There is a fable about a little girl who was offered the choice of being pretty or good. She chose to be pretty, adding, "You see, I can be good whenever I like."
Paul described the general human situation more accurately when he wrote (Rom. 7:19, 24): "The good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.... O wretched man that I am!" In their efforts to be better, men down the ages have found themselves frustrated by an apparent worse element in themselves.
Various systems have accepted this state of affairs as inevitable and have tried to teach men how to live with it. Individuals have said: "I am as God made me," or, "I am no worse than the next man." Some have argued that, anyway, behavior is not free but is determined by irrational and amoral compulsions. Such attitudes give no final comfort. The aspiration of the human heart knows better; it will not settle short of the best.
