the desire to sin
Brother Ignatius,
The "desire to sin" is a human experience that is self evident.
Thank you, Cesar
QUESTION from Cesar on June 11, 2004
My question, however, is this: to what extent is this desire to sin derived from our own natural desires and to what extent is it influenced by the evil ones? Gluttony, for example, is inordinate yet derived from the natural desire to eat. In this case, is the desire to cross the boundary into inordinate behavior influenced from within our own natural desires or is it influenced by some objectively evil entity that exists outside of us?
ANSWER by Bro. Ignatius Mary, OLSM on June 12, 2004
|
Dear Cesar: St. Paul speaks of this in some detail. We struggle against the flesh. Even St. Paul said that he keeps doing what he does not want to do; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. Most of the time the desire to sin comes from our own disordered desires and from fallen human nature. It is possible for a demon to try to seduce a person into sin, but most of the time we are the ones who get ourselves in trouble. Demons like to be hitchhikers. They will see a temptation in us and try to exploit it, or they see a problem in us and they will try to make it worse that it would have been -- poking a finger in a wound and twisting. There is an old saying that what leads us to sin is the World, the Flesh, and the Devil. The World represents about 6 percent, the devil about 4 percent, and 90 percent of our problems come from our own fleshy desires. We can never say "devil made me do it", we can never blame the devil or the world for our desire to sin. In the end neither the world or the devil can cause us to sin, neither the world nor the devil can can reprobate our desires. While the world and the devil can indeed influence those things, the final responsibility and culpability is ours. The battle is for the mind. That is where all disordered desire and where all sin begins. St. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:3-6:
3 For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, 4 for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. 5 We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, 6 being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.
God bless, For Assistance with Spiritual Warfare problems please go to our How We Can Help You page. For a direct link to sample Spiritual Warfare prayers see our Spiritual Warfare Prayer Catalog |