The Bible teaches us a phrase that seems like a paradox: "The stingy are eager to get rich and are unaware that poverty awaits them" Proverbs 28:22. This is a sad truth because money or riches behave like apparent goods. Money or riches are always the product of wisdom, that is, assertive decisions, and the good work; wealth is never an end in itself.
The avarice tells us Saint Thomas Aquinas is a capital sin, because many others are derived from this sin. The love of money becomes so intense in these people, that for this good, the miser is not only bad with others, but also with himself. The miser enjoys the accumulation of wealth, which is unnecessary to him, and is also unable to make use of it, that is, to spend money. The miser is the opposite of the prodigal.
Misery awaits the miser despite his love of money, for a very simple reason, he does not have wisdom to live, he constantly makes wrong decisions and cannot correctly perceive how the environment works, the miser does not spread happiness but sadness.
Psalm 1, the Psalm of the two paths explains that there is no bliss for sinners: "For the LORD watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction" Psalm 1:6.
We can ask ourselves where this inclination of the common man to error comes from. People tend to seek riches because they are motivated by the desire for happiness, which is a selfish desire, and is related to concupiscence.
Apparent goods also have the aggravating circumstance that they are scarce and therefore are the subject of disputes between selfish men, as a consequence this brings with it homicides, the oppression, and wars. Wisdom as a science seeks the integral formation of man and aims to avoid these errors, men according to the wisdom must seek the true goods of life, righteousness, peace, longevity, and contemplative life.