> Ideas about willpower and self-control have deep roots in western culture, stretching back at least to early Christianity, when theologians like Augustine of Hippo used the idea of free will to explain how sin could be compatible with an omnipotent deity.<p>Depending on one's definitions, "willpower" and "temperance" are synonymous. While Augustine certainly wrote about self-control both in Free Will and Confessions, he was largely borrowing ideas from Cicero, who largely borrowed from Aristotle and Plato (see e.g., <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardinal_virtues</a> for a history of this). I don't understand why the author would only go as far as Augustine instead of the 800 years earlier than Plato. The distinction matters because this isn't just a thing that Christians made up to figure out how to make life compatible with a deity we happen to believe in, it's an idea that many thinkers independent of religious perspective have agreed with as an important aspect of having virtue, happiness, eudaimonia, or whatever other term one wants to use.<p>> The limited-resource concept likely has its roots in Judeo-Christian ideas about resisting sinful impulses<p>Citation needed. It seems the much more common notion in Western or Judeo-Christian tradition is that all the virtues are practiced habits, and we therefore get better at them as we do them more often. This can be seen in either the writings or living example of at least the following: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, the St. Benedict, St. Anthony and the Desert Fathers, and Francis of Assisi, but probably in lots more.<p>If the author's claim (that the Judeo-Christian taught the limited-resource concept) were true, then fasting or abstinence like many of us are doing now in Lent would make no sense - fasting is an exercise in willpower. If using willpower made you more likely to not use it later, making it more likely to sin, fasting would make you more likely to sin, not less likely, which would be the opposite of what it's trying to accomplish.<p>If I recall correctly, I think many of them also said something about when free will is impaired, so although the author does the standard "look, these people were simple and thought X," trope, I think it's a great deal more complicated than that.<p>Obviously, the usual qualifications apply - one may not agree with any of the above, but it seems that one should represent it accurately.