Concupiscence: Are Our Unholy Desires Sinful?

Concupiscence is a word neither well known today nor well understood. Nonetheless, there is a rich, varied history of this concept in the Christian tradition. In fact, it has been the occasion of severe debates between, principally, Reformed and Roman Catholic theologians. In what follows, we will consider what concupiscence is from a Reformed perspective.

What is concupiscence?

One will find the word used in the King James Version in a few places: “But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence” (Rom 7:8); “Not in the lust of concupiscence …” (1 Thess 4:5; see also Col 3:5). The translators used “concupiscence” to translate the Greek word ἐπιθυμία.

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In brief, concupiscence (concupiscentia) originates from the Latin verb concupisco, which means “to ardently desire.” There are proper, non-sinful forms of desire, which we would call “non-sinful concupiscence.” For example, Jesus said to his disciples, “I have earnestly desired [ἐπεθύμησα] to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22:15). But because we live in a fallen world, concupiscence typically has in view sinful desire, and usually in reference to sinful sexual desires. Because sin is the privation (lack) of righteousness and proneness to evil, concupiscence involves not just the acts but the desire of the person. Sinful concupiscence can be understood from God’s moral law: “You shall not covet” (Exod 20:17).

In the Roman Catholic tradition, it is acknowledged that concupiscence remains in the baptized and that the Apostle Paul sometimes calls it sin. However, the Synod declared that the “Catholic Church has never understood it to be called sin, as being truly and properly sin in those born again, but because it is of sin, and inclines to sin.”¹ Those in the Reformed Protestant tradition took a different view, namely, that concupiscence is not only a result of original sin but is in fact sin itself when even the desires are not agreeable to the law of God. They spoke of the habit of concupiscence which leads to acts of concupiscence.

How do our thoughts and will relate to sin?

To better understand concupiscence, we will need to focus on the nature of our thoughts and will in relation to sin.

Concupiscence and thoughts

Desire has an organic and necessary relation to our thoughts. The internal acts of our mind refer to, in the words of the Puritan Thomas Goodwin, “all those reasonings, consultations, purposes, resolutions, intents, ends, desires, and cares of the mind of man, as opposed to our external words and actions.”² These thoughts, far from being neutral, are judged by God (Heb 4:12). Our thoughts can receive forgiveness (Acts 8:22), be repented of (Isa 55:7), defile us (Matt 15:18–19), and reveal hypocrisy (Isa 29:13). Therefore, thoughts, not just actions, can be sinful.

Our thoughts are the acting of our will, and these thoughts, whether sinful or non-sinful, reveal our different types of desires.

The first motions of the mind, if against God’s law, such as the thought of murdering someone, are sinful. The Westminster Confession of Faith notes that corruption of nature remains even in the regenerate, and while our sins are pardoned and mortified, “yet both itself and all the motions thereof are truly and properly sin” (6.5). Our thoughts are the acting of our will, and these thoughts, whether sinful or non-sinful, reveal our different types of desires.

Concupiscence and the will

An understanding of the human will can aid us tremendously in our understanding of concupiscence.

All sin is voluntary if we make a distinction between the will considered narrowly (strictly) and broadly (generally). When we speak of the will in regards to the former, we have in mind anything—whether a desire or act—that is done by a movement of the will. Regarding the latter, we have in mind anything that affects the will or depends upon it. Narrowly or strictly speaking, not all sin is “voluntary” when considered this way. But all sin involves, broadly or generally speaking, the will. A sinful desire cannot bypass the human will. Sin can and does occur before the “voluntary acting” of the will. Since to exist means to be willing, we are never excused from what we desire, even if it is an involuntary desire.

John Owen speaks of this reality in relation to Christian believers:

I know no greater burden in the life of a believer than these involuntary surprisals of soul; involuntary, I say, as to the actual consent of the will, but not so in respect of that corruption which is in the will, and is the principle of them.³

He understands the distinction between voluntary and involuntary sins, but would affirm that involuntary sinful desires are sin.

As noted, some in the Roman Catholic tradition have held that involuntary motions opposed to God’s law are not necessarily sins. However, Reformed theologians have held that the first motions of concupiscence are sinful, even if they are not completely voluntary (see Rom 7:7).

Herman Bavinck explains how involuntary sins simply cannot occur apart from the human will:

There is not only an antecedent but also a concomitant, a consequent, and an approving will. Later, to a greater or lesser degree, the will approves of the sinfulness of our nature and takes delight in it … even the sin that is done without having been willed does not occur totally apart from the will.⁴

We are still responsible for any so-called “intrusive” unclean desire.

Francis Turretin, in his treatment on the tenth commandment and concupiscence, affirms that concupiscence is “evil in its root and forbidden by the law, so also as to all the acts and motions springing from it, whether they follow or precede the formal consent of the will.”⁵ In addition, if sin requires a deliberate, voluntary consent of the will, then we would not be responsible for either original sin or sins of ignorance.

To say, then, that without the act of the will there is no moral culpability is to say that we can think and desire apart from the will. This is an ontological impossibility, since to be is to be willing. Since concupiscence is evil in its root and forbidden by the moral law, it does not need to “give birth” (see below) for sin to occur.

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How does concupiscence relate to temptation?

Concupiscence, understood as inordinate desire, is a form of temptation. Sin is the source of all temptation, but inordinate desire is still a temptation.

When it comes to sin, there are several stages one should carefully note. Each leads to heightened aggravations of sinning.

1. The inclination and propensity toward evil: This involves an act of the will either broadly or narrowly considered. This includes both involuntary and voluntary sins.
2. Deliberation: We allow the temptation “time” as we think about it.
3. The resolution to commit the act that we are deliberating.
4. The act itself.
5. Enjoying the act.
6. Boasting about the act.
7. Deliberately repeating the act.
8. Eternal judgment, due to unrepentant sin, whereby the sinner exists as ungodly.

At every stage of sin, we are culpable. But as the stages take place, we aggravate the sin(s) in question. However, not all stages are required for sin to take place. The very inclination toward evil makes us culpable before God.

The voluntary or involuntary temptation is a result of our sinful nature. Temptation, according to John Owen, is a

raising up in the heart, and proposing unto the mind and affections, that which is evil; trying, as it were, whether the soul will close with its suggestions, or how far it will carry them on, though it do not wholly prevail. Now, when such a temptation comes from without, it is unto the soul an indifferent thing, neither good nor evil, unless it be consented unto; but the very proposal from within, it being the soul’s own act, is its sin.⁶

Therefore, in relation to concupiscence, illicit desire is sin, not just an illicit act.

John Davenant makes the important point that “although the faculty of desire itself is not sin, yet the inclination and propensity of it to evil is sin.”⁷ For instance, a “strong sexual desire” for one’s wife may be righteous (cf. Prov 5:19), but a “strong sexual desire” after a woman not your wife is sin (cf. Matt 5:28). Here we see the difference between non-sinful concupiscence and sinful concupiscence. Grace is not opposed to nature, but grace is opposed to sin. Hence grace does not remove desire altogether, but it is needed for the mortification of sinful desire.

What does James 1:14–15 teach about concupiscence?

James 1:14–15 has been the occasion of some dispute, particularly as to whether desire before it gives birth to sin can be termed sinful. One type of reading may give this impression, but upon closer analysis this would not only do violence to James’s letter but the rest of the Scriptures, as well.

James 1:14–15 reads,

But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

From these two verses some have objected that being lured and enticed by one’s own desire is not necessarily sinful. One can possess a desire toward some evil inclination without it being a proper sin.

The NIV inserts the word “evil” to capture James’s sense of ἐπιθυμία. As noted, the word can be used in terms of an intensity of desire that is positive (e.g., Luke 22:15; Phil 1:23; 1 Thess 2:17). Yet the sinful sense appears more often in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 4:19; John 8:44; Rom 1:24; 6:12; 7:7–8; 13:14; Gal 5:16, 24; Eph 2:3; 4:22; Col 3:5; 1 Thess 4:5; 1 Tim 6:9; 2 Tim 2:22; 3:6; 4:3; Titus 2:12; 3:3; 1 Pet 1:14).

The immediate context is also helpful. James 1:13 forcefully removes God from the type of temptation in view because God cannot be responsible for this type of temptation. There are other contexts where God “tempts” (tests) his servants (e.g., Gen 22:1), but in terms of the temptation James is dealing with, God is not to be credited as the source in any way.

As one who was clearly intimate with the teaching of Jesus, James surely would not be saying something different from what we read in Matthew 5:28, “But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” The lustful desire is sin. Sin produces in us many forms of illicit desire (covetousness), as Paul notes in Romans 7:8. The desires of the flesh should not be gratified (Gal 5:16) because they are “against the Spirit” (Gal 5:17). Sinful desire is put to death by the Spirit (Rom 8:13), but these evil desires, which come from the heart, include evil thoughts (Matt 15:19).

This corrupt principle, a result of original sin, means that the enticements arise from a disordered desire that we are responsible for. This (evil) desire brings forth actings of sin. To suggest that concupiscence (evil desire) is not a sin unless there is consent or a formal acting out of the desire is to make the tenth commandment no commandment at all. However, the tenth commandment includes the illicit desires of the other nine commandments.

To suggest that concupiscence (evil desire) is not a sin unless there is a consent or a formal acting out of the desire is to make the tenth commandment no commandment at all.

Thoughts and desires are morally evil when, according to Stephen Charnock, they “have a bad principle, [lack] a [proper] end, and converse with the object in a wrong manner.”⁸ The “first motions” of illicit desire arise in the believer from indwelling sin—sometimes these are voluntary and sometimes involuntary, as noted above. In connection with this, Charnock adds, “Voluntariness is not necessary to the essence of a sin, though it be to the aggravation of it.”⁹

Thus when John Calvin comments on James 1:15, he notes that it would be

improper, and not according to the usage of Scripture, to restrict the word sin to outward works, as though indeed lust itself were not a sin, and as though corrupt desires, remaining closed up within and suppressed, were not so many sins. But as the use of a word is various, there is nothing unreasonable if it be taken here, as in many other places, for actual sin.¹⁰

James is not arguing that sin formally takes place when there is an act. Instead, his concern is more so with the trajectory of one’s desire, which can lead to death. The persistent, unrepentant acts of sin are the obvious evidence that someone is on the path leading to death. Illicit desires give birth to non-visible and visible acts of persistent sinning that we can observe in the godless, whose end is death. Sinful desire (concupiscence), apart from the contrary presence of good works (e.g., mortification and vivification), ends in death.

Conclusion

Concupiscence as a word is not used often today, but the meaning of the word and its theological implications are of vital importance for Christian living. Christ died for our illicit desires, and he sends his Spirit to change those (evil) desires into righteous ones. We will not go far in the Christian life until we realize that God cares deeply about who and what we desire.

To the extent that we desire God and Christ as our chief good, our desires for all that is good will follow. Just as God is displeased with our ardent desires toward what is evil, so he is pleased with our ardent desires to serve him. As James tells us, concupiscence really is a matter of life and death.

Mark Jones recommended resources

• Thomas Goodwin, The Vanity of Thoughts.

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1. See General Council of Trent: Fifth Session, 1.5.
2. Thomas Goodwin, The Works of Thomas Goodwin (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1861), 3:510.
3. John Owen, The Works, vol. 6: Temptation and Sin, ed. William H. Goold (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1862), 193.
4. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 3: Sin and Salvation in Christ, ed. John Bolt, trans. John Vriend (Baker Academic, 2006), 144.
5. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology, ed. James T. Dennison Jr., trans. George Musgrave Giger (P&R, 1992–1997), 2:136.
6. Owen, Works, 194.
7. John Davenant, A Treatise on Justification, trans. Josiah Allport (London: Hamilton, Adams, and Co., 1844), 1:127.
8. Stephen Charnock, The Complete Works (Edinburgh: James Nichol, 1864–1866), 5:290.
9. Charnock, Complete Works, 5:291.
10. John Calvin, Commentaries on the Catholic Epistles, ed. and trans. John Owen (Faithlife, 2010), 1:15.