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.
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.
Conversely, 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.
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 not to 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 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".'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 adopted into English as luxury without its sexual meaning by the 14th century).
In Romanesque art, the personified 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 relations, relations between persons of the same sex, etc, which destroys the human capacity of loving, that is, of the person to give themselves to God and to others.
Islam In Islam, lust is considered one of the primitive states of the self, called the nafs. In sufi psychology, according to Robert Frager, nafs is an aspect of psyche that begins as our worst adversary but can develop into an invaluable tool.
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 innocentsurely 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 forbidden. Lascivious thoughts are disliked, 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".
Indian religions 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
Suffering (dukkha) is inherent in all life. Suffering is caused by desire. There is a natural way to eliminate all suffering from one's life. The ending of desire eliminates all suffering from someones life.