Thread: What is sin? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by PaulTH* (# 320) on :
 
Sin is a major concept within Christianity. Unlike Buddhism which sees the human problem as ignorance, we see it as being contrary to God's will. So how do we discern what is God's will, and what contrariness constitutes sinful behaviour? Jesus gives us strong guidelines. Love God and your neighbour as yourself. Love one another as He loved us. Live by the golden rule of doing to others as we would have done to us? Is there any better definition of sin?

I see sin as closely related to selfishness. When I exalt my own needs above those of others, I'm certain to fall into sin. When I put my own needs to one side, within reason, and live for others, I'm in harmony with all creation. There can be complex moral choices, for example doing wrong to prevent a greater evil, which can't fit neatly into a box, but is sinful behaviour discernible to us in most situations?
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
Sins are the breaking of a known law.

Sin is the state of heart that leads to the desire to break the known law.

[ 07. August 2015, 22:01: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
 
Posted by Raptor Eye (# 16649) on :
 
I think it is, if we measure our behaviour: that is thoughts, words and actions, by whether or not they demonstrate our love of God and of other people. God's goodness should be seen, the name of Christ promoted, by every encounter we have with other people.

When we put anything else before God as top priority, we sin.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
What does any of that mean?
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
I think of sin as a symptom of lack of trust. If we believe that:
(a). God is all-loving, and
(b). God is all-knowing (or at least smarter than I am)
...then sin is an illogical choice-- if God loves me and knows what is best for me than doing his will must ultimately be somehow in my own best interests. Thus, when I sin (and I do) then I am implicitly demonstrating that I doubt one or both of the above statements.

The thing is, of course, trust is something that is learned over time. You can't summon it up, it develops through a long-term relationship of increasing risk-taking that demonstrates faithfulness. So it isn't so much that "sin" is about how bad we are and how God must punish us for it. Rather, it's about our journey of faith and how we learn-- slowly, thru trial and error-- to trust in God-- sometimes by failing to do so, sometimes by taking a risk and doing so. I particularly see that theme played out in Gen. 3.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Sin is fucking up without excuse.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I wonder if anyone can name the great theologian, initials GW, who said that sin is treating people, including yourself, as things.

It's not George Whitfield.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
The glory of God, said Irenaeus, is a human being fully alive.
Sin is through habit or choice being less alive than one could be.
Equivalently, sin is being more separated from God than one could be.
 
Posted by Ad Orientem (# 17574) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The glory of God, said Irenaeus, is a human being fully alive.
Sin is through habit or choice being less alive than one could be.
Equivalently, sin is being more separated from God than one could be.
Blessed Augustine makes exactly the same point too in City Of God.
 
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
 
Sin is doing something that's wrong even though you know that it's wrong.
 
Posted by Jack o' the Green (# 11091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I wonder if anyone can name the great theologian, initials GW, who said that sin is treating people, including yourself, as things.

It's not George Whitfield.
Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Worthy of the great Martin Buber
 
Posted by Eirenist (# 13343) on :
 
Sin is whatever casts a shadow on the glory of God.
 
Posted by Jack o' the Green (# 11091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Sin is fucking up without excuse.
That is certainly part of it. Interestingly, the Book of Common Prayer says that we have sinned "through negligence, through weakness,
through our own deliberate fault." The 'weakness' could be seen as 'fucking up with excuse' or at least with reason although it still needs to be acknowledged.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I wonder if anyone can name the great theologian, initials GW, who said that sin is treating people, including yourself, as things.

It's not George Whitfield.
Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Worthy of the great Martin Buber
Yes, it is. It points us to the relational nature of life.

It also takes us well away from ideas like punishment or actions and their consequences. It makes sin a matter of disappointment rather than offence, diminishment or missing the mark.

There are other bits of very good theology in Terry Pratchett.
 
Posted by Martin60 (# 368) on :
 
hatless, Jack o' the Green.

Making it meaningful as ever. And 'punishment', yeah, what IS that?
 
Posted by PilgrimVagrant (# 18442) on :
 
I go along with this idea of sin as selfishness.

And that fits sin quite neatly into some conceptions of unethical behaviour.

So to move the discussion along, it may be interesting to consider how the major strands of ethical thinking in (Western) philosophy might consider sin.


But, to my mind, sin is best summarised as a loveless way of being, leading to loveless actions, and I think this is how Jesus saw it.

Best wishes, PV

[ 08. August 2015, 10:56: Message edited by: PilgrimVagrant ]
 
Posted by ExclamationMark (# 14715) on :
 
Anything that comes between us and God - it's personal.
 
Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :
 
It is action based upon self centered fear. And it punishes the sinner by separating that sinner from God.

As said by some important person or another, we are forgiven of our own sin to the extent that we can forgive others of their sin. This, to me, because we can only forgive others of their sins if we recognize our own flawed nature and therefore see ourselves in others. Once we can forgive others, we can forgive ourselves. And vise versa.

When we cannot forgive ourselves for our flawed nature is when we start needing to judge others as lesser, sinners, or inadequate by our standards. That way we can feel better about ourselves without ever having to confront the fact that we are not perfect and will never be perfect. We can remain thinking we are in control and the world needs to be a certain way for us to be happy.

God, who loves us more than we love ourselves, has already forgiven us - and says so.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
Being less than human, as others have already said.

The Greek for sin means 'missing the mark' - an archery metaphor
 
Posted by W Hyatt (# 14250) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
So breaking the 10 commandments, or any of the other 816 OT laws might be considered sin. To my mind, this is the least useful way to define sin. One just can't have enough laws, and exceptions to laws, and sub laws to deal with those exceptions, etc, and the whole rickety edifice defining how people ought to live and act, in every circumstance.
And yet as parents, we give our children rules in order to help them learn the difference between right and wrong, not because we expect the rules to cover every situation, and not because we expect our children to stop thinking about their actions, and not because it allows us to punish them for breaking the rules, but simply because it helps them.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
I don't remember giving my children any rules. I remember lots of stories that explored how people felt when things went wrong, and when they had done things that made others unhappy. Stories that went on to examine how things could be made better again.
 
Posted by Jack o' the Green (# 11091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
quote:
Originally posted by Jack o' the Green:
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
I wonder if anyone can name the great theologian, initials GW, who said that sin is treating people, including yourself, as things.

It's not George Whitfield.
Granny Weatherwax in Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett

Worthy of the great Martin Buber
Yes, it is. It points us to the relational nature of life.

There are other bits of very good theology in Terry Pratchett.
I've been thinking about this all day. The more I think about GW's definition, the more radical and far reaching in its implications it seems to be.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
It's a catchy definition, but it can hardly be described as theology in that it makes absolutely no reference to God at all.
 
Posted by PilgrimVagrant (# 18442) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
So breaking the 10 commandments, or any of the other 816 OT laws might be considered sin. To my mind, this is the least useful way to define sin. One just can't have enough laws, and exceptions to laws, and sub laws to deal with those exceptions, etc, and the whole rickety edifice defining how people ought to live and act, in every circumstance.
And yet as parents, we give our children rules in order to help them learn the difference between right and wrong, not because we expect the rules to cover every situation, and not because we expect our children to stop thinking about their actions, and not because it allows us to punish them for breaking the rules, but simply because it helps them.
Of course we give our children rules. They are insufficiently mature, and too inexperienced, to have formulated a sound ethical system for themselves. But adults are not children, and to treat them as such is to insult them.

It has been said that rules are for the obedience of fools, and the guidance of the wise. The problem with this epithet being that fools think themselves wise, and the wise know themselves fools. It behoves us to be cautious, around rules, because often they are the distillation of wisdom.

However, any attempt to formalise ethics by reducing it to a set of rules is clearly doomed to failure. Life is too complex for that; perhaps God made it so, deliberately. As soon as we have some allegedly workable code, an exception pops up, to prove our rules inadequate.

So, we need some criteria or other that encompasses attitude, and I think this is what Jesus was getting at, when He commanded us to love.

Best wishes, PV.
 
Posted by Jack o' the Green (# 11091) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's a catchy definition, but it can hardly be described as theology in that it makes absolutely no reference to God at all.
True, that's probably why I like it so much.
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eutychus:
It's a catchy definition, but it can hardly be described as theology in that it makes absolutely no reference to God at all.
No reference to God? I think it's very much about
God. It's about how we are with each other and to ourselves, which is what God is about.

I don't think God us a topic amongst other topics, so that now I'm talking about football, now about shirts. God is to do with life and being human.
 
Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :
 
I think it is important to distinguish between sin, vice and error.

I think a vice is a self-destructive behavior (or a self-non-respecting behavior?) that affects other people less directly. I'm not sure I can define sin as neatly, but presumably it involves doing harm to others or perhaps to institutions.

I remember reading a comment that one can have a sense or feeling of sin if one violates the customs or preferences of one's tribe, but it seems to me that this is neither necessary nor sufficient to define sin.

This is an intriguing topic.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
hatless and Jack o' the Green:

One can usefully talk about wrong done to one's fellow-human, but as the Bible has it, "sin" relates first and foremost to a break-off in relations with the Creator. If God's not mentioned, then why use the term "sin"?

[ 08. August 2015, 18:52: Message edited by: Eutychus ]
 
Posted by hatless (# 3365) on :
 
'As the Bible has it'? As some users if the Bible have it, perhaps.

I think that our relations with God and others are inseparable. Love the Lord your God .. and your neighbour as yourself. Believing isn't something extra you can add to your life, like taking up golf, it's how you do everything in your life.

If someone describes something as sin, they are saying that it's a fundamental problem with how we humans sometimes are. It's a God thing.
 
Posted by Eutychus (# 3081) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by hatless:
'As the Bible has it'? As some users if the Bible have it, perhaps.
I can't make much sense of, say, the first few chapters of Romans unless sin is seen primarily as a problem with God and not, primarily with other people.

quote:
I think that our relations with God and others are inseparable. Love the Lord your God .. and your neighbour as yourself. Believing isn't something extra you can add to your life, like taking up golf, it's how you do everything in your life.
Yes, but I personally believe God is a distinct entity that is more than the sum of human relations, and that restoring human relations also means restoring Godward relations.
 
Posted by Polly (# 1107) on :
 
The rejection of God as our creator and Saviour.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Being less than human, as others have already said.

The Greek for sin means 'missing the mark' - an archery metaphor
True, some sin is 'missing the mark'.

But some sin is ingrained 'iniquity' regardless of effort, action, thought or speech. It's a state of being.

and thirdly, some sin is 'trespass' - its not missing the mark because we failed to be good enough, it's a deliberate attempt and successful achievement - of doing something wrong, forbidden and godless.
 
Posted by Nick Tamen (# 15164) on :
 
I suppose that my mother, who taught catechism, and the minister of my youth would be pleased that my immediate reaction on seeing the title of this thread was to think: "Sin is any want of conformity unto or transgression of the law of God."*

Over the years, I have come to think of sin less in legal terms and more in terms of a disease in need of healing, and of what might be called "sinful acts" as manifestations or symptoms of that disease. The law, then, becomes understood not as rules that require punishment if broken but as part of the medicine (discipline?) designed to help heal us of sin by encouraging right relationships with God and with one another.


* Westminster Shorter Catechism, Q 14.
 
Posted by irish_lord99 (# 16250) on :
 
St. Athanasius says, speaking of the fall:

"Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptable, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death."

Sin is anything that corrupts the perfect image of God in which we were created.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by W Hyatt:
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
So breaking the 10 commandments, or any of the other 816 OT laws might be considered sin. To my mind, this is the least useful way to define sin. One just can't have enough laws, and exceptions to laws, and sub laws to deal with those exceptions, etc, and the whole rickety edifice defining how people ought to live and act, in every circumstance.
And yet as parents, we give our children rules in order to help them learn the difference between right and wrong, not because we expect the rules to cover every situation, and not because we expect our children to stop thinking about their actions, and not because it allows us to punish them for breaking the rules, but simply because it helps them.
I think this is a helpful way to look at the "rules"-- not so much as laws that are in place for God's benefit, but for ours. It is thru the rules that we learn (both the keeping of them and the breaking of them) experientially what life in the Kingdom is like. We can hear it described as a life of love, a life of compassion, a life of hospitality, but we don't really know what that means until we have tried or failed to live it out in real terms. That's what the law if for-- to teach us, not to condemn us. It's the way that we learn to trust in God-- as we come to see that this really is the best way of life.

And, just like children, as we mature, the "rules" part of the law becomes less and less important. We obey not because of the rules but because of the way our hearts have been changed by the rules, by experiencing what it's like when we keep them and what it's like when we don't. Which leads to a transformed character, which, as noted above, is far more useful in the long run than a bunch of rules because it works in all those gray areas the law doesn't cover. Which seems to be the way Jesus taught about the Law in the sermon on the mount and his own relationship with, say, the Sabbath law.

But it begins with simple obedience to the rules. It just can't say there if we are to grow into the people we are meant to be.
 
Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Anything that comes between us and God - it's personal.
Much of sin is personal, but the sin that often gets ignored is corporate and global.

Many people would describe poverty and exploitation as injustice, or abuse of our planet's resources as a problem. But not many would use the word 'sin'. However, ISTM that these are some of the biggest, far reaching sins of humanity. And those of us in the West need to face up to our participation in these systems - passive as well as active, that sin against our neighbours in the world. We obviously need to face up to our individual sins of hate, lust and greed. But our systematic sins require just as much repentance.

I would describe sin as a lack of Shalom, or a lack of the Kingdom of God. When we miss the mark (as Leo put it) of God's Way, and do things another way. ISTM that selfishness, both individual and corporate, is the starting point for a lot of these wrongs. To use Jesus' and John's language, there is light and darkness. Light is a thing, darkness is the absence of the thing. I find it more helpful to understand sin as a lack, therefore, than something explicit in its own right.
 
Posted by PilgrimVagrant (# 18442) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Anything that comes between us and God - it's personal.
Much of sin is personal, but the sin that often gets ignored is corporate and global...

This so true. We have institutionalised selfishness, such that many corporations see the whole of their mission as being the generation of profits for shareholders, regardless of wider impact. And every nation, I suggest, sees it's foreign policy justification solely in terms of the advancement of its own national interest. I think liberation theology started to address the idea of structural sin, but we still need a systematic account of how we formalise and normalise sin into the very purposes of our institutions. It might even be said that in many cases, our institutions are there to protect our sins, and remove any individual responsibility for them.

Best wishes, PV.

[ 09. August 2015, 10:15: Message edited by: PilgrimVagrant ]
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I think the problem of externalising sin is that we are trying to deflect guilt onto others. Oh, don't look at my sin - look at the bankers, the lawyers, the off-shore tax-avoiders, the pedophiles, the MPs and the polluters, the media-magnates...

...what we forget is that same sin that affects the company secretary who fixes the unethical deal is the very same sin that makes the small boy steal a chocolate bar from the corner shop.

That's precisely why Jesus said, let him who has no sin cast the first stone. The actions of the company secretary and the small boy may well be of an entirely different magnitude and effect, but the source is the same.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I get the whole dis-ease thing - the work in the Bible is iniquity - a sinful heart/nature. It's not our personal 'fault' that we are like this - Paul addresses it in Romans 7.

But we cannot shrug our shoulders and say, 'I'm only human, I can't help it, it's not my responsibility.'
There are things we do that are 'sins' because we like it, we want to do it, we see gain in it, we see 'freedom' in it.

There are indeed trespasses - deliberate actions, knowing it's wrong - as well as weaknesses and 'dis-ease'.
 
Posted by PilgrimVagrant (# 18442) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:


...what we forget is that same sin that affects the company secretary who fixes the unethical deal is the very same sin that makes the small boy steal a chocolate bar from the corner shop.

I just don't think this is right. We should not mistake the sins of an adult for those of a child. Superficially, the gluttony or avarice might seem the same. But the adult is a mature individual, making an informed choice of agency, decided by his/her way of being. The child is less responsible than that, and so, less culpable.

My mother, a Norland nurse, used to say that she never knew a bad child, only bad parents.

Of course, children can sin, though. Perhaps this is the default state of child. It's just that children's sins so often tend to be down to a deficit of experience, rather than a willfully decided deficit of character.

Cheers, PV.

[ 09. August 2015, 14:35: Message edited by: PilgrimVagrant ]
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I did, of course, make the difference clear - there is a matter of scale, magnitude and effect; and of course you are quite correct in pointing out the maturity of the man compared to the child. But my point was that the impulse for avarice, greed, selfishness at the expense of others, is from exactly the same source.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
To move further on in the argument, I have an untested and un-evidenced theory that the unprecedented, and sometimes lynch-mob-mentality, reaction to celebrity paedophiles and sexual abusers is down to the increased sexualisation of society, the rise in 'acceptable' immorality and the prevalence of open sexual content and language on TV and in the movies - and especially on the internet.

Whereas once we talked about and laughed at 'dirty old men' and the office flirt, we all are now the dirty old men and so we judge the men with wandering hands even more harshly now. It's a guilt thing - and we are the guilty ones and we hide our own guilt behind our rush to judge those who are undisciplined enough to act out our internet fantasies and unlucky enough to get caught.

When Jesus said 'let him who is without sin cast the first stone' he really was touching a nerve in the minds of those who were condemning the woman for the very thing that exited them!

[ 09. August 2015, 17:32: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
 
Posted by PilgrimVagrant (# 18442) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
To move further on in the argument, I have an untested and un-evidenced theory that the unprecedented, and sometimes lynch-mob-mentality, reaction to celebrity paedophiles and sexual abusers is down to the increased sexualisation of society, the rise in 'acceptable' immorality and the prevalence of open sexual content and language on TV and in the movies - and especially on the internet.
Not quite sure of your trajectory on this. Are you really contending that society now abhors a wrong action more, because society has somehow become worse?

Cheers, PV.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by PilgrimVagrant:
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:
To move further on in the argument, I have an untested and un-evidenced theory that the unprecedented, and sometimes lynch-mob-mentality, reaction to celebrity paedophiles and sexual abusers is down to the increased sexualisation of society, the rise in 'acceptable' immorality and the prevalence of open sexual content and language on TV and in the movies - and especially on the internet.
Not quite sure of your trajectory on this. Are you really contending that society now abhors a wrong action more, because society has somehow become worse?

Cheers, PV.
No, I'm saying that because general standards are lower, the more dreadful crimes are the ones that get the attention because the things that used to be 'sinful' (pornography, etc - and even a bit of sexism) are no longer sins.

People, I submit, are harsher on the sexual crimes these days because our own sins are not too far behind. The condemnation and rush to judgment that we display, both masks our own guilt and excuses it too (well, we hope).
 
Posted by Brenda Clough (# 18061) on :
 
Is this not the opposite of the complaint about 'PC'? The same complaint that Donalt Trump makes, that we have to perpetually consider how not to offend women, black people, gay people, etc., and it's exhausting, cramping the Donald style.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs:
quote:
Originally posted by ExclamationMark:
Anything that comes between us and God - it's personal.
Much of sin is personal, but the sin that often gets ignored is corporate and global.
I am probably just using the above as a jumping off point, but the "global" point triggered it.

The OP contrasted Christianity and Buddhism. I thought the major problem in Budhism is Dukkha (suffering or unsatisfactoriness) This seems to me very much how Paul describes creation in Romans 8:22
quote:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies.
But I speak as one who is moving away from Original Sin to Original Blessing.
 
Posted by Boogie (# 13538) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Mudfrog:

Whereas once we talked about and laughed at 'dirty old men' and the office flirt, we all are now the dirty old men and so we judge the men with wandering hands even more harshly now.
No.

It's that once we were naive and had no idea what these 'dirty old men' were actually up to (abuse).
 
Posted by Erroneous Monk (# 10858) on :
 
The desire to sin is a gift from God to protect us from pride and to draw us towards salvation.
 


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