Passion and virtue. Words that seem to fall on both ends of the spectrum, especially in a religious context. Yet they can both feel so intensely good, right, and yes, even fun. Is there a place for both?

Pride and Prejudice, is both a novel and film that I enjoy. In the story, Lizzy reflects on her younger sister, Lydia’s hasty marriage to the nasty Wickham, like this, “How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.” (Pride and Prejudice, volume 3, chapter 8.)

“Because their passions were stronger than their virtue.”

Assumptions regarding passion and virtue.

• Passion and virtue are not the same thing.

• Passion seems to be primarily referring to romantic passions.

• At the end of the day, what will you have done that will allow you to say that you have served your virtue at least as well as your passion?

• And if there is a showdown between the two, to which are you more “passionately” committed; your passion or your virtue?

• Passion almost always feels good and right, and virtue has the problem of sometimes feeling dull and wrong.

• Nothing can cause us to do good for others than the virtue of love, guided, as all the virtues must be, by reason, prudence, and truth. But few things can cause us to act more foolishly, recklessly and do more damage to others than the misdirected passion of love.

Is being passionate a good thing? I have always thought so. After all, passion has driven us to create many of humanity’s greatest achievements. Da Vinci, Mozart, Beethoven, Newton, and Edison, were all passionate people, who created many masterpieces that we still enjoy today. While passion drives us to create great things, it also drives us towards many strong negative emotions including greed, jealousy, anger, envy, and pride. Many of these negative emotions are considered sins, thus should passion also be considered a sin?

Helpful aspects of Passion:

1. Passion drives us to fight for and create great things that ultimately help improve our quality of life and advance our society.
2. Passion allows us to experience things more fully and participate in greater joy and ecstasy.
3. Passion helps us push ourselves to the limit and achieve all that we can achieve.
4. Passion makes us come back and try again even though we may have failed many times previously.

Less helpful aspects of passion: 

1. Passion can sometimes cause us to perform despicable acts because our need to fulfill our desires is so great.
2. Passion allows us to experience greater highs, but it often causes us to plummet to greater lows.
3. Passion always pushes us to keep climbing the next hill, and does not leave us the time to enjoy where we are at.
4. Passion makes us want more than what we have, which often leads to unhappiness.
5. Passion makes us overly reliant on others because we feel too strongly about them, and/or what they can give us.
6. Passion gives others power over us because they can use the object of our passions to manipulate and control us.
7. Passion often robs us of self-control and thus robs us of our freedom.

Passion Tempered with Control

I think it would be unfortunate to totally block off all passion. While I am a great advocate of rational thought, I cannot imagine living a life without passions. We may build walls to protect ourselves from passionate encounters and the ensuing unhappiness, but those same walls will stop us from enjoying life to its’ fullest.

In the scriptures, passion is always linked with carnal, sensual and devilish.  Marital sensuality is not carnal or devilish!

Three aspects of agency and sensuality.

1. When someone chooses to be focused on sensuality in sinful ways such as sexual addictions.
2. When someone acts sexually upon another person it takes away the victim’s agency.
3. The focus of this book, when one chooses to nurture the sensual part of herself to strengthen a covenant, committed marriage relationship. This form of sensuality is not carnal or devilish, I believe this is constructive, sensual, and divine.

Constructive; embracing the sexual part of yourself builds a more complete and healthier you.

Sensual: Sensuality in marriage is good!  Looking at yourself, feeling confident, beautiful and sexy is a wonderful way to share yourself with your spouse.

Divine: We are created in God’s image, our bodies have erogenous zones, sexually arousable parts that are beautiful and divinely functional. I believe our Heavenly Parents want us to enjoy sensual relationships in marriage!