Part One: How Pride Causes Slavery to Sin

In the two parts of this paper I explain how enslavement to sinful action occurs. In this explanation, critical use is made of the fact that pride is at the root of all sin. In Part One of the paper, I develop an account of pride as moral subjectivism and then explicate the concept of addiction, especially its iatrogenic nature. Equipped with these two analyses, in Part Two of the paper I explain precisely how the aspect of moral subjectivism, inherent in all sinning, leads the sinner into bondage. Finally, I amplify the account by showing how this compulsive condition is further compounded through a three-stage confirmation of one's own will in and to sin (“hardening of the heart”).