The Flesh is Weak, Or Why Jesus Got It Wrong

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Probably like you, I love the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. He was certainly a wise man, and the personal theistic savior of many, but I think he might have gotten it wrong when he said, “The flesh is weak.“

In all fairness to Jesus, he actually said, in context:

“Get up and pray that you may not undergo the test. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

[ONE: 2615; T26:41; R14:38 L22:40;L22:46] [1.1]

But, here is our concern: we know that the flesh (or “body” in some translations) is not really weak; in fact, the flesh is strong. In fact, the needs of our flesh are so strong, that we have a hard time constraining our flesh.

It is not because of the weakness of our flesh that we get into trouble, but because our flesh overpowers us.

Let’s take a proper moment to think about the flesh, in the context of a human being.

A human being is part flesh and part mind. Flesh has an advantage here, because the mind is generally considered to be within the brain, which is flesh. [2 ]

Some people will add a spiritual dimension to a human being, but let us be more universally true and not impose a component of theism or spirituality onto a significant portion of humanity who deny it, such as our brothers and sisters, some atheists and perhaps agnostics.

God, or perhaps natural evolution if you prefer, gave us two hemispheres to our brain. Why so? Because that fact makes us truly human beings. That fact creates the interesting debate within ourselves, allowing us to ascend or descend, as we may think and act.

To make a statement more of metaphor than physiology, imagine a human being of all logic or all emotion, creating extremely uninteresting machines or unorganized personal chaotic basket-cases. It is the unanswerable debates that we have within our own psyche, expressed to others with different opinions in society, that keeps everything “interesting,” for better or worse.

This is also the reason why some people think “everyone getting along together” is unattainable, since we can’t even get along with ourselves, by design.

But, back to the flesh. If we cannot resist that doughnut that our flesh desires, is it really because of weak flesh? Or, if we cannot get up in the morning to go to the gym, is it really our flesh’s fault that it wants to convince us to sleep? We should not think so.

The mind is supposed to control the flesh, and Socrates would say that this control is what provides the foundation for personal justice or harmony. That is, without the mind being able to control the flesh, a person exists in the state of personal anarchy. That is, out of control. [3, 4 ]

In fact, the inability to resist that craving for one doughnut too many, or the inability to resist the desire for that woman or man, is not because of weak flesh, it is because of strong flesh matched to a relatively weak mind.

I once heard someone purporting to teach saying that all the ills of society were caused by “ignorance.” But, this is simply not true. Ignorance is only part of it. Overcoming the ignorance is to lead the horse to the water. Many persons who breached a marital commitment knew it was “wrong,” but the flesh was too strong. It was not a matter of “ignorance,” but a matter of “discipline.”

“Discipline” is the mental ability to control the flesh. It’s not easy, and we all fail.

But for some tendency to mental failure or mental disease, as a general rule, the body does exactly what the mind commands or allows.

Let us observe the training of a soldier, a paramount of discipline conditioning: a soldier is conditioned for restraint in battle when courage would make her act; and a soldier is conditioned to bravery in battle when fear would make him not act.

That is, discipline is to hold when the body wants to attack, and discipline is to attack when the body wants to hold. A reversal of natural tendency. Discipline is what causes some persons to throw their legs over the bed to get to the gym at 4:30 a.m. By definition, discipline is resisting the natural inclinations of the flesh.

Wisdom is to know thyself, but discipline is to conquer thyself.

Discipline is control of the flesh, and I’ll suggest that the flesh is not weak, but strong. So, the next time we fail in action, we should not be too Jesusianally excusive and forgiving with “woe is me, my flesh is weak” but rather say, “woe to me, my mind is too weak to control my strong flesh.” Only a strong mind controls a strong flesh. Generally speaking, all flesh is strong, but only some minds are strong, enough. The problem is not our strong flesh, the problem is our weak mind.

This reversal of perspective refocuses attribution to the necessary point of correction.

It is never a best practice for us to underestimate the thing that we would conquer.

In fact, our flesh is strong, it is our mind that is weak. [1.2 ]

[1] The ONE LinkedIn Reference Set Index [GRZ183] [LinkedIn #GRZ_183] 1.1 ONE: 2615 [T26:41; R14:38 L22:40;L22:46] (“Flesh Weak“); 1.2 ONE: 621 [T7:13] (“Narrow Gate“)

[2] The Naked Brain; Or, Deconstructing and Reconstructing the Human Being [GRZ132] [LinkedIn #GRZ_132

[3] Loving the Deal – Business of Aesop™ No. 85 – The Lion in Love [GRZ5X] [LinkedIn #GRZ5]

[4] The Folly of Love – No. 85. The Lion in Love – The Essential Aesop™-Back to Basics [GRZ98_85] [LinkedIn #GRZ_98_90]

“Animus infirmus, caro fortis.” (“The mind is weak, the flesh is strong.”); “Sapientia est te ipsum nosse, disciplina autem est te ipsum vincere.” (“Wisdom is to know thyself, but discipline is to conquer thyself.”); “Positio ballerina non est naturalis, usque ad est.” (“The posture of the ballerina is not natural, until it is.”) ~grz

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Excellent selection. “The Flesh Is Weak; Or, Why Jesus Got It Wrong” (October 21, 2018) stands as a bold inflection point in Zegarelli’s early philosophical canon. Though written with sharp rhetorical contrast, it is fundamentally a disciplinary treatise—an applied philosophy of internal governance. It forms a bridge article between moral self-diagnosis and active civic responsibility, and thus functions as a cornerstone in the formation of Zegarelli’s later AIS virtue-discipline system.

Below is a deep analysis structured around the article’s core themes, pedagogical strategies, and place in Zegarelli’s evolving ethos.

🧠 I. Thesis Reversal and Philosophical Stakes

Zegarelli’s article is not a critique of Jesus as much as it is a recontextualization of an ancient maxim through a modern psychological and civic lens.

Traditional Reading	Zegarelli’s Reframing
“The flesh is weak” means the body is frail and susceptible to temptation	The flesh is not weak, but strong—the real weakness lies in undisciplined mind
Failure is due to bodily temptation	Failure is due to the mind’s inability to overcome internal desire
Thus, forgiveness is emphasized	Zegarelli emphasizes responsibility and training

This inversion is diagnostic, not heretical. It reflects the ethos of radical personal agency: to misdiagnose the cause of weakness is to forfeit the cure. One cannot train the flesh if one mistakenly believes the flesh is failing.

“It is never a best practice for us to underestimate the thing that we would conquer.”

📚 II. Pedagogical Structure: Mind-Body Governance as Leadership Paradigm

Zegarelli teaches discipline not as austerity, but as civilization’s internal scaffolding. His pedagogy here is Socratic at the base and militaristic in metaphor:

Mind = command
Flesh = impulse
Discipline = the bridge from chaos to order

Pedagogical Tool	Application in Article
Military metaphor	The soldier restrains or acts in reversal of body’s instinct (courage/fear tension)
Aesop fable cross-reference	The Lion in Love (GRZ98_85): love undermines control, yielding irrationality
Latin aphorism	“Sapientia est te ipsum nosse, disciplina autem est te ipsum vincere.” (“Wisdom is to know thyself, but discipline is to conquer thyself.”)
Secular-theistic balance	Avoids religious exclusivity; addresses both believers and atheists

The takeaway: Discipline is not suppression of desire, but orchestration of control. And in Zegarelli’s ethos, control is always civic, moral, and personal simultaneously.

🏗 III. Ethos Development: Mind as Civic Governor

Zegarelli positions this article as a companion piece to other essays that diagnose human cognitive dysfunction and propose structural correction:

Ignorance vs. Indiscipline: “It’s not ignorance, but discipline” is a recurring correction in Zegarelli’s framework, echoed later in his critique of social justice emotionalism (GRZ122) and the Infant Soldier doctrine.
Mind-Body Dualism: He foreshadows The Naked Brain [GRZ132], where he decomposes the body as layered machinery. Here, he seeds that idea via the hemispheric brain metaphor.
Civic Parallel: A person without discipline is in personal anarchy, just as a polity without constitutional restraint is in political collapse. This is key to Zegarelli’s micro/macro symmetry principle, recurring in The Decline and Fall series.

This article therefore is not merely about willpower—it’s about constitutional design: the constitution of the self as mirror to the constitution of the state.

⏳ IV. Temporal Function: Early Reversal Foreshadowing Later Maxims

Early Teaching in This Article	Later Expansion
Weakness misattributed to flesh	The Toll on Character [GRZ68] develops this further into societal excuse-making
Discipline = mental supremacy over biology	The Infant Soldier doctrine: children untrained in mental discipline become liabilities to society
The cost of framing failure too gently	The Social Vice Triumvirate [GRZ58] exposes pride and envy cloaked in virtue-talk
“Only a strong mind controls strong flesh.”	Later becomes maxims like “Do not coddle the will you wish to strengthen.”

This essay’s unique value is that it redirects accountability inward, asserting that excuses externalize control and thereby prevent reform.

🪞 V. Leadership Through Self-Government

Zegarelli’s concept of discipline-as-leadership links the article to his broader civic teachings. He is building a moral sovereignty model, in which:

The individual is a microstate
The mind is the executive branch
The flesh is the citizenry
Discipline is lawful order
Emotion is lobbyist pressure
Desire is sedition

The leadership lesson: You are your own state. You are the governed and the governor. If the governor is weak, the state collapses.

🧩 Conclusion: A Foundational Text for the Doctrine of Mental Sovereignty

This 2018 article is a precursor to several pillars of Zegarelli’s later system:

Discipline as the actuator of wisdom
Personal sovereignty as civic metaphor
The false piety of misplaced attribution (i.e., blaming the flesh)
The AIS Category 7 focus: Virtue Philosophy and Emotional Discipline

The article reframes the Christian proverb to recover agency:
“The spirit is willing, the flesh is strong. Strengthen the governor.”

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