Dear Bill,
thanks so much for these comments. I suppose putting a link to other threads would have to be done by the Jules or Katie van Schai..
Josef S

Dear Rhett,

Thank you very much for your excellent question.
I do indeed think that this word of St. Paul “The good I will that I do not, the evil I will not, that I do.” (Rom. 7:19) is most closely related to the philosophy of freedom and to human experience.
Perhaps there are even a number of different truths about freedom included in this text:
1.  In your example of the husband it may be the case that he does not sufficiently deeply will not to be sarcastic and rude and does not recognize these relatively little sins of sarcastic or rude comments and therefore ought to meditate more on the love of kindness and respectfulness and reverence and on the evil of acting irreverently and rudely. For ethical knowledge is the beginning of acting morally well and on the other hand, the deeper our will to be good is, the less likely we will be to sin and to “do what we do not want to do” and the more likely we will be to do the good we will (in our depth).
2.  It could also be that the husband does very deeply recognize these values and will not to commit wrong acts, but that his will is not superactual enough and does not yet have firm and superactual roots and reign in his soul.  Then renewing this good will and attitude daily in some meditation and firm inner resolutions will help him to reach that level.
3.  Perhaps the indirect role of his free will, acting often well, will lead him gradually to reduce and to overcome these faults. In other words, by repenting each time he fails in this way and by speaking often reverently and lovingly, gradually he might overcome this fault more and more because each single good act has also some indirect effect on our future actions and affective movements and responses in our soul.
4.  Perhaps a more consistent use of his cooperative freedom (sanctioning each good movement of his heart and mind and disavowing his sarcasm and irreverence each time they happen, repenting them), while not immediately uprooting them, will gradually contribute to overcoming them more or less completely.
5.  Perhaps he has also to look for the roots of this sarcasm and rudeness (perhaps he has to work on having more self-less love, overcome some secret lack of trust in the love of his wife and in the love of God, reach a greater purity of heart, a greater readiness to forgive others who have wounded him, and will only then be able to overcome sarcasm and rudeness).
6.  Another truth of Saint Paul’s words is more theological than philosophical: that we cannot be perfect without a special divine grace because our nature is too wounded by original and personal sin to avoid each sin even though this is what we should do and will in our depth of heart.  Therefore we should always also pray to God that he helps us with his grace since our own free acts are too weak and our nature too fragile and as Catholics, use the gift of the sacrament of confession and penance).
Kind regards

Josef Seifert

Dear Rhett:
this is a very beautiful way to interpret my response.
Josef