What are the seven deadly sins?
The short answer
The "seven deadly sins" are better called the seven capital sins — pride, greed (avarice), envy, wrath (anger), lust, gluttony, and sloth. They're called "capital" (from the Latin for "head") not because they're the worst possible sins, but because they are sources — root attitudes of the heart that give rise to many other sins. Naming them helps us spot the deeper disorders driving our behaviour.
Full explanation
This famous list isn't a ranking of the seven worst things you can do; it's a diagnosis of the seven roots from which sins tend to grow. Pull up the root and many bad fruits go with it. Here they are, each with the deeper disorder it names:
- Pride — putting myself at the centre, refusing to depend on God or admit I'm wrong; the deepest root, the one that says "my will, not God's." Scripture says "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble."
- Greed (avarice) — the craving for more possessions and wealth, never satisfied, treating things as my security and worth.
- Envy — resentment at others' good, the inability to rejoice in someone else's blessing.
- Wrath (anger) — not the healthy passion for justice, but the nursed grudge, the desire for revenge, the rage that wants to wound.
- Lust — disordered sexual desire that reduces persons to objects for my pleasure.
- Gluttony — disordered desire for food, drink, or consumption generally; letting appetite rule, whether by excess or obsession.
- Sloth (acedia) — not mere laziness but a spiritual sluggishness, a listless unwillingness to love and to do the good, even a kind of sadness about the things of God.
Why bother learning the list? Because most of our particular failures trace back to one of these. The harsh word, the broken relationship, the dishonest deal — scratch the surface and you'll often find pride, or envy, or anger underneath. Knowing your characteristic capital sin (we each tend to have one or two that trip us most) is one of the most useful things in the spiritual life: it tells you where to aim your prayer, your vigilance, and your examination of conscience.
And there's good news built into the structure. Every capital sin has an opposing virtue that heals it, and the way forward is less about white-knuckling against the vice than about cultivating its opposite: humility heals pride, generosity heals greed, kindness and gratitude heal envy, patience and gentleness heal wrath, chastity heals lust, temperance heals gluttony, and diligence (and love) heals sloth. You don't just fight the darkness; you grow the light.
Why this matters
It's easy to treat sin as a list of isolated rule-breaks. The capital sins reveal something deeper: that our actions flow from the condition of our hearts. If you only ever pull off the visible bad fruit, more grows back; but if you go after the root, real change becomes possible. This is practical wisdom for genuine self-knowledge and growth — knowing which disorder most drives you, and which virtue to cultivate against it.
Myth Common misunderstanding
One misunderstanding is that "deadly" means each of these is automatically a mortal sin that damns you. Not so — "capital" means they are sources of other sins; any given instance can be venial or grave depending on the circumstances. Another misunderstanding treats the list as quaint or medieval; in fact pride, greed, envy, anger, lust, gluttony, and sloth are as alive in the human heart (and as cleverly marketed) today as ever.
Scripture connections
- Proverbs 6:16-19 — a list of things "the Lord hates," including pride and a lying tongue, an Old Testament cousin to the capital sins.
- Galatians 5:19-21 — Paul's catalogue of the "works of the flesh," overlapping the capital sins.
- James 4:6 — "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble," pride as the root disorder.
- 1 John 2:16 — "the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride of life," three deep roots of sin.
- Galatians 5:22-23 — the "fruit of the Spirit," the virtues that displace the vices.
Church teaching references
Reflect
Of the seven, which one do you sense is *your* characteristic root — the one that most often lies under your particular failures — and what is the opposite virtue you could deliberately practise against it?