[Question:]{.underline} Can God lead us into temptation?
[Answer:]{.underline} This question derives from the translation of the prayer of the Our Father in English, namely “Lead us not into temptation”. How could we say that God leads us into temptation?
This expression in the Our Father in English is a literal translation of the Latin of the Vulgate, “Et ne nos inducas in tentationem”. In his commentary on the Pater, St. Thomas Aquinas has this to say about it: “In the preceding petition Christ taught us to pray for the forgiveness of sins, but in this one he teaches us to beseech that we might be able to avoid sins, that is to say that we might not be drawn into temptation, through which we fall into sins”.(§76).
However, this does not resolve the problem as to why the text is in the second person singular, which leads one to suppose that it is God who is doing the tempting.
There are in fact two kinds of temptation to which man is subject. The first kind exists when a man`s virtue is tried or proven to see if he will do good. In this way, we try our fellow man, if we make him pass a test, or if a superior or novice master wants to test the spirit of mortification of his novices, or if a future spouse wants to see how his future spouse practices self-sacrifice. In this way, God likewise can test or try a person, just as He tested Abraham, asking him to sacrifice Isaac, and just as He tested the patience of Job and of Tobias. In this way God tests us not infrequently, as St. Thomas Aquinas points out: “And so God often sends tribulations on the just, that when they bear them patiently, their virtue may appear and they might progress in that virtue, as is mentioned in Dt 13:3: `The Lord your God trieth you, that it may appear whether you love Him with all your heart, and with all your soul, or not.`” (Op. cit. §79).
However, this is not the usual sense of our prayer that God not allow us to be drawn into temptation. The other meaning of temptation is called the temptation of seduction, in which man is incited to evil, to commit sin. This is temptation as is generally understood, and we are subject to such temptations from the world, the flesh (our fallen human nature) and the devil. In this way, no man is tempted by God, for He cannot in any way will or draw man to evil. This is clearly stated by St. James: “Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and he tempteth no man.” (1:13).
However, although God cannot directly induce a man into evil, He can, in his all-wise Providence, permit such temptations to come upon us, while at the same time giving us the strength to overcome. Hence the importance of our prayer that God will give us the supernatural help to guarantee our victory over the world, the flesh and the devil. It is in this sense that we pray that God not allow us to be led into temptation, or as it is translated in French, “ne nous laissez pas succomber à la tentation”, that is “do not allow us to give way to temptation”. Our Faith in God`s Providence in giving us all the help we need, so that it is never His fault, and always our own, when we fall into temptation, is contained in this text of St. Paul: “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that which you are able: but will make also with temptation issue, that you may be able to bear it.” (I Cor 10:13).
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.