Go and Sin No More

Books and Culture has a series of short but disheartening book reviews on the Oxford University Press Seven Deadly Sins series. It’s not the review that disappoints (it hits the mark quite well), but the books. What should have been a lively introduction to (1.) what the seven sins are, (2.) how they came to be defined, and (3.) how they have been understood, devolved into a contemporary opinion fest with most authors suggesting that the sins were relative and perhaps not all that bad. Only four have been written thus far (Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and Greed), but you can sense a trend.

The reviewer suggests Greed to be the best of the bunch, but can't you hear naysayers? Who said avoid sin? Condemning lust merely inhibits the free individual (darn Puritans), envy drives us to succeed by “keeping up with the Joneses,” one man’s gluttony is another’s satisfaction, greed is the engine of economic progress, pride doubles as self-esteem (and Lord knows moderns must like themselves first and foremost), anger means caring about what is happening to you and the world (another word for “engagement” really), and sloth could be confused with leisure.

Horse feathers. Sin, as Abram Van Engen rightly notes, is making each of them an end in themselves, making pleasure the thoughtless end to one’s actions rather than a measured means to another end, doing good and right by God. The Roman Catholic Church’s favorite pagan, Aristotle, saw moderation as the key to virtue, the halfway house between self-denial and self-centeredness: The man who shuns and fears everything and never makes a stand, becomes a coward; while the man who fears nothing at all, but will face anything, becomes foolhardy. So, too, the man who takes his fill of any kind of pleasure, and abstains from none, is a profligate, but the man who shuns all is devoid of sensibility. Thus temperance and courage are destroyed both by excess and defect, but preserved by moderation.

These extremes of self-centeredness the Church called the “seven deadly sins,” and the moderation of each the “seven heavenly virtues”: humility rather than pride, generosity rather than greed, love rather than envy, kindness rather than anger, self-control rather than lust, temperance rather than gluttony, and zeal rather than sloth. Moderation does not mean the absence of what is expressed by the seven deadly sins, but presence within bounds, controlled and put to constructive use, understood within the wider context of human thought and action. You can enjoy a glass of wine and not get drunk; you can enjoy a fine meal and not stuff yourself to illness; you can enjoy your rest but only after working hard; you can enjoy love and sex but not make it a destructive obsession ruinous to your family. Do not make enjoyment the end but a means, part of the wider context of living.

A rather funny take on this was the 1967 Dudley Moore & Peter Cooke movie Bedazzled.

A friend and associate of mine once suggested that the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues was the best way to organize a university/college humanities program, with classes and readings revolving around each sin and virtue. A very interesting suggestion, I thought. How would you construct it, with two books for each sin/virtue?

Pride/Humility
Greed/Generosity
Envy/Love
Anger/Kindness
Lust/Self-Control
Gluttony/Temperance
Sloth/Zeal