What is Self-Control?
The two most powerful motivators of human action are fear and love. Fear motivates us to withdraw from things we consider to be dangerous in some way, while love motivates us to pursue things that we find desirable. There are many different kinds of love, and many different things that human beings naturally find desirable. Our most basic desires are for things like food, water, and sex. We are biologically wired to have powerful urges to seek these things, and to experience pleasure when we acquire them.
There is nothing per se wrong with these urges and pleasures. We are biological organisms that need these things to survive; food and water and necessary for individuals to survive, while sex is necessary for the species to continue to survive. It makes perfect sense that we would have powerful urges to seek these things and would experience pleasure when we acquire them.
But what happens when our desire for pleasurable things conflicts with our moral obligations? An inordinate desire for food can become gluttony, consuming too much food to the detriment of our own health as well as to the detriment of others who do not have enough food. An inordinate desire for sex can become immoral lust, treating the bodies of other people as objects to be used as objects for our own pleasure. This can lead to relationship-destroying sexual promiscuity or even, in some cases, sexual assault. Food and sex are the most obvious examples, but overindulgence in all sorts of other pleasures (arts, games, addictive substances, etc.) can potentially lead to morally problematic results.
If we want to be able to deal with desire and pleasure in a morally upright manner, sometimes we need to be able to choose not to act on our desires, even when they are strong. For this, we need the virtue of self-control. Traditionally, this virtue has been termed “temperance,” but I avoid this term because of its strong association with the anti-alcohol “temperance movement,” which can lead to misunderstanding. The virtue of temperance has to do with all human desires, not just a desire for alcohol, and it is typically expressed through moderation rather than complete abstinence.
Self-control is inextricably interconnected with the other virtues. We may claim to be committed to justice, but if our lack of self-control leads us to act in unjust ways, then our commitment is meaningless. If we have the wisdom to know how to go about doing something, but in the moment our lack of self-control leads us astray from wise action, then our wisdom is meaningless.
Christian Self-Control
Practically all human societies to some extent recognize the importance of self-control and teach it to their children. For example, practically all human societies teach that stealing is morally wrong and train their members not to take things they do not own, even if they have a strong desire to do so. There is a great diversity among human societies about sexual ethics, but practically all of them teach the importance of some amount of restraint on people acting on their sexual desires, at the very least forbidding sexual intercourse in public and sexual assault.
A Christian understanding of self-control is distinctive in that Christians believe that self-control is important not only with regards to our outward actions, but also with regards to our inner thoughts. “You have heard that is was said to the ancients,” taught Jesus, “‘Do not murder’ and ‘Anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment. . . You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman to lust after her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt 5:21-22, 27-28).
A common attitude towards sexual desire in our culture is that “it doesn’t hurt to look.” However, according to Jesus’s words, it does hurt to look. If you look at another person lustfully, even if you never act on those desires, you have already sinned in your heart. Similarly, if you are enraged at someone and desire to harm them, but never actually carry it out, our culture would say that no harm is done. But according to Jesus’s words, you have already sinned in your heart simply by desiring to harm someone.
Jesus’s teaching here is radically countercultural because Christian ethics and the ethics of our society have fundamentally different starting points. Our society’s ethics are simply based on what will allow society to function without people harming one another. Christian ethics, on the other hand, is based on rightly living out our covenant relationship with a Holy God. Since God knows our thoughts, our thoughts do have ethical significance, and we can sin against God in our thoughts, even if we never outwardly act on them. After all, if you are fantasizing about doing something, then, in that moment, if you could do it and get away with it, you would. If you want to commit an outward sin, but refrain from doing so only because you do not have an opportunity to do so, then in God’s eyes you are guilty of committing that sin.
A common Jewish attitude of Jesus’s day was that, as long as one did not outwardly break a certain set of rules, one’s relationship with God was fine. With His teaching that one can sin even with one’s thoughts, Jesus utterly repudiates this idea. “Following the rules” was never the point of God’s Torah. The point of God’s Torah was to “Love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength” (Deut 6:5; Matt 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27). The rules were a means to that end, a guide for how to love God. If a person does not follow God’s rules, then they are not loving God. But just because someone follows the rules, that does not necessarily mean that their heart is right with God and that they truly love Him.
The Christian virtue of self-control, then, has to do with shaping our habits of body, mind, and soul such that we will not act or think contrary to God’s commands, even when a strong temptation to do so presents itself. Spiritual practices such as fasting that build our self-discipline can aid us in doing this. But ultimately, simply focusing on not doing sinful things will not be enough to develop the Christian virtue of self-control. Ultimately, Chrsitian self-control comes from loving and desiring God more than we love and desire anything else, including the things that tempt us. The more we deepen our relationship with God, the more we will be able to grow in self-control, along with the rest of the fruit of the Spirit (Gal 5:22-23).