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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. David Eckman 
 
 
Question: 
 
What is the difference between temptation, compulsion, and addiction? 
 
Answer: 
 
Three distinctions should be made between temptation, compulsion, 
and addiction.  
 
Temptation is simply when we have the desire to step into some kind 
of addictive behavior. That could be overeating, it could be bulimia, it 
could be mismanaged sexuality, it could be an elicit affair, it could be 
pornography. The temptation is there. From the Bible’s perspective 
and from life’s perspective, everybody’s tempted— so, that is not 
something that traps a person, it’s something that an individual should 
work through. The key to dealing with temptation is simply to ride it 
out.  
 
Compulsion, though, is when temptation has been succumbed to time 
after time, after time, and the mind begins to get trained all through 
the day, like a hunting dog, to head for the area of temptation.  
 
If it’s pornography, if it’s food, if it’s overworking, if it’s overeating—
whatever it is, the mind begins to get chemically absorbed and 
thoughtfully absorbed with the area of compulsion. 
 
But addiction is when the heart and life is enslaved, and damage is 
coming into the life, and the person cannot control the damage. They 
are willing to accept larger and larger chaotic piles of damage, because 
their will is enslaved. It is important to understand the difference. 
 
 
 
Don’t beat yourself up when you’re tempted, and also when you’re 
compulsive, begin to rearrange the thought patterns, but when you’re 
addicted, view that as a major life challenge that needs to be 
addressed— whether it’s temptation, compulsion, or addiction, there is 
always hope. 
 
If it’s addiction, you’ve just got to grab a hold of this thing and 
aggressively, very aggressively address it. 
 
If it’s compulsion, you’ve got to go to work on the imagination, and 
where your heart is at. 
 
If it’s temptation, you’ve got to allow the stress of temptation to wash 
over you and head on its way. Temptation always ends, and so that’s a 
matter of just holding out. If it’s compulsion, it’s going to take a little 
bit more work in the heart. If it’s addiction, that’s a major life 
challenge, but there are tens of millions of people who have handled 
addiction, have handled compulsion, and billions of people who have 
handled temptation, and you can handle this.  
 
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