Prideful vainglory and perfection are sometimes close associates, while imperfection and humility can find solace in each other’s company. For many, perfection is a major prerequisite for God’s friendship and loving regard, whereas imperfection and sin invite God’s anger and punishment. In keeping with this mindset, a particular virtue is only possessed in its perfection, so that you either have a particular virtue, or you don’t. Similarly, absolution from sin in confession can be understood as reestablishing one in the virtue opposed to the sin confessed, but only until one falls into that sin again. According to this perspective on virtue and sin, ten acts of patient kindness are obliterated and nullified by a single act of impatient unkindness. Thus, the notion of degrees of sinfulness, or approximations to a particular virtue, is not considered.
Abraham’s bargaining with God over the future of Sodom suggests that he didn’t endorse this either/or approach to virtue, sin, and its reward or punishment. And God appears to have affirmed Abraham’s understanding of divine justice and the divine response to sin and vice. For, a God who demands perfection, and an all-or-nothing approach to virtue, would have been unlikely to spare a grossly evil city for the sake of its few virtuous citizens. Indeed, one of the few spared destruction with the rest of Sodom was Lot, whose willingness to offer his own daughter to prevent the crowd abusing his angelic visitors, betrays something short of perfection—and yet God spares him.
As we gaze within our own hearts, and unless we are delusional or totally lacking in self-knowledge, we probably behold an admixture of both virtues and vices—some of the former being still quite weak, and some of the vices still active and powerful. Focusing solely and obsessively on our vices and disregarding our progress towards virtue may seem appropriate, and yet risks discouraging us and seriously impeding our growth in inner freedom and that wholeness of being conformed to Christ. Conversely, blinding ourselves to our obvious vices and enslavement to sin by narcissistically accentuating our virtues, is equally detrimental to spiritual growth and regaining that true to likeness to Christ, in which we were created.
As with so much else in our Christian lives, striking a healthy balance between recognizing the working of grace in our hearts and our progress in virtue, while simultaneously identifying and recognizing those areas of our lives still under the sway and tyranny of sin, offers hope and incentive for not giving up the struggle to become totally free in Christ. In acting thus, we are mirroring God who sees not only the remaining sinfulness, but also the progress made towards that totally virtuous life that opens our hearts to receive the fullness of his love.
Nevertheless, even now, while our sinful hearts are still unable to receive the fullness of God’s love, even the slightest movement towards virtue and wholeness guarantees us God’s loving regard—a love without which virtue becomes warped and narcissistic. For, unless virtue increases our ability to truly love God and humbly allow ourselves to be loved by him, we will forever remain incomplete. Thus, our own William of Saint Thierry explains that God first loved us so that we might love him. But as he goes on to add, this was not because [God] needed to be loved by us, but because we could not be what [God]created us to be,