Concupiscence

CONCUPISCENZA. — From the Latin concupiscere (= to desire), it etymologically signifies desire, an inclination toward a pleasurable object. However, the term has a historical genesis in the philosophical and theological sphere. In the Platonic tripartition, c. occupies the third place (ἐπιθυμία). Aristotle makes c. a faculty of the sensitive appetite together with θυμός (= anger), distinguishing from both the rational appetite, or will (βούλησις).

I. DOGMATIC THEOLOGY

The Scholastics translate the data of Greek philosophy into a well-defined schema: sensory knowledge corresponds to the sensitive appetite, divided into the concupiscible appetite (directed toward easy good and evil) and the irascible appetite (directed toward difficult good and evil); intellectual knowledge corresponds to the rational appetite, which is the free will.

Within the psychological structure of man, concupiscence is a natural form of the sensitive appetite and therefore has no moral value in itself; it can acquire such value insofar as it can influence the rational sphere proper to the intellect and the will. St. Thomas acknowledges this possibility for concupiscence, as for all the passions of the sensitive appetite, and demonstrates it from the fact of the unity of the soul: by concentrating its energies in one of its faculties, for example, in concupiscence, the soul causes the weakening of the others (reason, will); or from the fact that the intellect reaches its object only through sensation, which therefore conditions rational knowledge and, through it, volitional activity (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ªe, q. 77). Concupiscence therefore influences the will indirectly, preceding and accompanying its function and thus contributing to the human act in the ethical sense, whether for good or for evil.

From the philosophical point of view, therefore, concupiscence is not in itself an evil. But in the theological sphere concupiscence undergoes a further development in meaning, especially in view of the requirements of the doctrine concerning original sin.

In Sacred Scripture the term concupiscence (ἐπιθυμία), in a general sense, denotes every desire, carnal or spiritual, contrary to right reason and the will of God: St. Paul speaks of a concupiscence of the flesh and a concupiscence of the spirit (Gal. 5:17), and St. John attributes concupiscence even to the devil (8:44). In a more specific sense, however, concupiscence is the totality of the passions

of the flesh made rebellious against the law of the spirit, principally as a result of and through the power of original sin. St. Paul vividly describes this conflict between the flesh and the spirit, which often becomes a slavery of the soul, from which it can free itself by being reborn in Christ (Rom. 6:6; 7:14 ff.; Gal. 5:19 ff., and elsewhere). In Gen. 3:7 ff., it is sufficiently clear that the first parents, previously immune from concupiscence, began to experience its tyranny after the Fall.

The Fathers developed these ideas, above all St. Augustine in his polemic against the Pelagians. His thought concerning the relationship between original sin and concupiscence, not always clear and consistent, has lent itself to false interpretations, as though that sin were identified with concupiscence. This identification, however, is foreign to the mind of the holy Doctor (v. santo; PECCATO ORIGINALE), and those who adopted it, such as certain Scholastics and, worse still, Luther and Calvin with their followers, will appeal to him wrongly. St. Thomas, gathering together the best tradition, teaches (Sum. Theol., 1ª-2ªe, q. 82, a. 3) that just as in the state of innocence there was a formal element (the submission of the will to God by virtue of original justice, which included Grace) and a material element (the subjection of the lower appetites to reason by virtue of the gift of integrity), so too in sin there is the loss of original justice with Grace (the formal element) and the rebellion of concupiscence (the material element).

At the Council of Trent (session V), during the preparation of the decree on original sin against Lutheran aberrations, there was much discussion concerning the nature of concupiscence, which Seripando and other Augustinians stubbornly insisted on regarding as sin in itself, even in the baptized. But the Council, returning to the true thought of St. Augustine and to the clearer teaching of St. Thomas, defined that Baptism radically removes original sin but leaves concupiscence, which is called sin because it was the effect of original sin and is now an occasion and stimulus to actual sin; the baptized person, however, can resist it and thereby acquire merits for eternal life (Denz-U, n. 792). Against Luther, the Council thus vindicates the Christian’s responsibility in the face of sin and the passions.

1. C. as passion. — It is the arousal of the sensibility by the representation of a good or an evil. It may precede or follow the decision of the will, hence the distinction between antecedent and consequent c. a) Antecedent c. (e.g., a feeling, a movement of anger or hatred at the sight of an enemy) may: 1) at times entirely deprive one of the free use of reason, as happens in the case of anger or love that blinds (one is accustomed to say: «I lost the light of my eyes»; «I could no longer see»), so as to cause actions or crimes to be committed that otherwise would not have been committed. In that case it is not imputable and therefore there is no guilt. However, indirect responsibility (and consequently culpability) cannot in these cases be so readily excluded, either because one exposed oneself to the danger without sufficient reason, or because one did not struggle with sufficient vigor against the passion as it arose, or did not remove those internal or external stimuli which, by their presence, can lead to blindness. 2) Or it may diminish the free use of reason; and then responsibility and guilt are diminished to the same extent. 3) By the same criterion the actions of one who is «obsessed» by an idea (kleptomaniacs, dipsomaniacs, etc.) and of one who suffers from «phobias» are to be judged. b) Consequent c. derives from the free decision of the will, either because it is voluntarily accepted, indulged, and fostered (e.g., a sudden feeling of hatred, which one takes pleasure in retaining and intensifying, reopening the wounds of the wrongs received), or because it is intentionally provoked (e.g., through licentious reading and spectacles, and through memories revived with greater or lesser intensity). It never diminishes responsibility; indeed, it ordinarily increases it, because the sensory emotion is precisely stimulated voluntarily, and therefore good and evil are willed with greater force and ardor.

2. C. as incentive. — It is the inclination toward evil. It is to be judged according to the following criteria: a) guilt lies not in feeling, but in consenting; therefore those movements that arise («impulses») before reason has even been able to issue a judgment concerning their conformity or nonconformity with the moral law are not imputable. b) In order increasingly to avert the danger of consenting, it is not only advisable but necessary to seek to gain ever stronger control over our inclinations, subjecting them ever more to the yoke of reason, and this in two ways: resolutely barring their advance, and performing acts of the virtues opposed to them.