do that which is good."

You're not capable of it. Not on your own. Not from your own nature.

What This Does to You

I lived this theology for over thirty years.

Every kind thing I did came with an asterisk: but only because God inspired it.

Every moral choice I made was immediately reframed: that was the Spirit guiding me, not my own judgment.

Every generous impulse was credited elsewhere: Christ working through me despite my fallen nature.

I couldn't even trust my own goodness. Because if my nature was inherently evil, then any good I experienced was suspect. Was it real? Or was I just fooling myself? Maybe what felt like compassion was actually selfishness in disguise. Maybe what looked like integrity was actually pride.

And the failures? Those were definitely mine.

Every time I struggled with normal human sexuality, that was my evil nature.

Every time I doubted, that was the natural man rebelling against God.

Every time I questioned, that was my fallen state rejecting truth.

I owned none of my goodness and all of my humanity.

The Alternative: You're Just Human

Here's what I've learned since leaving that framework:

I'm human. Just human.

I'm capable of kindness and cruelty. Generosity and selfishness. Courage and cowardice. Integrity and dishonesty.

Not because I'm inherently evil needing God's intervention to be good.

Not because I'm inherently good being corrupted by external evil.

Just because I'm human, and humans are complex.

We make mistakes. We hurt each other. We fail to live up to our own standards. We get scared and defensive and selfish.

We also love each other. We help strangers. We sacrifice for our children. We create beauty. We build communities. We extend compassion.

Both exist in us. Not good vs. evil. Not God vs. the natural man. Just the full range of human capacity.

Where the Choices Actually Are

The real moral choices aren't about overcoming some inherently wicked nature.

They're about what we do when we fail.

Do we make amends? Do we try to do better? Do we learn from our mistakes and build stronger relationships?

Or do we deny, deflect, blame others, refuse to grow?

That's where character lives. Not in whether we're good or evil by nature, but in how we respond when we inevitably hurt someone.

Because we will hurt people. That's not evidence of wickedness. That's evidence of being human in a complicated world where our needs and boundaries and communication styles don't always align.

The question isn't "how do I stop being evil?"

The question is "how do I repair harm when I cause it?"

And that question doesn't require a theology of inherent wickedness. It just requires honesty, humility, and the willingness to do better.

The Problem with the Perfectly-Loving Deity

Here's the theological problem that finally broke the framework for me:

How can I relate to a supposedly perfectly-loving deity who:

1. Created the mortal condition with a nature He considers evil
2. Blames me for having that nature
3. Designed a path that guarantees my "fall"
4. Holds my fallen state against me
5. Then claims He's the only solution to the problem He created

That's not love. That's manufacturing dependency.

It's like breaking someone's legs and then offering them crutches. But only if they worship you for providing the crutches and never question why you broke their legs in the first place

A truly loving deity wouldn't create beings with natures He considers evil.

A truly loving deity wouldn't need to be thanked for saving you from a condemnation He designed.

A truly loving deity wouldn't strip you of ownership over your own goodness while blaming you for your own wickedness.

But the Mormon God does all of these things.

Because the Mormon God isn't actually about love. He's about control.

And shame is the mechanism.

Preemptive Self-Punishment

I recently read something that crystallized this perfectly:

"Shame is preemptive self-punishment, a strategy to reduce the threat of external harm. If I call myself worthless, your insults lose power. If I collapse first, you can't knock me down. If I shrink, you won't target me."

That's what this theology does. It teaches you to preemptively call yourself evil so that when you fail, it's not a surprise. It's just confirmation of what you already knew.

You beat God to the punch by condemning yourself first.

And the theology frames this as virtue. As humility. As recognizing your dependence on God.

But it's not humility. It's preemptive self-punishment.

It's shrinking yourself so small that when the judgment comes, there's less of you to hit.

The problem? That judgment is coming from inside the house. God isn't condemning you. The theology is. And it never stops.

"This logic is sound in the moment it's created, but brutal when it becomes identity. As an adult, shame keeps attacking you even when no one is threatening you anymore. The environment changed; the pattern didn't."

I walked away from the church. But the shame pattern was, and often is, still running. Still attacking. Still insisting I was inherently evil, incapable of good, an enemy to something I no longer even believed in.

The environment changed. The pattern didn't.

How Shame Actually Unwinds

"Shame isn't cured by logic. It unwinds through exposure to safety."

I can read or watch all the deconstruction I want. I can intellectually understand that the theology is abusive. I can articulate exactly how the shame cycle works.

But understanding it doesn't make it stop.

What makes it stop is experiencing something different:

Someone sees my mess and doesn't leave.

Someone hears my story and doesn't judge.

I admit a truth, and it doesn't collapse the relationship.

"In that moment, shame loses its job."

Because shame's job was to protect me from abandonment by preemptively abandoning myself.

But when I can be seen—really seen, including the parts I was taught were evil—and still be loved?

When I can admit failure and it doesn't confirm that I'm worthless?

When I can exist as fully human—capable of both harm and healing—and that's enough?

Shame doesn't have a job anymore.

The protection isn't necessary. Because I'm not in danger of being cast out for being human.

Reclaiming Goodness

Here's what I'm learning to do:

When I act with kindness, I claim it. That's mine. That came from me.

When I show compassion, that's my choice. My character. My capacity.

When I make a moral decision, I own it. Not because God inspired it. Because I weighed the options and chose well.

And when I fail? When I hurt someone or fall short of my own standards?

I own that too. Not as evidence of inherent wickedness. But as evidence that I'm human and I made a mistake.

And then I ask: how do I repair this? How do I do better?

Not "how do I repent to God?" but "how do I make amends to the person I hurt?"

That's where morality actually lives. In the relationships. In the repairs. In the willingness to grow.

Not in the cosmic drama of good vs. evil, God vs. the natural man.

Just in the daily practice of being human with other humans.

Trying. Failing. Repairing. Growing.

That's enough.

I'm enough.

Not because God makes me enough.

But because being human is inherently enough.