Temptation (Bonhoeffer)

Bonhoeffer, in his book entitled Temptation, describes how this works:

With irresistible power desire seizes mastery over the flesh.… It makes no difference whether it is sexual desire, or ambition, or vanity, or desire for revenge, or love of fame and power, or greed for money.… Joy in God is … extinguished in us and we seek all our joy in the creature. At this moment God is quite unreal to us, he loses all reality, and only desire for the creature is real; … Satan does not here fill us with hatred of God, but with forgetfulness of God.… The lust thus aroused envelops the mind and will of man in deepest darkness. The powers of clear discrimination and of decision are taken from us. The questions present themselves: “Is what the flesh desires really sin in this case?” “Is it really not permitted to me, yes—expected of me, now, here, in my particular situation, to appease desire?” … It is here that everything within me rises up against the Word of God.11

11 11. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Temptation (London: SCM Press Ltd, 1961), p. 33.

Hughes, R. K. (1991). James : Faith that works. Preaching the Word (48). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.