HOME | DD

Description
Sin Series - Part 2: The Seven Deadly Sins - Sloth

     "The only thing required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
     That saying, or whatever paraphrase you care to use, isn't really aimed at admonishing sloth when we hear it most of the time.  But it does hint at a greater depth to the subject than a casual glance may reveal to the moral significance of what many today consider a mere foible.
     Though perhaps I should not say that.  You see, in my own country, and increasingly in other countries as they try to emulate us, sloth is, among a certain section of the populace, the most despicable of sins.  Such people will tolerate any level of greed, ambition, falsity, or exce3ss in a man so long as he does not ask for a day off work.
     Both attitudes are errors, but the issue is more complicated even than avoiding this false dilemma, thanks to the legalistic view of morality currently popular in most Western societies.  It frequently never occurs to such a mindset to think of a largely negative sin like sloth at all.  This problem reaches further even than that.  The sin of sloth is so very nearly nothing at all, though a caustic and dangerous nothing, that it is quite difficult to write about, I have discovered.
     Look at it this way.  The Ten Commandments, which are not nearly as central to Christianity as many people suppose, are almost completely prohibitive.  The begin with the famous trilogue "Thou Shalt Not".  Now, this is typical of most human ethical systems.  It is especially typical of Western pagan ethical systems, in their historical form.  To forestall any objections I might hear to that assertion from, say, Wiccans, who might offer the Rede as a counterexample, I will say now that, whatever else might be said in praise of neopaganism, it is not historical.  By no means do I offer that as an argument against it, or a criticism of it - considered within a large enough frame of time, any religion is unhistorical, because every religion has a beginning, whether it is recorded or not.  But, neopaganism does not, as far as I can tell, have its deepest roots in what little we actually know about the practices and beliefs of ancient Western pagans.
     To return to my theme, this trend of negative ethics tends to lead to a perception of sin as a positive thing - something we do, or else something we avoid.  A good man is a man who minds his own business, doesn't carry things too far, and doesn't hurt anyone.  The more positive virtues, where they are valued at all, are prized as heroic exceptions more than they are held as standards, with the exception of courage, which virtually every culture at every time has required of every man, and sometimes every woman, too.
     This is not a universal principle.  Great philosophers, prophets, and holy men and women of all religions and all cultures have seen that there is more to goodness, more demanded of us, than just following rules.  But in Christianity this recognition occupies the centermost position in ethics.  The Golden Rule has some formulation in almost every system of ethics, but, as far as I know, only in the words of Jesus does it find an entirely proactive, positive form: "do as you would be done by".  Forget staying out of each others' way; we are to work hard to be everything to other people that we wish they would be to us.
     And that is exactly the key: hard work.  The Christian, conscious as he must be that God intends much more for him than mere benignity.  After all, even a tumor can be benign.  An organ must be functional and useful, and the sacred texts call us "parts of the Body of Christ".  Therefore, he must do more than merely exist.  He must condition himself for exertion.  It need not be physical activity, necessarily, but as Thomas à Kempis wrote in The Imitation of Christ, "the highest does not stand without the lowest".
     I have come a long way around to explain a very simple thing, I know, but I wished to avoid any confusion about the reason why Christians include sloth among the Seven.  On the one hand, the true focus of exertion is to help transform us into the sort of creatures God intends us to be.  We are not to become so focused on the task that we forget its, and our, larger context.
     On the other hand, though, we are not to work at unworthy tasks.  In laying out the plan for a Christian Utopia, St. Paul says that every man is to work at producing something good, so that he will have something to give to the poor.  We are not to work merely to stay busy, nor are we to work for purely selfish ends - though we are certainly allowed to profit from our labors, within reason and as circumstances, civil laws, and charity permit.
     I am sure my reader is disappointed in me at this point.  I promised essays on sin, and here I am writing a meandering little riff about virtue, theology, and other boring topics.  But, as I pointed out at the start, the nature of sloth precludes a simple and direct discussion.  It is the great blank, the negative sin.  It is the "sin of omission".  Clearly, it can therefore be understood only in light of what we are supposed to do - a topic on which different philosophies and faiths differ considerably more than they differ on what we are not supposed to do.  Hence, I have given my reader an idea what the faith I am discussing has to say on the matter.  I will now discuss, in that context, what some of the consequences of sloth are.
     Again, I am afraid I will disappoint my reader.  The fireworks here will not be as dazzling as they may previously have been.  As the sin of sloth is purely negative, so are its consequences.  For instance, a slothful person is not likely to develop a great deal of self-control or discipline.  This may lead to gluttony, greed, lust, or any other sin of excess.  Or not.  If the man is predisposed to those sins, it will certainly eliminate anything that might prevent his falling into them.  But if he isn't, he may be no more likely to commit them than a regular worker bee.  Sloth is a gateway sin, in a sense, but not as dangerously so as the others.
     More serious is the difficulty which sloth creates in the alteration of habits.  The path the Christian has to follow is not easy or comfortable - it has its high points, yes, but it also leads through the garden of Gethsemane, down the Via Dolorosa, and right up to the Cross on Golgotha.  It is fraught with temptations, easy outs, and distractions.  And it is narrow.  There is plenty of help in the form of Divine Grace for those who ask for it, but there is work that must be done oneself, as well.  And the only safe-haven for the will against temptation in the end is habit.  Unfortunately, habit is also the will's greatest foe.  Until it is conquered and forced into the service of the will, it cannot be used in the pursuit of holiness.  And a will weakened and besotted by sloth just isn't enough to accomplish that difficult and unpleasant task.
     In the end, though, the most dangerous consequence of the sin is also the hardest to perceive, because it cannot be seen until the sin has been conquered.  As long as a man is lazy, he will not be doing the Lord's Work, for which he was made, and which will remain undone unless he does it.  And to fail in that is to miss the whole point of existence.

Description
Sin Series - Part 2: The Seven Deadly Sins - Sloth

     "The only thing required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing."
     That saying, or whatever paraphrase you care to use, isn't really aimed at admonishing sloth when we hear it most of the time.  But it does hint at a greater depth to the subject than a casual glance may reveal to the moral significance of what many today consider a mere foible.
     Though perhaps I should not say that.  You see, in my own country, and increasingly in other countries as they try to emulate us, sloth is, among a certain section of the populace, the most despicable of sins.  Such people will tolerate any level of greed, ambition, falsity, or exce3ss in a man so long as he does not ask for a day off work.
     Both attitudes are errors, but the issue is more complicated even than avoiding this false dilemma, thanks to the legalistic view of morality currently popular in most Western societies.  It frequently never occurs to such a mindset to think of a largely negative sin like sloth at all.  This problem reaches further even than that.  The sin of sloth is so very nearly nothing at all, though a caustic and dangerous nothing, that it is quite difficult to write about, I have discovered.
     Look at it this way.  The Ten Commandments, which are not nearly as central to Christianity as many people suppose, are almost completely prohibitive.  The begin with the famous trilogue "Thou Shalt Not".  Now, this is typical of most human ethical systems.  It is especially typical of Western pagan ethical systems, in their historical form.  To forestall any objections I might hear to that assertion from, say, Wiccans, who might offer the Rede as a counterexample, I will say now that, whatever else might be said in praise of neopaganism, it is not historical.  By no means do I offer that as an argument against it, or a criticism of it - considered within a large enough frame of time, any religion is unhistorical, because every religion has a beginning, whether it is recorded or not.  But, neopaganism does not, as far as I can tell, have its deepest roots in what little we actually know about the practices and beliefs of ancient Western pagans.
     To return to my theme, this trend of negative ethics tends to lead to a perception of sin as a positive thing - something we do, or else something we avoid.  A good man is a man who minds his own business, doesn't carry things too far, and doesn't hurt anyone.  The more positive virtues, where they are valued at all, are prized as heroic exceptions more than they are held as standards, with the exception of courage, which virtually every culture at every time has required of every man, and sometimes every woman, too.
     This is not a universal principle.  Great philosophers, prophets, and holy men and women of all religions and all cultures have seen that there is more to goodness, more demanded of us, than just following rules.  But in Christianity this recognition occupies the centermost position in ethics.  The Golden Rule has some formulation in almost every system of ethics, but, as far as I know, only in the words of Jesus does it find an entirely proactive, positive form: "do as you would be done by".  Forget staying out of each others' way; we are to work hard to be everything to other people that we wish they would be to us.
     And that is exactly the key: hard work.  The Christian, conscious as he must be that God intends much more for him than mere benignity.  After all, even a tumor can be benign.  An organ must be functional and useful, and the sacred texts call us "parts of the Body of Christ".  Therefore, he must do more than merely exist.  He must condition himself for exertion.  It need not be physical activity, necessarily, but as Thomas à Kempis wrote in The Imitation of Christ, "the highest does not stand without the lowest".
     I have come a long way around to explain a very simple thing, I know, but I wished to avoid any confusion about the reason why Christians include sloth among the Seven.  On the one hand, the true focus of exertion is to help transform us into the sort of creatures God intends us to be.  We are not to become so focused on the task that we forget its, and our, larger context.
     On the other hand, though, we are not to work at unworthy tasks.  In laying out the plan for a Christian Utopia, St. Paul says that every man is to work at producing something good, so that he will have something to give to the poor.  We are not to work merely to stay busy, nor are we to work for purely selfish ends - though we are certainly allowed to profit from our labors, within reason and as circumstances, civil laws, and charity permit.
     I am sure my reader is disappointed in me at this point.  I promised essays on sin, and here I am writing a meandering little riff about virtue, theology, and other boring topics.  But, as I pointed out at the start, the nature of sloth precludes a simple and direct discussion.  It is the great blank, the negative sin.  It is the "sin of omission".  Clearly, it can therefore be understood only in light of what we are supposed to do - a topic on which different philosophies and faiths differ considerably more than they differ on what we are not supposed to do.  Hence, I have given my reader an idea what the faith I am discussing has to say on the matter.  I will now discuss, in that context, what some of the consequences of sloth are.
     Again, I am afraid I will disappoint my reader.  The fireworks here will not be as dazzling as they may previously have been.  As the sin of sloth is purely negative, so are its consequences.  For instance, a slothful person is not likely to develop a great deal of self-control or discipline.  This may lead to gluttony, greed, lust, or any other sin of excess.  Or not.  If the man is predisposed to those sins, it will certainly eliminate anything that might prevent his falling into them.  But if he isn't, he may be no more likely to commit them than a regular worker bee.  Sloth is a gateway sin, in a sense, but not as dangerously so as the others.
     More serious is the difficulty which sloth creates in the alteration of habits.  The path the Christian has to follow is not easy or comfortable - it has its high points, yes, but it also leads through the garden of Gethsemane, down the Via Dolorosa, and right up to the Cross on Golgotha.  It is fraught with temptations, easy outs, and distractions.  And it is narrow.  There is plenty of help in the form of Divine Grace for those who ask for it, but there is work that must be done oneself, as well.  And the only safe-haven for the will against temptation in the end is habit.  Unfortunately, habit is also the will's greatest foe.  Until it is conquered and forced into the service of the will, it cannot be used in the pursuit of holiness.  And a will weakened and besotted by sloth just isn't enough to accomplish that difficult and unpleasant task.
     In the end, though, the most dangerous consequence of the sin is also the hardest to perceive, because it cannot be seen until the sin has been conquered.  As long as a man is lazy, he will not be doing the Lord's Work, for which he was made, and which will remain undone unless he does it.  And to fail in that is to miss the whole point of existence.