What exactly is inordinate desire according to Augustine?

For Augustine, "inordinate desire" is desire that has become too powerful. It is important to note that Augustine does not think desire is inherently bad. It is only a problem when that desire grows so great that it leads us to do bad things.
In On Free Choice of the Will, Augustine is basically trying to pin down what is at the root of evil. In an exchange with an interlocutor (Evodius), Augustine sets out a number of ideas about the nature and causes of evil. It is a pressing question for Christian theologians like Augustine, because Christianity seems to present a contradiction: the world was created by an all-powerful and omnipotent deity who seems to abhor evil, and yet evil is manifest and observable in world. Augustine is trying to reconcile this conflict by placing the blame not on God, but on humans, who use our free will to do evil in the world.
This can be seen in Augustine's example near the beginning of On Free Choice of the Will. He points to the example of adultery. He says that evil does not spring from the act of adultery. Rather, it comes from the (inordinate) desire that leads to adultery:




Then perhaps lust is the evil in adultery, and you will run into difficulties as long as you are looking for evil in the outward visible deed. Now to understand that lust is the evil in adultery, consider the following. If a man does not have the opportunity to sleep with someone else’s wife but it is plain somehow that he wants to do so, and that he is going to do so should the opportunity arise, he is no less guilty than if he were caught in the act.

In this example, it is not God's fault that the evil of adultery exists in the world. Rather, humans are at fault for using free will to commit adultery. The idea of inordinate desire is that it causes us to exercise our free will in ways that are ultimately sinful or evil.
https://faculty.fordham.edu/klima/medphil/Augustine%20Summary.htm


In On Free Choice of the Will Augustine argues that what he calls inordinate desire is the ultimate source of all evil. The word "inordinate" means something that is disproportionately large or excessive and is here being applied to lust or desire.
In his discussion with Evodius, Augustine wants to try and establish the cause of evil. Evodius lists a number of specific evils such as adultery, murder, and sacrilege; Augustine picks out adultery as an example to determine its cause as well as that of all other evils.
Together, Evodius and Augustine go through a series of possible causes before arriving at their conclusion. Adultery isn't evil because the law forbids it, nor is it evil because it is punished by the authorities. Although adultery breaks the Golden Rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you—that's not what makes it evil, either. What does is excessive lust, or as Augustine calls it, inordinate desire. This is the cause of adultery, as with all evils, and relates to thoughts as well as deeds. Augustine further argues that is not God who is to blame for the presence of evil but man, who has abused his God-given capacity for free will to do wrong.

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