The Eight Evils: Gluttony Chris Selmys Originally published in Issue XV of Vulgata, September, 2004.

"Put a knife to your throat if you are given to gluttony. "
    - Proverbs 23:2

All of our appetites are for something. In so far as they act in such a way that they fulfill their function they are ordered. When they exceed, impede, contradict or pervert their function, they are disordered. Saint Thomas Aquinas names 5 ways in which this can take place, leaning on the authority of Saint Gregory the Great who wrote: "The vice of gluttony tempts us in five ways. Sometimes it forestalls the hour of need; sometimes it seeks costly meats; sometimes it requires the food to be daintily cooked; sometimes it exceeds the measure of refreshment by taking too much; sometimes we sin by the very heat of an immoderate appetite"(Moral. xxx, 18) Saint Thomas sums up these five ways as "Hastily, sumptuously, too much, greedily, daintily." He concentrates on the disordered appetite for food and drink but I believe that his categories can be seen to apply to other natural appetites and goods. I will concentrate on the 6 which I believe to be the most common and distinct. Before that, though, let us be clear about a few more things.

What's so bad about Gluttony, anyway?

There are at least 4 ways that it is very bad indeed. Consider this portrait of a glutton in an advanced state of decay. He is always thinking of himself rather than of God or his neighbor because his attention is turned inward on himself. His appetites are never sated because he expects the wrong things from them. His will is flabby and barely able to exert any influence on anything. His life is stagnant, repetitive, predictable and unsatisfying. His days are spent trying to eat comfort, drink joy, buy tranquility and see something on TV that will take his loneliness away. His relationships with other people are characterized by possessiveness and vampirism. Eventually he is unable to derive any real enjoyment from any actual good and this makes it impossible for him to be thankful for anything. Finally, the door is wide open for Lust, Sloth, Despair et all to take up residence and do further violence to his soul.

You may still wonder if it is possible for a sin of gluttony to be mortal and might be tempted to think that perhaps gluttony is therefore somehow less serious a matter. You may reason that Gluttony may well make one useless puddle of self-absorbed misery, but can it really send you to hell? Be careful. Saint Thomas says that when you have a disordered appetite for something but do not allow yourself to sin for its sake, it is a venial sin, however if you do sin in some way for its sake then it is mortal. This is because something is taking God's place as the end of your actions. Additionally, it may be that a lot of things that come under Gluttony's banner are not always very grave but many of them can certainly be fatal: no amount of effort seems to be sufficient to fully catalogue all of the health problems that come of overeating, and indulgence in all kinds of drugs for “recreational purposes” can do you in – sometimes very quickly indeed. Taking undue risks for the sake of excitement is an easy way to get killed, imprudent excesses in spirituality often cause insanity sometimes leading to suicide, as can the despair induced by a great burden of debts incurred by overspending.

Omission & Commission

It is also valuable to consider gluttony not only as a sin of commission but also of omission. Someone who indulges excessively in one of their appetites will not only find it more difficult to sate but will also become less grateful and less able to appreciate what good can come of it. If we fast then when the fast is over we delight in even the smallest blessings that God has bestowed upon us and our prayers of thanksgiving come alive. Contrarily, someone who never deprives themselves of anything is unable to endure scarcity and becomes bitter and wretched when it is impossible or imprudent to indulge their appetites. Also, putting aside our appetites for a time frees up space in our minds and in our schedules for spiritual necessities. This is why times of fasting are times for prayer and should be observed by everyone. If, however we always leave our appetites unchecked, they will grow and consume increasingly more of our attention until God does not have enough room to maneuver in our lives.

Gluttony of Food

This is the most well known and commonly understood variety of gluttony: everyone has had the experience of being hungry, of eating something that tasted good, of being refreshed and strengthened after a meal, etc. This is the kind of way that our appetite for food is supposed to work. Everyone also has experienced that it does not always work this way. We may we consider ourselves free of this demon just because we don't weigh 300 pounds – the over-priced, individually packaged, calorie-reduced, organic entrees you prefer might qualify you for charges of eating too delicately or too expensively. And there's more...

Too soon
We are supposed to be notified of the normative time to eat by our hunger. Problems arise when our hunger doesn't work properly because of overindulgence or when it gets set off out of it's proper context by an insidious external source such as advertising. The exception is of course fast days. Going without anything becomes much more difficult if it is within the formal framing of a fast. It doesn't matter whether you are going without meat or chocolate, as soon as you begin that will be the only thing you will be interested in eating, so if you can do without it completely on a fast day from time to time, beating normal everyday cravings should become simplicity itself.

Too expensively
Excessive eating at costly restaurants, buying of overpriced gourmet tid-bits,  are obvious manifestations of this vice. Less obvious expenditures are time, health, and waste. Spending all day preparing a feast for your parents fiftieth anniversary is reasonable, but daily food preparation should not consume your entire life. This by no means implies that you should rely on “fast foods” or expensive, over-packaged garbage of little nutritional value – they will take a chunk out of your health and require millions of unique and talented persons to squander their lives in factories making the conveniently segmented disposable packaging.

Too much
I mentioned that a meal should leave one refreshed, strengthened and ready to continue their work. If after a meal someone is painfully bloated and resembles a beached whale they are obviously not going to be doing much of anything. Also wine when not taken beyond what Aquinas calls 'the point of hilarity' does its job of gladdening the heart of man, too much and its purpose is defeated and any of a dozen different miseries might manifest.

Too greedily
If you gulp down your food so quickly you haven't the time to taste it, and those around you liken the spectacle of your meals to watching a troll consuming a farmer and his homestead, you may suffer from this problem. Making sure you say a proper grace before every instance of eating something, and taking the time to appreciate your food, should help to put this vice to rest. Also, read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.

Too daintily
The most common versions of this right now are dogmatic vegetarianism or any other dietary doctrine whose enthusiasts insist that all card carrying members of the human race must subscribe to it or be excommunicated. It also applies to those who will rather starve than eat a fried egg that isn't a perfect circle, or who would never stoop to consume “No Name” products.

If you have particular problems in this area what you might try is to make a point of never eating alone. Always eating with somebody else will make it much more difficult to be a troll about it and will make it necessarily more difficult to eat at odd times.

Gluttony of Buying

If you are reading this on the Internet then you most likely have more financial resources at your disposal than the overwhelming majority of all other people on this planet. Well, God did not pick your name out of a hat for that grace neither did he roll a pair of cosmic dice to see how many worldly resources you would get. It, like everything else, is part of his plan. The combination of our taking our dough for granted and the allure of myriad things we couldn't possibly need for sale around us makes it possible for us to fail to use what God has given us for the purposes that He intends. This will happen in the usual 5 ways.

Wrong Time
According to desert father wisdom we are only to exert our wills to effect what is taking place right now, because the past is out of our hands and there can be no certainty about the future. The only thing we are able to exert an influence on is the present so it should be our only concern. Therefore, amassing stuff that you anticipate a need for somewhere down the road and perpetually paying off things you got long ago and perhaps don't even use anymore is indicative of a problem in this area.

Too expensively
This is not complicated – if you can't afford it, don't buy it, whatever your motivation for wanting to is, it is not sound. Re-examine the data and an alternative solution will emerge.

Too much & Too Greedily
If you find that you are indulging in compulsive buying you must ask yourself how it is that you have money for it, because there really is no legitimate way that you can. Try these checkpoints: Is God getting his 10%? Is all of my money ethically acquired? Have I provided for the needs of my children, parents, grandparents, etc? Have I paid all my just debts? If you sill have money that is setting your pocket on fire and you don't know what to do, pray in this way: “Dear God. I have been blessed with wealth beyond my humble capacity to wield it. If my wits are too dull to discern your plan, send wisdom, send your spirit. If somebody else needs it and I refuse to see them, open my eyes, open my heart.”

Too Selectively
In some places, if you happen to have any money, you go into the store and buy whatever they happen to have. Then you try to find someone who needs it who will trade you for something that you need. Here it is a little more difficult not to be selective and there are some good reasons to be. It is true that many products have a 50% mark-up to pay their advertising bill, that some are produced by companies who endorse immoral practices and that some are specially designed to completely fall apart the minute the warranty expires. These are adequate reasons to be choosy provided that it does not become a compulsive or paranoid behaviour. Nevertheless, if we are being selective on the basis of brand name snobbery, peer-coercion, keeping up appearances or some other such unworthy motive then it is definitely not on.

Gluttony of Emotion/Excitement

In general people are not attached to particular feelings for themselves, but to the rush that accompanies any of them when they're revved up a bit. If someone, because of their aesthetic sense, actually has  attachment for a particular emotion, it will be in an idealized or parodied form and they will likely have very little knowledge or experience of the genuine article.

Too soon
Reacting to events that haven't happened yet is very unhealthy as it divorces the consciousness from the moment that is actually taking place and thrusts them into a fantasy world. The more detailed the fantasy becomes as the event approaches and the more it is nurtured, the more absolutely essential it becomes that things actually take place in the way predicted, which they never will. On the surface it should be obvious that having a fantasy about something will not make it so, but once a substantial amount of time and emotion has been invested it is not uncommon for people to feel actual outrage or be emotionally wounded in some other way, because they actually cannot believe that the world did not bend to their expectations.

Too expensively
This is actually much more of an error than a vice, but it could become one if cultivated long enough. The thing is that it is actually very difficult to have money substantially influence anyones emotional state in a significant and positive way unaided. With gifts, parties, works of art, or anything else, inspiration, delivery and love count a million times more than the number of bucks behind, such as to make the sum functionally irrelevant. Many people don't believe this and go to great pains to act as though it is not true, but the fact remains. A bad wedding will be a bad wedding whether it is an operatic and colossal waste of money or merely a hopeless and decrepit waste of time. A good wedding will remain so whether it is just a humble and cozy one or an actual  foretaste of the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Too much
This is characterized by nursing emotions beyond their natural death and overreacting to very minor events
This is usually accounted for by large masses of emotion that are coming from somewhere deemed undesirable by their owner which need to be dispersed in a more pleasing way. If this becomes habitual the result is a person that is very difficult to get along with because their version of reality will not line up all that well with anybody else's and it will tend to be pretty bleak.

Too greedily
This is when someone is always running out and trying to get embroiled in emotional complications to make their life more interesting. By the time they are doing this they are already in the dangerous predicament of not being able to see that their life is already very interesting or at least easily could be. The problem is that they have come to believe that their reaction to something, the degree that it stirs up their interest, emotion, etc., is something that comes form outside of them. As this persists their capacity for being emotionally engaged diminishes, because far from being something that is owed each of us by our environment, it is like a muscle or a skill and grows flabby and weak with neglect. Therefore such an unfortunate will eventually become more and more dependent of shocking or overwhelming stimulus of some kind, just to be reminded convincingly that they are still a human being.

Too daintily
Some people, notably New Agers, are in the habit of applying the principles of cosmetic surgery to their  emotional make-up. Some emotions are deemed undesirable, such as anger and sadness, and thus the person pretends that they never feel them. Other, fashionable emotions, like compassion and peacefulness, are imitated at all times, regardless of how appropriate they are in context, and of how much relation they bear to the person's actual psychological state. Doing this tends to make you think you're better than everyone else.

Gluttony of Entertainment

Entertainment is good because it allows us to wind down, enjoy each other's company, and take life (and hopefully ourselves) a little less seriously. Even things that are not explicitly edifying may be enjoyed quite licitly, provided they endow us with such natural goods as cheer, mirth, or relaxation. We have a problem  when we overstimulate ourselves into becoming solitary drooling lumps of semi-sentient tofu, or when we imagine that we are owed a constant inundation of commercially produced fun and excitement.

Wrong Time
Relaxation and entertainment should ready us for work, either by inspiring us, or by helping us to recover our strength. As such, it should never take precedence over useful productivity, nor should it be taken for granted.

Too expensively
Throwing out perfectly good electronic equipment because it isn't the latest thing, or has some exceedingly minor fault, is a problem that is endemic in this culture. So is purchasing electronic gadgetry upon which you are still making payments when the warranty is expired, or which you can only operate with the help of your children.

Too much
This does not only apply to couch-potatoes and video-game addicts. If you compulsively read novels beyond the point where they could possibly confer any benefit, or attend six parties in the same week-end, you're in the same position.

Too greedily
If you play your hand-held game system while watching TV, you can't possibly be getting anything worthwhile out of either. Nor can you gain the benefit of reading a novel by gulping down the condensed version.

Too scrupulously
The unique danger exists for conservative Christians to, having perceived that reams of abominations are being churned out by the entertainment industry, adopt a very paranoid attitude toward any artistic endeavor not older than 100 or so years, broadcast by a Christian television network or purchased from a shop that deals chiefly in exotic scapulars and third class relics. Yes, our culture is in a bit of a rough spot right now, but that means that the few artists who are trying turn it around need all the more support and encouragement.

Gluttony of Drugs

Drugs, in general, have two sorts of effects: their primary effect, which is desirable, and their side-effects, which generally are not. In some cases the primary effect itself is actually disordered – as in the case of heroine or the birth control pill. As such, taking these drugs is obviously out of line regardless of context. For the rest, we need to look at whether the good obtained by using them outweighs the cost.

Wrong Time
This is straight-forward: don't take drugs for ailments you don't yet have or in a context that would be unsafe. Exercise prudence. If this means you have to endure the grinding agony of a minor head cold for a little while, offer it up.

Too expensively
Anything from pouring out your life-savings for a bottle of fine Scotch, to spending hundreds of dollars a week on hyper-rare designer vitamins imported from Baghdad.

Too much
If the prescription says to take it twice daily with food, follow the instructions. You will not reap more benefit or get better faster by doubling the dosage. If you drink until you are sick, or start to find the tightly clad sixty year old at the end of the bar attractive, you need to cut back. Obviously, if the drug in question has to be purchased from a grim-faced gun-toting fifteen year old in a back alley, you shouldn't be using it at all.

Too greedily
This is when one starts prescribing remedies for themselves in aid of maladies that do not exist or problems that cannot be solved by medicine. Eventually every problem that has unhappiness as a symptom is treated in the same way, the causes are neglected, the symptoms increase, more drugs, more misery, still more drugs, etc.

Too daintily
Those who are overly enthusiastic and evangelical about all the kinds of medicine that end in 'opathy' could be afflicted with this. Likewise if your taste for gourmet wines leads you to snub hosts who can't afford to spend a hundred dollars per bottle.

Spiritual Gluttony

Too soon
It is true that some Saints have, very shortly upon conversion, been swallowed up in indescribable raptures or called to tie themselves to a pillar of stone in the desert. This is not, however, the norm – and unless you suffer from super-human humility, is probably is not for you. For the sake of our pride, grace usually takes its time – and those who try to jump into the most advanced spiritual exercises or penances before God calls them tend to go insane. Even if you avoid this obvious draw-back, the only spiritual fruit you will reap from such an ill-advised endeavour is a substantial increase in pride, followed by disappointment in your efforts, and finally temptations to abandon your faith.

Too expensively
Shady televangelists and medieval indulgences are the first things to spring to mind, but the modern lay Catholic is not necessarily exempt. We are not iconoclasts – it is obviously good to own some religious paraphernalia, and it is laudable to donate money to good religious causes. You cannot, however, buy salvation – nor will a bigger, golder crucifix hanging in your front hall bring you closer to Christ. Tithe your 10% faithfully, and make sure that you're not trying to fill a void in your prayer life by buying the outward limbs and flourishes of devotion.

Too much
We are called to pray without ceasing – but not to abandon our obligations and responsibilities for the sake of prayer. Lengthy retreats and time spent locked away in prayer rooms should not conflict with school, children, marriage, work, or the general business of carrying the daily cross. Learn to pray while working, to make frequent short prayers, and to perform the menial necessities of life for love God. If you find this challenging because you feel it is irreverent or unspiritual to pray while polishing a toilet bowl, manufacturing corrugated product or calculating somebody's taxes, you may suffer from spiritual daintiness – see below.

Too greedily
Spiritual consolations, feelings of intense communion with God, raptures, ecstasies, and miracles are all very nice if and when they come. They cannot form the foundation of a spiritual life. Periods of dryness and struggle are not only normal – many wise and Saintly spiritual writers say they are better. Keep in mind that the value of prayer is not determined by the pleasantness of the emotion it evokes, or by the intensity of feeling poured into it, but by perseverance, disposition of the will, and by the real effects it has on the way you behave from day to day.

Too daintily
If there is a lengthy series of specific procedures which you feel you cannot fail to adopt in order to ascend the Ivory Tower of prayer, you are probably suffering from this. Unless what you are doing is sinful, you should feel comfortable praying while doing it. If what you are doing is sinful, you should immediately begin praying, no matter how uncomfortable you feel, for the grace to stop. You do not have to be in a state of calm and self-possession, you don't need to have the candles and incense burning, and you don't have to compose  sesquipedalian rhapsodies before addressing the Almighty. He knows you have to clean out your belly-button lint and medicate your hemorrhoids, but He still commands you to pray without ceasing – so presumably He won't be embarrassed to hear from you under these and other compromising circumstances.

Loose Ends

Gluttony can also afflict dozens of other things but I wont be able to treat them all. Here are just a few examples. Talkativeness, the gluttony of speech, bring to my mind cell phones and St. John Climacus says that it is “the throne of vainglory on which it loves to preen itself and show off”. One may think that the gluttony of asceticism had abandoned us and could no longer be found outside of histories of medieval monasteries but one need only look to the dieting industry which has sprung up to see that this is not so. Someone might develop an unruly attachment to their friends and become afflicted with the gluttony of company, but that person is unlikely to keep their friends for long. Someone else who uses sleep as an anesthetic against things in their life that they would rather ignore may be a glutton or a coward or both.