Are there any natural desires? The, er, natural response is to say, well, of course there are. Duh! Hunger, thirst, and sex come to mind.
An essay in First Things argues that there are no such things, or, rather, that they are tamed and channeled. For example, as the author says, ". . . The desire to know and see God is a configuration we can nurture or oppose."
The essay does deal with other desires, including hunger, and the very notion that there might not be any natural desires has brought out a number of interesting comments, as would be expected.
Thanks for reading. Read the essay.
Musings on science, the Bible, and fantastic literature (and sometimes basketball and other stuff).
God speaks to us through the Bible and the findings of science, and we should listen to both types of revelation.
The title is from Psalm 84:11.
The Wikipedia is usually a pretty good reference. I mostly use the World English Bible (WEB), because it is public domain. I am grateful.
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The posts in this blog are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. You can copy and use this material, as long as you aren't making money from it. If you give me credit, thanks. If not, OK.
2 comments:
I think Galations 5:17 is pretty clear about this …
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want.
We certainly can be pure in our hunger and thirsts, but we can be sinful as well.
We certainly can be pure in our sexual behavior, but sinful as well.
Thanks, atlibertytosay.
I guess some would say that there is a natural desire to have a relationship with God, but that that is often perverted.
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