Is lust always a sin?

pearl said:

There are two ways of looking at this, in lust one has already committed the rape. One is not a rapist because he raped, he rapes because he is a rapist. Much as a thief is not a thief because he steals, he steals because he is a thief.

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One thing is for sure. Men dont rape women out of lust, generally.

Dan From Smithville said:

In terms of sexuality, is lust always a sin? Can spouses lust after each other without a burden of sin?

Not sure where to place this, but since sin is a religious topic, I thought here was best. Please move it if it belongs in a more appropriate forum.

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I believe lust like sex is permissible within a marriage between a man and a woman. Rape is not permissible in marriage.

Xavier Graham SA said:

I think “passion” is a healthy emotion, while “lust” would be unhealthy.

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What would you call a passion for lust?

Rival said:

I more mean, if lust leads to a rape, the rape is the sin not the lust. Lust is an emotion and we should be in control of those.

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I believe Jesus spoke about thought life sins. I believe His level of purity is a lot greater than ours.

Rival said:

I believe the word 'lust' is used on German to mean 'want' or 'desire', and obviously is etymologically linked to English.

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I was only referring to the Qur'an in that particular post because this Dan specifically asked me about lust in Islam.

But I get why you are making this statement. It does not apply the language of the Qur'an.

Meow Mix said:

I’m not sure whether this is off topic, but from a secular perspective, “sin” might be another word for moral or ethical failing; and lust is one of those things that can either be trouble or not depending on how a person reacts to it and how much temperance they take it with.

A person can be highly sexual (hi) without being inappropriate, addicted, pushy, invasive, inconsiderate of existing relationships, and all of the other bad things lust can lead to. So like many things, it just depends on what a person does with it.

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I think that it is fitting with the topic. Especially one that includes so many regardless of the position of their view on religion.

While my question was simple in form, I am really trying to understand a stage of development in a complex system with many variables. I know. I know. It is a stew and when does it become a stew. Is it the carrots? Still, despite the complexity, it has been very helpful in my personal learning.

Calling it a moral or ethical failing might have been a better choice than labeling it sin. I didn't intend to exclude anyone by that choice of label. I simply went with the label I am familiar with.

Since we cannot know what others actually think and feel, what that person does with it is all that we can observe. A person may be highly sexual with strong self-control or not that sexual at all with no need for the control. I don't see how you could differentiate between the two based on what is observed for both.

firedragon said:

I was only referring to the Qur'an in that particular post because this Dan specifically asked me about lust in Islam.

But I get why you are making this statement. It does not apply the language of the Qur'an.

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I was using it for a comparison; it's a similar use of the word. I just find it interesting how it came to mean strong sexual desire in English.

Dan From Smithville said:

Can you tell me more about what you mean by "insisted upon".

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Many things are said to be "sins", but they are harmless and victimless. Things like "self pleasure", varying sexualities, technology, media, etc. Though anything (anything) can have negative effects (even too much water can poison you), these things are far from "sins".

ChristineM said:

Lust is easy, desire, usually sexual, sometimes material.

How one personally reacts to that desire is where the difference lies.

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It seems that there are two domains of lust. The lust that is in the domain of the personal and the lust that is in the domain of being observable by others. The observable is the physical manifestations--the actions--arising from the personal, internal lust.

This entire thread is selfish of me. I created it to assuage a curiosity on the finer points of lust that are not observable. I can't know how the knowledge posted here might be thought of by others, but I know what I can do with it.

Rival said:

I was using it for a comparison; it's a similar use of the word. I just find it interesting how it came to mean strong sexual desire in English.

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You are right.

Languages evolve. The word Awful 300 years ago meant exactly the opposite of what it means today. Lol. I mean the exact opposite. It used to mean "full of awe" during shakespearean times. An awful king was actually an awesome king but now if you say "awful king" it exactly means the opposite.

The word earth is from the arabic word ardh. Ardh does not mean earth. It means soil or land but is referred to earth. Algebra was Aljabr, which means Ajjabr=when you put back parts that has been taken apart. A generic word that you may use when you repair something at home. Now, in English, Algebra is a whole subject named after a Persian Muslim dude called Alhawarizmi.

Alphabet = alpha, beta, teta in Greek. Aleph, bet, in Hebrew. Aleph, be, te in arabic.

English took Anaconda, Ana = Trunk, Konda = Hip or waist, from an asian language, similar to Pali and Sanskrit. It means "hip like a tree trunk".

Its awesome. Thats how the cookie crumbles I suppose.

Dan From Smithville said:

I agree with you. I think most of us experience this. I am coming to see or cementing an existing understanding that this isn't the lust I think of when I think of the negativity of lust. In that series of events that could lead to the negative, what you describe is the initiation stage. Simple desire that often leads to positive outcomes as well as possibly negative. Or it could go no further than a desire and no where else at all.

For the religious, I do not think a pleasant, unplanned and ephemeral daydream sparked by a passing in the street is a sin and grounds for damnation. For anyone, it would be if that is allowed to persist and escalate. A crush on a celebrity is nothing new or sinful, but taking that many steps forward and stalking that celebrity is not just a moral breach, but a crime.

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Taking it further into negativity is down to the individual letting lust become an obsession. I don't consider obsession to be lust but lusts evil twin.

There is so much to read and respond to here and I have so little time today to devote to all these interesting thoughts and perspectives.

I will leave this notion on the table for what it is worth.

I lusted after thoughts on lust. In this sense I had a desire for knowledge on the subject. I manifested that desire in the form of this thread. I have learned that some may equate desire as lust, but that is not necessarily the best definition. Others see lust being the actions that result the feelings and the context in which they are expressed. Since actions and their results are observable, that may be a good functional definition and the most widely applicable by all.

Desire may just be the spark. A good and basic instinct. It could lead to lust, but it could lead to love. It could go no where at all. It could exist under control in context without ever being expressed inappropriately. It could go awry and rage out of control. I lust to know more.

Dan From Smithville said:

What about a mother--for whom theft is the only means left--that steals food for her child? Does a mother in the same situation that is not a "born thief" let her child starve to death?

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Let me try to offer an example of my point. In the case of this mother she did something against her belief, not an easy choice, and I would guess she also experienced remorse, maybe even asked for forgiveness. There is a fellow who cannot pay for his child's necessary medication he has run out of. He takes the money from petty cash and pays it back on payday. Another makes a practice of stealing money or goods, from the workplace, stores etc. for his own selfish reasons. No remorse.
A fellow looses his job, stops at a bar to get up the courage to tell his wife. A woman approaches him one thing led to another and became a sexual encounter. Feeling remorse he went to confession, went home and told his wife.
There is a couple working together in the office, attracted to each other and both married to another. They make plans to be together. Its an ongoing affair, no remorse.
In each case the question is whether or not the 'act' contradicts who they are, have become.
So, I'm not a thief because I steal, I steal because I am a thief.
I'm not an adulterer because I cheat on my spouse, I cheat because I'm an adulterer. When the sinful behavior does not contradict who I am, then there is 'real guilt before God.'

Dan From Smithville said:

So you see it not as the urge, but the direction that urge takes a person and how they apply it as well as the context in which it is applied?

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yes

Dan From Smithville said:

In terms of sexuality, is lust always a sin?

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Depends on how one defines it. Is sexual attraction "lust"? Or does "lust" imply an intent to have illicit sexual relations? How strong does sexual attraction have to be to become "lust"? Etc.

A good description of lust is Ed Sheeran's song Shape of You. It says: "I'm in love with your body." - not "I'm in love with you." Lust reduces a person to an object of pleasure.

Marriage is founded on intimate loving personal relationship. It's not just sexual partnership. It's also a friendship... St. Thomas Aquinas said that marriage is "a remedy against lust" (remedium concupiscentiae) as it offers graces to overcome the ego-centerdness involved in lust. Later Catholic teachers misunderstood marriage as a "remedy for lust" as if it legalizes free parh for lust. Accordingly marriage was seen second rate in comparison to life in celibacy... This views changed only with pope Jean Paul II and his Theology of the Body...

More on this:

The Theology of the Body and Concupiscence - Faith Movement

Brickjectivity said:

One perspective comes from 1 John 2:16, which says lusts come from the world not from the Father.

Paul the apostle (Romans 7) says that lust comes from his body and does war against his spirit.

James says that if anyone thinks something is a sin, then for them it is a sin. (James 4:17)

St. Jerome of the catholics writes in his treatise Against Jovinian that all sex is sin, even in marriage. He has had a lot of sway among Christians, so it is worth finding out why he thinks this.

There is a website called the patriarchywebsite which has an argument against Jerome's argument. The site is no longer updated: DECEPTION EXPOSED - JEROME ON MARRIAGE AND SEX

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My thinking is that Jerome is extremist and seems to think that humans can be inhuman. To me he seems trapped in the idea that humans can become inhuman, as if we could stop masticating our food and extruding filth.

It is Jesus who says "Its not what goes into a person which makes them unclean but what comes out." Jerome says the opposite, because he says that the only good thing about married women (as opposed to sexually active unmarried women) is that they give birth to virgins! Jerome, being sexually experienced was nevertheless fascinated by virginity. He'd have us to believe that virgins were pure beings, but virgins are not pure beings. I know this.

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What you point out in James is at the core of what I am wrestling to understand more fully. When does something become a sin. I cannot conceive it to be entirely from the individual, since an individual could justify much that is more widely condemned as sin, but I find some validity in the idea, none-the-less.

Thank you for the link to Jerome. Not being Catholic, there is much I am unfamiliar with in their history. I have completed reading through it, but so far, it is very informative on that history and the basis of thought even in my own protestant upbringing.

I would say that Jerome is an extremist doing what extremist do. Applying there personal opinion to everyone and declaring that to be the truth that all must follow. I know a virgin that has turned purity into her own prison to the point of being frightened of a serious relationship with a man. Especially one that she cannot control. There is probably more to it than that, but that is a core portion from what I have seen. And that purity of body does not flow to a purity of spirit. She has lied. That in my mind falsifies that alleged purity of virginity.

Based on your interpretation of Jerome, he seems to consider women as good for nothing more than being incubators of virgins.

I am becoming more comfortable that the idea of Christ that you represent here is the most practical understanding of lust and this seems to be majority trend from both the theist and atheist in this discussion. That it is what we do with these thoughts and temptations that matter. Those outputs are what impact others and the community. Having thoughts that we manage and never act on remain invisible to the outside world. For the individual, I see part of that management is to learn when something isn't just interest and where interest crosses into something that is wrong even in thought.

1213 said:

I have understood lust means evil desire. It means person wants something that is not for him and not right. Like for example it is evil to desire neighbor’s wife. But it is not evil to desire persons own wife.

Put to death therefore your members which are on the earth: sexual immorality, uncleanness, depraved passion, evil desire [=lust], and covetousness, which is idolatry;
Col. 3:5

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I think intent is part of that. Knowing when that desire crosses a line and where it becomes 'evil'. Would having an evil desire be evil in itself if the person that holds that desire decides to never act on it?

Φᅠᅠ said:

"When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!" (NLT, Galatians 5:19–23)

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To me there is a thoughtlessness implied. That it is not simply a straight forward prohibition of hedonism, but the idea that these gut instincts need to be pulled out of the gut and run through the brain to manage them. A mind steeped in Christ would know how to handle these base desires.

Vouthon said:

In the Catholic theological tradition, there is a recognition that concupiscence - strong sexual desire - is neither mortally nor venially sinful by itself and that 'carnal delectation' cannot be excessive or sinful within the right context (i.e. traditionally in church doctrine, marital relations being regarded as the 'unbounded arena' for the expression of sexuality, though modern secular social norms extend that to consensual relations in general).

The object of sexual desire (as well as how the person hones it) is what's important for Catholics and may render it a disposition beholden to sin, but not the fact of sexual arousal by itself. This is a perfectly natural urge. To suppress it would be to deny a fundamental part of one's human nature.

In fact, there's a positive obligation upon partners to pursue orgasm - and a traditional teaching is that it's a venial sin for a man not to remain sexually active until his wife reaches orgasm and if he fails to do so, he is obliged to help her do so by other means than coitus. (Likewise, many scholastic theologians also argued that it was a mortal sin for a woman to distract herself during sex so as to avoid orgasm.)

St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696–1787), in his Moral Theology:

"25.—Quaeritur: II. Whether spouses are permitted to take delectation in the conjugal act, even if the other spouse were not present?

It is a common opinion (as we will say in book 6, de matrimonio, n. 933), that unchaste touches (which certainly cannot be done without a great deal of arousal) among spouses are licit...even if they are done only for pleasure and hardly ordered to copulation.

I regard Busembaum’s opinion as probable, which says it is permitted for spouses to take delectation, even carnally, from carnal relations they have had or are going to have...The reason is, because (exactly as the Salamancans say in tr. 9, c. 15, p.6, n. 84 when speaking about unchaste touches) the very state of matrimony renders all these things licit; otherwise the matrimonial state would be exposed to excessive scruples

Besides, Bonacina, Sanchez, Lessius and Diana hold this opinion, with Busembaum (as above, n. 23, in fine), St. Antoninus (p. 1, tit. 5, c. 1§6.), Cajetan, (1.2. q. 74, art. 8 ad 4), Coninck (d. 34, dub. 11, concl. 1), Croix (l. 6, p. 5,num. 337) with Gerson, Suarez, Laymann and a great many others; likewise Vasquez, Aversa, etc., cited by the Salamancans (ibid. n. 89 and 90), who think it is probable. St.Thomas also favors this opinion in question 15 of de malo, art. 2, ad 17, where he says that for spouses, just as sexual relations are licit, so also delectation from them."
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See also:

"The first American writer to prescribe orgasm was the Right Reverend Francis Patrick Kenrick, Roman Catholic bishop of Philadelphia. In the third volume of his Theologiae Moralis, published in 1843, Kenrick wrote that a married woman had the right to bring herself to orgasm “by touches” after intercourse, if she had experienced no climax during lovemaking. Kenrick also said that a husband who did not remain sexually active until his wife reached orgasm was guilty of a venial sin of omission and that it was a mortal sin for a wife to distract herself during sex to avoid having an orgasm."

(from 'Innocent Ecstasy: How Christianity Gave America an Ethic of Sexual Pleasure' by Peter Gardella, Professor of World Religions at Manhattanville College)

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This was also recognised by the early church father St. John Chrysostom in his Homily 12 on Colossians, preached during his time as bishop of Constantinople in the 390s:


CHURCH FATHERS: Homily 12 on Colossians (Chrysostom) (newadvent.org)

Marriage, then, was given for childbearing also, but even more so in order to quench nature’s burning...​

How do they become one flesh? As if she were gold receiving the purest of gold, the woman receives the man’s seed with rich pleasure, and within her it is nourished, cherished, and refined. It is mingled with her own substance and she then returns it as a child! […] But suppose there is no child; do they remain two and not one? No; their intercourse effects the joining of their bodies, and they are made one, just as when perfume is mixed with ointment.​

“with rich pleasure [τῆς ἡδονῆς χωνευούμενος]".

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Thanks for providing all this material. You and @Brickjectivity provided some interesting sources that I want to spend more time examining. I am going to save my comments for now.

rational experiences said:

A human man's opinion is only an opinion.

If you ask another question why do you ask questions about sin.

Real motivation I am trying to make it align to a God earth connection for a machine string theory. God owns sin.

First with no humans or any form the sink holes sin by K constant via consuming sinful. Full of sin the sun.

So does God the earth machine strings lust brother?

No says the scientist.

Correct theory ask the earth your machine what it machine expressed as you push its buttons.

Real answer did man invent robot by his lust for sex?

Yes he did. Machine sex the answer not a machine reactor.

Just consciousness all the same one man human using masses of thoughts owning all man's humans self answers first.

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I took the time to read through this completely. I have no idea what any of this means or what you are trying to communicate. It all appears as if randomly generated. I say this without guile in the hopes that it may help you understand that if you have something you think is important to say, all meaning of that is lost in the way you do it on here.