Romans 7:15Meaning & Commentary from the Church Fathers

Likewise, when he says, "It produced in me every desire" (Rom 7:8), he does not mean that the commandment produced desire. He means that sin, through the commandment, increased desire. So here also, when he says, "For what I am doing, I do not understand," he does not express complete ignorance. How else could he "delight in the law of God according to the inner man" (Rom 7:22)? What then does "I do not understand" mean? I remain in darkness. I am carried away. I suffer violence. I myself do not know how I fall into deception. It is like our usual way of saying, "I do not know how such a man came and carried me away." We are not excusing ourselves by ignorance. We are pointing to a certain deception, assault, and plot. "For what I will to do, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do." How do you not know what you are doing? If you desire the good and hate evil, this belongs to perfect knowledge. From this it is clear that by the words "what I will to do, that I do not do," the Apostle does not abolish free will. Nor does he introduce some violent necessity. If we sinned not voluntarily but by compulsion, then the former punishments would again have no ground. By the word "I do not understand," the Apostle expressed not ignorance, but what we have said above. So also, when he added, "what I will to do, that I do not do," he indicated not necessity, but disapproval of the deed. For if he had not meant this by the words "what I will to do, that I do not do," why would he not have added, "I do what I am compelled and forced to do"? That is precisely what is opposed to will and freedom. But the Apostle did not say this. Instead, he put, "what I hate," so that you might understand that he did not abolish freedom by the words "what I will to do." What then means "what I do not will"? What I do not praise, do not approve, do not love. In contrast to this he added the following: "but what I hate, that I do."

This: what they did not approve, did not accept, and did not love, that they did. For he then adds, "But what I hate, that I do." Do you see that he introduces neither compulsion nor necessity? Otherwise he would have added, "What necessity compels me to do, that I do." But he did not say this. He says, "what I hate." How then did evil arise? Through being carried away, through the weakness they had from Adam's transgression. The law could not heal this weakness, although it said what ought to be done. Christ came and healed it. Therefore, in everything he has said here and is about to say, the Apostle's purpose is to prove that human nature had come into an incurable condition. No one will heal it except Christ.

Some ignorant people probably think that he wishes to establish the fable of the Greeks, which they have somehow learned to honor, deceiving and being deceived (2 Tim 3:13). For by inventing according to their own whim some fate and destiny, and by ascribing to these nonexistent things power over our circumstances, they deprive man of what is most fitting to him. That is the necessity of living freely, with an unconstrained and voluntary inclination toward the choice of what ought to be done.

By subjecting those who are in this life, as though by necessity, to the limits and lots they define, they harm them beyond measure. For according to them, if someone turns toward what he ought not, he will be unable to escape the beckoning of fate, even if perhaps he does not wish it. Indeed, no prudent man at all will be able to blame him, even if he is plainly sinning. For if he is convicted of having done what was unavoidable and done against his will, this will necessarily be outside accusation and punishment.

On the other hand, it would be prudent not to praise too greatly a virtuous and honorable man. What of it, if he became such not by his own will, but was brought to this by the beckonings of another? Or rather, fate set before him an irresistible predestination.

Therefore it is completely unfitting to think that the teacher of the most beautiful doctrines was carried away by the subtleties of the Greeks. Nor should we suppose that he who became for us the steward of the divine mysteries followed their absurdities, even though he says: “For I do not understand what I do; for I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do.”

Even if someone should insist on this and decide to think that the Apostle ascribed power over our circumstances to fate and destiny, would he not ask him with full justification, speaking somewhat as follows? “If by harsh and unbearable predeterminations we are bound to what must or must not be done, and have become masters of nothing, but instead yield even what we refrain from by intention to others as possessing us. Why then did you yourself write to us: ‘Do you not know, brethren, for I speak to those who know the law, that the law has authority over a man as long as he lives?’ (Rom 7:1).”

Therefore the law in some way has authority over the living. In those who have died, it will necessarily be inactive. It is not established for them. How could it be? It is established for those who pass their life in the body. It crowns with praises the one who has become practiced in attaining good repute, but it assigns punishment to the impious.

How, then, will the Lawgiver be a righteous Judge when He punishes those who sin, if they fell into this against their will by the compulsion of fate? Moreover, why was the law established at all? The law justly determines punishment for those who have power to do what they wish. Though they had the possibility of gaining approval by giving the mind to good deeds, they preferred the shameful and reckoned what the law condemns to be better.

But the ordinance of the law is useless, I think, for those on whom the yoke of predestination hangs, and who are always turned wherever those ruling them consent. Yet would it not be true to say that He Who knows all things would not have imposed on us the burden of the law, which precisely defines what is pleasing to Him and directs us toward what is profitable, if He knew that we were caught in the nets of fate?

Let the opponents either say that God did not know this, or, if they have resolved to think rightly, let them be exceedingly afraid to proclaim ignorance of the ineffable glory. But they affirm that He established the law, and they clearly confess that He appointed punishments for those who sin. He certainly knows that nothing prevents man from passing his life according to free intention and from being able, by voluntary impulses, to direct himself wherever he wishes. For this reason the divine Paul said that the law has authority over a man as long as he lives.

Therefore he does not say this in the sense that human thought is subjected to the beckonings of others. Rather, he reasons with wisdom and carefully examines the passions of human nature. He almost digs up the diseases subtly hidden within the mind. He describes the body, to which an innate love of pleasure belongs, very skillfully putting upon himself the character of the one who still suffers from love of the body.

For although he himself is crucified to the world, as the world is to him (Gal 6:14), and is truly worthy of wonder, he wisely judges it necessary to consider not his own gift, but to set as the necessary foundation of the discourse the weakness of one who has not yet become like him.

Therefore when you hear, “For I do not understand what I do,” think of extremely sinful people who suppose that they are passing an excellent life, and that nothing can be set on a level with the luxury and vanity of this world. They feel disgust for the virtuous way of life, boast in their pleasures, and give themselves to them without restraint. Of them, I think, Paul says somewhere: “They think on earthly things; their god is the belly, and their glory is in their shame” (Phil 3:19).

Such people, since they perform a vicious deed as something very praiseworthy, can justly say: “For I do not understand what I do.” Therefore let them hear: “Wake up, drunkards, from your wine” (Joel 1:5). For as lovers of drink and those addicted to wine, having damaged the precision of thought because of this passion, cannot understand what they did in drunkenness, so those who suffer disturbance of thought from love of the flesh and shameful desires can never understand what they do.

Thus Paul explains to us the disease of the human heart when he says: “For I do not understand what I do.” And if there is someone whose heart is more receptive to the rebukes of conscience. And who is distressed that he sins, yet is still overcome by sinful pleasures and goes toward sin as though against his will, he will rightly say: “For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do.”

How many, and how often, have admired continence, yet even after undertaking the practice of it have been overcome by the impulses of vile desire. Because their mind was dragged down toward what is worse, they committed sin and afterward were filled with despondency. It would be fitting for such people, and with full justification, since they have fallen into weakness almost against their will, to speak already in this way: “Now then it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me” (Rom 7:17).

Do not return to sin, and do not enter under the yoke of sin, from which you were freed by the cleansing of baptism. "What I hate," he says, that is, what my mind hates, this rules in my flesh.

In serving spiritual demands, it became weak and even hostile to them. The Mosaic Law, given to determine the action of the will, could only prove more clearly the inner division and weakness of fallen man. It also awakened in him a thirst for the help of grace. This law helped the natural law of man's conscience. By positive external punishments it restrained man's sinful inclinations, and by rewards it encouraged the fulfillment of the good. But the weaknesses of the flesh, the inborn inclinations, and acquired habits of sin became so customary and constant that the Apostle directly calls them, taken together, the law of sin. According to the chief place of their activity, he calls them the law of the flesh, the law of the members, which opposes the law of the mind, or conscience. The opposition of this law to the law of the mind is so strong that man does what he does not will. For what he wills, he does not find sufficient strength in himself. Therefore the Apostle cries out on behalf of all suffering mankind: "O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?" The Western Church, following the opinion of Augustine, Ambrose, and others, confirmed by the canons of the Council of Trent, applies the state of man described above to regeneration. Yet even among Western interpreters, some, for example Calmet, Allioli, and Bisping, rely on the opinions of Chrysostom, Theodoret, Theophylact, and other Eastern Fathers. They find it more consistent to see here the state of man before regeneration.

Among the Gentiles, many expressed the thought that desires were divided. On one side stood corrupted flesh and sinful movements of soul. On the other stood the luminous mind and the holy law of the Lord. The law of the Lord, as the expression of God's holy and all-perfect will, shows man the true rule of life. The human mind, as the expression of his higher power, the spirit, fully agrees with the law's demands when it is in clarity and purity. But the flesh, corrupted by sin, with its passions and soul's desires, draws man toward what is contrary to the spirit and the divine law. The will serves as the mediating power between these two currents. Wherever it inclines, that becomes the law which man serves. But sinful man serves not the law of the spirit, which he only approves in his mind, but the law of sin. This service to sin at last becomes such that sinful life seems to be a natural necessity. Some pagans thought this, and some modern scholars suppose the same. Yet this is clearly refuted by the Apostle's repeated mention of the desires of the will, even though it inclines toward what the human mind does not approve. St. John Chrysostom says of this: "By the words, 'what I will to do, that I do' (v. 15), the Apostle does not abolish free choice, nor does he indicate some unavoidable necessity. For if we sin not voluntarily but by compulsion, no reason appears why men have hitherto been punished. But as by the word 'I do not understand' the Apostle expressed not ignorance, but darkening and deception, so by adding 'what I will to do,' he expressed not necessity, but that he does not approve the deed."

Blessed Theodoret likewise limits this lack of understanding to one moment, or to the act of sinning. “One overcome by love of pleasure, and also one intoxicated by the passion of anger, does not have clear knowledge of the sin. But when the action of the passion ceases, he begins to perceive the evil.”

Consent to sin in the act of sinning is also approved by the mind. Afterward, it clearly sees that one should not have acted so. Looking back, it asks in perplexity, “How did this happen?” “I am deceived and carried off together into sin. I am robbed, stealthily dragged away, and I do not know how to understand what I suffer” (Oecumenius).

“For I do not do what I will, but what I hate, that I do.” I will one thing and do another. What I hate, I do. Willing and hating signify a general conviction and thought. But that what is done is not what is desired, but what is hated, refers to each particular act.

This does not mean that the act is done against the will and with hatred. It means that, at the moment of action, what is desired in general becomes undesired, and what is hated becomes loved. For every sin is committed with desire and love.

Before the decision to act, there is the desire for something else and hatred for what lies before one. But the sweetness of self-pleasing approaches, and everything changes. There is struggle, but then everything settles down. What was previously unwilled is performed by the whole person with full eagerness.

Blessed Theodoret writes: “The words, ‘what I do not will’ and ‘what I hate,’ express not necessity, but weakness. We do not sin when compelled by some necessity or by some violence. Yet we do the very thing we abhor as lawless.”

St. Chrysostom says: “From this it is clear that by the words, ‘what I do not will,’ the Apostle does not abolish free choice, nor does he indicate some unavoidable necessity. If we sin involuntarily and under compulsion, then no reason appears why men have been punished until now.

“But just as by the word ‘I do not understand’ the Apostle expressed not ignorance, but what we have said above, so, by adding ‘what I do not will,’ he expressed not necessity, but the fact that he does not approve what has been done, both generally before and after the deed.

“If he had meant otherwise, why did he not add to the words, ‘what I do not will, this I do,’ the phrase, ‘I do what I am compelled to do by necessity’? But the Apostle did not say this. He replaced it with the words, ‘what I hate,’ so that you may understand that even by ‘what I do not will’ he did not abolish freedom.”

It is like a family in which the head of the household holds intentions that, in his judgment, are useful. But when action is required, the members of the household gather and persuade him to do the opposite. He agrees and does it.

Afterward he sees that he should not have agreed, but what is done cannot be undone. This does not correct him. When he must act in the same matter, the household members again overturn him and make him act their way. Thus he always does what he does not will.

The same thing happens within us. Everyone desires the good and hates evil. But the sweetness of self-pleasing comes, clouds the eyes of the mind, and perverts the disposition of the heart. The desired good is no longer desired, and the hated evil appears attractive. Therefore the one is not done, but the other is performed.