Following the approach of Fr Basil Cole, op in "Angelic Virtues, Demonic Vices", we now begin the discussion of the seven capital vices and see which "daughter vices" flow from the capital sins.
Handout is below.
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Thomistic Ethics
St Thomas’s Practical Advice for Growing in Holiness
Session 2, The Seven Capital Sins
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want
is what I do. (Romans 7:19)
I. Course Outline
January 20 - Introduction to Thomistic Ethics, The Hope of Heaven
January 27 - Virtue and Vice, and the Seven Capital Sins
February 3 - Virtues to overcome the Vices
February 10 - The Spiritual Life, the Virtues, and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit
II. What is sin? (taken from the Catechism of the Catholic Church)
THE DEFINITION OF SIN
1849 Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as "an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law."
1850 Sin is an offense against God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight." Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become "like gods," knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus "love of oneself even to contempt of God." In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation.125
THE GRAVITY OF SIN: MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN
1854 Sins are rightly evaluated according to their gravity. The distinction between mortal and venial sin, already evident in Scripture,129 became part of the tradition of the Church. It is corroborated by human experience.
1855 Mortal sin destroys charity in the heart of man by a grave violation of God's law; it turns man away from God, who is his ultimate end and his beatitude, by preferring an inferior good to him.
Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.
THE PROLIFERATION OF SIN
1865 Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root.
1866 Vices can be classified according to the virtues they oppose, or also be linked to the capital sins which Christian experience has distinguished, following St. John Cassian and St. Gregory the Great. They are called "capital" because they engender other sins, other vices. They are pride, avarice, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and sloth or acedia.
**The conditions necessary for mortal sin: Grave matter, full knowledge, deliberate consent. “One who sins is a slave of sin.”
III. Pride, the Queen of the Vices
Pride underlies the theory of vice - it is a super-capital vice. Pride especially influences mortal sin. Pride is a disordered love for personal excellence, and leads to rebelling against God’s rule and commandments and to the undue estimation of one’s own abilities. “Pride cometh before the fall.”
Four types of pride: Thinking one’s good is from oneself; or if their good is from above they think it is from their due from their merits; or they boast of what they do not really possess; or they despise others and wish to appear alone as good.
In a general way, pride is the final cause of all sin - though not necessarily of each sin individually (because some are caused by ignorance or weakness).
IV. Lust
Love seeks to give itself away, lust seeks to possess. Lust is the disordered desire for or inordinate enjoyment of sexual pleasure.
Daughters of lust include: blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, rashness, folly - all this undermines prudence. When lust takes control of a person, it becomes an anti-form or inner force working against all the virtues. Extreme lust even leads to hatred of God.
V. Vainglory
Vainglory is the inordinate desire for recognition and for praise. Vainglory is the special property of pride.
Daughters of vainglory include: disobedience, boasting, hypocrisy, contention, obstinancy, discord, presumption of novelties - and can undermine the virtue of hope by presumption.
Similar to lust - what lust is for the flesh, vainglory is for the spirit.
VI. Avarice, Greed
Avarice is the excessive desire for material goods. It is a kind of idolatry.
Daughters of avarice include: treachery, fraud, deceit, perjury, violence, obduracy, restlessness.
VII. Envy
Envy is a sadness at another’s good or successes and an immoderate desire to acquire them for oneself.
Daughters of envy: hatred of neighbor, tale-bearing, detraction, exulting over another’s misfortune, sorrow over another’s good.
VIII. Anger, Wrath
We make the diction between jealous or virtuous anger and vicious or sinful anger.
Wrath is the inordinate desire to inflict punishment without the proper conditions.
Daughters: quarreling and strife, swelling of the heart and mind, contumely, clamor, false indignation, blasphemy.
IX. Gluttony
X. Acedia, Sloth
XI. Spiritualized version of the Seven Deadly Sins
Spiritual Pride: self satisfaction with virtue.
Spiritual avarice: greed for spiritual goods (even material objects of devotion), and greed for spiritual experienes or wisdom.
Spiritual gluttony: Over attachment to good feelings in prayer.
Spiritual wrath: impatience with the weakness of oneself or others
Spiritual sloth: coldness and apathy for the things of God and for prayer
Spiritual envy: To resent the spiritual progress of others or even of the saints
Spiritual lust: When intrusive lustful thoughts and temptation afflict the soul during prayer.