Matt Fradd
Spirituality/Belief • Books • Writing
More Thoughts on Lust Stuff
May 16, 2023
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First of all, I caught wind that some of you are undertaking a 40 hour fast for my conversation with Shapiro tomorrow. I don't know what to say. I am so moved by that that I almost feel embarrased at not being able to compensate you for your goodness to me. 

---

I'm looking forward to my interview with Ben Shapiro tomorrow. Should be rather short, unfortunately, around 7-15 minutes long but I'm grateful for the opportunity.

I think Shapiro will agree with many of the points I raised in my chat with Prager and in my resopnse to him but I suspect he will want to emphasize that adulterty is worse than lust or pornography. I have a few thoughts I'm working out in response to this potential "argument." And maybe the use of those scare quotes is a good place to begin; because, well, what's the argument exactly? Adultery is worse than lust, therefore? ... What? Lust is ok? Porn is ok? ... No? That's not what you're saying? Ok, then what's the point?

It's true that "adultery in the heart" is not the same thing as adultery with the body. But that doesn't mean that adultery in the heart is unimportant. When a man, on his wedding day, promises to be faithful to his bride, should he mean only with his genitals? Or should he mean with his entire self: his eyes, his speech, his imagnation, etc.

And this gets us, I think, to the problem with this line of argumentation (X is worse than Y, therefore Y is not as bad as X). The whole conversation needs to be reoriented 180 degrees. Instead of looking in the direction of what's worse, we need to ask what does my wife deserve? What kind of man could I become if I stopped making excuses for my lust and cowardice?

Here's the thing, and everyone who's lived longer than 5 minutes knows this, If you hang out with people who are less virtuous than you, you tend to see their faults and your virtues, whereas if you hang out with people who are more virtuous than you, you tend to see their virtues and your faults. As a result you make greater progress in virtue because you're around admirable people.

Rather than looking at what's worse, let's look at what's best and strive after that.

But, you might say, it's unrealistic, that it's too hard, that "I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?

Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:23-25)

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