Envy

One

Diabolical Sin / Most Malicious

The tenth commandment forbids the sin of envy, the sin of being sorry at what someone else has, of wanting to take what your brother has.

The Catechism says that envy leads to the worst sins. It was envy that fueled the first murder of human history. Of the Seven Deadly Sins, Envy is the one most clearly associated with Satan. The Book of Wisdom says it was through the Devil’s envy that death entered the world. The book of Isaiah presents Satan as wanting what belonged to God, the very throne of God, and Satan himself tries to get Jesus to give him the worship that belongs to God alone.

Again, Satan seems to be eaten up by envy, and he infects Adam and Eve with this envy when he promises them that they’ll be like God.

And really, of all the other sins, only envy hates the good, the good of my brother. Only envy rejoices at evil, the evil that befalls my brother. There’s a sense in which of all the sins, envy gets the closest to real malice.

If that’s not diabolical, then what is?

But surprisingly, envy comes from a very understandable source. A source we can pretty much all sympathize with. It comes from insecurity.

Two

Inferiority Complex = Superiority Complex

Venerable Fulton Sheen once said that an inferiority complex and a superiority complex are really the same thing.

Think of how an arrogant person behaves: he constantly sings his own praises, sometimes subtly, sometimes not so subtly. He always finds a way to turn the conversation to himself, he one-ups everyone else’s story, finds reasons to criticize other people’s accomplishments, and only compliments people when that compliment shows him in a positive light.

We’ve all known this guy: self-obsessed, self-promoting jerk. But then ask yourself: why would someone behave like that?

The only reason you’d behave like that, talking yourself up and talking other people down, is if you felt as though your own worth, your own value, was constantly at stake, constantly at risk, constantly needing to be justified. In other words, if you were constantly concerned about your own worth. If you thought your own worth was doubtful and precarious. 

In other words, you only act superior if you are terrified that you are, in fact, totally inferior.

That’s what Sheen meant. A superiority complex is an inferiority complex. And we only suffer from envy because we believe that someone else’s excellence highlights our own worthlessness. 

And that terrifies us. 

Three

Why Does Another’s Excellence Threaten us?

Now maybe you and I aren’t as obnoxiously insecure, obnoxiously self-obsessed, or obnoxiously envious as some people. But we all struggle with envy because we all struggle with insecurity.

It may have to do with someone else’s looks, or influence, or popularity, or income, or house-size, or publication, or job promotion, or who knows what. But if we are honest, there are some people who, when we hear them praised, when we hear of their good fortune, or of their success, we become uncomfortable and frustrated. 

Maybe we smile and say, “Oh, that’s so great!” but we don’t mean it. And if we see an opportunity to bring up an area that will show the same person in an unfavorable light, we do so. Why do we do this? Why do we feel diminished by another’s success, or happiness, or fortune? 

And what can we do to fight it?

Four

If we don’t have an objective measure of being good, we will use a subjective one

The central issue of envy is that we human beings need a standard outside ourselves by which to live, by which to measure ourselves.

We may think we can do without a standard, but we can’t. And if we do not have an objective standard, we will use a subjective standard.

If we do not see our value as based in God’s unconditional love, and fulfilling God’s design, well, we’re going to treat other people as the standard. And then, if we’re not doing as well as other people, we’ll think we’re sub-standard. And if we’re doing better than other people, we’ll think we’re doing better than average.

So all we’ll care about is doing better than others, and not letting them do better than us. And that’s the definition of envy.

Five

God is the only objective measure

So the way you fight envy is by turning to the true source and standard of your value, worth, and success. You fight an inferiority complex by remembering that your value is unshakable since it’s based on God’s unconditional love.

You fight a superiority complex by remembering that everyone has their own gifts and calling and contribution to make to God’s providential plan. You remember that we’re supposed to measure our success according to how well we become like Jesus, not by how much we surpass or lag behind our brothers and sisters in this or that attribute or possession. Fixing our eyes on God, on Jesus Christ, making Him the standard for our life, the basis of our worth, that’s the only way to avoid the spite and malice of envy.