Will Power

The struggle to love God above all else is not an intellectual task. If it were it would easy. It is not simply a matter of deciding we want to do it and setting our minds to accomplishing it. We can't set goals and then design tasks for achieving those goals. It IS a task of the will, but it is not accomplished by sheer will power driven by the intellect. Loving God above all else is accomplished by surrendering the will to God. Actually, that is almost a tautology: tantamount to saying "the struggle to love God above all else is accomplished by loving God above all else."

So how is it NOT a matter of will power? Will power is knowing intellectually what is good for you and then using the power of the mind to accomplish or attain it. The mind works against the power of emotion and desire. Anyone who has gone on a diet knows how well this works.

In The Confessions, we see that Augustine already buys into Christianity intellectually. His mind is there. But he knows God doesn't want just his mind; God will only be satisfied with all of us - mind, heart, and spirit. We can only be happy if we give it all up for God. Augustine knows this and knows it means he has to yield his sexuality to God. He wants this with all his mind but his heart isn't there yet. He must count the cost and struggle if he is to truly yield to God.

Isn't this exactly how much of our moral struggle works out? We know what the right thing is; we just don't want to do it. It is the problem of the divided will. We know doing what's right is going to cost us - and our heart demands that we count the cost. Usually we have to go through a struggle before can let go and surrender to God. It is this struggle that Augustine recounts in The Confessions.

So letting go of that which is less than God becomes a central task of the spiritual (and hence the moral) life. We don't just do it once; we do it throughout our lives because we never fully yield everything to God.