Here is the Satanic suggestion, followed by a definite sense of pleasure therein, and yet so met and disposed of that no sin, but rather the blessing of a victory, results. And this victory is more to God's honour than it would have been had we rejected the temptation with disgust, having found no sort of pleasure in it. When we found pleasure in it, but refused it, there was a greater victory over self and Satan.
III. The "Inferior" and "Superior" Wills
The existence of the two operations of will in man is proved from Holy Scripture. St. Paul, writing to the Roman Christians, lifts the veil from his own spiritual experience and shows us how they operated in him. His experience we all recognize as our own.
"I find then a law," he says, "that when I would do good"—that is when I will to do good,—"evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inner man, but I see another law in my members warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members."[[9]]
It is well before going further to inquire what is this "inferior will" that manifests itself in the great Saints, as well as in us sinners, and in which this delight at the thought of sin is said to have its place. How is it to be distinguished from the higher will, which, while acknowledging the sense of pleasure, yet refuses to yield to it? And what relation have these two wills to the act of consent, which constitutes the sin? Let us find the answer to our question in one of the best of spiritual masters, the author of "The Spiritual Combat":
"Although we may be said in this combat to have within us two wills, the one of the reason, which is thence called reasonable and higher, the other of the senses, thence called sensual and lower, and commonly described by the words 'appetite,' 'flesh,' 'sense,' and 'passion'; yet as it is through the reason that we are men, we cannot truly be said to will anything which is willed by the senses, unless we are inclined thereto by the higher will.
"And herein does our spiritual conflict principally consist. The reasonable will being placed, as it were, midway between the Divine Will which is above it, and the inferior will or the will of the senses, which is beneath it, is continually warring against both, each seeking in turn to draw it, and bring it under obedience."[[10]]
It is the inferior will that runs forward with delight to act upon Satan's suggestion; it is the higher will that checks this precipitation and says, "I know it is not the will of God, and therefore nothing will induce me to do it." This higher will is what is commonly meant when we speak of the human will being conformed to, or arrayed against, the Divine Will. It has to act before man becomes responsible.[[11]]