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Research Notes:

 

1.     The seven deadly sins are expressions of love bent inward.[1]

 

—         “All the Seven Deadly Sins are demonstrations of love that has gone wrong.  They spring from the impulse, which is natural in us, to love what pleases us, but that love is misplaced or weakened or distorted” (34).

—         These sins in the end “interrupts, and in the end destroy, one’s capacity to love other objects that are also and perhaps even more deserving . . . If the sins begin in love, they end in lovelessness.  Given that they are all loveless, they are all as serious . . . What the  . . . Seven Deadly Sins shows us is how various are the forms that this lovelessness can and does take”[2] (35).

 

2.   The seven deadly sins are more likely to become dispositional. [3]

•        “Are certain sins more serious than other sins?  . . . although no sin is a trivial matter, certain sins are worse than others . . . It [the deadly sins] place us in greater spiritual jeopardy than others do” (1).

•        “Certain sins are judged to be deadly because they are very likely to become dispositional, and thus relatively permanent features of an individual’s orientation to life . . . The dictionary defines a disposition as a ‘normal or prevailing aspect of one’s nature,’ . . . Thus, certain sins are more deadly than others because they are more likely to become dispositional in nature, disposing us toward a sinful orientation to life” (2).

 

3.   The seven deadly sins vis-à-vis the saving virtues. [4]

•        “. . . even as we are disposed toward certain sins at given stages of the life cycle, we are also disposed toward certain virtues.  In contrast to the deadly sins, these virtues—which I call saving virtues—orient us toward life in ways that enhance human community of every kind, enable us to discern God’s intentions for the world and to contribute to their realization, and contribute to our personal well-being in its various interrelated aspects” (3-4).

 

4.   Why are some sins more “deadly” than other sins?[5]

•        . . . the traditional deadly sins are “deadly” because they are terribly difficult to get rid of once they have taken hold of us.  Like a deadly cancer, they are a wasting disease that spreads, expands, and takes on new forms. 

•        Capps also suggests that from these seven root sins branch out all other forms of sin.  That is, every sin is a variation of the seven deadly sins.  Every sin is a deformed, twisted version of God’s love. 

 

5.   Naming the seven deadly sins.

•        Artists graphically depicted them, Chaucer personified them, Dante and much later, C.S. Lewis toured them, Goethe put them on stage, Hollywood glamorized them, but Christians of the Middle Ages named them: The Seven Deadly Sins.

•        The Bible describes them individually, sometimes in combinations.  Scripture records stories of people who became enslaved to them, but others who resisted them through God’s power.

•        “What the early church leaders knew, social scientists are only now belatedly admitting is this: that we are all sinners by nature and are helpless to be otherwise.”[6]

•        “There is more to salvation than simply accepting the prepositional truth that Jesus died for our sins.  To experience the salvation of God, each of us must individually invite the resurrected Jesus to effect an inner transformation of our personalities.  This lifelong process through which we are radically changed is called sanctification.

 

6.   Where did the seven deadly sins idea come from?

•        The seven uglies are almost as old as Christianity.  The list first probably surfaced among the desert Christians in Egypt in the 4^th century.  These monks became keenly aware of specific sins that greatly endangered the spiritual life.  A man named John Cassian, who began in the Egyptian desert—a sort of early seminary for devote Christians—brought the list to France as a way of training his monks.  Then in the sixth century, Pope Gregory I adapted the list and used it to strengthen both pastors and laity alike.

 

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[1] Henry Fairlie.  The Seven Deadly Sins Today.  (Washington DC: New Republic Books, 1978), p. 34.

[2] Ibid, p. 35.

[3] Donald Capps, Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues.  (Philadelphia:  Fortress, 1987).

[4] Ibid, p. 3.

[5] Capps, Deadly Sins and Saving Virtues, p. 18-19.

[6] Tony Campolo, Seven Deadly Sins, (Wheaton, Illinois:  Scripture Press Publications, 1987), p. 9-10.

 

 

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