The secular world doesn’t take sin seriously. Either its reality is denied so its apparent pleasures can be embraced — the allure of the Sexual Revolution, for example — or it’s shunned altogether because acknowledging the existence of evil is too painful. But sanity requires both recognising and resisting it. We have to recognise it because to deny it is to deny our humanity, and we have to resist it because otherwise it destroys us. Especially the spiritual sins, which are even worse than the carnal ones.
Man is the only rational animal, and that means man is the only animal capable of sin. Man’s actions are supposed to be guided by reason, but sin usurps reason’s throne. When reason rules, good habits develop, but sin is the tyranny of irrationality. As Augustine said, sin is ‘a thought, word or deed against the Eternal Law.’ The formal element in sin, then, is its opposition to Eternal Law, but thoughts, words and deeds are the material element it’s constructed from.
This opposition doesn’t mean that anybody actually chooses sin as sin. The fear of humiliation, for example, might lead someone to lie, or the desire for revenge might lead a lover to murder a rival. People only ever act for some perceived good: just like any other human act, sin is directed to a goal. But it’s a bad goal in relation to God, ourselves or our neighbour. That’s why, etymologically, sin was always described using archery terms. The sinner misses the mark. He might hit what he’s aiming at — pulling off the bank robbery, murdering the love rival — but he’s aiming at the wrong thing.
Whereas the carnal sins involve the sinner’s aim going wrong due to conversion to the creature, however, the spiritual sins are more about aversion from God. The horny fornicator, for example, is mainly focused on the beauty of his lover and the delights she offers. Because the Sexual Revolution has been so obviously disastrous, a lot of shame is attached to the carnal sins. Self-righteous trad types turn up their noses in disgust at women with high bodycounts.
But the spiritual sins not only involve greater malice and deliberation but are also directed against a greater object: ultimately, God Himself. The more the fornicator gets caught up in the rush of passion, the closer he gets to being like a horny monkey: his act becomes less human. As Aquinas says, whereas lust and gluttony require a body, pride and envy are the only sins we share with demons. Traditionally, it was even said that the higher demons refuse to tempt men to lust because they’re so disgusted by it, regarding it as beneath them. They’re after bigger game.
The graver the sin, then, the greater the virtue it attacks. And that’s why pride is locked in mortal combat with humility. If virtue is like a groove that helps all our energies and acts aim at reason, sin brings chaos by setting us against God, ourselves and society, and pride is at the root of it all. All sins are ultimately sins of pride and disobedience.
And the holier the sinner, the worse the sin. This point is often forgotten. Although circumstances such as time, place, manner and so on can obviously increase the malice of a sin, as can the amount of damage done and to whom, the condition of the sinner himself is critical. The holier the sinner, the fewer excuses he has. The greater the gifts he’s received, the greater the punishment he deserves. “Unto whomsoever much is given, of him much shall be required.”
The greater the order, in other words, the greater the potential for disorder. Hence Lucifer’s sin was the worst of all because he was given most. Because of his greater dignity, he was capable of greater indignity. And this is important to remember when engaging with people who’ve been seduced by the many and powerful subversive forces seeking their ruin. The more we know about the Faith, the more we should pity and love them.
Christ warned that ‘because iniquity hath abounded, the charity of many shall grow cold,’ and although the saints say that lust lands the most souls in hell, pride lands souls deeper in hell. Remember: yes, the degenerate red-pill promiscuous bro is closer to being a mindless horny monkey than the trad who feels contempt for him is, but that’s because the trad is in fact closer to a demon.