Pints With Aquinas - 70: What are the 7 deadly sins? (Part 2)

Starting point is 00:00:00 Pints with Aquinas depends on your support. If you're an awesome person and want to prove it, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click the Patreon banner, and there you can learn how to support the show for as little as $2 a month. Every dollar helps, and we are grateful for your support. Welcome to Pints with Aquinas, episode 70. I'm Matt Fradd. If you could sit down over a pint of beer with St. Thomas Aquinas and ask him any one question, what would it be? Today, we will be continuing our discussion from last week on the seven capital sins. So, if you haven't got a chance to listen to last week's episode, you may want to do that before listening to this week's episode. In particular, this week, we'll be discussing the capital sins of sloth, avarice, gluttony, and lust.

Starting point is 00:01:08 Welcome back to Pints with Aquinas, the show where you and I pull up a barstool next to the angelic doctor to discuss theology and philosophy. You'll remember last week that we began looking at the seven deadly sins, and in particular we were drawing on a work from Pope St. Gregory the Great. That work is called the Books of the Morals, an exposition on the book of Blessed Job. And the reason we're looking at that book is that it is a work that is often cited in the Summa Theologiae by St. Thomas Aquinas when he treats of vice and virtue. You remember too that we talked about, vice and virtue. You remember too that we talked about, according to Pope St. Gregory, the queen of the sins, as it were, was pride. And that once pride had fully overtaken the soul, she then gives

Starting point is 00:01:55 that soul to her generals, which are these seven sins. Now, today, when we talk of the seven deadly sins, we conflate pride and vainglory. The reason Pope St. Gregory didn't do that, he says pride is the queen sin, and then the very first general is vainglory. So, that's why you've got the chief sin and then the seven sins that follow. But nonetheless, we are discussing the seven deadly sins. And hey, kudos to you for taking the time to listen to a podcast all about sin. Not very popular today, is it? And it's not something that we necessarily get a lot from the pulpit, which is very unfortunate because sin, Satan, hell exist. And it's important, of course, that the Christian know about this or else he just won't realize that he is in a spiritual battle and that things are

Starting point is 00:02:46 demanded of him, right? I think it was the Protestant writer John Eldredge who said, you are not living in a comedy, right? You are living in an action life film. You are living in a world at war. And we need to be aware of that if we're going to be full-fledged Christians. Okay, now since we last week have already looked at vainglory, envy, and anger, the next capital sin we want to look at is what Pope St. Gregory the Great calls melancholy. And this is something we call sloth. Sometimes it's referred to as dejection and here's what he says melancholy is also want to exhort the conquered heart as if with reason when it says what ground hast thou to rejoice when thou endurest so many wrongs from thy neighbors

Starting point is 00:03:38 consider with what sorrow all must be looked upon who who are turned in such gull of bitterness against thee. So, this sloth, dejection, melancholy, in the Synthiologiae, Thomas Aquinas defines it as, quote, sorrow about spiritual good. Elsewhere, he says it's this sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good, right? He says, it is evil in its effect if it so oppresses man as to draw him away entirely from good deeds. The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to this sin as acedia, right, or spiritual sloth. It says it goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God and to be repelled by divine goodness. It includes ceasing to use the gifts of grace, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. It's not like other capital sins, right, which are sins of literally committing immorality.

Starting point is 00:04:58 Sloth is a sin not in the sense of being a positive thing, right? Like anger, greed, you're actually kind of doing something. This is more a sin of omission, like we mentioned a moment ago. It's a lacking of the desire one ought to have in the face of a genuine good. It can come from other sins, right? Like someone might decide not to be good to his mother or father, right? Not fulfill his duties towards them because of the sin of anger. And so, some of the armies of melancholy or sloth is malice, rancor. awesome word, by the way. It means a bitterness about something that may have taken place in the past that you just can't let go of. Again, this sense, right, of melancholy, this refusal to get over something, this refusal to be joy. Cowardice, despair, slothfulness in fulfilling the commands, slothfulness in fulfilling the commands, wandering of the mind on unlawful objects. How are you slothful? Sometimes life has a way of beating down upon us, doesn't it? And we can get to the point where we don't make a conscious decision to be slothful, to be melancholy,

Starting point is 00:06:21 but it ends up happening. And if we were to examine why it is we're choosing to be melancholy, it might be something as simple as, what's the point of getting excited about life when all this stuff keeps happening to me anyway? Like, I may as well remain down here, have massive low expectations, and at least that way I won't be disappointed. I went to confession recently. One of the things I confessed was this lack of joy that I sometimes have when I'm with my family and when I'm with my kids. I'm always nitpicking. I'm always worried about them spilling milk on the counter or, you know, dropping food on the ground. And it's so hard for me, this is one of my personal faults that I'm

Starting point is 00:07:02 airing publicly on this podcast, to kind of get over. You know, I wish I could be a lot more chill about it and think to myself, whatever, it's just food. You know, I'll clean it up later. It's not a big deal. Like, the kids are having fun. So, there's this lack of joy. And the priest said to me, it's very important that the father of the house be joyful, right? Because you set the tone. So, I need to repent, right, of that melancholy. So, I need to repent of that melancholy. Okay. Well, the sixth capital sin, the general, if you will, that the queen of the sins pride is going to bring in is that of avarice, which I said extremely intensely, avarice, which is like an inordinate greed for money, for wealth, or for just material gain. Now, again, it's not a sin because that which we desire is necessarily sinful. It's a sin because it's an immoderate desire, an excessive desire. So, avarice, sometimes called greed, is also sometimes called covetousness.

Starting point is 00:08:08 And here is what Pope St. Gregory the Great has to say about it. Avarice also is one to exhort the conquered mind as if with reason, when it says, it is a very blameless thing that thou desirest something to possess, because thou seekest not to be increased, but art afraid of being in want. And that which another retains for no good, thou thyself expendest to better purpose. This is a real difficult one. We spoke about the different ways in which greed, you know, desire for riches and these sorts of things can't make us happy early on in the beginning of this podcast. You can scroll back to one of those beginning episodes. But it's difficult, right? Because it often comes from this lack of trust in God. It's not just that

Starting point is 00:08:58 we want all of the things now, all right, so that we can use them now. It also stems from this fear that God isn't good, that God won't provide for me. And this produces a sort of agitation in the heart that I have to look out for myself, that I cannot trust others, not even God, to meet my own needs, and I need this. I need more of this. I need more of that. Shouldn't it convince us that having more isn't necessarily going to make us happy? God rest his soul, the lead singer of Linkin Park, I think he was around 40, committed suicide recently, as many of you may know. Now, that's not me accusing him of being greedy, just because he was wealthy doesn't mean he was greedy. But my point is, we can look to many of these personalities in Hollywood and who are the head, leading rock

Starting point is 00:09:54 bands and all this sort of stuff. Many of them are ending their life. And if it were the case that just having more would make us happy, certainly they would be the happiest that they were, but unfortunately, they're not. So, avarice, not a good thing. Here's what he has to say regarding the daughters of avarice and what it brings with it, what the general of avarice Springs with it. Treachery, fraud, deceit, perjury, restlessness, violence, hardness of heart against compassion. That restlessness one really speaks to me. I don't know about you, but this restlessness. I don't know, you know, back in the day, I think when I grew up and there was no internet, you know, my mom and dad had, and your mom and dad, provided you're around my age, had fewer options than we do today. And maybe it was because of that

Starting point is 00:10:51 that they were happier than if they had have had all of the options we have today. What I mean is sometimes when you have what seems to be an endless number of options, it's easy to become sad because you always think, well, I could have this, I could move there, I could do this job, I could work from there, I could move to this country. And there's this perpetual restlessness, especially in a day and age like this where we can make money online. There's always ways that you can make money. You might not make a lot of money, but hey, you can start a blog, sell t-shirts, start a podcast, maybe call it Pints with Aquinas and have a Patreon account, right? Like, there are all sorts of ways that we can make money. And

Starting point is 00:11:32 because of that, we can kind of fall into this trap of always being concerned with more. Like, I just need more. I need more. Why? Why do you need more? I just need more. And then we end up spending more, using more, and wanting more. And this can create this restlessness in it, in our hearts, which, as I say, I think can sometimes be the result of not trusting in God to meet our needs. Okay, so the seventh general that the Queen of Pride is going to bring in is that of gluttony. There are five ways that St. Thomas Aquinas says that we can commit this sin of gluttony, which has to do with the inordinate desire for food and drink. Gluttony might come about by us desiring food or drink too soon, too expensively, too much, too eagerly, or too daintily. All right. So, again, too soon, too expensively,

Starting point is 00:12:36 too much, too eagerly, too daintily. So, we can desire food too soon. So, you're not really hungry, but, you know, you just desire the pleasure that food will bring about and so you eat when you really should have waited. And we think about this when we talk to kids about why they shouldn't be eating before dinner. You should wait. In doing that, we're treating them to be temperate. We can also sin by eating too expensively, right? When something less fine will do, but we demand that we should always have the best sort of thing, even when it's too expensively. We can commit gluttony by having too much food, all right? So, we really don't need to be eating this much, but we eat way too much than we should have, we drink way too much than we should have. And what ends up happening? Doesn't

Starting point is 00:13:24 it always happen that we think to ourselves, gosh, I should have just stopped with that one. It's like when you get this dessert and you eat it and it's absolutely mind-blowing. And then you're like, I'll have one more because you want to recreate the same experience you just had when you ate the first thing. But then you have it and it's not as good. And you think, gosh, I should have just waited with one more. Now I've got a stomach ache. So, gluttony can be, of course, we can commit gluttony by eating or drinking too much, too eagerly, right? Think if you sat down with a person who started just shoving their face, licking their plate. No, no, you're not showing any sort of restraint, any sort of temperance. This is why my parents always said, don't drink out of the cereal bowl. Don't worry, I'm not saying that you're a bad parent or a bad person

Starting point is 00:14:04 if you do drink out of the cereal bowl, but I think there's a good point to that, right? And what might they say? Don't eat like a pig. And what they mean by that is something rather theologically precise or accurate in that, or maybe we could say ontologically accurate, like you're a human being, like you shouldn't act like an animal. You shouldn't act like an animal that does not have reason. I like that. And then finally, too daintily. Daintily is something very elaborate, and this would also have to do with something very expensive, but it might be a little different in that, you know, in one instance, we might desire to eat what's most expensive. In another instance, we might desire to eat what is most sort of intricate, and maybe we want to do that for a number of reasons. One, it might stem from a

Starting point is 00:14:49 sort of pride that we should have the best that the world has to offer. Maybe secondly, this sort of desire to be seen better than others in what we're eating. Now, regarding gluttony, St. Pope Gregory the Great says that gluttony is also want to exhort the conquered heart as if with reason when it says, God has created all things clean in order to be eaten, and he who refuses to fill himself with food, what else does he do but gainsay the gift that has been granted him? Isn't that wonderful? I'm going to continue to say that, you know, this idea that it exhorts the conquered heart as if with reason, right? We always sort of like talk ourselves into these things, right? Uncleanness, babbling, dullness of sense in understanding, foolish mirth,

Starting point is 00:15:49 understanding. Foolish mirth. Scurrility. Scurrility. I'll be honest, I didn't actually recognize that word when I first saw it, but it comes from scurrilous. And scurrilous is when you make scandalous claims about somebody in order to detract from them, to damage their reputation. And I think the things that this general brings along with him or her, if you will, make sense because they dull the intellect. If we're going to be so careless with the basic necessities of food and drink, it's going to enable us to be careless in other areas of life as well, such as speech. And that's why I think one of these things that part of the army of gluttony is going to be babbling. We just talk without thinking whether or not we should be talking. We speak badly about other people. We're dull

Starting point is 00:16:37 because we've eaten so much or drank so much. Okay, eighth. So, this is the final one. Again, remember, the reason that there's eight is because pride was the queen and these seven, beginning with vainglory, were the generals. when it says, Why enlargest thou not thyself now in thy pleasure, when thou knowest not what may follow thee? Thou oughtest not to lose in longings the time thou hast received, because thou knowest not how speedily it may pass by. For if God had not wished man to be united in the pleasure of coition, he would not, at the first beginning of the human race, have made them male and female, right? Isn't this a lie we tell ourselves, eh? Well, hey, if God didn't want me looking at porn, masturbating, hooking up with people, going to massage parlors, seeking out a prostitute, well, he wouldn't have given me all these sexual desires, right? Why has God given

Starting point is 00:17:40 me all these sexual desires if he's asking me to be chaste? Okay. What does lust bring with it? Blindness of mind, inconsiderateness, inconstancy, self-love, hatred of God, affection for this present world. Perhaps we could say an inordinate affection for this present world. Dread or despair of that which is to come. Wow. For some reason, I feel like because of the age of the internet, I feel like maybe lust and gluttony, at least even if they're not the two we commit the most, they do tend to be the most obvious and apparent to us. Blindness of mind, this dullness that comes over the person entrenched

Starting point is 00:18:26 in porn. I often say, I've never met anybody entrenched in pornography who I either found interesting or who found me or anyone else for that matter, interesting, right? The lustful man, the lustful woman's world is becoming narrower and narrower, sepia-toned, uninteresting. They lose interest in that which used to bring them pleasure and delight, such as playing with their children, planting a garden, listening to good music, reading a book. And now they only have a mind for one thing, the laptop in the den or the iPhone in the bathroom. And it leads us to this inconstancy, this inconsiderateness. And you certainly do see this in porn addicts. I see it in my work with porn addicts. They just don't care about other people, don't care about your needs. I care about my needs. And that's because lust is a very selfish act where, you know, it's like, at least with gluttony, you know,

Starting point is 00:19:32 when we're downing on food or beer or whatever, at least we're not objectifying someone, right? We're using objects to stuff our face in order to feel better. But with pornography, it's like we have to first objectify that which ought not to be objectified, which cannot be objectified because it's a subject, a person, and then we gorge on them. So, that's lust. So, as we wrap up here, let's give a quote from St. Gregory who refers to the man or woman, the Christian, as a soldier of God, who's going to do battle with the queen of the army, that is pride, and the seven generals that wish to lay waste the soul. He says, but the soldier of God, and that's you, dear listener, since he endeavors skillfully to pursue the contests with vices, smells the battle afar off.

Starting point is 00:20:27 Because while he considers with anxious thought what power the leading evils possess to persuade the mind, he detects by the sagacity of his scent. Sagacity means awareness, acuteness of mind, right? The sagacity of his scent, the acuteness of his sin, the exhortation of the leaders. And because he beholds the confusion of subsequent iniquities by foreseeing them afar off, he finds out, as it were, by his sin, the howling of the army. So, these seven deadly sins will make us mad, lose our reason, and if we do not repent of them, will lead us to eternal damnation. So, let's repent of them. Again, those seven deadly sins can be thought of with the analogy I got from Taylor Marshall as pale gas, pale gas, pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice, and sloth. Another thing Taylor recommended, and I think it's great, is sometimes it's very difficult to do an examination of conscience, don't you think? Especially at the end of the day when you're really exhausted. Another thing that's sometimes difficult is when you go to the sacrament of

Starting point is 00:21:41 confession and you're not really sure what you should confess precisely because you haven't been doing your examination of conscience at night. Here's a quick way to do it. As you're laying in bed, as you're kneeling before, you know, right at the side of your bed or something, think of those things, pale gas, and ask yourself, how have I been prideful today? How have I been angry? How have I been lustful? How have I been envious? How have I been gluttonous? How have I been avarice, greedy? And how have I been lustful how have i been envious how have i been gluttonous how have i been uh avarice greedy and how have i been slothful i hope that this has been a blessing to you thank you so much for listening to pints with aquinas if pints with aquinas has been a blessing to you and you want to support the show keep it going not just going but going from good to great please go to

Starting point is 00:22:22 pints with aquinas.com and click support. If everyone listening gave $2 a month, seriously, we would be set to jet. So if you think the show is worth that much, please go ahead, go to pintswithaquinas.com, click support on the Patreon banner, and there you can support the show. Chat with you next week. Who's gonna survive? Who's gonna survive? And I would give my whole life to carry you.

Pints With Aquinas - 70: What are the 7 deadly sins? (Part 2)

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