7 Deadly Sins From A Psychologist's Point Of View

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

In Christianity, there are 7 main, mortal sins (or passions) - the main vices of a person. The word "mortal" is interpreted in such a way that it is the most serious vice in terms of severity, entailing the loss of the soul's salvation without repentance! The presence of the main vice in life leads to the commission of grave sins, unforgivable, which distort God's plan for man, alienate man from God and God's grace

What are these deadly sins?

Pride (vanity)

Greed (greed)

Envy

Anger

Lust (fornication, adultery)

Gluttony (gluttony)

Despondency (sadness, laziness)

These are the main, main human passions that need repentance. That is, to be subject to these vices, passions is sinful, bad. These passions need to be rooted out and overcome. Such overcoming is considered blissful and leads to spiritual growth.

I will take the liberty of disagreeing with the generally accepted interpretation and such an attitude towards the aforementioned "passions". But first I will make a reservation that I consider myself a believer. However, I would like to "walk" through these main vices, not only as a believer, but also as a psychologist:

Pride (vanity)

Pride - pride in yourself, your merits and self-exaltation, any of your qualities in relation to other people. Pride is also for their belonging: racial, class, national, group, etc. The bottom line is that I consider myself better than the other person, which means that I deserve more respect, approval, acceptance, love. The other person is less worthy than me. What is the root of this vice? Lack, lack of unconditional love in childhood. When a child is small, parents love and accept him unconditionally. If this is not the case, if the parents are rigid, cold, strict, teach the child that he can receive a portion of love and acceptance at the expense of any merit - this becomes a springboard for the emergence of pride. The lack of parental unconditional acceptance creates an internal emptiness, a vacuum that a person fills either with tangible achievements (sports records, excellent studies, career growth, financial wealth) or imaginary (belonging to a particular group, country, nation, gender, etc..). A person compensates for the lack of love - with pride. He loves himself. For something. And for these merits, he is the first in line when distributing love.

Greed (greed, stinginess)

The breeding ground for this vice is an unmet need for security. If a child has experienced the trauma of deprivation, if he did not feel protected, then, already as an adult, he will begin to be greedy or stingy. Greed can be divided into greed (the desire to get more than there is) and stinginess (the unwillingness to part with what is, the desire to keep it). This is the same emptiness inside, the same vacuum, only it was formed for different reasons. And a person will fill this void with either things, or money, or relationships with other people. But the root of this "vice" is a feeling of insecurity, insecurity.

Envy

Envy is a multi-component feeling: anger for the fact that another has something that I do not have; desire to have it; suffering from not having it; fear that I will never get it. “It” can be anything: some thing, special attitude, ability, social status, age, belonging. The object of envy does not matter, it is something that distinguishes the owner of the object from the envious. This means that the owner of this object can be loved, he deserves love and receives love and acceptance, but the envious person does not. The breeding ground for envy is the same emptiness from lack of unconditional love and acceptance. This is the flip side of pride, the opposite side, just different forms of reaction to the lack of unconditional acceptance.

Anger

Anger is an emotion that a person experiences when one or another of his needs is not met. We are all familiar with Maslow's pyramid of needs (a hierarchical sequence of human needs in terms of their importance for survival). Anger is only an evaluative response to dissatisfaction with a need. This is a signal that indicates to a person where his personal pyramid has "leaked". It is an impulse for action - satisfaction of need.

Lust (fornication, adultery)

Or otherwise, sexual promiscuity, sexual promiscuity. The root of this "vice" is the same emptiness from the lack of love, spiritual warmth. Healthy sexual behavior is when sex becomes a manifestation of love, when it is already inside. Lust, fornication is compensation for the lack of love. Again vacuum, spiritual emptiness. Until the age of thirty, a person, like a vessel, is first filled with love. Parents begin to fill the vessel, then the beloved, the partner. If the parents "cheated", in the future the person will begin to compensate for the resulting emptiness by promiscuous sexual intercourse, up to sexual addiction, nymphomania.

Gluttony (gluttony)

Back to the pyramid of needs. The forms of response from the dissatisfaction of a particular need can be emotive (for example, anger). Gluttony, "seizing" can become a behavioral form of response. So-called gluttony is compensation. It is filling the inner void with food. Gluttony, seizing, a person fills himself, cements, mends a leaky place in his pyramid.

Despondency (sadness, laziness)

Here one still needs to share despondency, sadness and laziness. Despondency and sadness is also an emotional form of responding to a lack of satisfaction of a need, it is a signal, an evaluative reaction to what is unfavorable in a person's life. Whereas laziness is an energy-saving mechanism. Laziness arises when a person is wasting time and energy. The subconscious mind sees this unjustified waste of resources and "connects" laziness to prevent overspending.

Ultimately, all these "vices" need to be recognized. You need to honestly admit to yourself what I'm experiencing at the moment and why. The so-called "mortal sin" is only a reaction to the emptiness that appears in the absence of satisfaction of needs, an alarm bell, this is an indicating signal that the balance is disturbed. The varieties of "deadly sins" are simply different forms of reactions. Fornication and gluttony is a behavioral response, an effective filling of the void (from the word "action"), a surrogate restoration of balance. Sadness, envy, discouragement, anger, greed are emotional reactions. Repentance in this case should be understood not as an admission of one's guilt in the presence of this or that "vice", a tendency to passions. The traditional interpretation of repentance leads to an aggravation of the state in the form of a feeling of guilt, shame for one's depravity, sinfulness. When they talk about repentance and humility, it is implied that a person must “overcome” vice, overcome its perniciousness, confess his imperfection, or, more simply, suppress it, swallow it, and preserve it in himself. But from this very moment the “vice” becomes mortal, mortal! It is the suppression of your emotions and feelings (both bad and unsuitable) that leads to illness and, ultimately, death!

But we are only talking about a signal! And the correct response to this signal is to dive deeper, see the root of the problem and satisfy the need. It is useless to shoot down the flames - you need to extinguish the fire. Recognizing anger, despondency, gluttony, lust, greed, envy and pride as vice and sin, we pour kerosene on the fire in the form of a feeling of guilt for our depravity. But man is a part of God. We are created in the image and likeness of God. We are perfect, just like God. Every person is perfect. And our emotions, feelings are pointers, a compass, where to move, in which direction.

(C) Anna Maksimova, psychologist