The Eight Evils: Despair Chris Selmys Originally published in Issue XIV of Vulgata, July, 2004.

Despair is considered, by many spiritual writers, to be the greatest affliction to which the soul may fall prey. This is on account both of its roots, which are to be found in pride, and its fruit, which is the loss of hope or belief in God and His promises. “By despair, man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is contrary to God's goodness, to his justice – for the Lord is faithful to his promises – and to his mercy.” (Catechism 2091) In entering into despair, a man not only finds himself ensnared by the devil's traps, but he also cuts himself off from God's help, for without hope he has not the will to petition or to ask for the grace to escape the jaws of Hell.

In our present age, we do not find this vice preying merely upon the souls of individual men; indeed we find it infecting our culture and informing many of our assumptions about the way in which the world should work. In the pages of every newspaper and university text, we find laid out the philosophy of despair, for we have forgotten the purpose and meaning of hope, we believe less and less in truth and so we give ourselves over to empty pleasures in order to escape the awful sense that we exist at the center of an inescapable existential void. We are the products of that sinister “Enlightenment” which, by depriving men of the flickering candle-light of faith, hoped to instill in its stead a bright and mechanical certainty. It has been, we are now discovering, a doomed venture – for it turns out that man is not capable of inventing the light-bulb in the dark. What we are left with is a thirst, no longer for truths to which we can hold with all our hearts, our minds, our wills, but for facts built upon a bedrock of philosophical and scientific certainty that, as we approach it, crumbles into a very old and decomposing red herring. The conclusion of the moderns, taken at last to their logical extreme, is that certainty is impossible – and having abandoned faith as a primitive by-product of ignorance, we are left instead with despair.

This extends not only to the philosophical life, but moves insidiously through all of human activity, paralyzing right action by arousing an endless series of unanswerable doubts. Thus a man fails to marry, because he cannot have mathematical certainty that it will work out – or if he does marry, he provides himself with the escape clause of divorce so that when he despairs of the enterprise he may abandon hope and flee. Such a man, if called upon to work seven years in Laban's service for Rachel's sake, would not see those years fly past “like days...because of his love for her,” (Gen 29:20) but would spend them in an agony of anxieties and doubts, endlessly calculating whether the marriage, when finally undertaken, would be worth the costs. And when, at the end of those years, he woke to find Leah at his side he would tear out his beard and cast himself from the nearest precipice. The hope that sustained Jacob, the hope by which Job, upon his dung-heap, refused to “curse God and die,” (Job 2:9) this hope is unthinkable to modern man, to him it is a sort of insanity, for at the forefront of his mind there stands always an unanswerable question: “Are you sure?” “Can you prove it?” and if you cannot, then why sustain hope in the face of such obstacles?

When such a lack of hope crystallizes in the depths of the individual human soul, it is capable of giving rise to two mortal sins – the first is the suicide of the body, and the second the suicide of the soul, and both are possible only in the moment of death. The first arises when the soul prefers the material to the spiritual, and having founds its emotional and physical sufferings to be great, it is willing to be cut off from eternal beatitude in order to escape them. The latter is the rejection, in the moment of death, of the graces offered by God for the salvation of the soul, because of a lack of faith or hope in the promise and attainability of heaven. Obviously these are very grave sins indeed, however there are also numerous venial sins and vices which are engendered by the demons of despair in order to prepare the ground for final despair and self-destruction, and also in order to distract the heart from the ordinary duties of life by encouraging it to neglect the sufficiency of the grace that God gives.

There are many means by which the devil accomplishes this end. One is to pull the soul in two different directions, presenting it with an inescapable dilemma and thus threatening to tear it apart. He  oppresses the soul with the thought that it is impossible to resist temptation, that all human effort is doomed to failure, that God will not provide sufficient help, and that man is thus doomed to ultimate defeat and unrelieved suffering unless it gives in. Then, when the soul succumbs, he assails it with every sort of self-loathing and anxiety about the sin that has been committed, convincing it that its transgressions are beyond the forgiveness of God, that repentance is unattainable, that its efforts are insincere, and that it is thus doomed not only to go on sinning as before, but that it is being dragged inexorably into the fiery pit. Or he may dangle before the unwary mind a series of images – either fantastic or remembered – of pleasures and comforts to which the soul at once, like an unweaned child, attaches itself. But there is no sustenance to be gained, for unlike the natural goods with which God first nourishes our souls, these are merely illusion, they are goods unattainable to the soul in its present circumstances, and yet when they are awakened they cause the soul to ache with longing so that at once it finds its surroundings tedious and barren of consolation. “Why,” the man groans, “must men grow old and lose the pleasures of his youth?” though he forgets that amidst the laughter of youthful acquaintances there also burnt the fires of adolescent lust, or that over his unlined face there hung the unchecked spectre of teenage angst. Thus sating himself upon a lie he is led to view all present disconsolation as a rank injustice, to expect as his due a standard of material happiness impossible to man, and thus he succumbs to misery, cynicism and the abandonment of joy.

The only medicine which the soul may take in order to combat these various temptations is to dedicate itself with vigour to the tasks of the moment, and to persevere in prayer in spite of the numerous distractions and doubts by which the Devil attempts to assail it. St. John Climacus writes that “It is dispelled by obedience, persistent hopeful prayer, manual labor,[and] thought of death.” By despair the Devil attempts to distract us from our duties, and by dedication, and particularly by consistent, persevering prayer by which we practice our belief in God's presence and providence, we foil the object of his plot and thus drive the demon from our souls. Keeping this in mind, therefore, in order that we may be equipped with the antidote to those ills which we find plaguing our own spirits, we will turn to a consideration of the various vices which pledge their allegiance to the devil of despair.

Self-Loathing

Self-loathing is that vice whereby the soul, having (from pride) developed a fantastic notion of its own powers and abilities, casts itself upon the wheel of despair when it discovers that it is merely human. It begins by claiming either to be repentance, or a goad to self improvement, declaring that when the heart of man is repulsed by his failures he will then be all the more vigilant against them in the future. This is true enough when accompanied by genuine contrition and humility, which seek realistic and attainable improvement through the grace of God, but to one besieged by the demon of self-loathing, the disgust is almost always disproportionate, and is directed not towards the sin or mistake undertaken, but towards the self, which is supposed to be able to accomplish by its own power feats to which it is either ill-disposed in the first place, or which it can attain only with God's help. As it grows it feeds more and more upon puffed up expectations having little to do with reality – thus a man whose romantic gifts are sparse comes to despise himself because he cannot secure the affections of beautiful and sophisticated women, or a woman of poor emotional resources to berate herself for failing to be completely psychologically independent of other people. Thus the soul is driven to constant, almost fevered effort towards an illusory goal, and with each futile and failed attempt turns the teeth of its disappointment more and more upon itself. In its final manifestation, the one so deceived actually believes their self-hatred to be proportional: having utterly distanced themselves from the knowledge that they are a creature beloved of God, they abandon every one of their true gifts and talents, believing that because they are not a creature of superhuman stature, that they are entirely useless for any purpose and that it would be better for all the world if they were dead.

Anxiety

The soul in the grips of anxiety is drawn, ever more constantly, away from constructive action by a constant flurry of mental and physical effort towards the solution of problems which are either entirely imaginary or beyond its sphere of influence. Preying upon our intelligence, our prudence, and our concern for the well-being of ourselves and others, it begins by pretending to offer helpful advice – either by suggesting difficulties that might (but probably won't) arise in the future, or by pointing out mistakes that we made in the past. Having thus engaged our mental faculties, it then seeks, by means of fear or shame, to prolong the intruding thought, so that we cannot concentrate on other tasks until the “problem” is “solved.” Thus we are induced, with ever increasing frequency, to sink into a mental rut, to expend ourselves on circular thoughts that run around and around the perimeter of a dilemma that cannot possibly be resolved. Thus we pour out our energies on needless contingency plans, dedicate ourselves to vain and repetitive prayer against catastrophes that were never going to happen, or compose lengthy speeches justifying ourselves to an audience that has long since forgotten our mistakes. Taken to an extreme, the chronic worrier comes to see anxiety as a form of dutiful self-sacrifice, imagining that their constant and tiresome efforts to overcome imaginary obstacles, their incessant nagging about non-existent or insignificant problems, and their perpetual (and often contagious) lack of internal peace are in fact vital evidence of their abiding love and solicitude for the victims of their concern.

Fatalism

Through fatalism, the soul is tricked into doubting its own free will and is thus caused to believe that it is damned or doomed to some nasty and inevitable conclusion. It arises from repeated failure and is the child of misplaced or seemingly unrewarded perseverance. It disguises itself, at first, as a sort of resignation, goading the soul into despair by whispering that it has expended every possible effort, that it  deserves much rest, that there was and is nothing more it could possibly do. Often it intercedes where vice is already present, quietly suggesting that the soul must, by her own power, instantly and finally conquer some deeply rooted fault or ingrained habit. Then, when the soul – lacking the patience to rely upon grace – sees herself succumb time and again to the same fault, the demon of fatalism begins to insist that all moral effort is doomed, that man is subject to inalienable failings and inevitable transgressions which no power in heaven and earth is capable of driving out. As it grows, fatalism produces moral sloth, for the soul which believes herself incapable of doing good or overcoming evil ceases even to join in the battle. Thus it solidifies into a philosophy – either in the pagan fatalism which suggests that men are merely pawns of the fates and the gods, and that whatever their choices they will arrive at the same doom; in Calvinism, which insists that Divine predestination usurps human free will – and therefore the damned soul can do nothing to escape the threat of Hell; or in atheistic determinism, which reduces man to a collection of random atoms and electrical impulses. In the end, fatalism causes its victims to surrender without hesitation to every disordered movement of the appetites, to become inured to their sinfulness, and, by cutting off their belief that they could do differently, causes them to despair of repentance.

Scruples

Scruples sate themselves upon the desire of the soul to consider itself righteous, driving it to ruthlessly pursue minor or imaginary faults so that it may imagine itself to be in a state of constant moral effort, while its greatest vices and short-comings slide by unnoticed. It begins by convincing the soul to  regard as a moral imperative some activity or practice that, while laudable if undertaken under the right conditions, is not suitable to its current state. Thus a spiritual beginner expects himself to be able to take on the ascetic practices of St. John of the Cross before he has learned to submit to the ordinary requirements of the daily cross, or a woman feels obliged to commit herself to a plethora of neighbourhood causes to the neglect of her husband and children. As it grows, its victim's moral efforts become more and more diffuse, often leading to other vices such as self-loathing or anxiety, as they are torn back and forth between the genuine demands of neglected conscience and the false compulsions of their home-made cross. In its final state, one suffering from scruples is beset by bitterness, resenting all moral demands but driven by a sense of permanent dissatisfaction and false guilt to undertake ever increasing penances or self-sacrifices which, being entirely needless and misdirected, benefit no one. Thus, while the complaints of conscience are being drowned by the incessant screaming of their self-appointed moral obligations, their greatest faults and vices are given ample room to flourish uncontested.

Cynicism

The demon of cynicism is the means by which men are induced to assume ill of their neighbour, and to lose hope in the salvation or goodness of others. The cynic begins by imagining himself to be prudent in his dealings with others – he claims that he is merely preparing himself for betrayal and disappointment, or that he is avoiding naïve optimism. As the demon sinks his claws in, it begins to convince him that men are truly and fundamentally corrupt – not only those who have failed or hurt him, but also those who have done him good. Thus he says, “Well, she smiled at me very pleasantly – most likely she was hoping for a good tip,” or “Of course he gives a great deal to the poor – he does have a public image to maintain.” Thus from the soil of cynicism is bread uncharity, ingratitude, and paranoia, so that in its final stage a man is led to imagine that all human goodness is merely the sickly perfume by which is covered the stench of moral putrefaction. He greets compassion with a sneer, friendship with suspicion, charity with vituperation, trusting no one, rejecting all love, and ultimately – contemptuous and despairing of the neighbour whom he can see – he comes to imagine the same corruption in the heart of the God whom he cannot.

Cowardice

By cowardice a man is first induced to believe that he is expected, by his own powers, to undertake tasks only possible to him by the aid of God, thus he may be easily overwhelmed by fear and induced to flee the burden of his duties. He begins by telling himself that he is only being duly cautious, that he has realistically taken stock of his resources and limitations, and that he is able to rightly recognize when a particular task is beyond his capability. Thus he excuses himself from difficult obligations and, having begun to entertain the demon, he finds himself beset more and more by doubts and fears when faced with situations that, objectively, are less and less actually difficult. As cowardice becomes habitual, the man in its clutches is forced to constantly revise his estimation of his own abilities, until he finds himself striking from the list things that he could have done with ease before he gave himself over to fear. He avoids even mildly painful situations, failing for weeks to call upon a friend because he lost a book they lent him, avoiding prayer because he fears that God will convict him for some derilection of duty. In its final stage, the coward actively rejects any attempt to help him overcome his fears – for fear that having overcome them he will be forced to face the situation he was avoiding in the first place. He becomes incapable of facing even the ordinary obligations of daily life, surrounding himself with a plethora of fears and paranoias. With every failure to perform some minor duty, every situation avoided out of fear, the wealth of material upon which the demon may prey grows – for with each avoidance of reality, he becomes more terrified of being confronted with his cowardice and of being called to account. Thus all social interaction, all prayer, all human activity becomes a potential battlefield upon which the viscera of his fear will be quickly spilled should he venture beyond the confines of his terrors, and so he turns in upon himself, fleeing all contact with the outside world and sealing himself within the confines of his own mind.

Misery

Misery is the natural lot of the soul who, having squandered the graces granted to it in periods of consolation, is ill-equipped and embittered when dryness and suffering follow naturally thereupon. It disguises itself as a sort of illness or affliction, encouraging the soul so diseased to believe that it is incapable, either by its free will or by grace, to escape from its prison, when in fact it is a form of self-indulgence that allows the soul to feel excused from duties and exempted from responsibility. In the beginning misery, excuses itself by a desire to be honest. The man afflicted by some suffering that he does not wish to bear declares “if I feel miserable, I will not plaster a smile across my face,” and so entertains his dark thoughts and gloomy mein. It arises also out of a desire for the help and consolation of others in times of affliction – however, it seeks to gain these not by humble petition, but by a sort of emotional black-mail by which others, unable to bear the groans of the miserable man, will be forced to offer help. As it grows it ceases even to respond to the consolations offered and becomes greedy for a standard of comfort that is unattainable, thus making unreasonable and unfulfillable demands upon others or upon God instead of applying itself to patiently bear its cross. In its most advanced stage, the miserable man will no longer care if there is anyone to see his misery, for he begins to take in it a kind of gloomy and melancholic pleasure, so that he derives a sort of perverse enjoyment from imagining himself to be a damned and tormented soul. Thus he actively rejects all consolations, finding that which is sweet to be bitter, and deliberately exciting his own feelings of despair and desolation until all his world is darkened and he imagines suicide to be a noble escape.

Escapism

The demon of escapism convinces us that the conditions of our present reality are, whether because arduous, tedious, or merely boring, unbearable and ill-suited to the needs of the soul. Thus it goads the soul into various forms of fantasy or distraction which detract from its present obligations by offering pleasures that are not real, and which the soul cannot actually attain. It begins as an excess of desire for entertainment, in the movement from that state in which one enjoys watching, reading, or imagining in their proper place and measure, to the conviction that the world in which one's fantasies transpire is to be preferred to the world in which one actually lives. From here, it addicts the soul to false pleasures with one hand, while with the other drawing its attention more and more to the afflictions and disappointments of life. Thus it instills a sense of tedium in its victim, so that it no longer takes pleasure in its ordinary duties and is constantly seeking some form of escape. This may be a physical escape, as in the case of someone who moves from place to place or even abandons their vocation in the pursuit of the greener grass on the far side of the rainbow; or it may be an escape into the mind, whereby the daily toils are suffered merely in order to arrive in front of the television or the video game machine at the day's end. In its final form, the soul so afflicted loses its connection to reality, imagining that the events of Coronation street are more important than a real daughter's marriage, or that it is in fact an alien from the planet Bajor who has somehow become lost on 21st century Earth. In this state, any intrusion of the life to which God has called man to live will seem a source of terrible affliction, a waste of his time, and an imposition upon his person.