The State of a Sinner

A sinner who must be renewed in repentance is depicted in God’s Word most often as plunged in deep sleep. The distinguishing characteristic of such persons is not always obvious vice, but precisely the absence of that inspired, self-denying zeal for pleasing God with decisive rejection of everything sinful—the fact that for them godliness does not constitute the main object of their concerns and labors, that occupied with many other things, they are completely indifferent to their salvation, do not feel what danger they are in, neglect a good life, and live a life cold toward faith, though sometimes outwardly correct and blameless.

This is the general characteristic. In particulars, the ungracious person appears as follows.

Turned away from God, a person stops at himself and makes himself the chief goal of all his life and activity. This is so partly because after God there is nothing higher than himself; especially because, having once received every fullness from God but now emptied of Him, he hastens and is concerned to fill himself with something else. The emptiness formed in him through falling away from God ceaselessly kindles in him an unquenchable and indefinite but constant thirst. A person has become a bottomless abyss; he labors hard to fill this abyss, but does not see or feel himself filled. For this reason his whole life is spent in toil, effort, and great cares: occupied with various objects in which he hopes to find relief from the thirst consuming him. These objects absorb all his attention, all his time, and all his activity. They are his first good, in which his heart lives. From this it is clear why a person, making himself an exclusive goal, is never in himself but always outside himself, in created things or things invented by vanity. Cut off from God, Who is the fullness of all things, he himself is empty; he remains as though scattered over infinitely diverse things and lives in them. Thus the sinner yearns for, is concerned about, and busies himself with objects outside himself and God, with many and diverse things. Hence the characteristic feature of sinful life is, with neglect of salvation, cares about many things (see: Lk 10:41).

The nuances and distinctions of this concern about many things depend on the nature of the voids formed in the soul. The void of the mind, which has forgotten the One Who is all, gives rise to concern for much knowledge, investigation, questioning, inquisitiveness. The void of the will, which has lost possession of the One Who is all, produces desire for many things, striving for much possession or universal possession, so that everything is in our will, in our hands—this self-centered love. The void of the heart, which has lost enjoyment of the One Who is all, creates a thirst for many and diverse pleasures, or the seeking of those countless objects in which we hope to find satisfaction of our senses, both inner and outer. Thus the sinner is constantly concerned with much knowledge, much possession, much pleasure—he is pleased, he dominates, he seeks. This is the circle in which he whirls his whole life. Seeking tantalizes, the heart hopes to taste sweetness and draws the will along. That this is so, anyone can verify by observing the movements of his own soul for just one day.

The sinner would remain in this circle if left alone: such is our nature when it is in slavery to sin. But this circle is increased and complicated a thousandfold because the sinner is not alone. There is an entire world of persons who do exactly that—seek, enjoy, accumulate—who have brought these methods into order, subjected them to laws, made them necessary for all belonging to their realm, who in mutual union, inevitably coming into contact, rub against each other, and in this friction only heighten to the tenth, hundredth, and thousandth degree the seeking, self-centered love, and self-pleasure, placing all happiness, bliss, and life in their inflaming. This is the vain world, whose occupations, customs, rules, connections, language, amusements, diversions, ideas—all, from the smallest to the greatest, are saturated with the spirit of those three offspring of concern about many things mentioned above, and constitute a cheerless wreck of the spirit of lovers of the world. Standing in living union with all this world, every sinner is ensnared by its thousand-fold net, wrapped in it deeply, so that he himself is not visible. A heavy burden lies on the whole face of the sinner who loves the world and on each of his parts, so that he does not have the strength to stir even slightly in an unwordly manner, because then he would necessarily have to lift as it were a thousand-pound weight. For this reason no one undertakes such an impossible task, and no one thinks of undertaking it, but all live, moving along the same track into which they have fallen.

To make matters worse, in this world there is its own prince, unique in cunning, malice, and skill in deceptions. Through the flesh and materiality with which the soul mixed itself at the fall, he has free access to it and, approaching, fans into flames on all sides the seeking, self-centered love, pleasure-loving self-comforting; with his various deceptions he holds them inescapably, with various promptings he suggests plans to satisfy them, and then either helps carry them out or ruins them by pointing to other more powerful plans—all with one goal: to prolong and deepen residence in them. This constitutes the alternation of worldly failures and successes not blessed by God. This prince has a whole host of servants, spirits of wickedness subject to him. At every moment they swiftly traverse all corners of the inhabited world to sow one thing here, another thing there, to deepen those caught in the nets of sin, to renew bonds that have weakened and broken—especially to watch that no one dares to break free from their bonds and go to freedom. In this last case they quickly gather around the rebel, at first one by one, then in detachments and legions, and finally with the whole host—and this in various forms and methods, to block all exits, to repair the threads and nets, and, by another comparison, to cast back into the abyss the one who has begun to climb out. This invisible kingdom of spirits has special places—throne-halls where plans are made, orders are received, reports are taken with approval or censure from those who work there. These are the depths of Satan, in the expression of St. John the Theologian. On earth, in the midst of their kingdom among people, such places are unions of evildoers, those who spread corruption, especially unbelieving blasphemers, who spread the darkness of sin everywhere by deed, word, and writing and obscure the light of God. The instrument through which they express their will and power here is the sum of worldly customs saturated with sinful elements, always dulling and turning away from God.

Behold the structure of the sinful domain!

Every sinner is wholly in it, but is held chiefly by something singular. And this one thing, perhaps, seems sometimes quite acceptable, and even commendable.

Satan has one concern: that what occupies the person entirely, where his consciousness, attention, heart are—should not be God exclusively and alone, but something outside Him, so that, cleaving to this with mind, will, and heart, he has that in place of God and only cares for it, seeks to know it, finds pleasure in it, and possesses it. Here it is not only carnal and soulish passions, but also things of good appearance, like learning, artistry, worldly success—that can serve as bonds with which Satan holds blinded sinners in his domain, not letting them come to their senses.

If one looks at a sinner in his inner disposition and state, it will be found that although he sometimes knows much, he is blind regarding God’s works and the work of his own salvation; that although he is constantly occupied and concerned, he is inactive and negligent regarding the ordering of his salvation; that although he constantly experiences agitations or pleasures of the heart, he is completely insensitive to everything spiritual. In this respect, all the powers of his being are struck by sin, and in the sinner there dwell blindness, negligence, and insensitivity. He does not see his condition, and therefore does not feel the danger of his position; he does not feel the danger, and therefore does not care to escape it. It does not even occur to him that he needs to change and be saved. He is in complete, unshaken confidence that he is in his proper place, that he has nothing to wish for, that everything should remain as it is. And therefore he considers any reminder of another kind of life superfluous for himself, does not heed it, cannot even understand what it is for, avoids it, and flees from it.