towardinsight's blog

IntroductionIf will is fundamentally a decision-making power, what exactly is it deciding? The most basic answer is this: it decides not to. It is the power to stop ourselves in front of something we want right now but shouldn't have yet. This essay looks at that "will not to act" through two lenses borrowed from psychology—delayed gratification and delay discounting.1. Will and Delayed Gratific..

When we talk about power, we tend to picture something that reaches outward. Authority moves other people. Physical strength overpowers an object. Influence reshapes the world. It feels almost natural to define power as "the capacity to act on other people and on the world." Yet Scripture and ancient Greek thought converge on another kind of power — one whose direction is reversed, a force that ..