Chapter 192 — On the lower powers’ rebellion against reason

Because the harmonious integrity of the original state depended entirely on the submission of man’s will to God, as was said, consequently as soon as the human will was withdrawn from subjection to God, the perfect subjection of the lower powers to reason and of the body to the soul likewise perished. As a result, man experienced in his lower, sensitive appetite the inordinate stirrings of concupiscence, anger, and all the other emotions. These movements no longer followed the order set by reason but rather resisted reason, frequently overclouding the mind and, so to speak, dragging it about. This is that rebellion of the flesh against the spirit which Scripture mentions. For, since the sensitive appetite, like all the other sense powers, operates through a bodily instrument, whereas reason functions without any bodily organ, what pertains to the sensitive appetite is fittingly ascribed to the flesh, while what pertains to reason is attributed to the spirit, in accord with the fact that substances that are without bodies are commonly called spiritual substances.