Sunday, July 12, 2015

Love vs Lust

In his new book, Lust, [Simon] Blackburn presents an updated vision of lust as sexual desire for its own sake.  If lust now has a bad press, Blackburn wants to be its public relations agent.  Lust is inevitably compared with love.  Blackburn understands the quandary, noting, "We smile at lovers holding hands in the park.  But we wrinkle our noses if we find them acting out their lust under the bushes.  Love receives the world's applause.  Lust is furtive, ashamed, and embarrassed.   Love pursues the good of the other, with self-control, concern, reason, and patience.  Lust pursues its own gratification, headlong, impatient of any control, immune to reason."  As a moral philosopher, Blackburn understands that love requires knowledge, reason, and time, combined with truth and trust.  Lust, on the other hand, is symbolized by "a trail of clothing in the hallway" that represents a loss of reason, self-control, and discipline.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of Sexual Tolerance, p.13

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