Lust

Lust is a psychological force producing intense desire for something, or circumstance while already having a significant amount of the desired object. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexuality (see libido), money, or power. It can take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony) as distinct from the need for food or lust for redolence, when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories. It is similar to but distinguished from passion, in that passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.

In religion

Religions tend to draw a distinction between passion and lust by further categorizing lust as an immoral desire and passion as morally accepted.

Lust is defined as immoral because its object or action of affection is improperly ordered according to natural law and/or the appetite for the particular object (eg sexual desire) is governing the person's will and intellect rather than the will and intellect governing the appetite for that object.

Whereas passion, regardless of its strength, is maintained to be something God-given and moral, because the purpose, actions and intentions behind it are benevolent and ordered toward creation, while also being governed by the person's intellect and will. A primary school of thought on this is Thomism, which speaks on the intellect, will and appetite, and draws from principles defined by Aristotle. However, the exact definitions assigned to what is morally definite and ordered toward creation depend on the religion. For example, differences between religions based in pantheism and theism will differ what is moral according to the nature of the "God" acknowledged or worshipped.

Abrahamic religions

Judaism

In Judaism, all evil inclinations and lusts of the flesh are characterized by ''Yetzer hara'' (Hebrew, יצר הרע, the evil inclination). Yetzer hara is not a demonic force; rather, it is man's misuse of the things which the physical body needs to survive, and is often contrasted with ''yetzer hatov'' (Hebrew, יצר הטוב, the positive desire).

''Yetzer HaRa'' is often identified with Satan and the angel of death, and there is sometimes a tendency to give a personality and separate activity to the ''yetzer''. For the ''yetzer'', like Satan, misleads man in this world, and testifies against him in the world to come. The ''yetzer'' is, however, clearly distinguished from Satan, and on other occasions is made exactly parallel to sin. The Torah is considered the great antidote against this force. Though, like all things which God has made, the ''yetzer hara'' (evil inclination) can be manipulated into doing good: for without it, man would never marry, beget a child, build a house, or occupy himself in a trade.

Christianity

=New Testament

=
In many translations of the New Testament, the word "lust" translates the Koine Greek word ἐπιθυμέω (epithūméō), particularly in Matthew 5:27-28:

In English-speaking countries, the term "lust" is often associated with sexual desire, probably because of this verse. However, just as the English word was originally a general term for 'desire', the Greek word ἐπιθυμέω was also a general term for desire. The LSJ lexicon suggests "set one's heart upon a thing, long for, covet, desire" as glosses for ἐπιθυμέω, which is used in verses that clearly have nothing to do with sexual desire. In the Septuagint, ''ἐπιθυμέω'' is the word used in the commandment to not covet:

While coveting your neighbour's wife may involve sexual desire, it's unlikely that coveting a neighbour's house or field is sexual in nature. And in most New Testament uses, the same Greek word, ''ἐπιθυμέω'', does not have a clear sexual connotation. For example, from the American Standard Version the same word is used outside of any sexual connotation:

# Matthew 13:17: For verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men ''desired'' to see the things which ye see, and saw them not; and to hear the things which ye hear, and heard them not.
# Luke 22:15-16: And he said unto them, With ''desire'' I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer: for I say unto you, I shall not eat it, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
# Acts 20:33: I ''coveted'' no man's silver, or gold, or apparel. Ye yourselves know that these hands ministered unto my necessities, and to them that were with me.
# Luke 15:14-16: And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that country; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he ''would fain'' have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.

=Catholicism

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According to the ''Catholic Encyclopedia'', a Christian's heart is lustful when "venereal satisfaction is sought for either outside wedlock or, at any rate, in a manner which is contrary to the laws that govern marital intercourse". Pope John Paul II said that lust devalues the eternal attraction of male and female, reducing personal riches of the opposite sex to an object for gratification of sexuality.Pope John Paul II, ''Mutual Attraction Differs from Lust''. ''L'Osservatore Romano'', weekly edition in English, 22 September 1980, p. 11. Available at http://www.ewtn.com/library/papaldoc/jp2tb39.htm .

Lust is considered by Catholicism to be a disordered desire for sexual pleasure, where sexual pleasure is "sought for itself, isolated from its procreative and unitive purposes". In Catholicism, sexual desire in itself is good, and is considered part of God's plan for humanity. However, when sexual desire is separated from God's love, it becomes disordered and self-seeking. This is seen as lust.

St. Thomas Aquinas differentiates between sexual intercourse within marriage, which is seen as meritorious through giving justice to one's spouse, and sins of lust which can themselves be differentiated in magnitude of immorality according to intention and action. For example, Aquinas says in the Summa Theologica II-II, q. 154, a. 12 "I answer that, In every genus, worst of all is the corruption of the principle on which the rest depend. Now the principles of reason are those things that are according to nature, because reason presupposes things as determined by nature, before disposing of other things according as it is fitting." He uses St. Augustine as his source writing "Augustine says that 'of all these,' namely the sins belonging to lust, 'that which is against nature is the worst.'" Which St. Thomas clarifies means that they are greater than sins against justice pertaining to the genus of lust, such as rape or incest, in his statement "Reply to Objection 3: The nature of the species is more intimately united to each individual, than any other individual is. Wherefore sins against the specific nature are more grievous." Thus St. Thomas gives the order of magnitude of lustful acts as: "The most grievous is the sin of bestiality, because use of the due species is not observed...(Then) the sin of sodomy, because use of the right sex is not observed...(Then) the sin of not observing the right manner of copulation (or the unatural act or masturbation)... (Then) incest... is contrary to the natural respect which we owe persons related to us... Then, it is a greater injustice to have intercourse with a woman who is subject to another's authority as regards the act of generation, than as regards merely her guardianship. Wherefore adultery is more grievous than seduction. And both of these are aggravated by the use of violence."

The Latin for ''extravagance'' (Latin: ''luxuria'') was used by St. Jerome to translate a variety of biblical sins, including drunkenness and sexual excess. Gregory the Great placed ''luxuria'' as one of the seven capital sins (it is often considered the least serious of the seven deadly sins), narrowing its scope to disordered desire, and it was in this sense that the Middle Ages generally took ''luxuria'', (although the Old French cognate was adopted into English as ''luxury'' without its sexual meaning by the 14th century).

In Romanesque art, the personified Luxuria is generally feminine, often represented by a siren or a naked woman with breasts being bitten by snakes. Prudentius in his ''Psychomachia'' or 'Battle of the Soul' had described

Luxury, lavish of her ruined fame, Loose-haired, wild-eyed, her voice a dying fall, Lost in delight....

For Dante, Luxuria was both the first of the circles of incontinence (or self-indulgence) on the descent into hell, and the last of the cornices of Mount Purgatory, representing the excessive (disordered) love of individuals; while for Edmund Spenser, ''luxuria'' was synonymous with the power of desire.

For Gregory and subsequent Thomists, the 'daughters' (by-products) of Luxuria included mental blindness, self-love, haste, and excessive attachment to the present. Marianne Dashwood has been seen as embodying such characteristics for a later age – as a daughter of Luxuria.

The Catholic Church defines lust as the idolatry of sexual pleasure, in all of its forms: contraception, masturbation, adultery, premarital relations, relations between persons of the same sex, etc, which destroys the human capacity of loving, that is, of the person to give herself to God and to others.

=Protestantism

=

The evangelical Melvin Tinker states that: "The principle is clear isn't it, 'You shall not commit adultery'? How does the Pharisee handle it according to the minimum requirement method? He says, 'Sex outside marriage is OK for us because neither of us are really married. I am not sleeping with another man's wife, so it isn't adultery, she's my girlfriend'. Or it is also not adultery because 'I have not had sex with that woman.' to quote President Clinton's plea in the Monica Lewinski 'sic''saga. So he can abuse his position as President by messing around with a girl who is hardly younger than his daughter, he can engage in all kinds of sexual activities with her, but because he technically doesn't have intercourse he can hold up his hands and say, 'I have not had sex with that woman.' That is a Pharisee speaking.

"But the maximum application method says, adultery doesn't just happen when you have sexual intercourse, it happens in your heart. However, the mistranslation is unfortunate at this point. In the Greek it says, 'If anyone looks upon a woman in order to lust, has already committed adultery with her in his heart.' That is an important distinction. I need to point that out because sexual arousal, sexual interest, sexual attraction are essential for the continuation of the human species... It is about looking in order to lust. The striptease show, the dirty movie or video, the internet pornography. That is becoming a real problem... And if this is a difficulty for you, then do talk to someone about it in confidence. You see, it is the intending to look in order to have that arousal that Jesus has in his sights."

Islam

In Islam, lust is considered one of the primitive states of the self, called the nafs. Muslims are encouraged to overcome their baser instincts and intentional lascivious glances are forbidden. Lascivious thoughts are disliked, for they are the first step towards adultery, rape and other antisocial behaviors. Prophet Muhammad also stressed the magnitude of the "second glance", as while the first glance towards an attractive member of the opposite sex could be just accidental or observatory, the second glance could be that gate into lustful thinking.

Indian religions

Hinduism

In the ''Bhagavad Gita'', Lord Krishna, an Avatar of Vishnu, declared in chapter 16, verse 21 that lust is one of the gates to Naraka or hell.

In this ancient manuscript the idea behind the word 'Lust' is best comprehended as the psychological force called 'Wanting'.

Buddhism

Lust holds a critical position in the philosophical underpinnings of Buddhist reality. It is named in the second of the Four Noble Truths,_which_are_that

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