 Groenhout here is drawing on a tradition that goes back at least to Augustine, according to which sin necessarily involves inordinate desire for a lesser good. Augustine held the privation view of sin, according to which—insofar as evil is the absence of good—sinful actions involve “not a desire for naturally evil things, but an abandonment of better things” (as quoted in Mann 2001: 45; see also Augustine On Free Choice of the Will).