In Tim Keller’s excellent TGC11 talk, he quoted from W.G.T. Shedd’s “Sin Is Spiritual Slavery,” found in Sermons to the Natural Man (1871):
Sin is the suicidal action of the human will.
Shedd goes on:
To do wrong destroys the power to do right.
This is illustrated in the effect of a vicious habit in diminishing a man’s ability to resist temptation.
But habit is the continual repetition of of wrong self-decisions, every one of which reacts upon the will as a faculty, and renders it less strong and energetic to good.
No man can do a wrong act, and be as sound in his will, and as spiritually strong, after it as he was before it.
You can get a Kindle version of Shedd’s book for free.
