Our coddled, corrupted, self-centered will

THE SPLINTERED WILL - Our will is what comes from nothing else but us. Will is the ability to originate (or refrain from originating) an act or a thing. It is the core of who and what we are as individuals, for what arises from our will is from us alone. It is that aspect of personality that gives us a likeness to God, what we are in his image. 

The will’s primary exercise in humans is the power to select what we think about and how intently we focus on it. From this, our other decisions and actions flow, more or less. Character develops from will. God doesn’t run over our will because it is highly precious and gives the person dignity. Choice—the exercise of will and spirit—is valued and carefully guarded throughout life. We are created to be creators of good. 

The drive toward good is naturally implanted in the human will by our Creator, but the will can become splintered, corrupted, and eventually turned against itself as a result of practical self-deification. The question, What good can I bring about? is replaced by How can I get my way? As exaltation of self replaces submission and service to God, manipulation, deception, seduction, and malice replace transparency, sincerity, and goodwill. 

Though God reveals his will to us, he chooses not to override our self-conflicted will, allowing us the consequences of our choices. Good and wise inclinations are frequently defeated by the flawed inclinations of our lives: social influences, mistaken ideas, overwhelming feelings, or disconnections and ruptures in the depths of the soul. The constant character of the will apart from God is duplicity—or, more accurately, fragmentation and multiplicity. It wills many things, and these cannot be reconciled with each other. 

Turned away from God, thoughts and feelings fall into chaos. Then the human will moves irresistibly toward deception. This is the result of pretending to feel and think one way while acting in another. Often the deception involved is self-deception, so that we cannot even understand ourselves and why we do what we do.