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In Defense of the 7 Deadly Sins
One of the differences between Christianity and Judaism is that Christianity is more prone to simply labeling things in this world as “good” or “bad” and acting accordingly. So, for example, alcohol, to many Christians, is “the devil’s drink.” But to Jews, everything in the world can be used for holy OR profane ends. Nothing is considered inherently positive or negative.
So we could, for example, look at the 7 Deadly Sins. Though, to my reading, they really ought to be considered “desires” or “temptations.” Nevertheless, I’d like to offer a quick Jewish defense of each of them.
Lust. Celibacy is no virtue in the Torah. The High Priest could not serve unless he was married! We think lust is great. Within marriage, that is.
Gluttony. When we show appreciation to G-d for his blessings, the Torah tells us, “[A]nd thou shalt bestow that money on all that thy heart desires, on oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever thy soul requires: and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thy household.”
Sloth. “Keep the Sabbath Day. Thou shall do no work on it.”
Pride. We are absolutely supposed to be proud of our G-d, and the good things we have achieved in our lives. We should be proud of our parents and our children.
Greed. Poverty is not a Jewish virtue. Why suffer? We don’t have a problem with people who want to acquire as much as possible, because we know those people can do an enormous amount of good with it. Why should the government be the only people who are allowed to seek to accumulate?
Envy. The Torah forbids coveting someone else’s possessions. On the other hand, we are encouraged to follow in the footsteps of great scholars and leaders. On the merits, envy is harder to defend, since Jews are taught that we should never seek to have someone else’s life – our own challenges are more than sufficient, thank you.
Wrath. Here my thesis gets even weaker. Jews never believe in losing control. We are not supposed to give in to animalistic rage. The Torah can excuse wrath (i.e. avenging the death of a loved one). But it is never condoned.
All in all, 5 out of 7. Tempering all the above: to the extent that the 7 Deadlies are about acting with animal instincts and desires, then Judaism and Christianity agree. But those desires, by themselves, are not necessarily sinful in Judaism.
Even selfishness is not a problem for Jews – the Hebrew word for “mourner” is the same word as “I,” indicating that someone who mourns is justifiably thinking about themselves, and the personal impact of the loss. So there seems to be a time and a place for selfishness. It is a stepping stone on the way to healing, after all. And that is good – as long as mourning is a waypoint and not the destination.
Of course, the above may be a caricature of Christian views of the Seven Deadly Sins. I clearly am no expert on the faith. But I thought this might be an interesting thought experiment nevertheless.
Published in General
Probably, in large part. But you said this, so . . . cool!
In Christianity it’s not the desire for food, money, sex that’s bad. It’s the desire when it gets in the way of loving G-d and neighbor.
Beware especially of SLOTH!
I’d like to read your thoughts on the 7 virtues.
Pride can blind you to Who is actually in charge. One meditation I read held that Pride can be the sin that can lead to the others.
Had to be posted.
In Judaism, there are three sources of all sin: jealousy, lust, and desire for (or pursuit of) honor. This is outlined in Pirkei Avot (aka Ethics of the Fathers), Chapter 4:28.
Here’s a summation from an on-line commentary:
“A person ruled by jealousy has an “evil eye” towards others who are better off, begrudging them their fortune and successes. A lustful person, whether for money or worldly pleasures, becomes slave to his evil inclination. And last, one who craves honor will quickly come to actual hatred of others. He will care first and foremost about himself and the recognition he receives.”
What iWe says about neutrality of attributes (we call them “midot” and they essentially mean “measures,” but are also translated as “virtues”) and how jealousy, lust, etc. can be put to good use is also true.
Good line of discussion. I hope to see more thoughtful people contribute to it.
What? We ain’t thoughtful enough for you? 😜
I meant to mention sloth, but never got around to it. It may the most deadly of them all.
Ultimately, pride is replacing G-d with oneself – the ultimate manifestation of pride.
What is man, that G-d takes notice of him?
There has been a lot of discussion among the saints over the centuries about the nature of sin, and the properties of sin that would make it deadly are not entirely agreed upon. Some would point to the ubiquity of a sin and the strength of its temptation as that which makes it a deadly sin. I think it all comes down to our attitude toward the sin. If we become so inured to a sin that we no longer regard it as a sin then it becomes dangerous because we cannot gain forgiveness without repentance, and we don’t repent from actions that we don’t think are sinful.
Some churches are now teaching that homosexual activity is not sinful. In doing so they put members of their congregation in danger of losing their immortal souls. They have made homosexual activity a deadly sin.
That which is regarded as sin may not be bad, and that which is regarded as good is not always good. Love, for example, is frequently used as a reason by progressive clergy for accepting LBGT+ activities as not sinful because we are supposed to be loving toward those folks. But love is not good if it the object of love is not proper, it leads to sinful activity, or it has evil motives.
I’m aware some Christians say that, but I’ve never understood how they square it with the fact that the first miracle Jesus performed was turning water into wine, or that he blessed a cup of wine and passed it around to his disciples at the Last Supper to institute a new covenant with them.
The Catholic tradition does not teach that any desire is in itself sinful. It’s only giving in to desire in a disordered way that is sinful. Desire itself isn’t a sin, although it may constitute a temptation to sin if the object of desire does not conform to the moral order. Desiring to have sex with your wife is not a temptation because such an act isn’t sinful; desiring to have sex with your neighbor’s wife is a temptation, because the act would be disordered. But neither desire is in sinful in itself per se.
The Seven Deadly Sins are not desires or temptations, but acts that result from indulging in disordered desire. Gluttony is not the desire for food or even enjoying a nice dinner. It is the indulgence of any bodily pleasure to the detriment of the greater good. The many Americans who eat to the point of obesity and its health consequences may be guilty of gluttony. Alcoholism is a form of gluttony.
The essence of sin, according to St. Augustine, is to “prefer the creature to the creator.” The Seven Deadly Sins are way of cataloging the ways in which man may choose the creature over the creator. Pride in God is not a sin. It becomes a sin when we give glory to ourselves rather than God for the good things he has given us. Thinking I am better than other people because I’m a great athlete (if I was, I’m not) is pride; acknowledging that I am a great athlete only by the grace of God and giving him the glory is not sinful pride, but rather healthy.
Also disordered is that second desire if we linger over it or dwell on it. You shall not covet her (Torah), nor commit adultery with her in your heart (Sermon on the Mount).
Actually, I’m pretty sure Augustine and Aquinas think a desire to have sex with another man’s wife specifically is disordered.
But it’s venial, not mortal, if that’s all it is.
There is an important distinction here, I think. To desire to have sex with another man’s wife is disordered for sure. If the desire comes about unbidden, then it’s not a sin, even though it is disordered, because sin must be voluntary. If the desire comes about through a voluntary action (e.g. going out of your way to get a good look at your neighbor’s wife) then it is sinful because your will has become involved.
One of the effects of Original Sin is that our individual natures are disordered or “broken” so that they produce desires in us that may be disordered, without our wills being involved. Those disordered desires are bad, but not in themselves sinful, unless and until our wills consent to them. The old way of saying this is that temptations arise from three sources, the world, the devil, and the flesh, the latter being disordered desires that arise from our broken natures.
Interestingly, besides disordered desires we can have the opposite, disordered fears, which is allowing greater evils to manifest in order to avoid lesser evils.
You know, you’re probably right, even by Augustine and Aquinas. Terms thus defined.
It sounds a bit circular to me. Like “survival of the fittest” can only be known post facto. So, too, the Deadly Sins are, in the above definition, self-evidently bad. So you don’t consider lust to be bad – just bad lust.
When I was getting my masters, we had to read a humorous book about the 7 deadly sins as observed in the Spanish culture. I couldn’t translate all of them having never seen some of those words. I picked “lujuria” and then started on the assignment. Well, the biggest prude in the class was now tasked with giving a report on lust in Spanish describing its appearance in the culture. It was … something.
I enjoyed the book so much that I bought the English versions about the French and Americans- still in my library.
Seriously, humans have weaknesses that take them in bad directions. They must know about them and how to avoid taking the bad path. Democrats play on these weaknesses to gain power and abuse them royally themselves. Lust, envy, greed, etc.
Did you save the notes for your report? I think folks on R> would like to hear/read what you learned.
I saved every note from every class. I intended to return for my PhD at some point. I enlisted in the AF to take a break from academia. My AF stay lasted over 20 years.
Lust is not the same thing as sexual desire. Sexual desire for your wife is not lust. Sexual desire for your neighbor’s wife is. Nothing circular about it. And it is known beforehand.
Same with gluttony. I can tell you before you do it that eating eight hotdogs for dinner is not good.
How about a bag of Doritos?
I can tell that you’ve never had Verdigre wieners. They made good hot dogs.