According to Catherine Thomas, the Book of Mormon belongs to that group of ancient religious records known as Two-Way documents. A number of other ancient records may be described as Two-Way documents: the Qumran Manual of Discipline, the early Christian Didache, the Epistle of Barnabas, and so on. Two-Way literature presents as philosophy that describes life as consisting of only two ways, each antithetical to the other; it identifies only two inclinations in man, also antithetical. For example, 2 Nephi 10:23-24 describes two ways: "Therefore, cheer up your hearts, and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves--to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life. Wherefore . . . reconcile yourselves to the will of God, and not to the will of the devil and the flesh." At the end of Ether 8, Moroni anticipated the reader's question as to why he occupied so much space with the grim, nearly unrelieved saga of the fall of the Jaredite nation. He answered with a two-way statement: "I . . . am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved." (Ether 8:26)
We could illustrate the Two Ways on a line, with Evil/Satan's Will on one end and Righteousness/God's Will on the other. The Book of Mormon describes no in-between states. Moroni observed later in his own book that an evil person cannot do good, and a follower of Christ cannot do evil. (Moroni 7:6-11) One's life is characterized either by directing his energies to the right side where he or she experiences abundant life, or toward the let where he or she suffers a diminution of life and, if undeterred, self-annihilation. A nation's life is characterized by the same polarity. Moroni presented this two-way energy principle in the rise and fall of the Jaredites. [Catherine Thomas, "A More Excellent Way," in Studies in Scripture: Book of Mormon, Part 2, pp. 271-272]