The contemporary view of envy is that it is little more than a superficial social vice . . .
It tends to be seen as a core aspect of sin with a key role in unleashing human destructivity. It is the comical figure of Mrs. Bucket in BBC TV's 'Keeping Up Appearances', with her insatiable desire to acquire symbols of social status, that typifies this modern trend.
Instances of envy resulting in crime or despotic tyranny are seen as excessive and idiosyncratic envy rather than a laying bare of the real intrinsic nature of envy. Envy survives with its rather innocent childlike reputation intact.
This trivialisation of envy is not one shared by one of the major schools of thought in psychoanalysis. The Kleinians (who have developed the work of Melanie Klein 1852-1960) regard envy as the primary root behind human aggression and destructiveness. The trivialisation is also one that is not shared by the Bible. 'A heart at peace gives life to the body; envy rots the bones' (Proverbs 14.30). Envy is consumingly destructive like a disease.
How do we define it?
What is envy and what is involved in it? It is far more than just an acquisitive desire for another's material possessions. It is more than jealousy, which refers to one specific formation of envy. (Envy of the actual or presumed advantage of a rival, particularly, but not exclusively, with regard to receiving love.) Envy is not just about what the other has, but the other is in themselves. The capacity to give to another emotionally, the virtue in personality, the strength of character, the ability to see reality for what it is, can all be potent provokers of envy.
Unrestrained envy leads to hatred. Not a trivial dislike, but rather a wish to destroy. It must be distinguished from hatred born of the frustration of basic needs withheld. It is not an attacking hatred of the 'bad' person, but of the 'good' person. A hatred of the person who can and who is willing to provide for basic needs, such as trust, love and significance. Such a person is envied and attacked because of their goodness. Psychoanalysis regards such an envious attack to be an attempt to redress the sense that internally I have little or nothing, the other has it all. It equals it out, breaks the perceived power of the other having something genuinely good in them to give. At its depth such envy wishes to empty the other of their goodness and to possess or destroy them rather than feel weak, vulnerable and dependent. The very ability to cope with repeated envious attacks can stir up ever deeper waves of envy. Of course, such attacks are not always clear and open. Defences sometimes obscure and conceal the inner reality of envy. The envied may be praised, feted and idealised, while the self is denigrated and scorned. Alternatively, envy may be projected, and envy is stirred up in others so it is not easily spotted in oneself.
A return to original sin?
Kleinian psychoanalysts controversially regard envy as an innate constitutional endowment operative from the beginning of an infant's life. They claim to see it at work in the young child's relations to the nurturing mother. The 'good' capacity to nurture is attacked as if it was 'bad' by the infant who wishes to take over and possess or destroy what it feels diminished by because of its lack of it. Such an attack of the 'good', of what is actually needed and depended on, however, gives rise to a fundamental confusion. How can this attack be justified? Perhaps mother really is bad and worthy of attack. Perhaps I am not being unjustifiably destructive. Yet the nagging truth remains: mother is good and I depend on her. Kleinians consider that this confusion sets in motion a life-long struggle to appropriately discriminate the destructive aspects of oneself from that of others. They recognise that our primary 'natural' tendency is to defend ourselves and blame others, rather than see the origins of envious hatred in ourselves.
Perhaps not surprisingly this theory of 'Primary Envy' has provoked much adverse critical comment within a field in so many ways underpinned by humanistic hopefulness in the essential goodness of human nature. It has been seen as tantamount to being a recapitulation to the biblical doctrine of original sin, the ultimate humanistic anathema. Other approaches (e.g. Winnicott; Attachment theorists) prefer to see such envious rage as only a reaction to a depriving, or damaging parental environment. That is secondary rather than primary, as nurture rather than nature. Where do we stand in relation to this debate about envy as evangelical Christians?
The Bible view
The Bible considers human nature to be fallen and corrupt. Not just by virtue of the adverse effects of others on us, but as the primary state in which we are born. We are born in sin. The Kleinian pessimism about human nature finds endorsement biblically. However, the Bible places the essential context for the manifestation of man's envious destructivity as the relationship between man and God, with the human interplay secondary and derivative. It is God who is our primary object of envy and to whom we 'instinctively' direct our envious attack.
This is what we see in the Genesis account of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve seek to have what God has. To be in his position of knowledge and authority. His nurturing commands which provide safety and freedom are attacked as if they were bad, and unfairly withholding what is good and necessary to possess. Man omnipotently enthrones himself as the ultimate authority, and attributes any blame for his predicament on God. It is this core primary relationship which determines the subsequent pattern of human relationships. This pattern is in our nature, in our soul, and we live it out.
A serious matter
The Bible takes envy seriously and stands against any post-modern trivialisation or normalisation. 'For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice' (James 3.16). The apostle Paul agrees: 'They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice' (Romans 1.29). Envy is listed before murder, as if more fundamental. This, of course, had its extreme expression in the reaction of the religious day to Jesus: '... it was out of envy that they handed Jesus over to him (Pilate)' (Matthew 27.18).
Kleinian psychoanalysts would not regard envy as only apparent in primitive emotional states, in infantile behaviour, or just in the obviously infantile adult.
This is not merely a developmental stage that is left securely and irrevocably behind as people mature out of it, with only a few left behind with arrested development. They recognise this as a life issue - a struggle throughout life, with its subtle imprint on even the most sophisticated behaviour. Man's intellectual life is far from free from such influence, as will be known to most university academics. Theoretical disputes invariably become suffused with envious struggle. Paul realised that this connection could occur in the theological realm (1 Timothy 6.4).
The importance of parents
Critics of the doctrine of original sin, and of its more humanistically constructed reincarnation in Kleinian theory, fear it justifies a right-wing agenda of failing to recognise victims of crime in favour of undue emphasis on perpetrators. As far as Kleinian theory goes there are other aspects of it that place so much emphasis on what starts within the inner world of desire, thought, feeling and fantasy, that sometimes the real external world of others impinging is neglected. This has, for instance, contributed in the past (many would argue), to failures to see the reality of child abuse. It is important to recognise that many personality disorders are the legacy of other's inhumanity. Infants do not create depriving and neglectful parents but are found in substantial numbers suffering from this trauma, and going on to adult life with personality damage manifested in disturbed emotions and relationships.
The Bible sees parents as having real responsibility for the development of their children, and a real impact if they mistreat their children. The split between nature and nurture is overridden in Scripture by the understanding that man is both individual and also a part of the matrix of the family and the wider community. We individually sin and we have all become sinners through Adam's sin. What we do cannot be understood only in individual terms, but neither can the individual always be let off the hook.
Parents do have a significant role in transforming the aggression of primary envy into care and concern for others. Through sensitive thoughtfulness, and through emotional engagement, rather than withdrawal or retaliation, parents are uniquely placed to be part of the panolpy of common grace. Yet it remains true that the full depth of man's envy and destructivity cannot be turned around by quality parenting and family life, or its substitutes, but only by God. This is, of course, the gospel. The Kleinian will regard this as a defensive idealisation of a needed parent figure, and will soldier on stoically believing the best we can have is acceptance of a partial resolution of primary envy. We disagree.
The author is Consultant Psychotherapist to the Lincoln and District Healthcare Trust, and Professional Advisor to Eden Chapel Counselling Team, Cambridge.
Geoffrey Fisk
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