The theology of sin is an excellent moral paradigm. St. Thomas Aquinas, a medieval philosopher who studied Aristotle’s Ethics, thought that there were seven capital vices: wrath, greed, lust, gluttony, sloth, envy, and pride. The capital vices are pure sins, meaning that all the other sins known to man are derived from them, or result from combinations of them. For example, theft can be derived from the combinations of greed, sloth, and envy. These seven vices, or deadly sins, are ambiguous entities that lead to more specific sins, like murder and gambling. After analyzing them I think it could be said that, while the ambiguity of the seven sins derive specific ones, the deadly sins themselves derive from three basic human instincts: fear, desire and selfishness. I’m going to call this The Unholy Trinity, the tri-fold cornerstone of human suffering. From this cornerstone, the seven capital vices evolve from human instincts into the specific sins. The Unholy Trinity is composed of basic emotions that don’t derive from any others. They come out of thin air at seemingly random moments. It is always a test of human virtue that we overcome the moments when primitive instincts take control.
1. Fear
Fear can lead to three of the deadly sins: sloth, wrath, and pride. Sloth is also caused by selfishness, so I will elaborate more on it later. Pertaining to fear, sloth can be caused by any fears which keep us from doing things that require us to live in peace and health. Depression, sadness, boredom, abandonment, and, in the worst cases, self-mutilation and suicide can occur when one is so paralyzed by fears of rejection and failure that life becomes unbearable. When this happens sloth sets in, and many other specific sins can unfold, such as drug addiction and self-pity, which stagnate the progress of maturation.
To quote the fictional master Yoda of Star Wars: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Insecurities are what allow fear to consume our lives. Pride, wrath, hostility, and distrust are all created by the insecurities that develop in the wake of fear. Prideful people are afraid that they are not as good as they should be. They fear that the things they stand for are wrong, and often will lash out in anger when challenged or threatened. The threatening of the ego is what allows fear to boil over and embrace wrath. What Yoda meant by fear leading to anger is that people are afraid of the consequences of being wrong. If their pride is in danger, then they will get defensive and act destructive. In this way, pride can be a parent of anger, but pride is not always its parent. Desire and injustice can also trigger anger.
There is a correct response to anger; it is a response that seeks justice and not revenge. Revenge is an entirely destructive consequence of anger, in the same way that pride is a destructive consequence of fear. This is the anger that leads to some of the most unspeakable sins, like murder, vandalism, and violence in general. The desire to punish the people we are angry at, either from an insecurity caused by envy or at an injustice they have committed, should not be compounded by an act of revenge. For if revenge is taken then the enemy is likely to take revenge themselves, and the cycle of hatred will continue until someone yields to their pride. Pride and envy can fuel wrath, but wrath cannot fuel the other two. The only times in which wrath is distinct from the other two are during stages of impatience or after an injustice has occurred, such as the murder of an innocent loved one. This is when even the noblest of people may struggle to control their anger. The only time in which anger should be welcomed is after such an injustice has occurred, so long as the anger is controlled enough to the point in which a hateful crime of revenge is subdued, allowing true justice to prevail.
Unforgiveness, denial, and bitterness are other specific sins associated with pride and wrath; they are the sins by which grudges fester negativity. This negativity has poor psychological effects on the wrathful, and they are hurtful to those who suffer their emotional abuse.
2. Desire
Desire leads to lust, which in medieval times also meant power and fame (though I think these are mostly rooted in pride). I’m not sure why the medieval scholastics lumped them together. Power is certainly more of an ego-driven sin than lust is and belongs in the selfishness category below.
Lust is the only deadly sin which doesn't come from a combination of fear, desire, and selfishness. It is strictly based on only one of them: desire. All the other sins are a mixture of at least two of the three. We’ve already covered the mixtures of fear and desire. A mixture of desire and selfishness formulates several of the other deadly sins, including envy (which can lead to wrath), greed, and gluttony. From this, you might think that anger is also a consequence of selfishness, but it is an indirect relationship because envy is the intermediate emotion.
Buddhism teaches that desire is the root of all suffering. However, in this essay I’m expanding on the teaching to include fear and ego as equally important roots. These are primitive drives which turn us right back into the animals we evolved from.
Greed vs. Lust
Greed is the desire to accumulate material possessions: its selfish counterpart is to hoard financial profits. Lust is a more general desire to experience things like carnal pleasure. The only difference is that greed is more of a competitive, selfish motivation that makes people want to possess the desired object(s). Not only that, but it feeds off itself and only wants more. Greed is worse than lust, not only because it is ego driven, but because it is specifically a human vice. Lust is an inherited vice that transcends the animal kingdom. The positive thing about lust is that no matter how much it is ridiculed by the church, it is responsible for the advancement of our species. Without lust, we wouldn’t even exist.
Some of the worst specific sins are a consequence of greed, including theft, lying, stealing, betrayal, and the destruction of the environment. There is really nothing positive about greed. Most of the deadly sins can be indulged in with healthy moderation, except for greed. Maybe it can be good if you seek financial gain only to give it away to others, but is that really greed? No, it is charity, one of the seven virtues. Lust is also responsible for some of the worst specific sins, such as rape, adultery, prostitution, and certain addictions.
If one fails at attaining what they desire, then it can result in a chain reaction through all the other capital vices. Greed and lust can ignite the envy and wrath that lay hidden beneath a disappointing failure, just as pride can when the ego is threatened. Failure can then result in a lack of motivation, which then leads to a period of sloth.
3. Selfishness
Selfishness, or ego, leads to pride, sloth, envy, greed, and gluttony. Sloth is a mixture of selfishness and fear, though one can be mutually exclusive from the other. Sloth can be a selfishness that doesn’t have anything to do with fear. Some sloths don’t care how hard others are working to pick up on their slack, they still take advantage of harder working people. This kind of sloth is guilty of not making sacrifices for others, and it is irresponsible. Poor hygiene and a lack of cleanliness also shows the type of disregard for others that sloths suffer from.
It was Aquinas’ opinion that pride is the most lethal of sins because it implies a lack of faith in God, and detachment from Him results in eternal damnation. It relates to the story of Lucifer in the Bible. I do not believe in eternal damnation just because of a lack of faith. If this is the case, then why wasn’t faith and not charity his highest-ranking virtue? There are some logical setbacks in Aquinas’ line of thought, and this is certainly one of them. Pride can be beneficial if it’s taken in moderation. As stated above, too much pride can result in an unhealthy amount of competition and destructive behavior. Lying about oneself, cheating to gain power, and the need to control are the offspring of pride. Pride at its worst can lead to diabolical things like torture. On one end, torture is a way of channeling negative emotions, such as pent-up humiliation, rage, and envy. On the other hand, it can be done out of a wish to conform. Feeling superior, rubbing your achievements in someone else’s face, and provoking low self-esteem are also some of the nastiest elements of pride. Pride shares a similarity with gluttony here; some people hoard things simply to laugh in the faces of the less fortunate ones.
There are two kinds of gluttony: the controlled type and the uncontrolled type. The controlled type is a selfishness that runs away with desire and the uncontrolled type is based on addiction. Often people think they can’t control their addictions, but that doesn’t make addiction excusable. Addictions are still selfish because they are a way of coping with self-pity. Gluttons are so wasteful that their addictions not only lead to self-destruction, but to the destruction of others and their environment. The denial that reinforces addictive behavior; the kind that implies a lack of control and a chemical dependency, is irresponsible and inexcusable. Breaking addiction may seem like the hardest thing in the world to do, maybe even impossible, but it truly isn’t. If others can do it, then you can too.
To sum it all up, pride has the distinction of being the only capital vice having all three traits of the Unholy Trinity, while wrath has the only combination of primal fear and desire. Lust is a desire only. Envy, greed, and gluttony are combinations of desire and selfishness. Sloth is the only combination of fear and selfishness. Since all but one of the capital vices are rooted in desire, then perhaps the Buddhists are right, and it is the cause of (almost all) suffering. According to my calculations, it is the most important instinct to overcome in the Unholy Trinity. Selfishness pertains to five of the vices and fear only pertains to three. To help derive this ranking of importance, one could ask which of the seven vices is the most important to overcome, and then deduce the ranking from that. Considering all the specific sins mentioned in this essay, the worst of them are probably murder, adultery, suicide, torture, violence, rape, abuse of power, lying, betrayal, and theft. Murder, rape, torture, and violence are wrathful. Torture and power are prideful. Lying, betrayal, and theft are sins of the greedy. Adultery, rape, and lying are lustful. Suicide and theft are slothful and glutinous, while envy is guilty of torture and theft.
I find that greed is the worst of them simply because nothing productive comes about from it. Wrath has its benefits, but it’s associated with the most of these sins, so I’m placing it second. Pride is third because I feel that it is associated with the two worst sins: torture and the abuse of power. Lust is fourth because adultery and rape have very profound psychological consequences on their victims. Sloth is fifth, envy sixth, and gluttony seventh. Sloth is responsible for the second most specific sins out of all of them, but they are relatively less destructive than the worst of the sins I listed above. Envy is far down the list because it’s a very passive sin; you can be jealous of something and not act on it. The actions caused by pride, wrath, and lust are much more dire. Even though envy is an agent of wrath, it is far easier to control. Finally, we have the wasteful sin of gluttony. Waste is a pretty bad sin, and it just barely escaped the worst of the specific sins. Regardless, gluttony is only associated with two of the worst, and I think sloth is more responsible for suicide and theft anyway. In summary, I have the following ranking:
1. Greed: desire and ego. Theft, lying, betrayal, bribery, advertising, destruction of environment, causes poverty.
2. Wrath: desire and fear. Torture, murder, violence, denial, bitterness, unforgiveness, impatience, vandalism, revenge.
3. Pride: desire, ego, and fear. Torture, power, fame, superiority, denial, eating disorders.
4. Lust: desire. Rape, adultery, lying, betrayal, prostitution, pedophilia, polygamy.
5. Sloth: Ego and fear. Suicide, self-mutilation, theft, irresponsibility, boredom, depression, abandonment.
6. Envy: Ego and desire. Jealousy, theft, often leads to the sins of wrath.
7. Gluttony: Ego and desire. Waste, addiction, causes poverty.
To defeat these vices, one must first confront the primal instincts of the Unholy Trinity. Letting go of the primal instincts is one of the most difficult things to do. You can’t control feeling them, but when you do, the important thing is not to act on them. Ego is probably the easiest of these things to work on: then fear and desire. Confronting fears takes courage and letting go of desire takes a lot of practice with detachment. Do you think it would be more difficult for you to confront your worst fear or to conquer an addiction? For those who suffer from selfishness, would it be harder to see yourself as equal to others and treat them the way you’d like to be treated? That is in fact the golden rule of ethics. It’s possible that karma is hardest on the selfish because people tend to get what they give, so if you give nothing then karma gives you nothing when it matters the most. Considering that the heinous crimes caused by fear and desire are much more infrequent than the lesser ones caused by selfishness, it might be safe to say the ego is the principal cause of disharmony in the world. Its high prevalence might in fact make it the worst of the Unholy Trinity. But as far as I can tell from the calculations above, desire is the most important instinct to overcome, with selfishness second and fear a distant third.
Some people might scoff at the notion that things like sloth, pride, and lust are morally corrupt. They’re right to an extent. In fact, I think that all the capital vices can be healthy when taken into moderation. Excessive indulgence in them can be dire though. Too much or too little of almost anything will drive someone over the edge and cause them to suffer.
Somewhere along the timeline of human history, man became blessed with the great privilege of reason. This privilege separated us from the apes and all the other prehistoric prototypes that served as a cesspit for reason's escape. That we can transcend these primitive urges certainly makes us special and unique as a virtuous species. However, many of the vices listed above, such as lying and self-mutilation, are strictly human vices that no other species indulge in. A visiting alien to Earth might be humored by man’s delusional notion that he is superior to all other species, considering that he has many more vices to deal with. Perhaps it was the fact that reason made us virtuous that allowed a broader series of vices to creep into our psyche, or vice versa? Have the vices forced us to use reason more, so that our sins can be justified? Pride can be deadly, especially when surrounded by a pride of lions. It’s one of those chicken or the egg arguments; I think it works both ways.
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