Talk:Concupiscence

[Untitled]
NOTE: This article really needs review by a theologically educated Catholic, and a theologically educated Protestant. It could also do with a broader range of sources, some concrete examples, and information on the views of the Eastern Orthodox. User:Tagishsimon 19:37, 18 April 2004


 * ...and when they've finished, could someone please provide a summary in English? :o) I've read it twice and still don't understand it! (Comment from a Protestant reader...) EdJogg 01:53, 28 November 2006 (UTC)

Unreadable
The article needs a lot of work. It is unreadable in its current form. It looks like a one-sided summary of a debate that some editors have had. patsw 05:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Three and a half years later and it's still unreadable. Some passages are grammatical nonsense.PurpleChez (talk) 15:51, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Incomplete
This article makes extremely broad generalizations in reference to "Catholicism" and "Protestantism". For example, my own views on man's sinful nature, which are Arminian, would be much more closely related to the author's definition of the "Catholic" view than to those held by Calvinist Protestants. Furthermore, there are varying interpretations within each subset of Protestantism and, to a lesser extent, Catholicism.

That the Eastern Orthodox, Nestorian and Gnostic views are not mentioned at all is a joke, as is the omission of the Pelagian Controversy. This is a very complex issue and needs to be dealt with as such. --Mike 22:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I came across this article in research for a class, and I'm pretty sure that some statements come directly from my class text, "The Anatomy of the Sacred" by James C. Livingston. If anybody wants to look into that. It's in chapter nine. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 35.11.9.132 (talk) 20:47, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

---

I agree that that there is a problem with generalization since Protestant is a broad category. While respecting the need to avoid making the article too cumbersome by introducing too many streams of thought in one place, the comparisons in the main discussion should nonetheless be expanded to differentiate at least between Lutheran-Calvinist and Arminian-Wesleyan traditions within Protestantism. However, it would be unreasonable to try to get into all the other Protestant views since almost all would be variations on the historic great debate between these two traditions.

In the Catholic world, there is growing recognition that Great Tradition breathes with two lungs, East and West. This means that Eastern Orthodox perspectives are no longer marginal to how contemporary Roman Catholic thinkers are likely to proceed in the way they do systematic theology.

The Pelagian controversy is relevant background and there should either be a paragraph about its significance or a line directing the reader to a link for further consideration.

However, for the sake of economy, Nestorian and Miaphysite/Coptic perspectives can be outside the main structure of the presentation, perhaps in some kind of appendix at the end.

There is no obligation to include marginal Christianities such as Gnosticism, Mormonism, Christian Science, etc. on issues in which they have not been major players or on issues for which they have not demonstrated any scholarly (not just apologetic or polemical) interest in engaging the other traditions. However, I understand that Unitarianism in its formative period did have a place at the table in this debate (on concupiscence), so they can be included. Finally, there is also a bit of a problem with routinely lumping Gnosticism and Mormonism in with Trinitarian Christianity, not unlike putting Bahai under Islam or Sikhism under Hinduism (notwithstanding highly disputed claims as rivals to be normative interpretations of the Christian narrative)--Definite appendix material if mentioned at all rather than for main presentation. This is a sociological and socio-historical, not a theological, critique of routine inclusion of Gnosticism and Mormonism on issues like this one.

Buddhaop (talk) 03:46, 6 January 2009 (UTC)buddhaop

Typical Human Response
It is of no significance where SIN came from or for that matter where it's going!

1 Corinthians 3:4 (King James Version) Public Domain

For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal?

It becomes quite clear; that the preceding remarks are motivated from that carnality and not from the point of enlightenment. Which, I might add, always results in more confusion. The article in question was never meant as a theological dissertation on Catholicism Vs Protestantism. But it does what it was meant to do; and that is to give some insight to other views of what and where SIN came from.

It is good to see some exploration into this word. I have only heard it used once, outside of the context of The Bible. To say that it is a Catholic word is an interesting assertion, though I doubt accurate. As I found it in each context, the word was used critically to incline us to prayer, commune with Elohim, or at least peace, rather than our own will, or lust. Our preoccupation with making our way, filling our cup, or even trying to do what we think is correct, is perhaps not our highest occupation. Many Eastern scholars, practitioners, as well as Western, express the importance of following rather than leading, and would cleave to this word. It is a watchword, a harbinger of a better way. The way is the way of Christ. In the process of offering our service to His creation, and our will to The Father, we find our concupiscence stands in the way of listening, patiently waiting, or worse causes us to sin. Not that sinning is difficult, exaggeration is a lie, and a sin. Man's Truth is an offense, though not a sin. Is sin bread of anything other than selfishness? Perhaps concupiscence is the last selfishness to go. Iriecycle (talk) 04:10, 16 November 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Iriecycle (talk • contribs) 04:06, 16 November 2012 (UTC)

Tendency towards evil, or good?
According to NewAdvents Catholic encyclopedia it says concupiscence is the innate yearning for good, and because we like a good time therein lies the problem. It's like a beautiful lovesong, at 4AM on a Tuesday, pissed drunk, in the wrong garden.

In its widest acceptation, concupiscence is any yearning of the soul for good; in its strict and specific acceptation, a desire of the lower appetite contrary to reason. To understand how the sensuous and the rational appetite can be opposed, it should be borne in mind that their natural objects are altogether different. The object of the former is the gratification of the senses; the object of the latter is thegood of the entire human nature and consists in the subordination of reason to God, its supreme good and ultimate end. But the lower appetite is of itself unrestrained, so as to pursue sensuous gratifications independently of the understanding and without regard to thegood of the higher faculties. Hence desires contrary to the real good and order of reason may, and often do, rise in it, previous to the attention of the mind, and once risen, dispose the bodily organs to the pursuit and solicit the will to consent, while they more or less hinder reason from considering their lawfulness or unlawfulness. This is concupiscence in its strict and specific sense. As long, however, as deliberation is not completely impeded, the rational will is able to resist such desires and withhold consent, though it be not capable of crushing the effects they produce in the body, and though its freedom and dominion be to some extent diminished. If, in fact, thewill resists, a struggle ensues, the sensuous appetite rebelliously demanding its gratification, reason, on the contrary, clinging to its own spiritual interests and asserting it control. "The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh." 83.70.251.105 06:16, 23 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Looks like the lead is a bit off. Just a bit. ;-)


 * Can anyone think of a better amendment than Catholics think..." and "Protestants think..."?LCP 19:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually yes, a Scriptural argument.

In the NT the word translated concupiscence is from the Greek “‎epithumia” (transliterated) and occurs 38 times in the NT. Of these occurrences 37 usages are presented in a negative light with only once being used positively by the Lord where He expresses His desire (epithumia) to observe the Passover Supper with His disciples. This exception seems to prove the rule in that in every use "epithumia" is used as an indication of something to avoid or sin. So that in the usual and customary sense "epithumia" is something to avoid; however in a literal sense it cannot be said to be sin per se but it should be noted that the Lord, in who dwelt no sin, could "epithumia" without ever sinning but we cannot. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.252.65.18 (talk) 14:43, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

latin concupiscentia
The article should say what the latin means otherwise it is somewhat pointless to mention it has a latin root. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.153.117.118 (talk) 20:39, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Changed it myself. Honestly, not including in the first place was just lazy. I'd chide whoever put it in there the way it was, but who cares. Would have fixed it sooner myself, but I was trying to make a point about making sloppy additions. It is important to put the meaning of roots like that when they don't have the same meaning as the modern word. Especially with religious Latinate words which are almost always ambiguously used for stuff they don't really mean.--66.153.117.118 (talk) 20:58, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Against the Idea of a Merge
Over on the article for lust one Mr. Neelix suggested a merge,

"Concupiscence" and "lust" are synonyms; there is no encyclopedic difference between the two terms. There is no reason for these terms to have separate articles. The concupiscence article is so poorly written that it is unlikely that much information (if any) is salvageable, but the namespace should nonetheless redirect to lust.

To which I respond[ed],

: Hi Neelix; I disagree; "Concupiscence" is an historically important theological term, and often encompasses more than the the narrow connotations of mere "lust" in English, and for that matter, in the way similar terms have been in use through time; having etymologically synonymous terms does not mean that the concepts those terms get applied to are synonymous. The WP:Merge guideline says "A merger is a non-automated process by which two similar or redundant pages are united on one page", but the term "lust" does not encompass the doctrinal concepts of "Concupiscence" in Historical or Doctrinal terms in-context of Christianity (as stated above). Hope that helps!  tooMuchData 02:40, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Underlying Greek
Added a paragraph citing the underlying Greek translated "concupiscence" and provided New Testament references to all occurrences. Included other words used to translate the Greek.

Louie Lagonza (talk) 20:52, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Readability and Roman Catholicism vs Protestantism (aka Ecumenism)
IMHO The reason this article is difficult to read is because RC and P view concupiscence in VERY different ways. This should be no surprise.

I think the solution is to break the discussion into two, an RC discussion and a P discussion. It then becomes easier to understand the respective logical flows.

And, BTW, this seems to be a good fix for many theological issues viewed differently by RC and P.

The problem with doing so is that RC views itself as the only "true church" and desperately wants everything merged, for its own political reasons. Thus, Wikipedia cannot clearly represent theological issues without resisting this desire.

Also, BTW, this is called Ecumenism. --StudiousReader (talk) 15:55, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Dealing with the term "Protestant" on this page
Several of the comments above have objected to specific issues with this term. I think the use of this term is problematic altogether on this page.

The things that this article asserts about "Protestants" are true descriptions of the teachings of Luther, the teachings of Calvin, the beliefs of the various Lutheran and Calvinist confessional churches in the 16th, 17th and early 18th centuries, and the beliefs today of certain specific denominations (e.g., Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, L. C. Wisconsin Synod, Presbyterian Church of America). However, many churches today that trace their ancestry to Luther or Calvin (e.g., Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Presbyterian Church USA, and nearly all the churches in Europe today) no longer typically hold these views, or hold variations of them that have significant differences. And those Protestant churches that are not descended from Lutheran/Calvinist traditions (e.g., Methodists, Baptists) are not characterized by these views at all, even though some of their members may share them and others do not.

Perhaps the best solution is to rewrite this, focusing on the 16th century debate between the Catholic church and Luther, Calvin, and their churches. It's easy to find reliable sources for this debate. OPTIONALLY, at the end of this section, the page might make some very quick and general statements about how the current churches don't always share the views of their founders, or something like that. This would avoid the use of the term "Protestant" as if it referred to a single school of thought, which today is absurd. &mdash; Lawrence King ( talk ) 12:03, 19 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The section essentially seems to be a straw man argument by someone who wants to present the Catholic view but draws an unnecessary comparison to "Protestantism" without a similar depth of understanding (or indeed, citations) for what that side of the argument may be. Someone needs to be bold and fix it, probably by dividing the section into Roman? Catholicism and perhaps "Other Christian Views." I'm probably not qualified as I'm not a Christian of any sort. --Cantabwarrior 14:55, 24 October 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cantabwarrior (talk • contribs)

Islam
The brief section on Islam seems out of place in an article on "concupiscence". There may be a similar concept in Islam of a tendency to pursue fleshly desires, but the 11th century work that has been cited does not use the word "concupiscence" or provide a similar definition, as far as I can tell. The work also does not discuss reconciling the irascible and concupiscible appetites ("appetite" would be an appropriate term, since humans have only one "soul", not two...) I think this section ought to be eliminated from the article because concupiscence is a term of Christian theology belonging to Catholocism and then to Protestants because they took from Catholic teachings. If Islam has a similar concept that subdivides the tendency to sin into different categories, then it ought to be placed in a separate article under that specific term, not in an article on a Christian theological term. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.13.228.100 (talk) 11:00, 12 November 2012 (UTC)

Jewish Perspective
There is presently no effective content on the Jewish perspective posted herein. This topic is important: Please use AskMoses.com to pro-activelY pull Jewish wisdom into Wikipedia. At everY hour, even on Shabbat in alternating timecodes, a rabbi somewhere is available to help build Wikipedia as an access port for Jew-ish knowledge, and replY to lifesaver level objectives. Or, so it ought to be, someday. No other religious organization (with the possible exception of those emergent) that I know of has such a hard-coded obligation to preserve life and remember, but my knowledge of the world's faiths and philosophies is admittedly quite limited, and can only be confirmed through testing that is too difficult for me to conduct.

There ought to also be more complete descriptions in this Project that are driven by other Faith-patterns at "askbuddha", "askmuhammed", "askjesus", etc. writ broadly in hers.torY and his.torY frames. I know that I am also at fault for not contributing more proactively to this page. Engage with askmoses to see if there exists excess capacity there for a Wikipedia fill, in response to question exchanges. You might even program a Wikipedia Q/A bot that uses the same media technologies that Peoples are most accustomed to, so that questions can be framed and answered by "Ask_____" organizations for Public Commons Knowledge in a manner that is natural for them to understand and engage. This will naturally evolve into something more like an authorized botnet learning mechanism for indivisible religious humanisms.

This is just a tip: I am expending a tremendous amount of energy to express it humbly. Please kick it up the chain to the appropriate collaborator. (I don't know the right place for Wikipedia tips, and I can ill-afford the redirect time.) This will be my last Wikipedia since editing the Semmelweiss article for learned helplessness and the Currency tables on their true nominal meanings, I suspect, and I believe that this grossly approximates the amount of direct activity I can fulfill in the near-term. FullY completing draft Wikipedia articles for all to read, review, and improve is an ongoing aspirational goal.

If I may ask one last question: What would it take to Branch a dialect into wikipedia? If I submit in an alternative English dialect, will the text be compatible, will the text be overwritten in an edit work, or will there be a natural fragmentarY Branching? Are the editors prepared for such a situation? Would You point me (ea@clayman.org, S.ENs) to documentation of how to launch a new linguistic dialect compatible with bridging and branching Standard Englishes (S.ENs) Wikipedia with Branch Logics and Lan.gauges? I am reaching the point where everYthing i write is emerging in Branch rather than Standard, and I am afraid of what the bounds and re.bounds on participation will be, and how r.ejections might lead to future "torture" (particularlY avoidance) behaviours (see, for example, publiclY crippling Simplified Spelling r.ejections, such as "behavior" and "behaviour", or how the Roosevelt and Ruzevelt satirical leapings retarded the development of generations of educators' and students' educations). Y∆q = (Branch ∆Yquilibrium). There are many, many things I have to do instead of editing a Y of S.ENs Wikipedia to conform with a static Branch implementation, but Y (We/I « We.I « We.i « Wei «|« Y), with Y pronoun acting to BLEND We and I in situations that relate to active joint emergences) want to propose a lemma at least, for Futures. (Not all of this was fully thought-through, and includes some quite serious spittle.)

Love, 粘土人

Written prematurely with BLESS.rc7.01501.dv.

Orphaned references in Concupiscence
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Concupiscence's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Whidden2005": From Baptism:  From Christian views on sin:  

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 21:39, 1 June 2021 (UTC)