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Lust is an intense desire for something. Lust can take any form such as the lust for sexual activity (see libido), money, or power; but it can also take such mundane forms as the lust for food (see gluttony; as distinct from the need for food) or the lust for redolence (when one is lusting for a particular smell that brings back memories). Lust is similar to, but distinguished from, passion, in that properly ordered passion propels individuals to achieve benevolent goals whilst lust does not.
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, religions based in pantheism and theism will differ on what is moral according to the nature of the "God" acknowledged or worshipped.
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.
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:
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".'Catechism of the Catholic Church, n° 2351 sq. 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.Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy (1994) p. 37 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,Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy (1994) pp. 39–40; Julien Théry, "Luxure cléricale, gouvernement de l’Église et royauté capétienne au temps de la 'Bible de saint Louis'", Revue Mabillon, 25, 2014, pp. 165–194 and it was in this sense that the Middle Ages generally took luxuria, (although the Old French cognate was loan word into English as luxury without its sexual meaning by the 14th century).
In Romanesque art, the Anthropomorphism Luxuria is generally feminine,J. Jerman/A. Weir, Images of Lust (2013) p. 30 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 describedHelen Waddell, The Wandering Scholars (1968) p. 48
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;Dante, Hell (1975) p. 101; Dante, Purgatory (1971) p. 67 and p. 202 while for Edmund Spenser, luxuria was synonymous with the power of desire.C. J. Berry, The Idea of Luxury (1994) pp. 97–8
For Gregory and subsequent Thomists, the 'daughters' (by-products) of Luxuria included mental blindness, self-love, haste, and excessive attachment to the present.Mark D. Jordan, The Invention of Sodomy (1994) pp. 37–9 Marianne Dashwood has been seen as embodying such characteristics for a later age – as a daughter of Luxuria.Robert Liddell, The Novels of Jane Austen (London 1963) p. 22
The Catholic Church defines lust as the idolatry of sexual pleasure, in all of its forms: contraception, masturbation, adultery, premarital sex, homosexuality, etc, which destroys the human capacity of loving, that is, of the person to give themselves to God and to others.
In the Quran there is a passage when Zuleikha admits that she sought to seduce prophet Joseph (Arabic: Yousuf), and then prophet Joseph said: " Yet I claim not that my soul was innocent surely the soul of man nafs incites to evilexcept inasmuch as my Lord had mercy; truly my Lord is All-forgiving, All-compassionate." (Qur'an 12:53). Al-Ghazali, in his major works Ihya' Ulum al-Din (The Revival of Religious Sciences), stated that nafs in this passage is the lowest state of the soul, called nafs al-ammara (evil soul); while the other states of the soul are nafs al-mulhama (questioning soul), nafs al-lawwama (self-accusing soul), and nafs al-mutmainna (contented soul).
Muslims are encouraged to overcome their baser instincts and intentional lascivious glances are haram. Lascivious thoughts are makruh, for they are the first step towards adultery, rape, and other antisocial behaviors. The Islamic 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.Sahih al-Tirmidhi,2701 "The Messenger of Allaah (Peace & Blessings of Allaah be upon Him) said: "O Ali, do not follow a glance with another, for you will be forgiven for the first, but not for the second.".
In this ancient manuscript the idea behind the word 'Lust' is best comprehended as the psychological force called 'Wanting'.
Lust is the attachment to, identification with, and passionate desire for certain things in existence, all of which relate to the form, sensation, perception, mentality, and consciousness that certain combinations of these things engender within us. Lust is thus the ultimate cause of general imperfection and the most immediate root cause of a certain suffering.
The passionate desire for either non-existence or for freedom from lust is a common misunderstanding. For example, the headlong pursuit of lust (or other "deadly sin") in order to fulfill a death instinct is followed by a reincarnation accompanied by a self-fulfilling karma, resulting in an endless wheel of life, until the right way to live, the right worldview, is somehow discovered and practiced. Beholding an endless knot puts one, symbolically, in the position of the one with the right worldview, representing that person who attains freedom from lust.
In existence there are four kinds of things that engender clinging (attachment): rituals, worldviews, pleasures, and the self. The way to eliminate lust is to learn of its unintended effects and to pursue righteousness as concerns a worldview, intention, speech, behavior, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, and concentration, in the place where lust formerly sat.
For this reason followers do not eat onions, garlic, eggs, or non-vegetarian food, as the "sulphur" in them can excite sexual lust in the body, otherwise bound to celibacy.
The physical act of sex is "impure", leading to body-consciousness and other crimes. This impurity "poisons" the body and leadsPeace & purity: the story of the Brahma Kumaris : a spiritual revolution By Liz Hodgkinson A history of celibacy, p. 172. Elizabeth Abbott, 2001 to many kinds of "diseases".
The Brahma Kumaris teaches that sexuality is foraging about in a dark sewer. Students at Spiritual University must conquer lust, to prevent sin, and in order to be closer to god.Peace & purity: the story of the Brahma Kumaris : a spiritual revolution By Liz Hodgkinson
They describe the differences between lust and love thus:
In lust there is reliance upon the object of sense and consequent spiritual subordination of the soul to it, but love puts the soul into direct and co-ordinate relation with the reality which is behind the form. Therefore, lust is experienced as being heavy and love is experienced as being light. In lust there is a narrowing down of life and in love there is an expansion in being...If you love the whole world you vicariously live in the whole world, but in lust there is an ebbing down of life and a general sense of hopeless dependence upon a form which is regarded as another. Thus, in lust there is the accentuation of separateness and suffering, but in love there is the feeling of unity and joy...
Baudelaire, author of Les fleurs du mal, had once remarked, in regard to the artist, that:
The most notable work to touch upon the sin of lust, (and also upon the other Seven Deadly Sins), is Dante's Divine Comedy. Dante's criterion for lust was an "excessive love of others", insofar as an excessive love for man would render one's love of God secondary. In the first canticle of the Divine Comedy—the Inferno—the lustful are punished by being continuously swept around in a whirlwind, symbolizing their ungovernable passions. The damned who are guilty of lust, like the two famous lovers, Paolo and Francesca, receive in Hell exactly what they desired most in their mortal lives, only to find that their passions will give them no rest for all eternity. In Purgatorio, of the selfsame work, the penitents choose to walk through flames in order to purge themselves of their lustful inclinations.
Sex may have the attributes of being sinless; however, when a person seeks sex for pleasure, he or she is sinning with lust. Lust is best defined by its specific attribute of rape, adultery, wet dreams, seduction, unnatural vice, and simple fornication.
Wet dreams: St Thomas Aquinas defined and discussed the topic of nocturnal emission, which occurs when one dreams of physical pleasure. Aquinas argues those who say that wet dreams are a sin and comparable to the actual experience of sex are wrong. Aquinas believes that such an action is sinless, for a dream is not under a person's control or free judgment. When one has a "nocturnal orgasm", it is not a sin, but it can lead to sins (p. 227). Aquinas says that wet dreams come from a physical cause of inappropriate pictures within your imagination, a psychological cause when thinking of sex while you fall asleep and a demonical cause whereby demons act upon the sleeper's body, "stirring the sleeper's imagination to bring about a orgasm" (p. 225). In the end, though, dreaming of lustful acts is not sinful. The "mind's awareness is less hindered", as the sleeper lacks right reason; therefore, a person cannot be accountable for what they dream while sleeping (p. 227).
Adultery: One of the main forms of lust seen frequently during the Middle Ages was the sin of adultery. The sin of adultery occurs when a person is unfaithful to his or her spouse, hence "invading of a bed not one's own" (p. 235). Adultery is a special kind of ugliness and many difficulties arise from it. When a man enters the bed of a married woman it not only is a sin, but it "wrongs the offspring", because the woman now calls into question the legitimacy of children (p. 235). If a wife has committed adultery before, then, her husband will question if all his wife's children are his offspring.
Fornication: Simple fornication is having sex with one's spouse for enjoyment rather than for bearing children. Fornication is also sex between two unmarried people, which is also a mortal sin. Aquinas says that "fornication is a deadly crime" (p. 213). Fornication is a mortal sin, but as Aquinas notes, "Pope Gregory treated sins of the flesh as less grievous than those of the spirit" (p. 217). Fornication was a grave sin such as that against property. Fornication, however, is not as grave as a sin directly against God and human life; therefore, murder is much worse than fornication. Property in this case means that a daughter is the property of her father, and if one does wrong to her, one then does wrong to him; therefore seducing a virgin or seeking pleasure from an unmarried woman is an invasion of a father's property.
Seduction: Seduction is a type of lust, because seduction is a sex act, which ravishes a virgin. Lust is a sin of sexual activity, and "...a special quality of wrong that appears if a maid still under her father's care is debauched" (p. 229). Seduction involves a discussion of property, as an unmarried girl is property of her father. A virgin, even though free from the bond of marriage, is not free from the bond of her family. When a virgin is violated without a promise of engagement, she is prevented from having honorable marriage, which is shameful to herself and her family. A man who performs sexual acts with a virgin must "endow her and have her to wife", and if the father, who is responsible for her, says no, then a man must pay a dowry to compensate for her loss of virginity and future chance of marriage (p. 229).
Unnatural vice: Unnatural vice is the worst kind of lust because it is unnatural in act and purpose. Many varieties of unnatural vice exist; Aquinas provides several examples, including bestiality or intercourse with a "thing of another species" (for example, an animal), incest, sodomy and "not observing the right manner of copulation".
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