What is temptation?

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February 22, 2026 | 8:30am

Socrates, in Plato’s Protagoras, asserts that no one willingly chooses what is bad. Another way of saying this is that we always choose what is good. This is also what Aristotle says less than a hundred years later at the beginning of his Nicomachean Ethics: “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and every pursuit, is thought to aim at some good.”

Around a thousand years after Socrates, St. Augustine, in On Free Choice of the Will, would point to the problem of choosing lower goods over higher ones. Temptation is when we are pulled by what St. Thomas Aquinas would call an apparent good, which could be a lower good mistaken as a higher good. Sin is when we bite the proverbial apple, when we choose the lesser good.

My eyes are glazing over with all these names and abstractions, so let’s make things more concrete… and more exciting!

When we gossip, we choose the lower good of the titillation we feel when we know something that others don’t. But as we squeeze every drop out of a juicy piece of information we have no business sharing, we are also foregoing the higher good of protecting someone’s reputation.

If your ears are perking up, then let’s get you to sit up taller: Pornography is choosing the lower good of physical pleasure over the higher good of purity, chastity, and respect for the gift of sex.

When we lie, it is usually to make us look good in the eyes of people. But the acclaim of others is lower than the good of honesty and truth.

If you are now thinking of theft or murder, ask this question: What was the motivation behind these acts? Perhaps corruption happens because of the desire to make life better for one’s family, but this would be at the expense of life being better for a greater number of citizens. Killing someone can seem like a quick solution to a complicated problem, but it also means denying the deeper values of justice, community, and life itself.

In our Gospel today (Matthew 4:1-11), Jesus is tempted with the lower goods of satisfying his physical hunger, amazing people with works of wonder, and ruling the world. He does not sin. Jesus chooses the higher goods of hungering for God’s word, trusting in God’s presence even in the absence of proof, and accepting God’s rule over your life.

Your prayer assignment this week:

What are your “favorite” sins? What lower good are you choosing in them? What higher good are you foregoing?

A song that can accompany your reflection on your sins is Juan Karlos’ “Medyo Ako.” Try to imagine God singing you this song.

Kumusta na? Kay tagal na ring 'di tayo nagkita
Iba ka na, iba na ang 'yong mukha, ano na ang balita?
Mayro'n na bang ibang nagpapasaya sa 'yo?
O alam niya ba kung ano'ng gusto mo?

Do the lesser goods we choose give us real joy? How long can they make us happy? Are they what we really want?

Mayro'n na bang ibang nagpapaiyak sa 'yo?
At siya rin ba ang pumapawi ng mga luha mo?

Yes, choosing God can sometimes bring us to tears. But choosing lesser goods can make us cry all the more… and they won’t be able to wipe our tears away as God does.

May nahanap ka na bang kagaya ko
Na medyo iba pero medyo ako?

In every temptation, we are reaching for something that looks like the good but is only a shadow. The true Good is God himself. In our sin, we choose the “medyo,” the knock-off instead of the real thing, the shortcut, the easy path, and the wrong road that actually takes us farther from God, who in the end is that which we truly seek.

Fr. Francis teaches Theology, Education and Scripture at both the Ateneo de Manila University and Loyola School of Theology. As a classroom teacher, he is first and foremost a student. As a professor, he sees himself primarily as a pastor.