Why do we continue to sin despite knowing that God loves us more than we can imagine and causes us to go to hell?

In Romans 7:14-25, St. Paul deals with this exact issue. He says: “…I am of the flesh, sold into slavery under sin. I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” I think it’s safe to say we’ve all been there with Paul…

Paul is putting in his own words a conflict that was long familiar to the human race. “Why do people commit evil deeds?” The ancient philosopher, Plato, thought that evil was due only to ignorance. Evil actions were a result of some lack of knowledge; if we just understood better, we would know and recognize the evil for what it really was and would not do it. Paul’s expression of this inner conflict between “the flesh” and “the spirit” (which here represent the sinful and unredeemed part of our nature versus the redeemed and sanctified part of our nature, respectively) shows us that Plato’s answer isn’t sufficient. I know the good I should do, I know how committing sin will harm me (and others), and yet I still want to sin and even choose to sin, even as I hate it. If we truly know and believe the truth of God’s goodness and the horrors of sin, death, and hell, why would anyone want to still sin? Paul’s description if this inner conflict doesn’t dive deep into providing an explanation. Rather, he simply expresses the drama of this tension between one’s love for sin (in “the flesh”) and the power of God’s grace (through “the spirit”). In the end he simply recognizes the supremacy of God’s grace to save us from this “death” in the body: “Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

This inner conflict of Paul’s would be taken up further by future theologians and spiritual writers of the Church, including St. Augustine. This inner conflict was deeply familiar to Augustine as a man who himself underwent a dramatic conversion from a life of sin to a life redeemed by Christ’s grace and mercy. Augustine expressed the struggle in his own “flesh” in various ways, writing that during the time of his conversion he prayed to God, rather humorously, “Lord, give me chastity and continence… but not yet!” Because he knew so personally the tug-of-war within us between love for God and love for sin, Augustine took it upon himself to examine more deeply why we struggle like this. His answer is summarized in the word concupiscence. Today, we most often think of concupiscence in terms of sexual sin, but Augustine uses the word to refer to all kinds of sin. Concupiscence is a wound in our human nature left by the Original Sin of Adam and Eve. Before the fall, Adam and Eve’s affections and desires were rightly ordered, and they had full control over their will. After the fall, however, Adam, Eve, and all of us experience an “inclination” toward sin, like a scale that’s off-balance. It only takes a small tip of this scale for us to choose sin. We no longer have mastery over our wills. This is the missing piece of the answer that Plato never found: the lack that leads us to choose evil is not in our minds, but in our wills. Our hearts, wounded by the effects of sin, are now inclined toward it–and the more we sin, the deeper the inclination.

If we left the discussion right there, we’d probably be led to despair. How can we ever help ourselves out of this miserable state? Well, the truth is… we can’t. As Paul recognized, as Augustine recognized, and as all the saints in the Church’s history recognized… we cannot save ourselves from this concupiscence, this inclination toward sin. We must be saved from it. This is the power of God’s grace. We know as Catholics that we must choose to accept and cooperate with God’s grace (through good works), but we cannot be saved without God’s grace; it is not in our power to save ourselves. Fortunately for us, God has made this saving grace very, very accessible to us: it is given to each of us in our Baptism! Since the moment of our Baptism, this power of God’s grace has dwelled within us. To be holy and to do the good, we must choose to accept and cooperate with God’s grace more and more. When I do so, my inner being is transformed and renewed, and the wound of concupiscence, little by little, begins to heal. Augustine, who is himself called “the Doctor of Grace” for his writings on this same subject, characterizes it as the healing of the heart. Our hearts have been wounded by sin (both Original Sin and my own particular sins). Even though my mind may be formed in the faith, my heart remains de-formed. But by living in relationship with God, my wounded heart is healed and made whole.