GLUTTONY AND DIRECTIONS AGAINST IT
Plain truth about compulsive overeating for Christian with the word of God
Directions for governing the Taste and Appetite.
Directions against Gluttony. –
But something more particularly must be said,
- Since the fall of man, the appetite itself has become inordinate, that is, more impetuous, violent, and unruly than it was in its innocence, because of the unhappy distempers that have befallen the body. We have discovered through experience that a person who maintains a healthy and sweet temperance does not exhibit the same impetuous striving against his reason as those who are either sick or used to obey their appetites. In light of the fact that use and health can make such a significant impact, it is reasonable to assume that the depravation of nature by the fall has a greater impact.
3. Insofar as the appetite may be said to be free by participation, although not in itself, it is sin. Since it is the appetite of a rational, free individual: despite the fact that sin is first in the will in its true form, it is not only the will that is the subject of it, but the whole man, so far as his acts are voluntary: since the will commands all other faculties. Moreover, they are voluntary acts which the will either commands or does not forbid when it can and ought to do so. It is a voluntary sin for a person to tell a lie, a sin for which the tongue is responsible. That sin, which disrupted the appetite, might have been