CAN one sin in one’s thought?

In reality the phrase “sins of thought” is an absurdity. It parses well and its language is above reproach: no grammarian, no purist in diction, could possibly find any fault with it; but if we take it literally, replacing the words by the actual things for which they stand, it becomes apparent that we are confronted by an incoherency, a contradiction in terms, which shows that those who use the phrase have not soundly considered, analysed, understood the notion they are trying to convey. How, indeed, can one sin by “thinking”? How can “thought”—a health-giving bath in the waters of truth—ever be a “sin”?

Nevertheless, “sins of thought” are real sins—big ones, little ones—but sins in any event; for they are manifestations, they are “acts,” of the will; and this truth is so clearly realised by some people that the idea is often expressed by a more accurate phrase: “sins of desire.” But this change of wording does not get us very far, since the difficulties we found in “sins of thought” again confront us in forms even more perplexing if we speak of “sins of desire.” What—rationally—can a “sin of desire” possibly be? “Desire” is itself “sin”; for desire is the opposite of will and is present in the realised will only as something repressed or transcended. And “sin,” so far as sin is “desire,” is rampant in all of us at every moment in our lives. The truly moral man, in the fulfilment of the moral act or in maintaining the state of grace he has gradually acquired, is always and at all times like the saint struggling with the Tempter, or like the Archangel who not without a battle subdues the dragon—or, if you prefer, like the Virgin who does indeed tread the serpent underfoot—her face serene and confident meanwhile—but who nevertheless has the monster under her body and in contact with her flesh! It has often been pointed out that if all the evil in the world were not in each of us in one way or another, we would never understand evil; we could never re-create within ourselves (and such recreation implies the possibility of our sinning) any sinful experience: we would never see the villainy of the villain in a novel or a melodrama: we would stand stupid and unmoved before the dialectic of life.

It is evident, however, that as compared with “sins of thought” the phrase “sins of desire” has at least the merit of referring the sins in question to the sphere of the practical. But in another sense it is quite as unsatisfactory: “sins of desire” are not “desire” itself in the large, but a particular group, a particular class, of “sins.” To illustrate: it may be a sin, a “sin of desire,” for a wife sitting at the bedside of a brutal husband to reflect—without, however, omitting any helpful attention to her invalid—that the death of such a man would at least have its welcome compensations. Or here are two men keenly competing for the same position: one may take secret pleasure in some disaster—unprovoked by him, of course—which might overtake the other. And he too would be guilty of a “sin of desire.” But such feelings—we might cite numerous other illustrations—are, strictly speaking, not “desires” (the dialectical phase of volition) but “acts.” For no positive manifestation of will within us, even if it be not translated into what are commonly and undiscriminatingly regarded as “actions”—external visible actions, that is—can remain without realisation: at the very least, every such feeling will have its internal consequences in certain definite attitudes of mind; and these, in turn, cannot fail to have their effects upon us. The “acts” above referred to, though they may seem to be harmless divagations of the fancy, cause us to do our duty coldly and mechanically; and a duty thus done is badly done—without enthusiasm, and therefore without the resourcefulness, without the vigour, without the efficiency, it would otherwise attain.

People are wrong, accordingly, when they say, as they sometimes say: “So long as I do my duty, let me think and feel as I please.” As a matter of fact, the yearning expressed in their dreams is a dereliction of their duty—so long as those dreams are nursed and fondled and not repressed and driven from the mind.

Such repression and banishment strengthen and sharpen the will; whereas playing with the temptation dulls and weakens it. Hell, a wise man said, is paved with good intentions, and this truth is discovered in the end by those adulterers in fieri—to choose a very common example—who go looking for purely “spiritual” relations, for “communions of soul with soul”; and by all who indulge their weaknesses in various ways only to find retribution afterwards. The truly moral man will not overlook in himself or in others these so-called “sins of desire.” There are cases, to be sure, when the caressing of certain fancies seems to express a really moral aspiration. I am thinking of a situation in Manzoni’s famous novel, The Betrothed. The hand of a criminal tyrant, Don Rodrigo, is lying heavy upon a whole county, but the Plague comes along and carries him off. Was that pestilence not a blessing? Did it not result in a “cleaning-up,” sweeping evil aside and making way for Don Rodrigo’s heir—an upright Christian gentleman—to succeed to the title of the licentious bandit and set about righting the wrong that the latter had done?

What red-blooded man would not rejoice at the news of such a death? And if we may rejoice at a thing, may we not also long for it, hope for it, pray for it? But Manzoni is a subtle moralist. He is careful to make that shout of joy break from the lips of a character who is morally—and incorrigibly—inferior, from the lips of Don Abbondio, that amusing and very human priest!

The fact is that in such cases our pretence that we are hoping for something good is mere pretence: what we really desire is to be spared some annoyance, some irritation, some trouble, perplexity, or even effort—our wish, in other words, is at bottom a selfish wish. Don Abbondio was glad to have Don Rodrigo safely out of this world because he would then be free to shirk his own duty, as he often did, without untoward consequences. The person who thinks differently of the case falls into the error of distinguishing means from ends and cannot answer the man who logically argues, from the acceptance of the “sin of desire,” that murder, or any other crime, in a good cause, is justifiable.

It happens not infrequently that people find some painful situation simplified by an event wholly beyond the will or intention of themselves who profit by it. But in such cases, if their ethical sense is at all sharp and discriminating, they feel that the joy which tries to surge up in their minds is an evil joy, and they sternly repress it. They do not speak, as hypocrites do, of “punishments from heaven” which they like to see inflicted because they are the gainers by them; rather they force themselves into a state of mind whereby, were it in their power, they would avert or remedy the catastrophe of their enemy, giving up the advantage that Fortune has suddenly bestowed upon them, resigning themselves courageously to the troubles and annoyances they had formerly endured. They leave the joy to “small” people, people whose sense of righteousness is crude, blunt, obtuse—legalists who think in terms of form and in terms of words, indifferent to the substance that lies deeper. If a man is strong and upright in his heart, and really devoted to the work he is doing, he will go about his duties without regard to the things that happen beyond the sphere of his responsibility; for he knows that events are never good or evil in themselves, never favourable or unfavourable, but constitute simply new conditions to challenge his mastery in the accomplishment of new tasks.