Is temptation, in and of itself, sin?

[Clare73]

Yes.
Just for you, not for me.

I'll leave you to your conclusion (once again). Thanks for the respectful discussion.

Back at you. . .

I'm going to stick with your great word studies. . .this kind of stuff is mind-numbing.

 

[setst777]

See, I agree. But putting that to the side, for arguments sake. If I am tempted by a desire that is contrary to God's will, isn't that sin? If there is within me even the slightest desire (which is what temptation is), isn't that sinful?

Hebrews 4:15 (WEB)
15 For we don’t have a high priest who can’t be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.

I believe that a temptation becomes a sin when, if I think to myself that:

"If I had an acceptable opportunity to fulfill my sinful temptation, then I would definitely follow through."

In this case, I have already committed the act in my heart, even though still a thought in my mind. That is the sin intention of my heart the Lord sees.

James 1:12-16 (WEB)
12 Blessed is a person who endures temptation, for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord promised to those who love him.
13 Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.
14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own lust and enticed.
15 Then the lust, when it has conceived, bears sin.
The sin, when it is full grown, produces death. 16 Don’t be deceived, my beloved brothers and sisters.

So, if we feel a temptation onto sin in our thoughts, know that this is not from God, but the temptation is a test of our faith and love for God.

And if we don't deal with that temptation soon, and in a Godly way, our hearts may become ever more hardened to the Spiritual warning inside us.

If we allow that thought of temptation to continue, then we may already be tempted in our hearts to fulfill the temptation if given the opportunity. That is sin, and will produce spiritual death, unless repented of. For only those who endure temptation, as Lord Jesus also did, receive the Crown of Life.

Revelation 3:21 (WEB)
21 He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me on my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father on his throne.

 

[public hermit]

believe that a temptation becomes a sin when, if I think to myself that:

"If I had an acceptable opportunity to fulfill my sinful temptation, then I would definitely follow through."

In this case, I have already committed the act in my heart, even though still a thought in my mind. That is the sin intention of my heart the Lord sees

That makes sense. We definitely have thoughts that we reject and might wonder, "Where did that come from?" In both the eastern and western contemplative traditions, it's assumed we are given thoughts we did not seek and are free to reject. I think the basic idea is that the impetus for some thoughts are outside forces, taken a number of ways.

 

[setst777]

That makes sense. We definitely have thoughts that we reject and might wonder, "Where did that come from?" In both the eastern and western contemplative traditions, it's assumed we are given thoughts we did not seek and are free to reject. I think the basic idea is that the impetus for some thoughts are outside forces, taken a number of ways.

I know dark invisible forces all around us play a part in finding our weaknesses and preying on them.

As well, even though, as Christians, we died to, and renounce, the control of the carnal mind over our lives, the carnal mind still exists within us, and so we struggle with the temptations of the flesh, and the world that caters to the lusts of the flesh.

We also struggle with temptation to sin as regards the sufferings we must bear, and even persecution, even martyrdom.

All of these are the "cross" we must bear daily as followers of Lord Jesus.

Luke 9:23-25 (WEB)
23 He said to all, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily and follow me. 24 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever will lose his life for my sake, will save it. 25 For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses or forfeits his own self?

So we must count the cost daily of our faithfulness to Lord Jesus.

 

[Vap841]

That makes sense, but can you really be tempted unless you have some desire for the thing that tempts. Imagine Jesus being tempted, but not having to struggle against that temptation, as we do. Could we really say he was tempted as we are?

Yes I’m trying to understand how to make sense out of a few things like you are, and like the ‘Did Jesus Lust?’ thread that @Pavel Mosko is referencing. So God is omniscient, therefore in order for a thing such as “Having a lust experience” to exist in reality then God necessarily must have knowledge of what that is like. But to have knowledge of a lust experience is to have had a lust experience. If you run into a person who has never had a lust experience before then that person wouldn’t have knowledge of what it is.

We say that God surely knows love, forgiveness, compassion, decision making, etc, because we know those things, and if we know them then God being much greater than us in every way also knows them. But I have been getting a little tripped up when looking at this idea from the view of mental properties that are not said to be good ones, like lust. Or even something morally neutral like being hungry, how does a spirit God know a hunger experience without being able to say that He has had/felt the experience before? To have it is to know it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Yes I’m trying to understand how to make sense out of a few things like you are, and like the ‘Did Jesus Lust?’ thread that @Pavel Mosko is referencing. So God is omniscient, therefore in order for a thing such as “Having a lust experience” to exist in reality then God necessarily must have knowledge of what that is like. But to have knowledge of a lust experience is to have had a lust experience. If you run into a person who has never had a lust experience before then that person wouldn’t have knowledge of what it is.

We say that God surely knows love, forgiveness, compassion, decision making, etc, because we know those things, and if we know them then God being much greater than us in every way also knows them. But I have been getting a little tripped up when looking at this idea from the view of mental properties that are not said to be good ones, like lust. Or even something morally neutral like being hungry, how does a spirit God know a hunger experience without being able to say that He has had/felt the experience before? To have it is to know it.

The notion that God cannot know something without experiencing it, is bogus. After all, he MADE us.

Also, the fact that God knows something does not imply that Jesus did why here on earth, in his earthly body. He set all that aside, to live as we do.

We see everything backwards.

 

[Vap841]

Also, the fact that God knows something does not imply that Jesus did why here on earth, in his earthly body. He set all that aside, to live as we do.

This part I agree with.

The notion that God cannot know something without experiencing it, is bogus. After all, he MADE us.

It doesn’t even have to be God, the whole idea of knowing an experience without the experience confuses me. We even have the saying “It’s an experience” when an explanation can’t do something justice.

I get it that to love is considered ‘Good’ so that it’s not totally fair to compare the knowledge of loving someone with the knowledge of lusting since God could love all day long and it’s fine because love is good. But still, God’s knowledge of love and God having had a love experience (even just once) seem dependent on each other.

 

[Mark Quayle]

It doesn’t even have to be God, the whole idea of knowing an experience without the experience confuses me. We even have the saying “It’s an experience” when an explanation can’t do something justice.

I get it that to love is considered ‘Good’ so that it’s not totally fair to compare the knowledge of loving someone with the knowledge of lusting since God could love all day long and it’s fine because love is good. But still, God’s knowledge of love and God having had a love experience (even just once) seem dependent on each other.

It sounds to me like you place more substance to this life than it merits. God is First Cause, and omniscient. Therefore, he knows what he made. It is illogical to think there is some detail that happened all by itself, by chance, just somehow, apart from him.

The 'experience' is subjective. And God is not like us. He does not learn by experience.

 

[Petros2015]

I get it that to love is considered ‘Good’ so that it’s not totally fair to compare the knowledge of loving someone with the knowledge of lusting since God could love all day long and it’s fine because love is good. But still, God’s knowledge of love and God having had a love experience (even just once) seem dependent on each other.

John made statements such as "God is love" or "God is light". So is love to be considered "good", or is love to be considered God? I do not mean to make the human experience or conception or attempts at making love (even of fellow men) to be an idol, we do that very well. Procreation is also good, but lust actually tends to have very little to do with procreation, it just treats it as an unfortunate side effect, if it considers it at all. The progression (or regression) of love to lust (might) be considered abstractly as a move from God to an absence of God (or, from a lot of God to less God, if you will, from nearness to farness)

Kind of like what Mark said earlier, we not only see everything backwards we Have everything backwards. We start from Lust and then try to 'make love' out of it lol. Not really having any really good idea of what that might be.

Did Jesus have a lust experience? I doubt it; He knew better. He already had the real thing. Was He tempted? Possibly... but in light of what He had, was it with anything worth considering? Did he ever think about staying here and having children? But... wasn't that the whole point?

"But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God"

Done on behalf of the Father

They just went about it a little differently than we do

“Do you want to have a good time?” said a voice from a doorway.
“As far as I can tell,” said Ford, “I’m having one. Thanks.” ~Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

 

[Vap841]

It sounds to me like you place more substance to this life than it merits. God is First Cause, and omniscient. Therefore, he knows what he made. It is illogical to think there is some detail that happened all by itself, by chance, just somehow, apart from him.

Yes I think that is logical, but the part that seems to follow from it is that God knows all experiences just as intimately as we do (and probably even more so). Maybe the answer is that God can know a lust experience however God’s wisdom cuts it off at the root immediately? Maybe God only experienced impure thoughts one time ever in eternity past (so He does know them) but they only lasted a nanosecond before God shut the thoughts down, before His eternal wisdom cut them off? It’s so difficult to think about because there is an eternal source of both all things good and all things bad.

The 'experience' is subjective. And God is not like us. He does not learn by experience.

True, God would just eternally know all things.

 

[Vap841]

John made statements such as "God is love" or "God is light". So is love to be considered "good", or is love to be considered God? I do not mean to make the human experience or conception or attempts at making love (even of fellow men) to be an idol, we do that very well. Procreation is also good, but lust actually tends to have very little to do with procreation, it just treats it as an unfortunate side effect, if it considers it at all. The progression (or regression) of love to lust (might) be considered abstractly as a move from God to an absence of God (or, from a lot of God to less God, if you will, from nearness to farness)

Kind of like what Mark said earlier, we not only see everything backwards we Have everything backwards. We start from Lust and then try to 'make love' out of it lol. Not really having any really good idea of what that might be.

Did Jesus have a lust experience? I doubt it; He knew better. He already had the real thing.
Was He tempted? Possibly... but in light of what He had, was it with anything worth considering? Did he ever think about staying here and having children? But... wasn't that the whole point?

"But as many as received him, he gave them power to be made the sons of God"

Done on behalf of the Father

They just went about it a little differently than we do

But lust and love are two different things. I don’t think we could make love out of lust or make lust out of love…you can lust for someone you love but not be lusting for them during a time that you’re loving them. Love is the cheeseburger, lust is an addition topping, lust is the lettuce and ketchup lol

 

[Petros2015]

Love is the cheeseburger, lust is an addition topping, lust is the lettuce and ketchup lol

Spoken like a true Human
You'll notice the whole thing gets eaten by the end.

 

[Vap841]

How about this…God innately and eternally knows the lust experience, but God also innately and eternally knows that to not lust is better/wiser than to lust, so God eternally knows to suppress lust instead of to entertain lust. Because practicing good and wise decisions are eternally better than practicing bad decisions.

Wow this is all so confusing though because God not only is not embodied as a human, but also not embodied as millions of species as well. So God eternally knows the experience a bat has using sonar to fly. Well actually that’s much easier to understand than thinking about God having morally impure knowledge.

 

[ViaCrucis]

How about this…God innately and eternally knows the lust experience, but God also innately and eternally knows that to not lust is better/wiser than to lust, so God eternally knows to suppress lust instead of to entertain lust. Because practicing good and wise decisions are eternally better than practicing bad decisions.

Wow this is all so confusing though because God not only is not embodied as a human, but also not embodied as millions of species as well. So God eternally knows the experience a bat has using sonar to fly. Well actually that’s much easier to understand than thinking about God having morally impure knowledge.

I think you might be over-thinking this.

God understands our experiences because He knows us. He knows and understands us better than we do, God understands our weakness, God understands our suffering, God understands everything about us.

God does not need to experience that to understand--He already understands.

Who better understands the pottery than the potter? Or who better understands the painting better than the painter?

From that alone it can be said that God understands and knows us best; but it's much more than that. The love with which God loves us is incomparable to the love the potter has for his pottery or the painter does her painting. It's the love God has for us, a love as unfathomably deep as it is incomprehensibly infinite.

He knows us. From the inside and to the outside.

He does not need to experience lust in order for Him to understand it, and to then to lovingly surrender Himself to us sinners to redeem, renew, heal, and restore us to Himself in Christ and by the Spirit.

The Incarnation, therefore, is not God passively experiencing humanity. It's God actively participating in humanity. God became man, not in order to understand man but rescue, heal, and restore man. The Hypostatic Union, the union of Deity and humanity within the one Person of Jesus means God has become, been made part of, us. And by our being united to Christ, we--in Jesus--are sharers and partakers of God. Which is why St. Peter writes that we have become "partakers of the Divine nature", not as a matter of our being made divine, but by our being made all the more human in Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Strong in Him]

Spoken like a true Human
You'll notice the whole thing gets eaten by the end.

Only if you like lettuce and tomato.

 

[Vap841]

I think you might be over-thinking this.

Well I am, however not in a way that goes beyond fun deep metaphysical thoughts (not in a way where my belief system of philosophical theism is at risk). Ok fine I’ll use the rest of my reply to your post to explain what I mean.

God understands our experiences because He knows us. He knows and understands us better than we do, God understands our weakness, God understands our suffering, God understands everything about us.

God does not need to experience that to understand--He already understands.

Here’s why this is just a fun thought experiment for me, and why I won’t let it drive me crazy…because at the end of the day I believe that the transition from empirical data based explanations to explanations of what mental experiences ARE marks a major dividing line of human understanding. Humans are spectacular at grasping physical cause & effect style explanations, however mental experiences are of an altogether entirely different ontology, and we frankly suck at giving similar levels of explanatory explanations like we do for scientific/physical explanations. So for this reason I admit to be sort of philosophically playing around here with trying to grasp an understanding that I have elsewhere admitted to being “Beyond human comprehension” (that of grasping mental phenomena like we can grasp physical phenomena).

Who better understands the pottery than the potter? Or who better understands the painting better than the painter?

From that alone it can be said that God understands and knows us best;

I wanted to get my philosophical confession of humility out of the way first so that I don’t come off as arrogant when I reply here…I don’t think that your analogy works here because a potter and a painter’s work still falls under the umbrella of purely physical/empirical phenomena (that is if of course if we don’t include the mental aspect of it such as mentally appreciating the beauty of art).

but it's much more than that. The love with which God loves us is incomparable to the love the potter has for his pottery or the painter does her painting. It's the love God has for us, a love as unfathomably deep as it is incomprehensibly infinite.

Ahh yes, now we have shifted into an altogether distinct ontology of mental phenomena than that of a potter’s physical pottery or of a painter’s physical painting!! And I will humbly admit right here that human comprehension of “How the ‘experience’ of having an emotion exactly works” is coherently inaccessible to human understanding unlike that of an exhaustively physical description of how brain matter and bio-electric processes physically ‘cause’ the ‘effects’ of a person to raise their physical arm.

He knows us. From the inside and to the outside.

He does not need to experience lust in order for Him to understand it, and to then to lovingly surrender Himself to us sinners to redeem, renew, heal, and restore us to Himself in Christ and by the Spirit.

Yep, I’ll pause here again to let you know that I accept how human intellectual comprehension drastically falls off a cliff when going from physical phenomena into mental phenomena (and I also think that this is where people really get jammed up…a lot of people get so seduced by how excellent we are at grasping & giving explanations of physical phenomena that we get confused and start demanding empirical (physical) explanations to describe non-physical phenomena. Which is a little bit like me saying that I won’t believe that the color blue really exists unless someone can first explain to me what the color of blue tastes like (do you see the incomprehensible nature of trying to demand a physics explanation for a mental phenomenon such as experience of taste? But in reverse order many people for some reason seem to think that this request is logical…to claim that physical explanations are somehow coherent explanations of experiential phenomena…ie Physicalism). Sure, God understands how all of this works, however humans are simply out of their league, we pretend that it’s a given that we can magically grasp the mental & experiential fabrics of reality JUST because we happen to be excellent at grasping the physical fabric of reality. It’s an unjustified leap of intellectual hubris and I have no idea why so many people don’t notice the humongous distinction!

The Incarnation, therefore, is not God passively experiencing humanity. It's God actively participating in humanity. God became man, not in order to understand man but rescue, heal, and restore man. The Hypostatic Union, the union of Deity and humanity within the one Person of Jesus means God has become, been made part of, us. And by our being united to Christ, we--in Jesus--are sharers and partakers of God. Which is why St. Peter writes that we have become "partakers of the Divine nature", not as a matter of our being made divine, but by our being made all the more human in Jesus.

-CryptoLutheran

I do always find it very interesting when Christians talk about how humans are in this interesting ontological middle ground where we have one foot in the physical realm and one foot in the spiritual realm. Personally, my experience with Philosophy of Mind has placed a very solid foundation underneath my feet that there is in fact both a physical and non-physical fabric to reality (I reached this observation on purely non-religious and rational grounds)…but such a foundation lends a lot of support to me as I read about “These religion stories” about spiritual realms. Thanks to where Philosophy of Mind has pushed my thought process I don’t have to constantly think that I might be a crazy to believe in a non-physical realm, because I was able to reach that conclusion from purely philosophical grounds. So it’s pretty relaxing to not have to sit there and second guess all the time that I might be delusional to buy into a non-physical realm that religions always talk about. I believe it for reasoning outside of religion. Anyway, I find it very interesting that a branch of philosophy landed me into a situation where I can (without feeling crazy) appreciate this picture that you are painting here, a picture about God incarnate joining together a unity of the Divine (non-physical spiritual) nature with the physically human nature. Pretty cool!

 

[Mark Quayle]

How about this…God innately and eternally knows the lust experience, but God also innately and eternally knows that to not lust is better/wiser than to lust, so God eternally knows to suppress lust instead of to entertain lust. Because practicing good and wise decisions are eternally better than practicing bad decisions.

Wow this is all so confusing though because God not only is not embodied as a human, but also not embodied as millions of species as well. So God eternally knows the experience a bat has using sonar to fly. Well actually that’s much easier to understand than thinking about God having morally impure knowledge.

'Lust' doesn't always refer to the same thing. Sometimes it's just strong desire. Sometimes it's a step further than that: considering or entertaining the desire.

Btw, (not to be saying that you mean to be doing this, but) it sounds like you consider God capable of being like us, needing to suppress something of himself, and of doing good because it is better than not to do good. He is not like us. He needn't consider which is better to do. 'Better' and 'good' are what they are because God is good.

 

[Saint Steven]

Or even something morally neutral like being hungry, how does a spirit God know a hunger experience without being able to say that He has had/felt the experience before? To have it is to know it.

Hunger may be a good example of something we can feel but God can't. (he might feel hunger, not sure)

He certainly is concerned about hunger, helping the crops to grow by sending rain and sunshine and hungry workers to harvest it, and motivating those with food to feed the hungry.

 

[zoidar]

The notion that God cannot know something without experiencing it, is bogus. After all, he MADE us.

Also, the fact that God knows something does not imply that Jesus did why here on earth, in his earthly body. He set all that aside, to live as we do.

We see everything backwards.

Don't know if these verses have been brought up. It sounds like the reason that God can sympathize with our weaknesses is because He himself has experienced being tempted. Thoughts?

Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
— Hebrews 4:14-15

 

[public hermit]

Yes I’m trying to understand how to make sense out of a few things like you are, and like the ‘Did Jesus Lust?’ thread that @Pavel Mosko is referencing. So God is omniscient, therefore in order for a thing such as “Having a lust experience” to exist in reality then God necessarily must have knowledge of what that is like. But to have knowledge of a lust experience is to have had a lust experience. If you run into a person who has never had a lust experience before then that person wouldn’t have knowledge of what it is.

We say that God surely knows love, forgiveness, compassion, decision making, etc, because we know those things, and if we know them then God being much greater than us in every way also knows them. But I have been getting a little tripped up when looking at this idea from the view of mental properties that are not said to be good ones, like lust. Or even something morally neutral like being hungry, how does a spirit God know a hunger experience without being able to say that He has had/felt the experience before? To have it is to know it.

Thank you for the response, I forgot about this thread, but now that I think about it, perhaps I am not looking at this in the right way.

Is my conscious experience wholly private, even hidden from God? I don't think so. Is the eye with which I see the same eye with which God sees what I see? There is long tradition, mostly scholastic, which claims that God does not know as we know. We have to reason and discover in order to learn, but since all things are created by God, God knows them through God's own Self immediately and not in some mediated way, and so on. All of that makes sense, but does that preclude the possibility that God is intimately aware of my conscious experience as I experience it. I don't see why that should be the case. If it does preclude it, then perhaps the theological thinking influenced by Aristotle and other pagan philosophers was unhelpful, which would not be surprising.

Christians tacitly assume God is privy to our conscious experience in so far as we engage in silent, mental prayer. And then we have passages which speak of God knowing our thoughts and what we are going to say before we think or say them. At any rate, let's say for the sake of argument that God is aware of my conscious experience as I experience it. If that is the case, then God knows my experience just as I know it. More than that, God knows my experience better than I know it since God is privy to unconscious motives and whatever else is down there that passes by my awareness. Add to that, God knows this ultra-intimate experience in all sentient beings.

Assuming God knows our lived experience just as we do, then we can say that God knows our experience of sin, and again knows it better than we do. How we experience desire and then act on that, God knows that, too, because God knows our experience better than we do. The uncomfortable aspect of this is when I sin, I end up dragging God through that experience, which is a horrific thought in itself. But I see no reason to assume this should not be the case. It is not as if God is sinning, even though God knows my sin experience intimately, since the responsibility for my sin is my own desire. If I had chosen well, that would have been what I "dragged" God through instead of my sin. I think this speaks to how much God loves us, as well, in that God is willing to endure our mental life, as bad as it can be, for the end goal of redeeming it.

And, what does our evil really do to God? The cross/resurrection shows us evil has no power over God, so it's not as if we can taint God or rub off some of God's holiness. If God can become incarnate, God can handle it. What is an odd idea to me, is the idea that God learned something new through the incarnation, as if God would not know our experience until God became one of us. Perhaps that stems from our experience of being the only one who knows our own experience. But I don't think that's the case; God knows that, too. The incarnation was always going to be. All things have been created through Christ, without whom nothing exists, all persist in existence through him, and all things are reconciled back to God through him. It is just a matter of pride or ignorance for us to assume our mental life is the one exception, the one area God can't touch.

If any of that is correct, which I have no idea if it is, then what could we say about passages like "Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted"? Perhaps that's more of a revelation to us than it is to God. We need to know that God knows our experience of temptation and suffering, and the incarnation communicates that, but that doesn't mean that God didn't know all along. We have a bad habit, as Christians, of placing preconceived attributes on God, ideas mostly concerned with divine transcendence and gleaned from various philosophies, before we take into consideration the incarnation and what that says about God. Then, we spend centuries trying to get those preconceived ideas to fit the incarnation. Perhaps that is backwards, and we should begin with the incarnation and then ask, "What is God like?"