Is Desire Good or Evil?
This is the first in a series of reflections on C.S. Lewis’ sermon “The Weight of Glory.” One of his most celebrated short works, the sermon was preached at the Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on June 8, 1941. England was preparing for an all but certain German invasion six months before the Pearl Harbor attack caused the US to enter the war. But the sermon dealt with weightier matters. This first post examines Lewis’s thoughts on desire and how Christian teaching deals with it. We see how counterintuitive this teaching is in light of our current thinking about our world, our future and what we long for.
The role that desire plays in human relations reaches deep into worldviews and belief systems. One can see that in political divides where desires for the kind of world citizens seek to live in varies greatly and the passion for those desires stirs some to extremism and violence. This can also be seen in religious differences. Buddhism teaches that the goal of life is to be free of suffering and suffering largely defines life. The path to freedom from suffering is to detach from desire. Desire, in this view, can be seen as the root of all suffering and evil.
“At the heart of this system are the Four Noble Truths that are central to Buddhist philosophy: (1) Life is suffering, (2) attachment to desire causes suffering, (3) suffering ends with the attachment to desire…
