To Sin Is Human; To Forgive, Divine
We are told that sins are moral failings, rather than manifestations of unmet emotional needs. This distinction reflects an East-West schism about what our baser acts mean, and how to tend to them.
A fourth century ascetic monk named Evagrius Ponticus first penned them. A sixth century pope — Gregory I — later canonized them. And a thirteenth century theologian-turned-saint named Thomas Aquinas set them into the injunction we all know today as the Seven Deadly Sins.
They are, according to Christian orthodoxy, the seven most sinful behaviors that humans habitually suffer, and religious life is as much about avoiding or atoning for them it is about following the ten commandments that largely urge us not to give into the moral failings that the sins elicit.
The vast majority of global religions, encompassing nearly all humans — Christianity (2.3B), Islam (1.9B), Hinduism (1.2B), Buddhism (535M), and Judaism (14M), — all recognize our natural predisposition toward these vices, yet they diverge wildly on what to do about it.
They agree that these cardinal habits drive human crime, and share a list of our most egregious ones. Christianity’s ten commandments are echoed in Islam’s…
