Misdirected Sensuality

...or concupiscence for short.

Thomas Aquinas coined the term, apparently. Or at least laid out the concept and drew some conclusions about it. He referred to it as "misdirected sensuality." Sensuality (enjoyment of the senses, and the pleasures thereof) is not inherently bad. In fact, the opposite. God recognized it in creation, and we read of it in Genesis 2:9 - "And the LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food."

Aquinas discussed the misdirection of sensuality by describing two divisions of "sensuality": the concupiscible (pursuit/avoidance instincts) and the irascible (competition/aggression/defense instincts). With the former are associated the emotions of joy and sadness, love and hate, desire and repugnance; with the latter, daring and fear, hope and despair, anger.

The Catholic Catechism refers to concupiscence as "the disorder in our human appetites and desires as the result of Original Sin. These effects remain even after Baptism and produce an inclination to sin." (emphasis mine)

This always reminds me of that great Charles Wesley hymn "Love Divine, All Loves Excelling", and the second half of verse 2:

Take away our bent to sinning;
Alpha and Omega be;
End of faith, as its Beginning,
Set our hearts at liberty.


There is an aspect to sin that involves putting ourselves in the place of God. Not on a throne surrounded by angels being worshipped, mind you, but rather in the place of deciding what's right and wrong, good and bad - at least for us if not for others. Cornelius Plantenga, Jr., in his book (which is the subject of my next report in Systematic Theology II) Not the Way It's Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin, says this about it:

"... we not only sin because we're ignorant but we are also ignorant because we sin, because we find it convenient to misconstrue our place in the universe and to reassign divinity to it."

Amen, brother.



So we had a rousing discussion in TS502 about our "bent to sinning", and how it works out in practice. We discussed a phenomenology of sin. The prof took his from Genesis 3, and I took mine from James 1. Now I don't think looking at Genesis 3 for anything normative to our experience is appropriate, since Adam & Eve had not yet sinned. We all have. We start from a different place. Yes, you wind up in the same spot, but by different motivations and in a different order.


Genesis 3

Doubt of God
Deposing God
Disobeying God
Desire unbridled
(unlooked for)


James 1

Desire unbridled
Disobeying God
Deposing God
Doubt of God
(unlooked for)



See the difference? Of course you do.

Well, just in case you don't, let me give it a go.

The prof argued from Genesis 3 that all sin starts with unbelief, with doubting God. Doubting God (his nature, his character, his authority, his word, his motives) leads us to supplant him as God with a god more like us. In fact.. it *is* us. At that point, disobeying God becomes much easier, and (though we didn't look for this as the end result) our desire, our misdirected sensuality, charges off in hot pursuit of its fulfillment, with little or no restraint.

I argued instead from James 1 that all sin starts with misdirected sensuality, and when desire is strong enough to throw off all restraint, we disobey and go against what God says is right. In so doing, we set ourselves up as a higher authority, and (though we never set out to do so) wind up in a position of doubting our view of God as we thought at first. He can't be thus, if we are going to continue our lifestyle, so we need some other God-model that allows for it.


Now.. which one makes more sense to you?

Does your sin start with unbelief? Or with desire?

I know how mine works. James does too.



Either way, Exodus 34:6-7 still holds: "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin."

As does Psalm 130:3-4 - "If you, O LORD, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared."

Yes, he is merciful and gracious, and yet.. we need to remember that the grace of God always comes to us stained with blood. And today is a good day to remember that - with ashes - and for the next 40 days as well, with both sacrifice and devotion.

That mercy and that grace came at a price. Let that guide my devotion and my sacrifice.