The purpose of material life is to overcome sin. Material realities are essential for stabilizing external (objective) reality as a reference for the requirements for life, since morality is that which sustains life. Material realities create a need to solve problems related to food, shelter, clothes, transportation and extended complexities. Laws of physics control the result, and they cannot be defied by normal humans. So knowledge, ingenuity, responsibility, accountability and all of morality become essential for survival—unless a person works for satan who can defy the laws of physics and rip everyone off, murder, lie and steal easier than doing anything in an honest manner.

Therefore, the family enters into the influences. Families are highly varied groups. You see an extremely wide range of situations in the news and on TV. Some persons describe the most loving support groups. Sometimes, the kids get put into cages, brutalized and murdered. Everything in between occurs. So in addition to learning how to responsibly sustain life, people also learn a wide range of human characteristics and moral states.

There is a learning process involved—that is, for those persons who are so-called normal humans and finding out what material life is about. Learning is the purpose. Christ and the true prophets emphasized the importance of knowledge over and over. (Nowhere in the religion of the demons based on sacrifice [Paul's theology] are such experiences relevant.)

The best circumstances for overcoming sin involve humane poverty with enough religion or moral instruction to find a moral and constructive path in life along with enough "theology" to determine purposes. Even primitive societies such as American Indians (native Americans) knew that people entered animal bodies between or after human life and would eventually end up in "the happy hunting grounds." Typical humans enter human and animal life several times, usually spending several centuries in the grave between each lifetime.

In all of that, there are family interactions which have various significances. So psychologists argue nature vs. nurture. Nature, as basic character, determines most of the result, while nurture adds superficial influences on the order of learning. Some pretty bad experiences can be included in the nurture, but they tend to be superficial enough that they add to the learning experience.