Passionate self-control

Coakley ( God, Sexuality, and the Self: An Essay ‘On the Trinity’ , 14-15) neatly shows that self-control does not result from a restraint of passion but from the source passion itself, which is the Spirit:

“The Spirit’s ‘protoerotic’ pressure, felt initially as a propulsion towards divine union, must inexorably bring also – as the Spirit of the Son – the chastening of the human lust to possess, abuse, and control. This breaking, stopping, and chastening is a necessary prelude to the participatory transformation of all human, and often misdirected, longings – so that they may become one with God’s.”

The Spirit draws humans together in union while simultaneously interposing between them, and as the between He acts as “the guardian of human integrity.” This is what Paul can say that the same Spirit that inflames love (Romans 5:1) also gives the gift of self-control (Galatians 5).