Nietzsche says that the illusion of willpower rests on our tendency to identify with the part of our soul that commands, not the part that obeys. On one hand, the will is desire. On the other, the will is necessary only when you need to act against your desires. The will is both problem and solution, and to fight will with will is to end up even more entangled.
—Meghan O’Gieblyn
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. … Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
—Romans 7