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In Matthew 5:27-30 Jesus affirms very unambiguously the sinfulness of lust:

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. 29 If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. 30 And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (ESV)

However, if one asks the follow-up question "But what's wrong with having lustful thoughts?", a Divine Command Theory advocate might say "Well, lustful thoughts are evil because God has commanded that you shouldn't have them".

I'm not interested in that sort of answer here. That's why I'm scoping this question to Christians who do not adhere to Divine Command Theory.

If we assume that Divine Command Theory is false (for scoping purposes), what would be alternative ways within a Christian worldview to defend the claim that lust (of the kind that Jesus is describing in Matthew 5:27-30) is universally evil? What's wrong with lust without appealing to Divine Command Theory?

EDIT: Someone in the comments rightly pointed out that the word "evil" is not literally mentioned by Jesus anywhere in the passage I quoted. Instead, the literal word used is "sin". That's a fair observation. In the way I phrased the question I'm intuitively using "wrong", "evil" and "sinful" interchangeably, but for some Christians that might not be the case. Can something be sinful without being evil and vice versa? I leave the space to answerers to answer that question as they see fit, as long as they are coming from a Christian ethical viewpoint other than DCT.

Mark
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  • The question refers to "evil" three times, but that word never appears in the quoted scripture, where the word "sin" is used instead. – Ray Butterworth Apr 30 '23 at 02:14
  • @RayButterworth Good observation. Are you suggesting that something can be sinful without being evil and vice versa? – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 02:15
  • Neither. I'm saying that using a word that isn't directly supported by the quoted scripture introduces confusion to the question. For instance, we know that "sin is the transgression of the Law", but we don't have a clear definition of "evil". Rather than answering the real question, people may become distracted by the question of "what is evil?", or even by questions such as "[Can something] be sinful without being evil and vice versa?". – Ray Butterworth Apr 30 '23 at 02:21
  • @RayButterworth Well, that's precisely what I want to avoid in the first place. I don't want answers that appeal to God's Law as the ultimate reason for lust being evil (sinful), which is why I ruled Divine Command Theory out of the scope. Editing as you suggest would be an open invitation to tautological DCT answers. – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 02:26
  • Then I think the question needs to define what "evil" means, and in particular how it is different from "sin". Or are you asking for an answer about why lust is bad that could be given by a psychiatrist, sociologist, or historian? – Ray Butterworth Apr 30 '23 at 02:37
  • If one defines "evil" as something that, as Matthew says, "causes you to sin", then obviously lust must be evil, since without lust no one would commit the sin of adultery. — Is that the kind of answer you are looking for? – Ray Butterworth Apr 30 '23 at 02:44
  • @RayButterworth That would fail to justify that lust is universally evil in all cases, as someone could easily rebut the universal by referring to cases where someone can be lustful without committing the "deed" of adultery. – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 02:47
  • "someone can be lustful without committing the "deed" of adultery" — isn't that like saying that since in some cases someone can drive drunk without killing anyone, drunk driving isn't universally a bad thing? ¶ P.S. not my down-vote. – Ray Butterworth Apr 30 '23 at 03:10
  • @RayButterworth That's right. In the very rare conditions where drunk driving can be performed without causing a significant risk of harm for anyone, including the driver themselves (and assuming a utilitarian view of ethics where the goal is to minimize suffering / maximize well-being), then I don't see anything wrong with it. In those very rare conditions I don't see anything wrong with it. Well, you could argue against drunkenness itself in a utilitarian way depending on the situation, but again, it would need to be judged on a case by case basis. – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 03:27
  • As a Christian, what other theory might you be using apart from Divine Command? – DJClayworth Apr 30 '23 at 03:37
  • @DJClayworth Christian Hedonism perhaps? – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 03:38
  • Christian Hedonism isn't a theory of ethics. It's a general approach to Christianity, but doesn't provide an explanation for things like this. – DJClayworth Apr 30 '23 at 03:42
  • @DJClayworth Well, if you manage to prove that all Christians are DCT advocates, I'm happy with an answer that says "there is none, no non-DCT Christians exist". But you need to show that that's actually the case. – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 03:45
  • @DJClayworth Update: there appears to be at least one alternative: Divine motivation theory – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 03:48
  • Have you scoped this question to Christians who have no regard for the commands of God or to Christians who believe that God's commands have no bearing upon ethics? – Mike Borden May 02 '23 at 11:48
  • "someone can be lustful without committing the "deed" of adultery." Doesn't Jesus nullify this statement by equating the two? – Mike Borden May 02 '23 at 11:50
  • @MikeBorden 1) I have scoped it to Christians who do not believe that the ultimate grounding for ethics is what God commands, but something else (see for example Divine motivation theory as an alternative). 2) No, because that would be a fallacy of equivocation, by conflating two definitions of the word "adultery": the actual "deed" definition, and Jesus' modified definition. I was talking about the former. – Mark May 02 '23 at 13:46
  • But even if Jesus' modified definition is conceded, it's still unclear why adultery (with the modified meaning) would be wrong (without appealing to DCT). – Mark May 02 '23 at 13:46
  • Wait! Jesus committed a logical fallacy? – Mike Borden May 04 '23 at 12:43
  • @MikeBorden No, he just introduced a new definition. The fallacy was committed by you when you conflated both :) – Mark May 04 '23 at 12:57
  • I once met a man who said that if he knew for sure that he wouldn't be caught, he would rape a woman. I told him he was both a rapist and a coward. As a man thinketh in his heart...so he is. No conflation. – Mike Borden May 04 '23 at 13:07
  • @MikeBorden That's just one anecdote. You would need something stronger than that, like an actual formal proof, to show that the two definitions are equivalent in all circumstances. But I can easily imagine cases where a person can fantasize about something but still be unwilling to act out the fantasy in real life, and it suffices that just one counterexample exists to falsify the "no conflation of definitions" position. – Mark May 04 '23 at 17:41
  • Do you think that Adam could be said to have rejected Divine Command Theory? Perhaps, if you reject DCT, you can do whatever you want; like deciding whether or not to concede Jesus' 'modified' definition of lust. – Mike Borden May 05 '23 at 12:13
  • @MikeBorden "Do you think that Adam could be said to have rejected Divine Command Theory" We are not told what Adam believed about the ultimate grounding for ethics, so I don't see how this question could be answered. Did Adam believe that God had some deeper motives behind His commands? We are not told. Did he change his theory of ethics at any point? We are not told. – Mark May 06 '23 at 00:41
  • "Perhaps, if you reject DCT, you can do whatever you want; like deciding whether or not to concede Jesus' 'modified' definition of lust" You don't need DCT in order to agree with God's commands. For example, you can believe that God is a Utilitarian and that His commands are optimally geared towards maximizing utility. – Mark May 06 '23 at 00:43
  • Can you disregard a particular command if you judge it to be less than optimally utilitarian or do you simply accept that, if God commands it, it must be optimally utilitarian? If it is the latter then an unnecessary step has been added to what is basically DCT and if it is the former then man sits as God's judge. The ultimate ground of ethics is that God is true.. – Mike Borden May 08 '23 at 12:22
  • @MikeBorden: "Can you disregard a particular command if you judge it to be less than optimally utilitarian" In principle, yes. If God makes a mistake in his utility calculations, and if you were able to prove somehow that an alternative plan creates even more utility that God's, then sure, you could disregard God's plan in favor of yours. HOWEVER, if we assume that God is a super genius, then it's kind of unlikely a human being or the whole human civilization will have enough brain or even compute power for that matter to figure out an alternative plan that produces more utility than God's. – Mark May 08 '23 at 13:00
  • That said, this doesn't mean that we cannot at least try to make an effort to understand in an approximate manner how God probably reached his utilitarian conclusions. For example, there are easy cases, such as love vs. hate, where it's evident that one produces more utility than the other. But yeah, if you managed to show that God made a mistake, sure, you would be justified in making a better decision from a utilitarian perspective. – Mark May 08 '23 at 13:07
  • @MikeBorden: "or do you simply accept that, if God commands it, it must be optimally utilitarian?" If you believe that God is (1) a utilitarian and (2) a super genius, then it's very likely that it is optimal, or at least much much much ... much better than what the human civilization, with all its brain and compute power, could ever dream of figuring out on its own. Think of it as chess. God is like a super genius that knows how to play the game of chess optimally, or at least much much ... much better than any human or AI currently in existence, including AlphaZero. – Mark May 08 '23 at 18:14
  • If a utilitarian super genius (God) recommends a course of action, it would probably be in your best interest to pay attention to what he says. – Mark May 08 '23 at 18:14
  • Doesn't this leave you in the position of sitting as judge over God's commands and evaluating His plan. I don't think He chose love over hate because it is better in a utilitarian sense. I think it is better because He says it is and it produces more utility because He has made it to be so. – Mike Borden May 12 '23 at 12:01
  • Imagine the difference between a super genius God and a God who literally cannot be wrong because who He is defines right and wrong. – Mike Borden May 12 '23 at 12:02
  • @MikeBorden: "Doesn't this leave you in the position of sitting as judge over God's commands and evaluating His plan." I don't know what you mean by "sitting as judge". Can we make an effort to attempt to understand the rationale behind God's decisions (as if we were reverse engineering the way God thinks)? Sure, just like we could attempt to reverse engineer the strategy followed by an advanced superhuman chess AI, as extraordinarily challenging as that exercise might be. – Mark May 12 '23 at 17:01
  • If we, humans, try to reverse engineer an extremely advanced piece of technology from an extraterrestrial civilization, does that mean that "we are sitting as judge" over that civilization? – Mark May 12 '23 at 17:02
  • @MikeBorden: "I don't think He chose love over hate because it is better in a utilitarian sense. I think it is better because He says it is and it produces more utility because He has made it to be so." Sure, I understand that you believe that, that's what you believe as a divine command theorist. – Mark May 12 '23 at 21:48
  • @MikeBorden: "Imagine the difference between a super genius God and a God who literally cannot be wrong because who He is defines right and wrong." I can imagine that, and I can see how ridiculously arbitrary morality would be in the latter case. Following that line of reasoning, you can also imagine a world in which God decides arbitrarily that hate is right and love is wrong. So, under divine command theory, altruistic love would be sinful, and hate would be virtuous, just because God said so. – Mark May 12 '23 at 21:48
  • But we are not imagining things. We are reasoning from what is written. Love may or may not be utilitarian but it is only good because God says it is good. – Mike Borden May 16 '23 at 12:44
  • @MikeBorden: "We are reasoning from what is written" Citation please? "Love may or may not be utilitarian but it is only good because God says it is good" Proof please? This is just sheer assertion. – Mark May 16 '23 at 16:51
  • Acts 17:1-3 is an example of reasoning from what is written. 2 Timothy 3:10-15 puts forth Scripture as the source of necessary wisdom. James 1:22 explains that merely hearing and not putting in to practice the Word of God causes self deception. Genesis 3 is proof that usurping God's prerogative of defining good and evil brings forth death. We are mere creations, vapors in the wind. Something is not good just because we say so. The book of Judges is filled with this thematic fault: And every man did what was right in his own eyes. – Mike Borden May 17 '23 at 11:54
  • @MikeBorden None of Acts 17:1-3, 2 Timothy 3:10-15 and James 1:22 provide a biblical basis for "Divine Command Theory". They recommend consulting a source, but they do not offer a theory of the reasons behind that source. When we talk about DCT vs. "Divine Utilitarianism" vs. "Christian Hedonism" vs. etc., we are talking about an ultimate theory of divine ethics. None of those passages offer anything conclusive to that discussion. – Mark May 17 '23 at 14:07
  • @MikeBorden: "Genesis 3 is proof that usurping God's prerogative of defining good and evil brings forth death." False, Genesis 3 says nothing about changing the definition of good and evil. Genesis 3 talks about knowledge of good and evil, nothing else. How good and evil are ultimately defined is not explained in the chapter. – Mark May 17 '23 at 14:08
  • @MikeBorden: "Something is not good just because we say so. The book of Judges is filled with this thematic fault: And every man did what was right in his own eyes." (1) I never defended the idea that good and evil are subjective or relative to personal opinions. That's never been my position, so this is clearly a strawman. (2) The fact that people are unreliable and make mistakes at judging good from evil is consistent with utilitarianism and God being a utilitarian genius: people do not have the knowledge and brain power to make optimal utilitarian calculations, but God does. – Mark May 17 '23 at 14:12
  • Perhaps what happened in Genesis 3 is that Adam rejected Divine Command Theory (although he would not have framed it as such) and adopted a utilitarian approach. – Mike Borden May 18 '23 at 12:32
  • @MikeBorden Acting "as if" DCT were true, even if it's ultimately false, can have pragmatic value if optimizing utility is intractable. Instead of weighing variables, it's easier to follow a set of "rules of thumb" that generally work pretty well and lead to greater utility. HoldToTheRod mentioned this idea here. If Adam thought that a different path than what God had commanded was going to produce greater utility, then he clearly got his calculations wrong. – Mark May 18 '23 at 16:18
  • "If Adam thought that a different path than what God had commanded was going to produce greater utility, then he clearly got his calculations wrong. " Correct. It was not a suggested path for optimization of utility that Adam miscalculated; he rejected a Divine command. Obeying God's commands might bring about optimum utility for us but that doesn't eradicate DCT, IMHO. If you want to know what is wrong with lust apart from DCT you should appeal to humanism for the answer. – Mike Borden May 19 '23 at 11:55
  • @MikeBorden You don't need to eradicate something if it doesn't exist. If DCT is false, there is nothing to eradicate in the first place. Again, if God is utilitarian, it's the other way around: God commands something because it maximizes utility. Commands are simplified rules of thumb for humans, because we don't have the compute power and the tools and the knowledge of all the variables to optimize the utility function. – Mark May 19 '23 at 17:12
  • @MikeBorden: "If you want to know what is wrong with lust apart from DCT you should appeal to humanism for the answer" False. Humanism doesn't incorporate a belief in the supernatural. Again, back to the optimization problem, if you rule out the supernatural from the discussion, you are essentially ruling out a HUGE part of the variables that are key to maximizing utility. Lust is worse than love because love produces greater utility, if you consider all the natural and supernatural variables involved. – Mark May 19 '23 at 17:15
  • For example, a lustful person cannot be filled with the Holy Spirit, whereas love is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, and being filled with the Holy Spirit creates a HUGE degree of utility. But this assumes that the Holy Spirit exists, which is supernatural. If you are merely a humanist, you cannot make that argument. – Mark May 19 '23 at 17:15

3 Answers3

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For purposes of this question let's use as a working definition of evil/sinful "that which is contrary to the nature of God".

  • Lust seeks to sacrifice the interests of others for personal benefit. Love is willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of others.
  • Lust treats people as a means to an end. Love treats people as worthy ends
  • Lust is self-centered. Love is selfless.

Love & lust are opposites. Love is the nature of God (e.g. see 1 John 4:8), therefore lust is the opposite of the nature of God. Based on the working definition above, lust is evil/sinful.

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Big picture

1 John 3:2-3

2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

3 And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.

If a loving God has devised such a plan for our well-being, lust is something that actively fights against that plan, and the hope that it brings.

Hold To The Rod
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  • Interesting answer. Sounds like a mixture of virtue ethics and "divine" utilitarianism. If love and lust are mutually exclusive, and love produces higher utility than lust, then it's rational to prefer love over lust, rendering lust as "suboptimal" or evil. – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 04:09
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    @Mark C. S. Lewis once remarked that that which is evil is not typically the opposite of that which is good, but rather that which is good perverted and used in the wrong way. The natural sexual desire that inspires lust is fundamentally a good thing, an inherent part of the original commandment for the first husband and wife to "multiply" together. But God put bounds on it, saying "this is how it's supposed to work," and when people let their sexual desires run free outside those bounds, they're taking a good thing and putting it to use in evil ways. – Mason Wheeler Apr 30 '23 at 17:32
  • @MasonWheeler But then you are begging the question. Why is using them in a way that is different from the original intended design "evil"? You are just assuming that if it's different then it's evil, without justifying why that's actually the case. If your argument is "God said do A, so if you do B, that's evil", that's pretty much Divine Command Theory. – Mark Apr 30 '23 at 17:36
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    @Mark Using them in a different way leads to long-term unhappiness and unfulfillment, where love leads to lasting joy. I wouldn't call lust simply "love, but suboptimal." It leads to misery, and not just because of God, but because that's the way it works--"wickedness never was happiness." The reason God gives commands about how to use the sacred powers He grants are because He knows that following eternal laws, fundamental to the universe, will bring us joy. – Lige May 01 '23 at 23:26
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    @Lige I never said that lust is "love, but suboptimal". That's nowhere to be found in my last comment. If I say that U(A) > U(B), I'm not saying that A = B. But anyways, I agree with your utilitarian interpretation of God's law. In fact, I previously posted a question suggesting exactly that same idea here. – Mark May 02 '23 at 01:31
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Buried in your question is a contradiction: the word "justified". Justification in Christianity is a legal concept! To discuss a legal concept without reference to the law is not possible.

The Ten Commandments may be divided into fourteen imperative statements. For example, the sabbath commandment has three imperatives: (1) to keep the sabbath holy, (2) to work six days and (3) to rest on the seventh day. If you divide them so, a symmetry appears. The first seven imperatives are about love for God. The second seven imperatives are about love for neighbor. Each "upper" imperative matches a corresponding "lower" imperative. Thus the command to have no other gods before Yahweh (the divine creator) matches the command to honor your father and mother (your material creators). Murder matches the command to not create idols and adultery matches the command to not worship idols.

By this construction, lust is seen for what it is: a form of idol worship. Lustful thoughts can consume a person, cause them to commit adultery, rape, murder, break apart families, and commit a host of other crimes.

The commandments are there to tell us to do what is good for us and others and to not do what is harmful. Removing the commandments does not remove the goodness that comes from actions that are consistent with them. For wisdom, you worship the source of wisdom. For healing, you worship the source of healing. For eternal life, you worship the source of eternal life. Worship is how we open ourselves to channels of grace from Heaven. Thus lust closes off that channel and instead opens a channel that pours lies, barrenness and death into our souls. That is not a law, but it is described by the Law. Plants do not need an agricultural law to know that without water, they die.

The Ten Commandments are as much a gardening manual as they are a legal document.

Paul Chernoch
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    "Plants do not need an agricultural law to know that without water, they die." — I like this analogy. I don't see God's Laws as being restrictive and burdensome. They should be seen more like Newton's Laws, which simply define cause and effect. Let go of the apple and then it will fall and get bruised. Condone adultery and then marriage, family, and eventually society will fall. Combining 1 John 3:4 and Ezekiel 18:4 simplifies to "If you break the Law, you will die", which is a statement of cause and effect, not a threat. – Ray Butterworth May 01 '23 at 14:54
  • I removed the word "justify" from my question because you clearly misunderstood what I meant. – Mark May 02 '23 at 01:45
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There is no reason to abandon divine commandment theory, as it doesn't contradict with the basic moral knowledge, the conscience that man possess. We know these acts are evil because his law is written in our conscience. Many of the forbidden acts or sins maybe not so clearly known to us, for which we need the divine revelation or religion to study God's law better. Refer to detailed material on bethinking org and reasonablefaith org sites.

Ethics in Law Enforcement by Steve McCartney and Rick Parent states:

Barry (1985, as cited in Pollock, 2007) describes that understanding God’s will is done in three ways:

Through individual conscience
By religious authorities
Through holy scripture

Michael16
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