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 acts upon the self rather than upon others. This series sets out to examine that force, the will, from three angles: the power of choice, the power of decision, and the power of wisdom. As a first step, this opening piece asks what kind of "force" the will actually is, and tries to pin down its direction and character.
1. Enkrateia: A Force Turned Inward
The New Testament word most closely tied to the concept of the will is enkrateia (ἐγκράτεια), usually translated "self-control" or "temperance." It was a favorite term of both Paul and Peter, formed by combining the preposition en ("in" or "within") with kratos ("strength" or "dominion").
The etymology alone tells us something important about this force. Where kratos ordinarily names power exercised outward — the kind of power behind words like "-cracy," as in political rule or monarchy — enkrateia turns that same power back on itself. It is, quite literally, the power to govern oneself.
Interestingly, the Greeks did not have just one word for temperance. Classical philosophy generally reached for sophrosyne (σωφροσύνη), the term Plato listed among the four cardinal virtues of the ideal city — wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice. Sophrosyne carries a connotation closer to a well-balanced state of mind. Enkrateia, a word that came into wider use somewhat later, around the time of Aristotle, leans instead toward an active struggle against desire and its eventual mastery — closer to what we would call self-control or self-discipline.
The three New Testament occurrences of the word carry exactly this active sense. In the end, biblical temperance is not simply a placid, well-balanced disposition; it is the exercise of a force — a wrestling match with one's own impulses that ends in their being governed.
Xenophon's writings show just how highly this concept was regarded in the ancient world. He described enkrateia not as "one particular virtue" but as "the foundation of every virtue." If temperance, justice, courage, and wisdom were the pillars of Greek moral thought, enkrateia was the ground on which all of them stood. The insight is straightforward: without self-mastery, neither justice nor courage nor wisdom can stand firm.
Peter stands in this same tradition. Laying out a step-by-step ethic of virtue, he writes:
"Add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience." (2 Peter 1:5–6, KJV)
Here, temperance (enkrateia) is the decisive hinge between knowledge and patience. For knowledge to become a life of endurance, something in between — the power to govern oneself — is indispensable. Paul makes a similar move when defending the gospel before the governor Felix, reasoning "of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come" (Acts 24:25). That temperance appears in the same breath as the ultimate subject of judgment, says a great deal about how foundational this concept was considered to be.
Two traditions with entirely different cultural roots — Greco-Roman philosophy and New Testament faith — arrive, remarkably, at the same conclusion: genuine power begins not with dominion over others, but with dominion over oneself.
2. The Power to Govern Not Others, But Myself
(1) The Paradox of Rule
Instinctively, people admire those who rule over others. The more people a person commands, the wider the territory they hold, the greater the power is assumed to be. Scripture's wisdom literature turns this assumption on its head.
"He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city." (Proverbs 16:32, KJV)
Setting the conqueror of a city side by side with the person who rules their own spirit — and awarding the victory to the latter — is a startlingly bold claim. Winning a war and taking a city is a visible, unmistakably heroic feat. Scripture, however, names a quieter and greater achievement: a victory won inside a person, where no one else is watching.
This insight is not unique to Scripture. The sixteenth-century Italian writer Pietro Aretino wrote in a letter, "I am truly a king, because I know how to govern myself." Locating the essence of kingship not in territory but in self-mastery, Aretino's line echoes Socrates almost exactly. Socrates held that a person who cannot govern themselves remains a slave forever, even seated on a throne, and that anyone who wishes to rule the world must first learn to rule themselves.
History offers no shortage of cautionary tales that prove the point. Countless monarchs conquered vast territories and reigned over multitudes, only to be undone by their own unchecked desire, rage, or fear. At the very moment their outward power reached its peak, the absence of an inward power brought the whole edifice down. It is a lesson history repeats again and again: these are two distinct forces, and one cannot substitute for the other.
(2) A Question of Direction: Four Types of Willpower
Where, then, does the true force of the will actually show itself? It shows itself in how evenly this force is distributed. Sorted by how a person treats themselves versus how they treat others, people fall into roughly four types:
- Lenient with both self and others
- Harsh with self, lenient with others
- Harsh with both self and others
- Endlessly lenient with self, harsh with others
Of these, the true force of the will is fully realized only in the second type — the person whose severity is directed solely inward, toward the self. We see this clearly in how Jesus treated His disciples. In Gethsemane, Jesus demanded of Himself the utmost anguish and absolute obedience, yet to His sleeping disciples He said:
"Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. … Sleep on now, and take your rest." (Matthew 26:41, KJV)
Walking the road to the cross with no compromise toward Himself, while showing boundless patience toward human weakness — this is the direction in which the force of the will ought to point. Only when a force is strict toward the self and generous toward others does it become the mark of a mature character, rather than a destructive form of domination.
3. The Force That Holds Me Together — A Centripetal Power of Being
(1) The Power That Sustains Existence
A second feature of the will is that it does more than regulate individual actions — it functions as a centripetal force holding the entire self together. Modern research on self-regulation offers empirical support for this. Drawing on the work of Karoly, and of Vohs, and Baumeister, self-control can be defined as the capacity to regulate one's impulses, emotions, desires, cognitions, and behavior.
These five elements — impulse, emotion, desire, cognition, and behavior — are, in effect, the representative components of a person's character. My impulses are, in a real sense, me; my emotions and desires reveal who I am. Self-control sits at the center of all of these, holding them together as one integrated whole.
For this reason, the collapse of self-control is never merely the breaking of a single habit or the loss of one small discipline — it is an event that shakes the very axis holding a person's entire being together. Proverbs likens this to the collapse of a city:
"He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls." (Proverbs 25:28, KJV)
A city without walls stands defenseless against any invader. A character that has lost self-control is exactly the same, left utterly exposed to every impulse and temptation, great or small. The will functions precisely as those walls do: it holds a person's being together as one and shields it from erosion from without.
(2) The Power to Live a Life
This insight has also been borne out extensively by recent research in the social sciences. Studies on self-regulation consistently show that this force shapes nearly every domain of life — relationships, physical and mental health, life satisfaction, and happiness. It is precisely for this reason that scholars have given self-control the nickname "hallmark of adaptation": a factor that proves decisive for adaptation and achievement in virtually every area of life.
If a parent could pass down only one thing to a child, what should it be? Not wealth, not knowledge, not talent, but willpower. Equipped with this force alone, a child can carry it through the whole of the life that lies ahead. This insight was expressed long ago in the following terms:
"The will is not to be ignored or crushed, but guided and developed. Save all the strength of the will, for the human being needs it all; give it proper direction — it is what the battle of life requires. … The parent or teacher who by such instruction trains the child to self-control will be the most useful and permanently successful." (Education, p. 289)
4. So What, Exactly, Is This Force?
As we have seen, the will is a force that turns inward, a centripetal power that holds a person's being together against collapse. But what, concretely, is this force actually made of? The following passage offers a clue toward an answer.
"What you need to understand is the true force of the will. This is the governing power in the nature of man, the power of decision, or of choice. … But you can choose to serve Him. You can give Him your will; He will then work in you to will and to do according to His good pleasure." (Steps to Christ, p. 47)
Packed into this short passage are three faces of the will: the power of choice, the power of decision, and the power of wisdom. These are not three separate, unrelated capacities but three facets that a single force — the will — reveals depending on the circumstance. What to choose; how to carry that choice through to a decision; and the wisdom that steers the whole process in the right direction — together, these three form one complete and integrated will.
Conclusion
If outward-facing force changes the world, inward-facing force makes the person. And, paradoxically, only someone who has learned to govern themselves can stand truly unshaken before the world. Just as a city without walls collapses on its own, a person who has lost the force that turns inward cannot be preserved by any outward achievement, however great.
In the piece that follows, we will look at how this force of the will actually operates — beginning with the dimension of choice. What is the relationship between choice and will? What distinguishes the will that decides not to do something from the will that decides to do something? And, finally, what does it mean for the will to be wise — to steer all of this in the right direction? We will take up these questions in the next installment.