“Human nature was then as it is now, the slave of passion, the victim of corruption. In a few words that describes the Nephites of Samuel’s time. They hated truth, and each walked in his own way. As a nation of much-favored people, they, however, were quick to forget, and slow to remember God’s goodness. Heaven’s greatest gift to mankind, the Savior of the world, was declared by them to be folly, and the idea of Christ was foolishness. Even when their eyes and ears, and even their hearts, told them of His reality, they sought ways to explain by a purely materialistic concept that they were deceived, and that Samuel and others of the prophets were peddlers of mischief.” (Reynolds and Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 7, p. 53)
Bruce R. McConkie
“Spiritual deafness describes the state of those who are lacking in spirituality, whose spirit ears are not attuned to the whisperings of the still small voice of the Spirit. Similarly, spiritual blindness is the identifying mark which singles out those who are unable to see the hand of God manifest in the affairs of men. Such have ‘unbelief and blindness of heart’ (D.& C. 58:15); they are ’hard in their hearts, and blind in their minds.’ (3 Ne. 2:1.)” (Mormon Doctrine, p. 184)