It is often asked why God deprived us of the gift of freedom from concupiscence. Many and various explanations have been offered. These are not contrary one to another but can be complementary.

I’m wondering whether the following has ever been proposed. But first, I will be more precise by what I mean by the preternatural gift of freedom from concupiscence. I mean precisely the having of despotic (or quasi-despotic) control over the passions, such that no passion would arise except at the command of the will and that a passion willed would arise at the will’s command.

Were God not to have deprived us of this gift, then we could have been all the more wicked sinners. The lack of despotic control over passions deprives us of a kind of dominion that, were we to enjoy it while yet being wicked of will, we could sin more greviously and more cleverly than we can when our passions are in some measure unhinged from our wills, so that our own bodies through these passions betray us. They betray our own intentions. They also betray us publicly (think, e.g. of lie detector tests). Just picture wicked sinners with despotic control over their passions.