Eyes Wide Shut
The image above may be the most terrifying image on earth.
The definition of sin is simple: an act contrary to the eternal law. What is the eternal law? That which was imputed upon creation by God. For example, God made man to be a rational animal. Rationality means that we have the ability to make choices. Because we can make choices, it is part of our nature to participate in activities voluntarily. Therefore, it is contrary to the eternal law to rape someone. That is, it is always and everywhere wrong, regardless of circumstance. If you could save the entire world by raping even one person, it would not be worth it.
Many have heard of the idea of a “deal with devil” – selling one’s soul to get some kind of advantage. This is a very real thing, although the soul is not sold wholesale at the crossroads – it is relinquished little by little, through sin. Consider lying – everyone’s mother tells them not to lie; it doesn’t take a master’s degree in philosophy to know that it’s wrong. So what did we all do during our first lie? We saw that we preferred the consequence of the lie – maybe staying out of trouble – to the innate goodness of truth, and convinced ourselves that telling a lie was ok – “just this once.” This act of violence towards our understanding of the world is a “deal with the devil.” In a very real sense, we relinquish our love of truth in telling that first lie.
So then what happens? The next lie. It feels bad that second time, just like the first. But it’s not hard to get over it. Lying becomes easier and easier. Soon, lying has gone from one concession to a regularly-used tool. Most adults lie somewhat rarely, but when they do, they lie without a second thought. We sign deals with the devil to get something we want, but the devil signs the deal with us because he knows that whatever we sign over will come to dominate us. A liar is not a person who tells lies because they know lies are evil. A liar is a person who tells lies without even thinking about it. Sin is a blind spot we willfully choose.
But surely a few little lies aren’t that big a deal? A normal person’s blind spot couldn’t get too out of control? Return to the image above. It’s a picture of several Nazi exterminators enjoying a nice weekend off. They are laughing and having fun – the people they slaughtered during the week aren’t even a thought in their minds. They had friends and family who surely would’ve described them as pleasant people, maybe even great people. And maybe in most areas of life, they were! But they all had a blind spot. At some point, each of them killed their first Jew. Perhaps they felt a pang of regret; perhaps it was a deeply troubling experience. Maybe the same with the second, and the third. But eventually, sin always becomes so easy, so mundane. Soldiers often fell asleep working the gas chambers.
Sin is like getting drunk and carefully driving between the lines… on the wrong side of the highway. Dying and facing God’s judgment is like getting pulled over and realizing that while you may have been within the lines you saw, your entire orientation was wrong. Most of the Nazis in the picture were probably churchgoing individuals. They had an idea of God they very much liked. But their ideas were not reality. God is truth, and God is life, and the people in the image above grew to detest truth and detest life. Upon meeting God and seeing Him as He really is, they would hate Him, and would freely go to the one place where He is not present – Hell. This is the final consequence of sin – damnation. Separation from God willfully chosen by the sinner because of a blind spot they grew to love.
A blind spot is incredibly difficult to control. For many, it is not righteousness which keeps them under any semblance of control, but societal consequences. How common is an honest, disinterested salesman? A soldier who never shirks his duty? A politician who doesn’t bend the truth? The image above may be the most terrifying image on earth because the only difference between most folks on the street and the Nazis in the picture is circumstance.
Ten Blind Spots
At Mount Sinai, God gives the Ten Commandments to Moses. From the description of sin above, we should understand that the Ten Commandments are not arbitrary; God does not “impose” them upon us. They are a description of human nature in its proper state – they are a “how to run your human” handbook. Each commandment describes a sin to avoid, starting with the most serious and descending to the least.
(1) I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.
This first and most perfect commandment points out a simple reality about human beings: we will always find something to worship. Everyone has a highest good; this is a simple consequence of being conscious. A “false god” is not necessarily Zeus or Odin; a false god is whatever takes the place of God in a man’s heart. Usually this is money, pleasure, power, or honor. God is goodness itself – the point of this commandment is that goodness is always better than good things. A man who follows this commandment perfectly would sooner die than even tell the smallest white lie. Such a man understands the depth of his need; he sins rarely, and immediately repents and does rigorous penance when he does. The man who casts off God in favor of some other thing, on the other hand, ceases even to care what right and wrong mean.
Furthermore, he who dethrones God becomes unable to see Him anywhere – a sort of Hell on earth. The miser sees all things from the perspective of money, and sees no dignity in the poor. The lothario sees all things from the perspective of sex, and sees no beauty in the mutual self-sacrifice and trust required in marriage. The powerful man sees all things from the perspective of power, and so his concern is always himself, never those he has responsibility over. The honorable man sees all things from the perspective of human respect, and sees no beauty in doing the right thing for its own sake. He who dethrones God loses all joy and all hope – all that is left of him is a perpetual, dull ache for things which never fully satisfy.
It is an endless, vain enterprise trying to fill oneself up with things to find happiness. There is only one thing which makes man finally and fully happy. “If thy eye be single, thy whole body shall be lightsome,” says the Lord. That is, if one’s intention is upright and simple, one’s whole life will be one, true, and joyful. Unlike those who are torn asunder in their service of many masters, the man who cares only for God fears nothing and loves everyone. His is true and lasting happiness. As Christ says, “whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. What can it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet lose his soul?”
(2) You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.
When we respect a man, we treat his name with reverence. Christ is the creator of all things, the eternal God of the universe before whom all knees shall bend. To use any form of His divine name as a functional cuss word is, in a very real way, to deny this fact. An even more grievous violation would be swearing on the name of God and then perjuring oneself. The very essence of humility and of living well is the recognition of God’s ultimate power and sovereignty. To fail to offer God proper reverence is just one step below dethroning Him entirely – as such, it is the second sin on the list.
(3) Keep Holy the Lord’s day.
Life is distracting. Many people’s lives are an endless cycle of going to work, taking the kids somewhere, coming home, sleeping and repeating. There is beauty in this total self-sacrifice in the completion of one’s duties. But, it leaves little room for the express, explicit contemplation of God. And though all these other things can seem more pressing, they are not. Nothing can surpass God’s importance. God requires of us a day of rest, reflection, and worship – not for His sake, but for ours. To make sure that amidst the distractions of the world, we don’t become swallowed by it.
Beyond this, if one truly recognizes the enormity and eternity and goodness of God, they should go above and beyond the bare necessities. If you haven’t gone to Mass today, you don’t have time to watch TV. Meaningless show #9,182 is not as important as eternal life.
(4) Honor your father and mother.
“A Christian should only ever get in trouble for being a Christian.” Any and all laws which come from government, employers, or parents demand obedience, so long as they do not contradict God. If the government made attendance at holy Mass punishable by death, the true Christian should nevertheless drive the speed limit to get there on Sunday morning. Prompt obedience to authorities, even when we do not like them, is great training in the virtue of humility. God is, in a very real sense, the one who communicates with us through the (non-sinful) lawful orders of all the authorities in our lives. God has handpicked each and every trial for you from all eternity. It would be foolish to throw away a gift because it was delivered by a bad mailman.
(5) You shall not kill.
God is life, and thus life is His to give and His to demand. Murder is a particularly heinous form of rejecting God’s sovereignty and wisdom. Though there are of course serial killers and the like, this mainly speaks to the “socially acceptable” forms of murder like abortion of euthanasia. To reject the inherent value of human life is to reduce life from a divine journey to a simple pleasure/pain dichotomy. It reduces man to a mere animal. Once man is a mere animal, it isn’t hard to see how the Nazis could fall asleep from the mundanity of the gas chambers. Half of all human deaths are abortions. That is, half of human deaths are people whose own mothers fail to see their inherent worth.
But it is not just physically killing a man which reduces his status into something dangerously unimportant. It is also hatred. If all men are loved by God, then it is incumbent upon man to love all his neighbors. We should wish for the repentance and salvation of all men, especially those most in need of it. We should pray earnestly for criminals, for warmongering politicians, for pedophiles, for abusers. To reject them as unsalvageable is to put ourselves above them, to deny God’s infinite saving power, and to reduce potential temples of the Holy Spirit to defective objects. This also, of course, includes showing mercy to oneself, the hatred of whom can manifest as despair or suicide.
Another expression of hate is to attack man’s nature. This is pridefully putting oneself in the place of creator. This includes altering the human body through steroids, excessive body art, or elective cosmetic surgeries. It can also mean altering the mind through the use of drugs, excessive drinking, and the like.
(6) You shall not commit adultery.
Short of seeing another as an object of hate, the most dehumanizing thing you could do is see them as an object of pleasure. Sex outside of marriage is clearly a bad idea – it carries the enormous threats of emotional trauma and a child no one is prepared to raise. Indeed, this one sentence is a complete and inarguable case against sex outside of marriage, but the fornicator or the adulterer will go to any length to defend their bad habit. Through concessions to lust, man warps himself into something closer to an animal, sacrificing his use of right reason for the sake of animal appetites, and sacrificing self-giving love for chemical stimulation.
To be even clearer: any sex which frustrates the natural ends of union and procreation is evil. That includes sodomy, lust, pornography, masturbation, and contraceptive sex. All of these warp sex into a tool for the pleasure of man, as opposed to the glory of God. There is hardly anything more common and more deeply damaging than lust. St. Alphonsus said that “all the souls in Hell are there on account of sins against chastity – or at least, not without them.”
Practicing chastity gives one the necessary habits to be a good and true spouse. It’s not as if attractive people cease to exist as soon as you get married. A wandering eye or an unfaithful heart is not cured by marriage, but only becomes more dangerous. Not only are sins of the flesh evil of themselves, but they cause many to fail at or entirely miss their vocation due to a weak will. As the fighter trains to utterly destroy his opponent, the virtuous man trains to utterly eradicate lust from his life. That way, when he is called forth to his duty – perhaps marriage, perhaps the priesthood, perhaps the life of a soldier – he is prepared.
(7) You shall not steal.
Theft is a usurpation of God’s authority to provide. That which is not yours by proper channels is not meant to be yours. All theft is truly robbing God, and robbing yourself of the state he intended for you in not-having that thing.
Theft is a less dangerous debasing of man’s rational nature than lust. Lust is worse because sex is more naturally pleasing to us, and thus a more demanding slavedriver. Of course, theft can become more or less grave depending on the amount taken, and on whom it was taken from.
(8) You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
To lie is to create a false reality. It is God’s right alone to create reality, and a lie is a usurpation of that right. But bearing false witness is not always about outright lies. Some of the most serious sins in this category involve gossip. All men have a right to their good name, and to smear it without due cause is sort of like sharing proprietary information. This even includes speaking truths of someone with the specific intent to make others like them less, or making rash judgments about them. St. Ignatius says that unjustly revealing the mortal sin of another is itself a mortal sin – and that’s before even talking about gossip which involves lies.
(9) You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife.
Lust is a sin which already rises to the level of grave, and it is addressed in the sixth commandment. The ninth commandment has to do with a more detached, cerebral sort of covetousness. It is the beginnings of lust, but not lust itself. This is manifest in something like a man seeing a young woman out for a run and thinking to himself, “hm, wish my wife still looked like that.” This sin is the beginning of objectifying other human beings. Habits of fleshly covetousness can easily metamorphose into more serious evil if not struggled against.
(10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods.
Like the previous sin, this a detached, cerebral sort of covetousness. The danger in it comes from the beginnings of ingratitude. To want what another has is to say that God is not enough for you. It leads to a sense of competition with others instead of love. As the sixth commandment is about theft of purity and the seventh is about theft of goods, this follows the ninth because fleshly covetousness is the more dangerous slavedriver.
A Tale of Two Rudolf’s
Rudolf Hess was an early Nazi leader. He was a good friend of Hitler’s and one of the core participants in establishing the party and starting WWII. He was captured early in the war – 1941 – by the British, and remained in prison with them until the end of it. Despite not participating in the Final Solution (due to his incarceration), he was put on trial at Nuremberg for his fundamental part in the general Nazi conspiracy. At the trial, he quoted Adolf Eichmann, saying “I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.” He remained an unrepentant Nazi for the rest of his life, dying at 93.
Rudolf Höss, on the other hand, was one of many Germans enchanted by the person of Hitler. Raised Catholic, he renounced his faith when he joined the Nazi party. He joined their military ranks in the 30’s. One of his first tasks was to execute a Nazi officer, a respected man with a family, who had accidentally let a communist prisoner escape. He described being “so upset [he] could barely hold the pistol steady.” But sin always asserts itself. Just two years later he was commandant of Auschwitz. Though he said that his job never made him happy, he still mercilessly killed around three million people for duty and love of country. There was one odd incident, however. The guards caught a Polish priest named Władysław Lohn trying to sneak in and help prisoners. For reasons still unknown, Höss uncharacteristically pardoned him and let him go.
Shortly after the war ended, the allies captured Höss and sent him to Poland. The Polish particularly despised him, as their land was the location of Auschwitz. Knowing this, Höss feared that his captors would treat him as he had treated their people. However, to his great surprise, they provided him humane conditions and a fair trial. “In Polish prisons I experienced for the first time what human kindness is,” he wrote. “Despite all that has happened I have experienced humane treatment which I could never have expected, and which has deeply shamed me.” While in prison, his memoirs and letters showed a slow departure from Nazi ideology. He was at first reluctant to give up Nazism, claiming that its evils had more to do with the people involved than with its antisemitic core. But nevertheless, he saw its evils for the first time.
Regardless of his lingering attachments, he made no excuses for his role in the evils of the Holocaust. When the court sentenced him to death, he thanked his lawyers and declined his right to appeal. On Good Friday of 1947, he finally called for a priest to hear his confession. It took nearly a week to find one who was willing to see him. When one eventually showed up, it was none other than Father Władysław Lohn, the very priest he had mysteriously pardoned years earlier! Höss spent nearly six hours in his first confession in 25 years. At the end, he formally declared his return to the Catholic faith. He received Holy Communion in his cell, kneeling and weeping.
The next day, he made his definitive break with Nazism.
From his cell he wrote, “based on my present knowledge I can see today clearly, severely and bitterly for me, that the entire ideology about the world in which I believed so firmly and unswervingly was based on completely wrong premises and had to absolutely collapse one day. And so my actions in the service of this ideology were completely wrong, even though I faithfully believed the idea was correct. Now it was very logical that strong doubts grew within me, and whether my turning away from my belief in God was based on completely wrong premises. It was a hard struggle. But I have again found my faith in my God.” He continued to his son, “Become a person who lets himself be guided primarily by warmth and humanity… In all your undertakings, don’t just let your mind speak, but listen above all to the voice in your heart.”
Rudolf Höss was hanged three days after Divine Mercy Sunday. He had no final words. Fr Wladyslaw wrote of him: ‘In all my years I have never seen anyone receive Holy Communion with such devotion. I have no doubt that Rudolf Hoss in in heaven.” We are always ready to hear stories of normal men who become wicked. We are always ready to hear stories of retribution. But how much more beautiful is God’s infinite mercy for those who turn from their sin? There is no good reason to doubt that Rudolf Höss is in Heaven with Maximilian Kolbe and however many other saints he personally killed, enjoying the presence of God and each other without even the slightest enmity. Is that not a better ending than Rudolf Hess dying alone in a cell, full of malignant hate?
Sin is a deal with the devil. We trade away our sight for some advantage, and sin asserts itself and dominates us because of it. Not only is sin unutterably dangerous, it is incredibly common and easy to fall into. But despite all that, sin should not unduly scare us. It does not have the final word, for sin was defeated by Christ. Sin and evil should only ever remind us of the endless mercy God has for us – for all of us – if are willing to ask for it.