Doriani does not understand the biblical principle that you cannot have a good motive or goal with an evil means or an evil motive or goal with a good means. If your motive is good, your means must be good as well, and vice versa. God designed both the good ends in life and the good means to receive them.

Dan Doriani is the Interim Pastor at Briarwood Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Birmingham, Alabama. He is also a Professor of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Covenant Theological (PCA) Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri.

In the summer of 2024, I was working on an article on Jesus’ temptations for The Master’s Seminary Journal when, in the hope that it would be a good source, I read Doriani’s commentary on Matthew.

Discussing Jesus’ temptation in Matthew 4:1-11, he wrote:

“Almost all temptation offers something intrinsically good, whether it be food, wealth, security, authority, or knowledge. Adultery is not a sin because sex is wicked but because the adulterer takes another person’s spouse. The evil lies in taking at the expense of another or taking what belongs to another. Fornication is not sin because sex is evil but because the unmarried take a privilege of marriage in the wrong place, at the wrong time—before they are married. Almost by definition, temptation offers something good, whether it be pleasure, comfort, or security.

Where nothing good is offered, no temptation exists. For example, because I do not like them, I cannot be tempted to eat canned peas; they hold no appeal. A normal person cannot be tempted to eat spiders, since normal people detest them. Temptations to eat occur only if something tastes good, or if someone is starving. If eating pizza were a sin, then most everyone would be tempted. If God prohibited pizza, we would try to find a way around the prohibition. We would change the recipe a bit and call it Bozzoli so we could indulge our desires.

There is something attractive or desirable in every temptation. If there were no attraction, how could it tempt us? This must hold even for Jesus; to say otherwise is to deny His full humanity and the Scripture that says He was “tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin” (Heb 4:15). So then, temptation does not usually involve a demonic voice whispering that we should lie, steal, or strike.

Even the evil of terrorism rests on the pursuit—the perverted pursuit, to be sure—of something good. Terrorists pervert justice but also pursue it. They think someone has done an evil that must be punished. They pervert the idea of sacrificing one’s life for a cause, but terrorism does demand a willingness to sacrifice oneself for a cause, and if properly directed, that willingness is good.”1

At first, Doriani seems to argue that almost every form of temptation includes an element in it that the person tempted calls “good,” even though what they’re pursuing is not truly good. But by the time you get to the end of the quote, it seems that he’s arguing that all temptations include an offer for something that is objectively good, with only the pursuit of this objective good being perverted.

In other words, he seems to be arguing that all temptations are a desire for a good thing through an evil means.

Since I was unsure of what he was arguing, I continued investigating. I found that he recently preached on temptations at Briarwood Presbyterian Church. In this sermon on Matthew 4:1-11, he taught:

“…temptation actually is always invited to do something that has an element of good in it. That’s how it tempts us.”

“…all temptation, I said it briefly a moment ago, invites something that is good in itself…”

“…You love your spouse, heart, soul, mind and strength. It is with your body. So sex is good. The temptation does not exist because sex is bad, but because we’re tempted to take another person physically when they’re not yours to take them. It’s not the right place, not the right time. You don’t have a right when you unite physically, but don’t unite in your heart and your will. You’re going through a life uniting act without a life uniting intent. And so it’s intrinsically deceitful. But the problem isn’t was [SIC] sex. Sex is good, God created sex. And so it is with all temptations.”

“…We see parallels to our temptations. It’s always something good in and of itself.”

Repeatedly, Doriani argued that all temptations include an offer for something that is good “in and of itself.”

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