Thoughts/feelings -> Freedom & creativity: power to do what is good (or evil)

THE WELL-KEPT HEART - INTERPLAY OF WILL, THOUGHTS, AND FEELINGS - If one’s life is to be organized at all, it must be organized by the will (or heart or spirit). It can be pulled together from the inside only. The function of the will or heart is to organize our lives as a whole and to organize them around God. Volition, or choice, is the exercise of will, the capacity of the person to originate things and events that would not otherwise occur. 

By originate I mean to include two of the things most prized in human life: freedom and creativity. These are really two aspects of the same thing when properly understood: the power to do what is good (or evil). The thought of a sin is not sin, and it is not even a temptation. Temptation is the thought plus the inclination to sin, possibly manifested by lingering over the thought or seeking it out. Without the inner yes, there is no sin. But sin itself is when we inwardly say yes to the temptation, when we would do the deed, even though we may not actually get to carry it out. 

Yet human life as a whole does not run by will alone. Far from it. Volition is closely intertwined in this process. To choose, one must have some object or concept before the mind and some feeling for or against it. Feeling and thought always go together. They are interdependent and are never found apart. There is no feeling without something being before the mind in thought and no thought without some positive or negative feeling toward what is contemplated. 

The person with a well-kept heart is a person who is prepared for and capable of responding to the situations of life in ways that are good and right. This person’s will functions as it should—to choose what is good and avoid what is evil—and the other components of his nature cooperate to that end. He need not be perfect, but what all people manage in at least a few times and areas of life, he manages in life as a whole. When I think, I must do this, I’ve moved beyond feeling to choice (will). I have thought about this for a long time, and I know I will feel regret if I don’t do this. 

These three components of will, thought, and feeling are so closely intertwined that we may not be able to differentiate among them. Many times we get an inclination to do good, but our thoughts or feelings coax us out of it. Other times we have an inclination to give in to a temptation, but wise thinking or dread of consequences (feelings) help us not to give in.

Johnson, Jan; Willard, Dallas. Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice: Experiments in Spiritual Transformation (Redefining Life) (pp. 27-28). The Navigators. Kindle Edition. 

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