Wait Dave, yesterday you insinuated those pedophile priests were not exercising their will:
I don't get where you assume that the sin is "willful.""
So, which is it Dave, were they willfully acting or not? No matter how hard you try you cannot have it both ways.
I forget sometimes, that those I am debating do not have access to the stores of knowledge found in such places as "dictionary.com." Let's examine a definition given for the word "willful," shall we?
1: done by design; "the insult was intentional"; "willful disobedience" [syn: intentional, wilful]
2: habitually disposed to disobedience and opposition [syn: froward, headstrong, self-willed, wilful]
3: by conscious design or purpose; "intentional damage"; "a knowing attempt to defraud"; "a willful waste of time" [syn: deliberate, intentional, knowing, wilful]
It was the idea of doing such things "by design" or "by conscious design or purpose" that I had in mind. Being determined, headstrong to do the acts. I don't think a lot of sinners set out to sin. Many of them end up making choices against their better judgment.
So while they are indeed exercising their "will," I don't see that we can say every choice a person makes is "willful," meaning "by conscious design."
SD