I’m not Catholic, but the Catholic Church was brilliant when they came up with the Seven Deadly Sins. At one point this list inspired people to be better. Now it seems like they’re a lot of people’s goals: lust, laziness, gluttony, greed, and pride – that pretty much summarizes our Dyson culture. This list is not in the Bible, but it’s a wonderful summary of ways we can ruin our lives if we give into them or in the more positive light, they can give us a starting point for making our lives better by fighting the temptation to do them.
So what are they and what are they supposed to be about?
- Lust is often assumed to be about sexual things, but it’s actually more about where your heart is. It’s about an “intense longing” whether for sex, money, power, or anything else to which we give our hearts. Two verses that connect to this are: “Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be.” (Mat 6:21) “You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” (Mat 6:24b)
- Gluttony is bigger than simply eating too much. It’s overindulgence or overconsumption of anything, especially if it leads to others going without because you have too much. We often see being rich as being ideal, but it’s hard to be a millionaire without being someone who is actually overindulging.
- Greed is often connected to money, but it’s more about giving your heart to the world and what it offers while having a lack of feeling for others: “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.” (Rom 21:2)
- Wrath is a little more straightforward, but it’s still more than just simply blackout rage and lacking self control. It can be a sign of hatred and resentment and is often connected to vengeance. The one line I liked said, “The neutral act of anger becomes the sin of wrath when it is directed against an innocent person, when it is unduly strong or long-lasting, or when it desires excessive punishment.”
- Envy becomes dangerous because it severs people from others and can be isolating. It is rooted in judgement of others or ourselves. It’s “a sad or resentful covetousness towards the traits or possessions of someone else.” According to St. Thomas Aquinas, envy has three stages i) an attack on someone’s reputation (i.e. gossip and backstabbing ii) finding joy in another’s misfortune or grief from someone else’s success iii) the development of hatred toward the other person. To quote Wikipedia who paraphrases Bertrand Russell (who likely stole this from someone else, who borrowed it from someone else etc) “envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness, bringing sorrow to committers of envy, while giving them the urge to inflict pain upon others.”
- Sloth is often seen as simply laziness, but it’s “a sin of omitting responsibilities,” which can include not taking care of others or ourselves or as Chaucer claimed, “refusing to undertake works of goodness because, he/she tells him/herself, the circumstances surrounding the establishment of good are too grievous and too difficult to suffer.” He was clearly a better writer than me (written as fact and not envy). According to Gregory the Great (a pretty sweet last name) sloth is connected to malice (i.e. the desire to do evil), rancour (i.e. being stuck in the past), cowardice (i.e. not pushing ourselves past our fear), and despair. Sounds a lot like depression symptoms doesn’t it? What really stood out was the line, “[it] becomes a terrible source of human’s undoing.”
- Pride (or vanity) is the original and worst of the Seven Deadly Sins because it is believed to be at the heart of all of the other sins (and goes against the first two of the 10 Commandments, which is about putting God first). It is being in opposition to God (i.e. the “anti-God state”). It blinds us while encourages us to sin. In a 2009 study, men were more likely to confess the sin of lust and women were more likely to confess pride.
It’s amazing how the Seven Deadly Sins get dumbed down to simpler terms that miss the greater depth they’re meant to offer. It’s like we don’t want to acknowledge them in their entirety because then they’re tougher to brush off.
The other day I was talking to someone about the mistakes being made in his family and I asked “On a scale of 0-10, how bad is the thing you did? And your partner?” That was the first time I’ve asked a question like that, but when I asked it, I suddenly realized how valuable it is. Many Christians don’t want to grade sin because sin is sin in God’s eyes minus the “unpardonable sin,” which is seen as hating God. All sin separates us from God, but some choices have much harsher repercussions than others. For instance, I was recently talking to a guy who was torn up because he watched porn, but based on the 10 Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins, it’s pretty low on the list of bad things we can do. Some women absolutely hate porn and take it as an intense insult, but beyond any personal feelings toward it, based on the 10 Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins, the worst sins are about hurting and/or hating God and others and this doesn’t directly do that. It’s almost as if the devil wants to blind people with surface level sins because then we don’t address the deeper issues of our heart. It’s like over-drinking. It’s not good, but isn’t hating your neighbor worse? Isn’t your over-indulging at the expense of others a bigger problem than the damage you cause your own body? The common thread in all of the Seven Deadly Sins is how it hurts others and in our Dyson Culture, we forget about the hurt we cause others as we focus on ourselves.
I will continue this thought in a future blog, but for today, let’s consider the following questions:
- Which of the Seven Deadly Sins is your biggest fight not to do?
- Which of the Seven Deadly Sins have you ignored as being a problem for you?
- Do your friends push you do more of the Seven Deadly Sins or help keep you from doing them?
- How does your sin of choice affect your life? Your family?
- Which sin should you be fighting the most and how will you do that?
This week may you consider the Seven Deadly Sins and how they can help you be a better person.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, Learning to love dumb people (like me)