God's View:
Matt. 5:21-22
, 27-28
-Assaults against the dignity and beauty
of the soul is through any form of abuse which involves either
a desire to destroy and or a desire to use-core kinds of harm
involved are murder and anger and adultery and consuming lust.
Gen. 1:26 -We all have a driving desire for more. Initially, God designed us that we may be filled with His Presence-to do as He does, being a blessing. a state of "being" in God and thus, "doing" what God Commands. Not following God's commands and desires leaves a void, a vacuum. We are inclined to fill the emptiness horizontally through things and people which creates a relationship of co-dependency, either as abuser or perpetrator or as a victim of the aggressor.
James 4:2 -We desire, we pursue through our schemes and devices in order to get that which satisfies, that is, we 'do' in order 'to be'. We use created things, people or things to fulfill our needs. This opens the way to anger and a desire for vengeance, to bring judgment down on those who have stood in our way to gain satisfaction. Adding to this intensity is that our longings and desires are almost always partially blocked and, thus, disappoint- ment is an ongoing reality, and so is potential anger.
The soil of our fallen being is ripe to inflict emotional and physical abuse which involves the omission of involvement(neglecting or abandoning the other emotionally) or the destructive commission of shaming the other. The elements of emotional abuse(abandonment and shame) and physical abuse(cruelty, inconsistency and rage)are perpetrated to some degree by all those with whom we have a relationship. Anger attempts to destroy those who stand in our way.
Harm also comes from those whose lust to avoid emptiness and find satisfaction causes them to use other people as food for their empty souls- a desire to find satisfaction illegally, apart from God and His righteous path. A person who so lusts not only sucks life out of a host in order to dim the intensity of his loneliness, but also relishes mastery and power over someone or something.
Lust is the effort to possess another in order to steal enough passion to be lifted out of our current struggle into a world that feels (for an instant) like the Garden of Eden. If anger is the desire to make someone pay for blocking our return to the garden, then lust is our efforts to push our way back into the garden. Lust, in part, is a desire for union, that is, a desire to be absorbed into another. Nonsexual lust is 'co-dependency; like sexual lust, it is the desire to find a host who will provide a vital energy that appears to be missing in the co-dependent.
The excesses of this need to be fulfilled and satisfied leads to perversion which is a wedding of lust and rage-someone to pay for the pain of emptiness we are forced to experience.
2 Cor. 10:1-5
-We all live in this world of war-being a perpetrator
or a victim of anger and rage and consuming lust to fill our emptiness
and longing to be satisfied. We are to become warriors, warriors
of love, who despise evil, and anything inconsistent with the
beauty and love of God. This requires a radical change, a radical
conformity to the image of Christ as God initially planned, Gen.
1:26-27.