Hartman Rector, Jr.
"Where do you suppose we get these weaknesses? If you pose this question to a group of Saints, it will astound you how many different answers you get to this particular question. Some will say that they are responsible for their own weaknesses; well, if you keep your weaknesses, that’s true, but that is not where they come from. Another will say weaknesses come from heredity or environment…So where do we get our weaknesses? We get them from the Lord; the Lord gives us weaknesses so we will be humble. This makes us teachable. Now don’t misunderstand me -- the Lord is not responsible for the sin; he is only responsible for the weakness. It seems that all men have weaknesses in one form or another, character traits that make one more subject to a particular temptation than another. Lehi states that God ’hath created all things, both the heaven and the earth, and all things that in them are, both things to act and things to be acted upon…it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter.Wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other.’ (2 Ne. 2:14-16.)
"Therefore, what you do with the weakness is up to you.
“The Prophet Joseph Smith said, ’There are three independent principles; the Spirit of God, the spirit of man, and the spirit of the devil. All men have power to resist the devil.’ (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 189.) But when our weaknesses are exposed to Satan, he is quick to take advantage of us by tempting us in our selfishness.” (Conference Report, Apr. 1970, p. 101-2)