Reconsidering the Deadly Sins for a modern audience.

TL;DR : Started a tangent I'm really interested in continuing, but don't want to be an asshole and keep it going in the wrong place.

So I'm taking it here, starting with my attempt to rename the Sins, not to change their meanings, but to use words that more accurately reflect the modern English speaker's use of the language, rather than words from a version of English when 'fag' meant 'sticks', 'boy' meant 'unskilled laborer', and 'protest' meant 'to advocate in favor of.'

In short: the goal is to capture the intent of the Sins, so that you don't need a BA in linguistics or philosophy to understand what the actual meanings are.

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Now, obviously, many philosophers have raked this subject down to the last, and I'm mostly running on Aquinus's ideas as well as the Stoicism philosophy that influenced the concept of Cardinal Sin in the first place... I'll try as much as I can to avoid personal opinion and get to the 'cleanest' definition (that is to say, avoiding getting into depths and edge-cases by staying at the surface level), but defining 'sin' is much like defining 'love'- no two people will fully agree on the depths of meaning.

Here's how I think the list should be rebuilt:

Lust ====== Selfishness
Gluttony === Hedonism
Greed ===== Corruption
Sloth====== Apathy
Wrath ===== Malice
Envy====== Resentment
Pride ===== Contempt

My Reasoning:

Lust ... Is about more than just sexual thoughts, and covers basically all forms of physical longing. Pleasure is one example, but hardly the only. Drug abuse and general laziness fall into this camp. And just generally abandoning one's duties in pursuit of desire. In the modern language, I think Selfishness is apt.

Gluttony ... Is about taking things in excess, and presumably harming others by doing so. Food, being in such short supply for most of history, was the most obvious version... but it also includes all other forms of lavishness. Hedonism is probably the best modern word for the intent of Gluttony.

(Note: It has been a long running debate with philosophers where the line is drawn between Lust and Gluttony... I don't think it'll be much easier to draw a line between 'selfishness' and 'hedonism'... which I consider a point in favor of using these two words for a modern translation. The goal is to capture the original intent, that should include the original categorical overlaps.

Greed ... Was always about more than just the collection of wealth. There's nothing inherently sinful about owning things according to Stoic or Christian tradition. This sin revolves mainly around the methods used to acquire said wealth- namely, sacrificing your morality in pursuit of material gain. As such, a modern translation could be Corruption. It's not about being rich, it's about cheating and exploitation.

Sloth ... While laziness is part of the issue, most philosophers see it as something deeper and is often associated with withdrawal, defeatism, and what modern psychologists will tell you are all the classic signs of depression. I think the most apt word in Modern English would be Apathy.

Congrats, you got it exactly right.

Acedia ... Most literally, it could be translated as 'a lack of love/care' and was folded into the sin of Sloth. I do not disagree with that interpretation, and in fact use this sin's merger as further justification for the use of Apathy as a replacement for Sloth... because it also makes a good modern translation for Acedia.

Wrath ... Again, it's more than merely 'anger', or even 'revenge'- One can be angry and seek out recompense (say, in a court of law) without it being sinful (according to most scholars on the subject)... but one cannot be excessive about it. If someone kills your child, there's nothing wrong with wanting that asshole dead. It is, however, wrong to seek out said asshole, then murder his kid in retaliation. That shit does not fly. Nor does running someone off the road for cutting you off in traffic. Or slashing your ex's tires.

This is a sin of hatred, obsession, and perpetuating a cycle of violence. I wanted to call it 'vengeance', but that isn't quite right in my opinion... I was also tempted to try to define it by its 'opposite' of forgiveness, but that word's not quite adequate in English, either. For lack of any better word, I am going to refer to this one as Cruelty, more for its association with 'cruel and unusual punishment' than it being a perfect fit for the word. 'Spite' and 'pettiness' are other potential picks. None of them really seem adequate to me.

EDIT: Thanks to Sinnerlust for pointing out Malice- I hadn't thought of that one, but it works better than cruelty does.

Envy ... Personally, I think this one is just about where it needs to be, except that the English word has a second meaning- that being of 'jealousy' and 'covetousness' that is adequately covered under the more physical sins at the top, while the sin of Envy is written as a spiritual crime, rather than physical one. I think the word Resentment is more apt. Again, Envy also means Resentment, so changing it is mainly for clarification's sake.

Vainglory... Another discontinued Cardinal Sin. This was the sin of bragging and self-aggrandizement. Eventually, numerous scholars (and at least one Pope) decided to discontinue it, since they viewed this one as just another reflection of Envy, Pride, or Lust/Gluttony rather than a sin in its own right. Mainly I place it here to both agree that it's really not necessary given the other sins, and to help set the stage for discussing the sin from which all other sins are born:


Pride. Now, in modern parlance, 'pride' has many morally fine, and even good, expressions. Pride in your accomplishments, your family, your country... all these are fine and good by Stoic and Christian belief. Even if gong too far slides into the Vainglory zone and should be avoided.

The sin of Pride is the belief that you are superior to others, the belief that you are special and, therefor, deserve all those things that you desire, even if you didn't work for them or they come at the expense of harming others. The belief that consequences don't apply to you. The belief that nobody else matters as much as you do.

I was thinking about calling it 'arrogance', but it doesn't fully capture the nature of this sin, same with 'conceit' and 'hubris'. And while 'narcissism' isn't wrong, I want to avoid using a word that has such a clinical definition.

Eventually, I settled on Contempt. Specifically, having contempt for others (extending all the way up to the top and having contempt for God Himself). I don't think it's a perfect word, but it's the best I've got.


That was a fun intellectual exercise. It'll be fun watching this little sandcastle get kicked in.

 

I have been summoned, and I honestly find this a fairly accurate assessment of sin.

 

Berserk is also an option.

Lust can summon the FBI, without ever getting off your chair, but for Gluttony you'd at least need to actually cross a State line in pursuit of an FBI-summoning pleasure.

 

I think malice is also a good word.

 

Ooh, I like. It's a synonym with all the other words I was considering, and unlike the rest, it has a gradient scale ranging from petty bullying all the way up to genocide.

Now to do a bit of edits.

 

From my understanding, greed isn’t just about doing immoral things in pursuit of wealth, it’s about putting material gain over your other needs, and over the needs of others. Sacrificing your relationships to advance your career isn’t corrupt, but it is greedy.

It’s also distinct from gluttony in that - as far as I understand it - gluttony is about consuming more than you need. It’s about indulging to the point where it harms you or takes away from people who need what you’re consuming. I’m not sure Hedonism is the best descriptor, but I don’t know what’s better.

 

I suppose it depends on which scholar you ask, but the general consensus of the oldest (and therefor the ones most likely to understand the original meanings of the words being used) seemed to be that Lust and Gluttony covered those aspects, while acts of theft, bribery, and selling religious favors was uniquely the sin of Greed.

Yeah, some of them are hard to translate. Especially Lust and Gluttony, which are interchangeable as often as not.

 

I’m not sure; I know Thomas Aquinas said Greed is a sin against your neighbor because it’s impossible for one to have too much without others not having enough. There’s also the Parable of the Rich Fool, who has an abundant harvest and decides to store it away to make his life easy, only to die that very night. Saint Augustine’s interpretation is that he ought to have shared that harvest with those in need rather than trying to hoard it, because then it would have done him some good.

I think it’s impossible to really get at the meaning of the sin of Greed without putting it in the context of Charity. We’re called to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Greed in that sense is refusal to do so; to put your materialism over the needs of others.

There’s a lot of overlap between Greed and Gluttony, so you might be right that those are better acknowledged as gluttonous acts. But the term used is Greed.

 

It is interesting how the more modern suggestions are mostly much longer than the older words. That probably means something, but alas I am insufficiently knowledgeable about etymology.

 

Matthew 19:16-24 (and synoptic passages in Mark and Luke). I seem to recall some stuff from the Pauline epistles as well; the early Christians were fanatical about it.

I mean, yes, for the majority of its history the Church has mostly pretended this isn't there (because it's inconvenient to a Church that has and wants to hold onto power and wealth), but it is there nonetheless.

 

That the meaning of words have changed from what they used to?

That segment was a rebuke to the young rich man who seemed perfect and thus did not need salvation from Jesus. However, no living person can earn forgivness. Only those who submit to Jesus will earn eternal bliss.

 

It means they're less commonly used.

Longer words tend to be less popular among general populace (and generally more popular among the scholastic sorts), making them far less vulnerable to linguistic drift, where monosyllabic words generally have more meanings*, and shift their meanings more readily.

*Ball has several meanings (including 'party' and slang for sex), sphere has two (the obscure one means 'influence'), where spherical has exactly one. This is a very consistent pattern.

With some exceptions. For example: 'narcissism' doesn't exactly mean today what it meant when first coined, but that's primarily because we turned it into a scientific term, and as the science revealed numerous misconceptions, the meaning of the word changed to fit the improved scientific definition, rather than changing the name of the disorder.

Which is why I wanted to avoid it or other specific scientific terminology: they're too vulnerable to non-linguistic influence.

What Rakdos said: giving up one's wealth for poverty *is* a moral good where Christianity is concerned, but it's not a moral *necessity*. One can be a good Christian while also being wealthy, just as one can be both impoverished and a terrible Christian.

What that section of the bible is trying to get across is that one cannot be a perfect Christian. Mainly because it simply is not possible for any human to ever be perfect (a belief that doesn't exactly require Christian sentiment to accept). Thus: it is by God's mercy that Heaven is given (as in, as a gift), because there is no means by which man can ever actually earn it.

We will never be worthy. But, we don't have to be. God is nice like that.

Or so Christians believe.

 

That's all well and good, but there's something else interesting going on here. If etymonline is accurate, my hunch was right.

Keeping the old names and your new proposed names in the same order and labeling by origin, what we have is:

Old English => English
Old French => Greek
Old English => Latin
Old English => Latin
Old English => Old French
Old French => French
Old English => Latin

It's not just a drift towards longer words, it's a drift from Germanic to Romance originated vocabulary.