The Seven Deadly Sins

Ever since writing a little about sloth in December, I have been thinking on and off about the seven deadly sins. Questions that come to mind immediately: What are they and why are they deadly while others might be merely perilous or mildly distressing?  And why think about them at all?  After all, as pointed out to me by a friend, they are not named as such in the Scriptures, while St. Paul in a number of places lists various flavors of distastrous sinfulness.  Are not these better named the deadly sins?


I am not sure I can adequately answer all of the questions I have posed, but I can try, and at least, I hope, articulate why they deserve our attention.  And I am not the only one who is interested.  These sins have been the subject of a 1995 film with Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman and also a number of photo shoots with America's Next Top Model, both of which are disturbing for different reasons, the first for being rather gritty (I have only seen the trailer) and the second for trivializing something that is truly deadly (and only appearing to invoke one of seven.)

Naming a list of seven things is always challenging whether it be deadly sins or dwarfs as one is always apt to miss one on the list.  (On the dwarf front I almost always miss Bashful.)  So the seven are (sins, not dwarfs*) Pride, Gluttony, Lust, Sloth, Wrath, Avarice (Greed) and Envy, in no particular order.


To be sure all sin, unrepented of, is deadly.  Resolutely clinging to our right to our anger or the little fictions we tell ourselves and others is a sure way to exclude ourselves from grace.  God does not entertain or indulge our sense of offense or untruthfulness.  To be repentant means to give up our attachment to these things and to prefer God's justice and truth over ours.

The deadliness of the seven is due, perhaps, to their ageless and perennial nature.  The theologians of the middle ages, including Thomas Aquinas, considered these and reflected and wrote on them.  And here 800 years later, they are, each an every, perfectly familiar and recognizable to me.  They are ancient and, sadly, familiar foes that show their faces in every generation.

They are also deadly because they are the fount and source of other sins.  Wrath's or anger's special danger, says Peter Kreeft, "is that it leads to the worse sin of all: hatred, the opposite of love, which is the greatest good." 1  Lust leads us to using and treating people as objects or things, a degrading and despising of the image of God.  Envy leads us to hate and despise the good in, and possessed by, others.  And pride, suggests C.S. Lewis in a number of places, is the root and cause of all other sin, the first one committed in the Garden of Eden.

Through the rest of this Lenten season, now nearly two weeks old. I want to reflect on the deadly sins. I have already dealt with sloth, or at least wrote about it, in December.  A couple of weeks ago, in My angry car, I inadvertently continued the series in reflecting on wrath by its more common name of anger.  So I have five to go, and due to my sloth in not writing last week, four weeks in which to do it.

1 Peter Kreeft in Back to Virtue, Ignatius Press, 1992
*Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, and Dopey for those who care.