Q&A: Weakness of Will
Weakness of Will
Question
Regarding the problem connected to weakness of will.
I’ll restate it just to make sure we’re talking about the same thing.
You are basically claiming that when a person sins, he wants to sin, since if it is a case of giving in to the impulse then he is coerced and does not need repentance. And if he is not coerced, then the desire to sin overpowered all the other desires. In addition, you add that if, at the moment of repentance, the person wants to change, then that means he has already changed, and if so the process seems unnecessary.
It seems to me that there is no problem here, for two reasons:
1) First, one can say that the very process of repentance is meant to look at our past and examine where our desires stand, and perhaps even decide between them. Put it this way: if the process of repentance did not exist, we would not even try to examine where we stand, and presumably we would not change were it not for repentance.
2) Alternatively, regardless of the necessity of the process, a person looks at his past and sees a collection of facts. He sees that in various situations he sinned; that is, his will did not overcome his impulse, or in your terms, his hidden desire was to sin. Now, at this moment, he wants otherwise. Does that mean he has changed and does not need the process of repentance? Absolutely not. Where is the confidence coming from that he will not sin again? The fact that, in his inner accounting, he wants one thing does not in any way guarantee that he will not sin again. As they say at the end of the High Holiday prayer: “I should have said, ‘I will not do it again,’ were it not that I fear the evil inclination.” Therefore, the process of repentance is not meaningless; it is meant to strengthen the desires so that they will overcome the impulses next time. In truth, in the time of the Temple, when the process was far more externalized, it is understandable that its purpose was to change one’s desires.
You are right that today the process is much more internal (though there is still confession); one would need to define what this process contributes beyond sitting in an armchair and thinking back. Still, that is already a different question—how to define the process. But on the level of principle, the purpose of the process seems fairly clear.
I would be happy to hear whether, in light of this, you still maintain that the above problem exists.
Answer
My position has not budged. I did not understand what you added with these arguments. You briefly described my position, and the description is quite accurate. But afterward you neither answer nor address my arguments. So I do not know what I am supposed to answer here.
Discussion on Answer
I do not understand the claim. If he wants to change from a system of beliefs and desires X to a system Y, that means he already believes in system Y. So he has already changed.
But that is exactly the point—no. The fact that he wants to does not mean that in practice he has adopted system Y. He can want to; that does not mean that this is in fact the truth. The truth will become known only at the moment of action, and it could be that repentance is meant to prepare for or simulate that moment of action.
Or in simple words, the fact that I want to be a person of good character traits does not mean that I will be such a person.
Your comparison is misplaced. Being a person of good character traits does not mean believing something intellectually, but rather internalizing something in the soul. That is a completely different state. If I want to adopt a certain value system, then I already believe in it. My claim was that every action is grounded in belief, and therefore there is a connection between these two planes. A solution to the problem would have to present a mechanism that disconnects them.
I think I did address your arguments.
I am claiming that one of the assumptions in your whole structure is simply wrong.
You argue that when the penitent asks to change the desire that caused the sin, he has in fact already changed, so the process of repentance is unnecessary. I claim that this assumption is wrong, because “asking to change” or even “regretting” does not at all mean that he has changed. In order to know whether he has changed, he has to face the same test.
So if that assumption is wrong, it pulls the ground out from under the whole structure you tried to build, because repentance is very much not unnecessary; its purpose is to change the desire/value that caused the sin.