Before I get into the specifics of Nee’s teaching on humans having a “latent power” in their soul, I wanted discuss how he arrives at this conclusion. Chapter 1 of “The Latent Power of the Soul”, is full of speculation by Nee, as well as an extremely literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3. Nee argues that because God gave Adam dominion over the whole earth, it would have necessitated him to be much more powerful that we are today. Consider the following excerpt from chapter 1:
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Adam's Authority and Physical Prowess
"And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them: and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth" (Gen. 1:27-28). Have dominion over the earth, says God.
Friends, have you ever thought how immense the earth is? Suppose a master asks a servant to manage two houses. He makes the appointment on the basis of tire latter's ability to take care of them. No one servant is able to handle all the houses located on a given lane, for he cannot do what is beyond his ability. A hard master may demand his servant to do a little more than his duty requires, but never will he demand his servant to undertake anything beyond his ability. Would God, then, ask Adam to do what he was incapable of doing? We can therefore conclude that if Adam was capable of managing the earth, his prowess was most certainly superior to ours today. He had power, ability, and skill. He received all of these abilities freshly from the Creator.
Although we may not rate Adam's power as being a billion times over ours, we can nonetheless safely reckon it to be a million times over ours. Else he would not have been able to perform the duty commanded him of God. As for us today, though, if we were required to merely sweep a lane three times daily, we would not be able afterwards to straighten our back. How then could we possibly rule the earth? Yet Adam not only ruled the earth but he also had dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens, and every living thing on the earth. To rule is not just to sit by doing nothing. It requires management and work. From a seeing of this we should recognize the superior power which Adam in fact possessed. It far exceeds our present situation.
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I’m sure that Adam had different capabilities that we have now, however, isn’t it a bit much to say that he had power “a million times over ours”. How does Nee know this? It is nothing but speculation, and it may or may not be true.
To further show what kind of “power” Adam had, Nee then goes on to say that in order to name all the animals it would have required incredible brain memory. He also discusses the size of the Garden of Eden and what it would take to manage it:
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Adam's Brain Power and Memory
"And out of the ground Jehovah God formed every beast of the field, and every bird of the heavens; and brought them unto the man to see what he would call them; and whatsoever the man called every living creature, that was the name thereof" (Gen. 2.19). My friends, is this not marvelous? Suppose you were to take a dictionary and to read all the names of the animals; would you not confess that you could neither recognize nor memorize them all? Yet Adam gave names to all the birds and animals. How intelligent he must have been!
Adam's Managerial Power
"And Jehovah God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it" (Gen. 2.15). From looking into how Adam governed the earth let us now dwell somewhat on the things which God charged him to do. God commanded him to dress the garden of Eden. This needed to be done systematically. How big was the garden? Genesis 2.10-14 mentions four rivers; namely, Pishon, Gihon, Hiddekel and Euphrates. They all flowed from Eden and divided into four river regions. Can you imagine now how big the garden was? How strong must Adam be to be charged with dressing a land which was surrounded by four rivers! He was not only to dress it but also to keep it; to keep the garden from being invaded by the enemy. Therefore the power which Adam had in that day must have been tremendous. He must have been a man with astounding ability. All his powers were inherent in his living soul. We may look upon Adam's power as supernatural and miraculous, but so far as Adam was concerned these abilities were not miraculous but human, not supernatural but natural.
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Like I said, all of this speculation may or may not be true, and the bottom line is that it’s just speculation. Genesis doesn’t leave enough details in order to arrive at these type of conclusions.
After all this speculation on what kind of “power” Adam had, Nee discusses what happened to it after the fall:
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The Fall of Man
Adam is a soul. His spirit and body are joined in his soul. That astonishing power which we have just mentioned is present in Adam's soul. In other words, the living soul, which is the result of the coming together of the spirit and the body, possesses unthinkable supernatural power. At the fall, though, the power which distinguishes Adam from us is lost. Yet this does not mean there is no longer such power; it only denotes that though this ability is still in man, it is nonetheless "frozen" or immobilized. According to Genesis 6, after the fall man becomes flesh. The flesh envelops the whole being and subjugates him. Man was originally a living soul; now, having fallen, he becomes flesh. His soul had been meant to submit to the spirit's control; now it is subject to the dominion of the flesh. Hence the Lord said, "My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, for that he also is flesh" (Gen. 6.3). When God here mentioned man, He called him flesh, for in His eyes that was now what he was. Consequently it is recorded in the Bible that "all flesh had corrupted their way upon the earth" (Gen. 6.12); and again, "upon the flesh of man shall it (the holy anointing oil, representing in type the Holy Spirit) not be poured." (Ex. 30.32); and further, "by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified in His sight" (Rom. 3.20).
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So Nee went from saying that Adam had this extraordinary power, to claiming that this power is now immobilized and even still resides in all of us in that immobilized form. I don’t know about anyone else, but I see all kind of problems with this kind of argument. I really have no interest in speculating on what kind of capabilities or power Adam had, and I think it’s fair to say that we will never know. To make the claim that this “power” still resides in us in an “immobilized” form seems a bit far-fetched to me.