We’re about to enter into Good Friday, the day on which Jesus died for our sins. So what’s the deal with sin? It’s very easy to think of sin as fun, and virtue as sort of missing out on the fun for the sake of some future reward: a sort of Mardi Gras v. Lent contrast. Why IS such (literally) damned fun? And how do we respond to the charge that we’re just anti-fun?
The day before Lent is called Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”) in America but “Carnival” in much of the rest of the world. The etymology of carnival is particularly telling:
1540s, “time of merrymaking before Lent,” from French carnaval, from Italian carnevale “Shrove Tuesday,” from older Italian forms such as Milanese *carnelevale, Old Pisan carnelevare “to remove meat,” literally “raising flesh,” from Latin caro “flesh” (originally “a piece of flesh,” from PIE root *sker- (1) “to cut”) + levare “lighten, raise, remove” (from PIE root *legwh- “not heavy, having little weight”).
Folk etymology is from Medieval Latin carne vale ” ‘flesh, farewell!’ ” From 1590s in figurative sense “feasting or revelry in general.” Meaning “a circus or amusement fair” is attested by 1926 in American English.
So it’s easy to think of Mardi Gras as one last bit of fun before entering the grim and pious season of Lent. And more broadly, that’s how we can think of the life of sin vs. the life of virtue: sinful Carnival vs. pious American Gothic. Billy Joel’s song “Only the Good Die Young” captures this sort of attitude perfectly: “They say there’s a heaven for those who will wait / Some say it’s better but I say it ain’t / I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints / The sinners are much more fun.” So why IS sin fun?
The Goodness of Creation and the Parasitical Nature of Evil
There’s no such thing as “pure evil.” No person and no action is purely evil. That sounds crazy to say, but it’s true. Evil is a parasite. Every evil thing you can think of is a corruption or perversion of something good, or simply the absence of good. Think about it: eating, drinking, sexuality, and even well-placed outrage are good things. There’s a reason that we’re built to enjoy these things. It’s bad to be proud, but good to have self-esteem, and it’s not inherently wicked to strive for greatness. Gluttony and drunkenness are wrong, but it’s not an accident or a trap that God’s Creation is filled with things that delight our palates. It’s imaginable that we could be creatures who hate eating, drinking, and reproducing, but do so out of compulsion: but in fact, we live in a world in which we humans enjoy those things greatly. This is the first point to be recognized: Creation is full of delights because our Creator is delightful.
So how do we understand evil, then? The devil isn’t a Creator, and good and evil aren’t two coequal forces in the universe. To sin is literally “to miss the mark” – it can only be understood in relation to the good. Sin is a perversion of the good, and one way of understanding sin is as a misuse of a gift. We’re given intellectual gifts, and come up with brilliant ways of getting away with murder; we are given physical strength, and use it to harass innocent people; we’re given the gift of sexuality, and give ourselves over to lust; and so forth.
It’s why we can recognize something good even in an action that’s wicked: as, for example, when you can’t help but chuckle at a particularly witty insult. It’s also why we sin. If sin weren’t enjoyable, it wouldn’t be particularly tempting. We get some sort of pleasure in sinning (even sins like venting our anger on others!), or we wouldn’t sin. But underlying this is the fact that the sin is perverting some authentic good. So sin is a bit like opening our Christmas presents early – it’s wrong because we’ve taken the good (enjoying a gift) and intentionally misused it.
Related to this, we always sin in pursuit of a good. We don’t steal because we believe stealing will make us better people, but because we have an authentic (if distorted) appreciation of financial security or whatnot. We act all the time simply to do right, or simply to be happy. But nobody does the opposite: doing wicked things simply to be wicked or simply to be unhappy. St. Thomas Aquinas uses this simple point to ground all of morality:
Now as “being” is the first thing that falls under the apprehension simply, so “good” is the first thing that falls under the apprehension of the practical reason, which is directed to action: since every agent acts for an end under the aspect of good. Consequently the first principle of practical reason is one founded on the notion of good, viz. that “good is that which all things seek after.”
Hence this is the first precept of law, that “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided.” All other precepts of the natural law are based upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man’s good (or evil) belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided.
You might object that some people do speak about wanting to “be bad,” but as with the Billy Joel example above, it’s because they’re convinced that wickedness will ensure their momentary or lasting happiness (which are actually goods!).
The Glamour of Evil
Everyone, from the greatest Saint to the greatest sinner, wants to be happy. And this is where the “glamour of evil” comes in: because the goods of the world are true goods, it’s easy to fall for the lie that our ultimate happiness lies in these things. It’s not just great sinners who fall into this trap. Indeed, sinners often are often the least susceptible to this lie… at least, once they’ve hit rock bottom. The first time you’re tempted to get drunk, you imagine how much fun it’ll be. When crippling alcoholism is destroying your life, the temptation is simply to hurt a little less or to avoid the pain for a little longer. The devil promises steak and, after the initial jolt of pleasure wears off, feeds us cardboard.
Rather, it’s frequently those who have avoided the life of sin that quietly pine for it. There’s a hint of this, I think, in the parable of the father with two sons in Luke 15. The elder son’s complaint about his prodigal brother is that “when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf” (Luke 15:30). In fact, there’s no mention of harlots anywhere in the parable. The closest we get is hearing that the prodigal son “squandered his property in loose living” (Lk. 15:13). That loose living may or may not have included cavorting with prostitutes, but there’s no sense that the elder brother has any sort of inside knowledge on this score. Rather, he just seems to be jealous of the wild life he’s imagining his brother got to enjoy. Contrast the sort of glamorous life of sin that the elder brother imagines with what the younger son was actually going through (Lk. 15:14-17):
And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger!
The elder brother is jealous that his younger brother has “gotten away with” living a life of sin, and still gets to return to the house of the Father. But sin actually made the younger son miserable, so the elder brother’s jealousy is a bit like being jealous that the prodigal “got to” wreck his life and still come back for healing.
St. Augustine is famous for the prayer “give me chastity and continence, but not yet.” It’s often thrown out as a sort of laugh, or a brilliant plan: sin now, act sorry later, skate into Heaven at the last minute. But in context, he shares how miserable that prayer (and subsequent lifestyle) made him, and how envious he was for those who had found God:
But now, the more ardently I loved those whose healthful affections I heard tell of, that they had given up themselves wholly to You to be cured, the more did I abhor myself when compared with them. For many of my years (perhaps twelve) had passed away since my nineteenth, when, on the reading of Cicero’s Hortensius, I was roused to a desire for wisdom; and still I was delaying to reject mere worldly happiness, and to devote myself to search out that whereof not the finding alone, but the bare search, ought to have been preferred before the treasures and kingdoms of this world, though already found, and before the pleasures of the body, though encompassing me at my will. But I, miserable young man, supremely miserable even in the very outset of my youth, had entreated chastity of You, and said, “Grant me chastity and continency, but not yet.” For I was afraid lest You should hear me soon, and soon deliver me from the disease of concupiscence, which I desired to have satisfied rather than extinguished.
Think of virtue and sin like a diet. Eating junk food is oftentimes more fun than eating in a smart, healthy, moderate way. So it’s easy to imagine that you have to choose between “being healthy” and “enjoying yourself.” But if you opt for the second choice, after a while, you’ll find you enjoy yourself less and less as your health degrades, as you don’t have as much energy, etc.
All of us, Saints and sinners alike, are seeking after happiness. And all of us have a profound wound, a chasm of emptiness that can only be filled with God. No amount of worldly enjoyment can ever fill this longing: at best, it can cover it up for a little longer so we don’t notice it. Sin seems promising at first, because of the initial pleasures. But in the end, we end up like the miserable prodigal son, or St. Augustine on the brink of his conversion: broken, empty, aching for more than sin and worldly pleasures can provide.
The Good Gifts and the Good Gift-Giver
Things of this world are good, but they’re not enough, and the lie of sin is to trade the infinite Good of God for a finite good. So what should our relationship be like with created goods? How should we approach fine wine, good friends, fast cars, and beautiful sunsets? Do we dourly turn those things away as temptations that lead us away from God, or that we’re too “spiritual” for? I certainly hope not.
Imagine that you’re in the desert, slowly dying of thirst, and a friend of yours goes out on an expedition to try to find water. He returns with a bucket filled with cold water which he claims is from an oasis beyond the horizon. The temptation is to not go to the oasis: after all, you’ve got water right here! And so you quaff the water greedily until it’s gone, and you’re too spent to make the journey. And that’s what sin is like. God reveals His goodness through good gifts, and we decide that since we have these gifts, we don’t need the Gift-giver, and then we overindulge in the earthly gifts until they’re exhausted and we’re spent. And we do this sinfully not just with God, but with one another. Maybe it was a neighbor kid that you hung out with just because he had a Nintendo, or a girl you dated for the sex, or an the elderly relative you spent time with for the inheritance. In each of these cases, something that was itself a good was turned into something ugly by being indulged in in the wrong way. And if you’ve ever been used in this way, you know what that feels like. It doesn’t feel right, because it isn’t right.
But there is a better way. When your friend returns with the water, you should enjoy it, but moderately, as you make your way through the desert from the bucket to the Oasis itself. That approach is harder in the short-term, but it’s critical for your long-term happiness. See past the bucket, as it were: the bucket of cold water bears witness to something greater than itself, something that you can’t see beyond the horizon. And so the good gifts of Creation point beyond themselves to their Invisible Creator. If you want to know what kind of God we have, remember that we have a God who thought we should get beautiful sunsets for no reason other than to enjoy. And so all of these good gifts, including the good gifts of one another, should be enjoyed… but in the right manner and context, and never in such a way as to reduce humans to mere means or to turn objects into ends unto themselves. And how do we know how we ought to enjoy the good things of Creation? By listening to our Creator. After all, God designed not only us but all of the good things in the world.
As humans, we’re tempted to make idols of worldly things. The pagans of old worshiped sacred trees and stars. We tend to worship money. But God gently shows us a better way: the star of Bethlehem leads a group of pagan Magi to offer gold to the newborn King, the same King who will tomorrow save the world on the tree of the Cross, made sacred through the Blood He sheds for our salvation. In these and countless other ways, God shows us that these created things point beyond themselves towards Him, and calls us to stop being satisfied with anything less than God Himself. This is expressed tenderly in Isaiah 55:1-2: ““Ho, every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in fatness.”
Conclusions
I want to close with four simple points that, taken seriously, will revolutionize how we understand the spiritual life:
- Creation is Good because God is Good. The delights of the Earth are not here to trick us, but to point beyond themselves to the Creator.
- Good gifts can be misused, and this is what sin is.
- Sin is deceptive, and doesn’t lead to our long-term happiness.
- Properly enjoyed, all good gifts point beyond themselves to the Gift-giver. If we turn our attention past these things towards Him, He’ll show us how to properly enjoy these gifts in a way that glorifies Him and better satisfies us.
I thought i read somewhere that sin is thinking then acting irrationally. We fail to use reason when acting and this makes us animals and not what we are created for. Is that too simply?
Hi teo,
I think it is… a little too simple.
In my opinion rationality is only one aspect inherent in virtue and sin. The virtue of courage is an example, as it is not reason, but rather love, that will lead the hero to risk his own life to enter a burning building to save others; or, a man to risk his life in trying to stop a terrorist from accomplishing his murderous task. Sometimes, it is the very opposite of reason that incites such virtuous behavior, as great love and charity is not always rational.
But what you say about sinners becoming animalistic makes sense, and it reminds me of the quote of St. Francis who said: “If you are not going forward, you are going backwards”. In my opinion, God intends us to grow closer to Him in all ways, and in everything we do, in the time He provides us in this life. This is proved by the saying of Jesus: “You shall be held accountable for every idle word you utter”. So, this implies that everything we do, and say, in our lives should be directed upwards towards God, Our Father. At least this is the goal taught in the Gospel as, as Jesus saidL: “Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect”. And, Jesus also gave the means to attain this goal, when He taught: ” Pray always that you enter not into temptation”; and to ask of the Father in prayer “Lead us not into temptation”. So, when we do not do these things that Jesus teaches in His Gospel admonitions… we start to descend to the animal level (like the quote form Augustine above), such as is symbolized by the imagery of the ‘serpent’ found throughout sacred scripture. The ‘serpent’ is just about as ‘animalistic’ as you can get.
I’m just bringing up the point that it is not ‘ONLY rationality’, but also other elements that are involved in avoiding sin and evil. And, I think that it is probably the virtue of charity that is more important than reason. And, Jesus insinuates this when He says: “Unless you become like little children you shall not enter the Kingdom of Heaven”. The imagery of the of ‘children’ doesn’t exactly connote rationality, but rather simplicity, humility and charity.
But, this was a great post that Joe wrote, above,… filled with so many truths and great spiritual ideas! I don’t understand how he can continually come up with such excellent posts week after week, year after year??
The innate desire to pursue the good is built into the spiritual and physical components of our nature, and both are affected by feedback processes from the choices we make. We see how inordinate pursuit of physical pleasures result in the body attempting to adjust and ‘normalize’ the abnormal by reducing the physical pleasures and demanding ever increasing stimulation to achieve the same effects. In similar way on the spiritual side, we increasingly seek to justify the pursuit of the inordinate/abnormal and so darken our intellect and conscience and harden our hearts. If not for the grace of God, both are damaging graveyard spirals with unhappiness and physical/spiritual death as the stopping point. The 10 Commandments and other moral teachings of the Church aren’t meant to crush enjoyment of God’s gifts, but are warning signs to avoid these traps and so allow us to happily enjoy them and to draw us home to Him as intended.
Excellent thoughts. I’ve always told my students: the apple always looks appealing.
Bravo! Joe Bravo!
Fantastic Article.
About the only thing I would add is to clarify how Original Sin aggravates and disintegrates our faculties, and cuts us off (at least at first) from an initial relationship with God. I think this would be a good discussion topic too, because I fear that many fall into the trap of a false dichotomy between the protestant “Total Depravity” doctrine, or otherwise completely deny the existence and effects of original sin altogether.
In Joe’s post, above, detailing the ‘Prodigal Son’ and his brother…does not this story also refute the Protestant doctrines of “Total Depravity” and “Once Saved Always Saved”?
In the parable, both sons start off in the family as equals, that is, loved by their father and provided with wealth and treasure to be distributed to them as inheritance at the right time. This signifies that the two were in a good relationship, at one point in their lives, with ‘their Father’; and so would be comparable to 2 Christians being at one point in their lives in a state of sanctifying grace (As the Catholic Church teaches), which is a right and loving relationship in union with God the Eternal Father.
When the Prodigal Son turns away from his Father, this signifies that he has become a ‘slave of sin’, even as Jesus describes when He says:
“Amen, amen I say unto you: that whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin. Now the SERVANT abideth NOT in the house for ever; but the SON abideth for ever.” (John 8:34)
So, we see that those who commit grave/mortal sins, such as the Prodigal Son did, can lose their inheritance and familial treasure provided by the ‘Father’ (sanctifying grace), and are consequently in a state of ‘servitude or slavery’, as Jesus says, to those same sins. This is to say, that ‘son’s of the Father’ can be at one time jiustified/saved, but then lose that ‘state of justification’ (even as the Prodigal Son did) due to their newly chosen state of “slavery to sin” whereby, as Jesus says: “the servant abideth not in the house forever.”
So, the ‘once saved always saved’, and ‘Total Depravity’ Protestant doctrines makes no sense when seen in the light of Jesus’ parable, here. Moreover, a description by Jesus of the nature of the ‘free will’ decisions of the ‘sinful Son’ are also revealed via the thought processes and deliberations that Jesus provides in the story. These ‘free will’ deliberations are what lead him to return to his father, even as they led him to ‘leave his father’ earlier in the parable account. So, in this part of Jesus’ parable, we see a restoration of the original grace that is possible, and a return to ‘union with the father’ due to the son’s adequate and truthful repentance, and we note also Jesus’ description of the father’s great love, mercy and acceptance of his son’s true contrition. So, this is to say, that ‘justification’ can be both lost and found again while we still live here in this ‘valley of tears’.
This is just one example, of many, showing how the ‘OSAS’ and ‘total Depravity’ Protestant doctrines are rendered incomprehensible in light of Jesus’ parables and precepts found through out His gospel message.
Liked your take on the topic and the bosch painting
To answer your question, committing a sin is forbidden in almost all religion and it’s humans nature to grow interest in forbidden things. it’s so simple.
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Hi Eric,
But it is not God’s nature to show interest in forbidden things. So we are given free will to choose whether we want that which He would not. Either we desire to be like Him or like that which contains His falsified image. Forbidden things contain a defaced and deceptive image of His good with the essential good removed. The ‘attraction’ is only a superficial gloss of God’s good. It ‘appears’ to be a fruit. According to Eve, it “looked good to eat.” Immediately afterward, one sees the truth, stark and naked and shameful. Choosing forbidden fruit leads one to work by the sweat of one’s brow to bring forth from dust, sun, rain and seed something good to eat. Choosing God brings all good things through Him alone. Those are essential goods, necessary for salvation.
“Rather, it’s frequently those who have avoided the life of sin that quietly pine for it. ”
I can relate to this. I have led a generally “good” life, but am envious of those who have lived a wilder life. However, the reason I have not lived a wilder life is not because I am good or wise, but because I am too hesitant to pursue the good—even a false good. I would never have the courage to, like the younger brother, demand my inheritance and leave the father’s property. After all, I could lose everything!
But to call this virtuous would be dishonest. Cowardice is the opposite of virtue, even if it leads to the appearance of virtue.
Put another way, I haven’t squandered my money because I buried my talent.
James,
Interesting and honest point. Consider the fate, in Scripture, of the man who buried his talent. Are there other points of comparison between his story and yours?
Best of the Easter Season to you and yours,
Regarding ‘burying our talents’, I think many people are in your same boat, James. But it doesn’t mean that we can’t decide to go back and dig up the buried ‘talent’ again, and then try to put it to good use. And who knows, maybe that little talent will be like the one that the old woman put into the ‘temple collection’ , wherein it would be considered more valuable than all the other offerings of the more talented or ‘gifted’ servants? That is, even if the talent is lost due to a bad investment, an appeal to the ‘master’ with an explanation of the ‘good will effort’ might be of some value to the same master. He might say: “Yes, you made an error in that investment that you took, but you were, at least, 10 times as diligent and thoughtful in your investment strategy as those who were given more capital/talents. So, even if you don’t have any dividends to give back to me, you certainly have demonstrated by your good will, motives and intention, that you have about ten times the love and devotion for me than so many of the other investors who have received even more talents. And, such good intention, love and devotion money can never buy.” That is to say, I believe that our mere efforts are also was important, and not just the results of our efforts…because everyone knows that investments can be lost, having nothing to do with our own deficiencies or sins (i.e.. due to natural disaster, theft, sins of others, …etc..).
So , I guess we should all just love the Master who gives us whatever talents we have, and then just try the best we can with what we’ve been provided with. And then, also trust that the same generous Master is also very reasonable, and so will understand the ardent intentions that we have to ‘multiply those talents’ for Him?
But for sure, the foolish thing is to keep them buried and to ‘do nothing’!
The parable does not discuss a servant who invested the Master’s talents badly and lost them.
My greatest fear is to give myself fully and sacrificially to a really bad cause. I would not only be missing out on everything I had sacrificed, but I would be making the world a worse place in the process. The worst of both worlds.
Well, the parable is a warning of Christ to all of those out there who might indeed have their ‘talent’ buried in the present, so that they might reconsider and go dig it up and do something profitable with it. This is what parables are intended for, to encourage us how to amend our lives before it is too late. Yes, it was too late for the lazy servant in the Gospel story, because he was already being judged. But the parable is designed for those who are still able to change their course, and so it encourages all of us to redouble our efforts at keeping Christ’s words by going out and doing something about it. Jesus said “I have a fire to spread, and what will I but that it be enkindled?”. And also, “The harvest is great but the laborers are few, pray therefore the harvest master that he send laborers into the field”. So, if we give thought to these words of Jesus, we will always be trying to think of better ways of being ‘fishers of men’ for the Lord and His gospel message….and hopefully in this way we might actually ‘bear fruit’ for the Lord, which is also to ‘use our talents wisely and profitably.
( As an example of how one way of putting the above teachings into practice, I went out out to a college campus yesterday, in N. California, and gave out to students who were interested….35 packets of 6 pages each, front and back, of gospel stories derived from Archbsp. Alban Goodier, S.J.’s “The Public Life of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 1930”. The stories given to the students yesterday were from Ch. 1 “The coming of John the Baptist” 3pgs., and Ch. 6 ‘The First Disciples’, 3 pages. Archbp. Goodier is an unbelievably good story teller, and so these texts are great for anyone wanting to know very well ‘who Jesus is’. So, practically speaking…this is how I am currently putting into practice Jesus’ call to “Go out into all the world and teach the Good News’….so-to-say.
Best to you.
“Creation is Good because God is Good. The delights of the Earth are not here to trick us, but to point beyond themselves to the Creator.”
Evil is mankind’s creation. Mankind is Yahweh’s-Jesus creation. Creation is good. Therefore evil (and bacon) is good. The delights of the Earth, including the delights in evil, are not here to trick us, but to point beyond themselves to the Creator, Exum, the All-Powerful Orixá”. Cheers!
Sin, at least of the “deadly” kind, can only be “fun” for those who have no consciousness of it, or those who vainly believe some other sinner who has been ordained a priest may usurp the judgments of God and “forgive” the sinner. Thus merrily deceived, they go off to sin again, and again, confident that a few incantations or a suitable payment to the Roman Church will “get them off the hook”. Why change your behaviour when you think you don’t really have to?
Fun? It’s fun for those who are ignorant of the nature of sin: those who sin in ignorance. For those who know it is sin, it can only be “fun” if they think the priest will get them off the hook next Friday, and every Friday after, ad infinitum.
For those who think God is keeping score, a score to be settled later, the fun can last only as long as they can forget that no one gets out until they have paid to the last farthing.