by Zeke Flores<\/p>\n
Most people don’t make a deliberate choice between good and evil. That is, they don’t sit there thinking about the moral implications of a choice; they simply do what they want, and then when it turns bad, they’re surprised at “what happened.” But everything we do is a choice in some way. The choice is between what we ought <\/b>to do and what we want <\/b>to do. The trick is wanting what we ought to do!<\/p>\n “For the good that I want, I do not do, but I practice the very evil I do not want<\/em>” (Romans 7:19).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Zeke Flores Most people don’t make a deliberate choice between good and evil. That is, they don’t sit there thinking about the moral implications of a choice; they simply do what they want, and then when it turns bad, they’re surprised at “what happened.” But everything we do is a choice in some way.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[763,38],"class_list":["post-89407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-decisions","tag-morality"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":43125,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-evil-in-this-world-makes-me-want-to-be-a-buddhist\/","url_meta":{"origin":89407,"position":0},"title":"The evil in this world makes me want to be a Buddhist","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 14, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: I read your response to the person asking questions about theodicy. I don't feel you did a good job answering: Inasmuch as I can understand God \"letting\" a bad person hang themselves, it makes no sense that innocent, good, sincere people should suffer as a result. A young couple\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":92970,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-sovereignty-of-god-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":89407,"position":1},"title":"The Sovereignty of God (Benton)","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"December 31, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton I recently saw someone suggest that Calvinists would change John 3:19 to read: \"And this is the condemnation, that light has come into the world, but I sovereignly chose not to regenerate them, so they had no choice but to love darkness instead.\" This would need\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20121,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/why-create-humans-if-god-knew-most-would-live-sinfully\/","url_meta":{"origin":89407,"position":2},"title":"Why create humans if God knew most would live sinfully?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: So, God controls everything that will ultimately happen, but not the choices we make in order to get to that final event, correct? I'm almost positive that that's what\u00a0all of those articles\u00a0were pointing to. So then, does that mean that He meant for humans to ultimately be sentenced to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15479,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/how-could-adam-and-eve-not-know-of-good-and-evil-until-they-ate-a-fruit\/","url_meta":{"origin":89407,"position":3},"title":"How could Adam and Eve not know of good and evil until they ate a fruit?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 15, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Hi, How does one respond to someone who mocks the Christian faith by saying, \"The first human did not have knowledge of right or wrong and only got such ability after eating a fruit.\" He says that sounds like a far-fetched fairy tale. Answer: What changes between childhood and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24819,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/free-will-and-the-power-of-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":89407,"position":4},"title":"Free Will and the Power of God","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 16, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton A gentleman called me recently to discuss the idea of men having free will. He believed that if a person can choose his own destiny, then he is working against God's will. Therefore he believes that a concept of free will is at odds with the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/rock-n-roll-monkey-FTfjMijq-Ws-unsplash-263x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":96453,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/shame\/","url_meta":{"origin":89407,"position":5},"title":"Shame","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"July 4, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton \"For it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret\" (Ephesians 5:12). Yet many want to flaunt what should be held in shame. Some want others to see their pride in their rebellion against the word of God and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89407","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=89407"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89407\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89407"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89407"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89407"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}