Vices (and Virtues): The Forgotten or Unknown Basics
Before we talk about vices as diseases, we have to pay homage to Socrates
Analyses of a Dark Culture are phenomenological analyses of dark cultural practices or simple, subtle, sneaky sins that we sip on a daily basis that work against society.
A few Sundays ago, I started my class on the vices plaguing modern culture. It’s been marvelous. We’ve been doing inventory and analyzing sneaky, subtle sins that are making their way into our living rooms, classrooms, sanctuaries, and conference rooms. The air we’re inhaling, but somehow we’re not choking on it. Yet.
Before we started treading through the mud, I gave a brief primer on the virtue and vice tradition—starting with Socrates’ understanding of virtue, how the apostle Paul discussed various virtues, John Cassian’s alternative way of looking at them, and Thomas Aquinas’ (kinda) ossified paradigm.
I told the class I’m on the side of Cassian (and John Climacus). I see virtues and vices primarily from a spiritual angle, not an ontological, biological, or even ethical one. Vices aren’t the stuff of failed missions but dis/eases of our spirits that slither their way into our habits and practices and ruin our lives. They separate us from God.
A few years ago, I wrote a one-page summary explaining virtue and vice to undergrads. I passed it out to the “Diseases Unto Death” class the first week. They found it helpful, so I’m posting it here. It is brief. I think it communicates the traditional understanding of virtue and vice fairly.
I’ll post on each vice we’re examining in the coming weeks—starting next Monday. I hope they are helpful meditations. Drop me a message or email me if you’ve got questions or just want to wrestle with one of them.
What Is Virtue? What Is Vice? A Guide for the Indifferent
Virtue and vice is a way of talking about right and wrong, righteousness and wickedness.
The language of “virtue” was originally used in discussion with the nature and purpose of something. It was argued and eventually assumed that everything has a nature and a function. And its nature can either be perfected and brought into full bloom, or corrupted and not reach its full potential. It can excel or fail.
Take, for example, a steak knife. It is made for cutting steak. If it does the job well (i.e., effortless and smooth cuts), it is a “virtuous” steak knife. If it doesn’t (i.e., it requires vigorous effort or shreds the steak), it’s “vicious.” A “good” steak knife is one that performs its proper function in accordance with its nature (e.g. serrated edge)
This was then applied to human life and behavior. Given the nature and purpose of a human being, there is a certain way to be human. Virtue (virtus), in fact, is rooted in the word for man or human being (vir). The virtuous person is someone who is living the human life correctly.
He or she is “using” herself—being human—and all of her qualities (e.g., speech & words) and faculties (e.g., reason) in the way she should. When she “uses” herself in a way that doesn’t perfect her nature (e.g. use her speech to speak the truth or use reason to understand justice), she is being “vicious.”
Virtue and vice, good and evil, however, are not equals. They do not run parallel. Evil is a deviation of the good and a vice is a wrong way of going. It veers away from the good. Think of good and evil like a highway. The good is a highway lane and evil is an exit. There is one lane but a million exits. That’s like good and evil.
Evil deviates from the good, but it also deprives the good. Think of the good like a wall and evil like a hole in the wall. The hole takes away from the wall and prevents the wall from being a “full wall.” And that’s precisely how vice works: in a slow, subtle, sneaky way, it seeps into our lives and eats away at them.
Seminary for Society is a resource in public and cultural theology aimed to educate and equip the saints of Jesus Christ to follow Him in an apostate-but-graced world, hostile-but-restrained society, and fractured-but-rooted culture.
Public theology rooted in the Protestant tradition, historically and confessionally Reformed, but ecumenically and evangelically engaged.
