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[Silo]

Lust happens involuntarily, thus lust as a sin is a ludicrous concept.

I have been reading and viewing materials on the function of hormones. These have shown me some interesting things.

The study referenced in this article points to lust being non-voluntary and happening automatically. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/3347689/Male-lust-is-blind-research-suggests.html

The article in the link states that, when alone in a room with a female, the male participants in the study showed higher levels of testosterone.

Why is this relevant? Because testosterone drives lust. Articles such as: http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2017/ ... anionship/ explain some things about this.

Now, while not all Christians would think of lust as a sin, some do and I feel there are verses that point to this. (Quoting from the NIV version as I've gotten a smaller amount of objections to using this version than others in the past.)

Matthew 5:28

28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

This verse seems to point to lust being equal to adultery, which is spelled out as a sin.

Mark 7:20-23

20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

From within indeed. Perhaps from chemicals of which we have no control. This says evil thoughts can occur, not only actions. There's a case that lust falls under sexual immorality and/or lewdness.

1 Thessalonians 4:3-5

3 It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; 4 that each of you should learn to control your own body[a] in a way that is holy and honorable, 5 not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God;

Passionate lust is said in these verses to be going against God's will: in other words sin. It's lumped in with sexual immorality. It says to learn to control your body in a way that prevents lust, however one cannot control one's hormones in the blood stream voluntarily.

Edit: I believe there are more verses regarding lust that I could list if I am asked to further back this up.

So, if one agrees to the premise that lust is a sin, one might be guilty of sin due to no voluntary action of one's own. The hormones in your blood stream (including but perhaps not limited to testosterone), would cause one to lust subconsciously, and therefore to sin subconsiously.

I would say that the concept of lust as sin is ludicrous in that one doesn't voluntarily participate in lust. A creator God would have presumably designed us with hormones such as testosterone, thus causing the lust. What purpose could there be for this other than to set us up for failure or to cause us to sin?

It's unreasonable for a being (such as a god) to cause involuntary actions to occur and then proceed to punish individuals for those actions (as sins are punished).

[jimwalton]

Lust is the word ἐπιθυμῆσαι, and in this context of Matthew 5.28 it means "an immodest appetite that is magnified and intemperate." Here it's a craving after something that will lead you to moral wrong. Animal desire is not in itself evil, nor is sexual desire. It's not our heightened levels of testosterone that are the problem. What's wrong is exerting the desire and oneself at the expense of another, letting our wills become dominated by immorality, and creating a wall between ourselves and God and ourselves and treating the woman, in this case, as a being of value in herself, not just for our enjoyment as an object.

Pornography is like that. It takes something human, real, and beautiful, and distorts it, cheapens our sexuality, and isolates it for trade. Instead, sexual desire is meant to be lived and expressed in the context of a healthy, integrated relationship. Lust smears. It's misdirected good.

In other words, the problem isn't our physiological response, but instead what our minds tell us to act out. The Bible contends that we have self-control, both mentally, attitudinally, and physically, and need to exercise it.

> 1 Thessalonians 4.3-5

We can't control our autonomic responses, but we are expected to control what we do with them. There's no harm in appreciating a beautiful body, but one has taken a different step in wanting to have sex with that person, and again a further step to act on that desire. But we as human beings aren't powerless to control such thoughts or impulses. We most certainly are, as the #MeToo movement is emphasizing.

"Lust" is actively imagining someone as a sexual object with the intentional selfish pursuit of stimulating or satisfying illicit sexual desires. It's not just a glance, but a visual and mental pursuit; it's not just a thought, but a nurtured desire.

If you are reading or viewing sexually explicit material, you are nurturing lust—training your mind to think of other people as sexual objects. It is dehumanizing and degrading.

So I would contend, as the Bible does, that lust is a sin. Testosterone drives your physiological responses, but it doesn't govern your morality.

[Silo]

> Here it's a craving after something that will lead you to moral wrong. Animal desire is not in itself evil, nor is sexual desire.

You seem to be saying that a craving that leads towards evil (towards a moral wrong), is not evil. How can that be though? Would it be unreasonable to call it an evil craving since it beckons us to evil? It seems to be splitting hairs and near impossible to distinguish a desire that leads to evil from an evil desire.

> What's wrong is exerting the desire and oneself at the expense of another, letting our wills become dominated by immorality, and creating a wall between ourselves and God and ourselves and treating the woman, in this case, as a being of value in herself, not just for our enjoyment as an object.

I think you're going a step further than the text in the scripture though. Again I would point to the verse from Matthew and the Job verses. No where does it specifically say that the individual(s) involved were pursuing these immoral thoughts. The mere thoughts themselves (or you could say even the act of looking) seem to be said to be the sins. These would lead me to believe that you don't have to act on such thoughts for the thoughts to be sins.

Couldn't have Job just as well have condemned his feet or his mouth instead of his eyes if lust is only a sin if it is then acted on? His feet would possibly be needed to walk up to another person. The mouth would be needed to talk to them and chat them up.

The next verse in the Matthew is: Matthew 5:29 If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell.

Apparently, the eye alone can cause sin according to that.

> "Lust" is actively imagining someone as a sexual object with the intentional selfish pursuit of stimulating or satisfying illicit sexual desires. It's not just a glance, but a visual and mental pursuit; it's not just a thought, but a nurtured desire.

We know that thoughts can be evil according to verses such as

Mark 7:20-23: 20 He went on: “What comes out of a person is what defiles them. 21 For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. 23 All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

so it seems to me that one can't rule out the first thought of lust or lustful glance as being sin. To my knowledge, there are no verses pointing to an individual not being able to sin involuntarily and that sin requires intention.

> Testosterone drives your physiological responses, but it doesn't govern your morality.

Hormones influence behavior (which can be labeled moral or immoral). There is a whole field of science dedicated to this: behavioral endocrinology.

[jimwalton]

> You seem to be saying that a craving that leads towards evil (towards a moral wrong), is not evil. How can that be though?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm actually saying the opposite: The lust mentioned in Mt. 5.28 is a craving that leads towards evil (towards a moral wrong), and that is evil. What's not true is that all cravings are evil; all cravings are not evil, just the ones that lead towards moral wrongs. Is that more clear, hopefully?

> I think you're going a step further than the text in the scripture though.

I don't think so, because in the particular instance of Matthew 4.28, the object of the lustful craving is a person who is an object of the craving. We are exerting our desires in the sense of objectifying another person. Acting on those desires inappropriately are what the #MeToo movement are all about. Jesus is saying that the desires themselves are sin.

> No where does it specifically say that the individual(s) involved were pursuing these immoral thoughts. The mere thoughts themselves (or you could say even the act of looking) seem to be said to be the sins. These would lead me to believe that you don't have to act on such thoughts for the thoughts to be sins.

When a person feels themselves experiencing an attraction or a desire toward another person that is leading them towards immoral thoughts or immoral actions, what is their responsibility before God at that point? Is a desire for sexual activity, or even merely the attraction, a morally benign desire or emotion? In the terms of what Jesus teaches us in Mt. 5.28, it is always sinful to desire something that God forbids. And the very experience of the desire becomes an occasion for repentance. We stand firmly committed to the position that Scripture teaches that the mind can sin as much as the body. Hence desires are not necessarily or automatically, but they can be sinful.

But if a person cannot control whether they have these desires (they just pop into our heads, as we all know), how can that desire be considered sinful? This objection bases moral accountability upon whether one has the ability to choose his proclivities. But this is not how the Bible speaks of sin and judgment. There are all manner of predispositions that we are born with and that we experience as unchosen realities (pride, anger, anxiousness, just to name a few); nevertheless, the Bible characterizes such realities as sin. Why would we put sexual desire in a different category than those that we also groan to be delivered from and that we are called to repent of? Jesus said all such sins proceed from the heart, and we are morally accountable for them (Mk. 7.21). And this assessment is in no way mitigated by the possibility that we come by it naturally or were born that way.

As Richard Hays says, "The Bible’s sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonsense assumption that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable. Quite the reverse: the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen. We are in bondage to sin but still accountable to God's righteous judgment of our actions."

> and the Job verses. ... Couldn't have Job just as well have condemned his feet or his mouth instead of his eyes if lust is only a sin if it is then acted on?

I have no idea what Job verses you're talking about.

> Apparently, the eye alone can cause sin according to [Mt. 5:29].

The eye can lead us into sin, cause it. It carries the idea of setting a trap or a snare. Our eyes are information gatherers. The eye itself doesn't offend, but it opens a door to the conscience. What matters if what our consciousness does with what the eye sees. Our minds are capable of changing or stopping thoughts that the eye might motivate us to think. We are always in control. Don't let your eyes lead you into sin by resting too long on inappropriate sights or objects of temptation. What Jesus is talking about is exercising self-control to tame our natural desires and passions that lead us into thinking immorally and acting immorally.

> Hormones influence behavior (which can be labeled moral or immoral). There is a whole field of science dedicated to this: behavioral endocrinology.

Right. Hormones are the influence, but behavior is a choice.

[Silo]

> As Richard Hays says, "The Bible’s sober anthropology rejects the apparently commonsense assumption that only freely chosen acts are morally culpable. Quite the reverse: the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen. We are in bondage to sin but still accountable to God's righteous judgment of our actions."

This is essentially what my argument relates to. If God has created man and, in this act, placed chemicals which influence thoughts (as well as behavior), then God would be responsible for the thoughts and actions his creation participated in. Yet, he holds the individuals responsible and therefore might punish the individuals for thoughts/actions that he himself orchestrated through chemical processes.

> This does not seem reasonable to me.

> behavior is a choice.

I disagree on this. This goes back to the question of free will. I'm not convinced there is sufficient evidence to say that one's "will" dictates their behavior. I would say the brain, along with chemicals and chemical processes that occur there and in the body (hormones), decide behavior.

[jimwalton]

> This is essentially what my argument relates to. If God has created man and, in this act, placed chemicals which influence thoughts (as well as behavior), then God would be responsible for the thoughts and actions his creation participated in.

Here's the distinction between what the Bible says and what you are thinking: In the Bible, sin was the result of a human decision, not the result of anything God did. Hays says that the very nature of sin is that it is not freely chosen, yet the tack you have chosen to conclude is that "God put it there" (since he placed the chemicals that influence thoughts as well as behavior). Scientifically we know this: there are many elements and factors that can alter the body's chemistry. Thoughts and experiences, as well as diseases and viruses can alter the blend and balance of our chemical composition. Therefore God is not to be automatically credited (actually blamed) for the chemicals that you attribute as the possible foundation of desires that lead us to immorality. First, it's entirely possible (and according to biblical theology it's what happened) that humankind is responsible for our own disability. Secondly, God has still created within our being a way of escape: we are not enslaved to it but rather have the mental capacity to say no to any such influence. If this is not true, the #MeToo people have no right to complain. Any man can say, "Hey, it's hormonal. I can't help it." Yet we all know better.

> "behavior is a choice." ... I disagree on this. This goes back to the question of free will. I'm not convinced there is sufficient evidence to say that one's "will" dictates their behavior.

The problem with this position is that free will is a necessary function of self-awareness. Any being that is self-aware is also therefore self-directed, and any being that is self-directed is exercising free will.

> I'm not convinced there is sufficient evidence to say that one's "will" dictates their behavior.

So you're saying that if punch me in the face, I have no part in a decision whether to walk away or to engage and punch you back? I am robotic. My will does not and cannot dictate my behavior?

If this is the case (that we are slaves to our body chemicals), then humans are without the capacity to make reasoned decisions (reasoned decisions require weighing options and choosing the more likely), and the role of reason itself in any intellectual discipline is suspect. I am not making reasoned decisions, but chemical ones—and who's to say that chemicals have the capability of making truth judgments? They do not and cannot, because they are blind mechanistic processes. So if you argue that we are purely physical beings, you are also arguing against the reliability of reason, and so are negating your own thought processes.

In addition, our simple "What if.." simulations and all means of scientific inquiry speak in favor of freedom of the will. As a matter of fact, science depends on it. Without freedom of the will, I cannot choose a hypothesis, test it, weigh data, consider options, and infer the most reasonable conclusion. Science depends on freedom of the will. If my thoughts and behaviors are all dictated by blind chemicals, I have legitimate reason to suspect both the processes of the means and the dependability of the conclusion.

[Silo]

> Scientifically we know this: there are many elements and factors that can alter the body's chemistry. Thoughts and experiences, as well as diseases and viruses can alter the blend and balance of our chemical composition. Therefore God is not to be automatically credited (actually blamed) for the chemicals that you attribute as the possible foundation of desires that lead us to immorality.

For the first humans (Adam and Eve, if Genesis is a historical account), God would have controlled brain chemistry as well as experiences and thoughts (since thoughts are based on brain chemistry). They couldn't have had experiences God didn't set up by providing the setting (Eden) and everything they interacted with (animals). Thus I would think the fall would have been directly caused by God.

For all other humans, God would have still have had the ability to factor in such factors as experiences, disease etc. and could have altered brain chemistry accordingly.

> The problem with this position is that free will is a necessary function of self-awareness. Any being that is self-aware is also therefore self-directed, and any being that is self-directed is exercising free will.

This article addresses this: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/the-paradox-of-free-will/

The article claims that research "conclude(s) that what we experience to be an independent self is a construct in the mind—very real in its appearance but of no intrinsic substance."

> If this is the case (that we are slaves to our body chemicals), then humans are without the capacity to make reasoned decisions (reasoned decisions require weighing options and choosing the more likely), and the role of reason itself in any intellectual discipline is suspect.

I never said reasoned thoughts cannot arrive through brain processes.

I don't see how arriving at a reasoned thought through free will is any more reliable than arriving at a reasoned thought through brain processes that aren't free will.

Is the "will" that much more informed than a regular brain? Perhaps the "will" is unreliable for anything. Not sure how one arrives at the unreliability of normal brain processes and at the reliability of the "will".

> As a matter of fact, science depends on it.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/what-neuroscience-says-about-free-will/

I don't think this is true. Many neuroscientist think that free will might be an illusion.

> If my thoughts and behaviors are all dictated by blind chemicals, I have legitimate reason to suspect both the processes of the means and the dependability of the conclusion.

I could say that if my thoughts and behaviors are dictated by a "will" which function cannot be fully comprehended or explained, then I have legitimate reason to suspect the processes of the means and the dependability of the conclusion.

Do you believe the "will" is the function of the brain? If so then we are both speaking of brain function either way. If not, then why would I trust my soul or some other such source to do my reasoning when I have no clue how the soul functions.

[jimwalton]

> For the first humans (Adam and Eve, if Genesis is a historical account), God would have controlled brain chemistry as well as experiences and thoughts (since thoughts are based on brain chemistry). They couldn't have had experiences God didn't set up by providing the setting (Eden) and everything they interacted with (animals). Thus I would think the fall would have been directly caused by God.

(1) I believe Genesis is a historical account, but it's not an account of material creation. Rather, it is an account of how God ordered the cosmos, the earth, and humanity to function in a certain way. It's more about the why, and how things work, rather than how they came to be. (2) I believe that life and people evolved, and that God guided the evolutionary process through its course. God often, if not always, works through processes. (3) Therefore God didn't necessarily control all processes, viz., in our conversational context, brain chemistry. (4) Thus the Fall was not caused by God.

> This article addresses this: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/th ... free-will/

Yeah, you'll quickly learn from discussions with me that I don't buy into things just because someone can find an article on the Internet. It was an interesting article, and it would take time for me to process it fully. I have a couple off-the-cuff responses.

"Neuroscientists find no evidence of an individual self located somewhere in the brain. ... Instead they propose that what we call “I” is but a mental construct derived from bodily experience." Duh. Of course neuroscientists find no evidence of an individual self located in the brain. Consciousness is not material. I think it's quite reductionist to think that all elements of self and consciousness can be reduced to material events (and I don't believe it).

But then later he seemed to be agreeing with what I said: "So in the state where the self is real, we do experience our selves making choices. And those choices are experienced as being of our own volition. Here, free will is real. … Whether or not we experience free will depends on the state from which we are experiencing the world. In one state of consciousness there is free will. In the other, it has no reality." I would have to spend more time pondering and analyzing the article.

> I don't see how arriving at a reasoned thought through free will is any more reliable than arriving at a reasoned thought through brain processes that aren't free will.

By my analysis, if reasoning is determined it's not reasoning at all but rather simple chemical cause and effect. Reasoning is only an illusion, and cannot be regarded as reliable in its pursuit of truth, since truth is outside of the purview of chemical cause and effect as well as outside of any evolutionary drive to survive.

> Many neuroscientist think that free will might be an illusion.

Many also think that it is not.

> Do you believe the "will" is the function of the brain? If so then we are both speaking of brain function either way.

Yes. I don't think anyone could ever claim otherwise. But I believe that reasoning and consciousness supersede mere chemical and material explanations. We have personalities and character traits that are functions of our experiences, yet not dependent on them. Some ghetto children grow up to be violent and bitter, while others rise above their circumstances and upbringings to become successful and happy. We are neither governed solely by genetics nor environment, and our consciousness is more than just snapping neurons. That's my view, in any case, for what it's worth.

[Silo]

> Consciousness is not material. I think it's quite reductionist to think that all elements of self and consciousness can be reduced to material events (and I don't believe it).

Physical damage to the brain can lead one into (possibly permanent) unconsciousness or a coma as well as drastic personality changes. You would propose there's other elements at work for consciousness and the self so why do we see such dramatic changes from physical means alone?

If one believes that consciousness and the self isn't solely regulated to physical material, I don't see why they don't question why the mentally impaired or brain damaged couldn't use whatever other processes that go on within a person's thinking to compensate for their physical problems. Couldn't the physically brain damaged or mentally impaired have other processes of thinking to fall back on, as well as a free will, through which they could possibly use to behave as if their physical injuries or impairments weren't there? But yet we never see this occur.

> But I believe that reasoning and consciousness supersede mere chemical and material explanations

Why should we trust a reasoning that we arrive at through mysterious processes that we can't explain (if I'm understanding you right and you do believe reasoning is possible)? At least science understands some things about (physical) brain function. If one trusts reasoning but can't explain how it's arrived at, then it seems they are trusting something arrived at through means that aren't reliable since they're unknown.

[jimwalton]

> Physical damage to the brain can lead one into (possibly permanent) unconsciousness or a coma as well as drastic personality changes. You would propose there's other elements at work for consciousness and the self so why do we see such dramatic changes from physical means alone?

My response to this is that we also see damage to consciousness that comes from causes other than physical damage. Sometimes people are damaged through emotional trauma or psychological factors that have nothing to do with physical trauma to the brain. There are many elements at work for consciousness and the self besides physical ones. So I don't see "such dramatic changes from physical means alone."

> I don't see why they don't question why the mentally impaired or brain damaged couldn't use whatever other processes that go on within a person's thinking to compensate for their physical problems.

I know they're always working on things, and technology will help in the quest. The brain, as deeply as it is understood, is still not understood all that well. It is capable of amazing things, both positive and negative (psycho-somatic symptoms, illnesses, and even healings).

> But yet we never see this occur.

I wouldn't be so sure about this one just yet.

> Why should we trust a reasoning that we arrive at through mysterious processes that we can't explain (if I'm understanding you right and you do believe reasoning is possible)?

Oh, I didn't say just through processes we can't fully explain. What I said was that if the evolutionary process is genetic mutations + the blind processes of natural selection, and since "truth" is not a quest of the biological survival focus, we cannot be certain that any emerging thoughts are anything but a combination of these processes, and therefore nothing to do with truth and reason. As Alvin Plantinga says, "First, the probability of our cognitive faculties being reliable, given naturalism and evolution, is low. (To put it a bit inaccurately but suggestively, if naturalism and evolution were both true, our cognitive faculties would very likely not be reliable.) But if I believe in both naturalism and evolution, I have a defeater for my intuitive assumption that my cognitive faculties are reliable. And if I have a defeater for that belief, then I have a defeater for any belief I take to be produced by my cognitive faculties. That means I have a defeater for my belief that naturalism and evolution are true. I cannot rationally accept them. Therefore, if I can't accept them—the pillars of contemporary science—then there is serious conflict between naturalism and science.

Atheists and scientific naturalists concur.

Darwin: "With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"

Thomas Nagel: "If we came to believe that our capacity for objective theory (e.g., true beliefs) were the product of natural selection, that would warrant serious skepticism about its results."

Barry Stroud: "There is an embarrassing absurdity in [naturalism] that is revealed as soon as the naturalist reflects and acknowledges that he believes his naturalistic theory of the world. … I mean he cannot it and consistently regard it as true."

Patricia Churchland: "Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system enables the organism to succeed in the four Fs: feeding, fleeing, fighting, and reproducing. The principle chore of nervous systems it to get the body parts where they should be in order that the organism may survive. … Improvements in sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary advantage: a fancier style of representing is advantageous so long as it is geared to the organism’s way of life and enhances the organism’s chances of survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely takes the hindmost."

The principle funfunction or purpose, then, of our cognitive faculties is not that of producing true or near true beliefs, but instead that of contributing to survival by getting the body parts in the right place. What evolution underwrites is only (at most) that our behavior is reasonably adaptive to the circumstances in which our ancestors found themselves; it doesn't guarantee true or mostly true beliefs. Our beliefs might be mostly true, but there is no particular reason to think they would be: natural selection is not interested in truth, but in appropriate behavior. What Churchland is suggesting is that naturalistic evolution—that is, the conjunction of metaphysical naturalism with the view that we and our cognitive faculties have arisen by way of the mechanisms and processes proposed by contemporary evolutionary theory—gives us reason to doubt two things: (a) that a purpose of our cognitive systems is that of serving us with true beliefs, and (b) that they do, in fact, furnish us with mostly true beliefs.