"Self is the root, the tree, and the branches of all the evils of our fallen state"
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Sin doesn’t start out there in the world; it starts with the “I” that wants to be in charge. William Law’s line lands like a blunt instrument because it collapses the usual Christian temptation to blame bad influences, bad politics, or bad luck. “Self” isn’t just one vice among many, he argues; it’s the generating system. Root, tree, branches: a whole ecology of corruption, all fed by the same underground hunger for sovereignty.
The metaphor does more than dramatize ego. It smuggles in inevitability. If self is the root, then every visible moral failure (the branches) is not an isolated lapse but the natural outgrowth of a deeper orientation. That framing is classic Law: a devotional writer in an Anglican world where “reasonable” religion was increasingly in vogue, he pushed back against polite, managerial Christianity. In The Serious Call and his later mystical works, he insists that reform isn’t primarily self-improvement; it’s self-surrender. The subtext is anti-modern before modernity fully arrives: a warning that the self, treated as a project to optimize, becomes a subtle idol.
“Fallen state” adds the theological hard edge. Law isn’t diagnosing mere psychological quirks; he’s describing a condition that distorts desire itself. The intent is pastoral but unsparing: stop negotiating with symptoms. Pride, resentment, greed, even performative piety are just different foliage on the same trunk. The only cure implied is not better behavior but a new center of gravity, one in which the self no longer gets to play God.
The metaphor does more than dramatize ego. It smuggles in inevitability. If self is the root, then every visible moral failure (the branches) is not an isolated lapse but the natural outgrowth of a deeper orientation. That framing is classic Law: a devotional writer in an Anglican world where “reasonable” religion was increasingly in vogue, he pushed back against polite, managerial Christianity. In The Serious Call and his later mystical works, he insists that reform isn’t primarily self-improvement; it’s self-surrender. The subtext is anti-modern before modernity fully arrives: a warning that the self, treated as a project to optimize, becomes a subtle idol.
“Fallen state” adds the theological hard edge. Law isn’t diagnosing mere psychological quirks; he’s describing a condition that distorts desire itself. The intent is pastoral but unsparing: stop negotiating with symptoms. Pride, resentment, greed, even performative piety are just different foliage on the same trunk. The only cure implied is not better behavior but a new center of gravity, one in which the self no longer gets to play God.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
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