The discussion of the Christian doctrine of humans as sinners will include the nature of sin, the origin of sin, the humanity-wide aspects of sin, the consciousness of sin, and the consequences of sin. We should, however, treat four introductory themes before we examine the major topics.

I. INTRODUCTORY THEMES#

A. DISAPPEARANCE OF THE TERM “SIN”#

Karl Augustus Menninger (1893-1990), the Kansas psychiatrist, in his book Whatever Became of Sin?, wrote of “the disappearance of sin” from and “the twilight of sin” in the vocabulary and thought of twentieth-century human beings in Western societies. He noted that wrongdoing has been identified as “crime,” as “symptom” ofillness, and as “collective irresponsibility” (for example, concerning war, slavery, actions of cotporations, and the environment).

Menninger called on pastors, teachers, physicians, lawyers and judges, the police, the media, and statesmen to work for the recovery of sin as moral guilt.

B. SIN AS A RELIGIOUS CONCEPT#

James Orr, Walter T. Conner, Gustav Aulen, and other theologians of the twentieth century insisted that sin is fundamentally and essentially a religious conception. The same deed may be a crime (against the state) or an immorality (against society), but sin is properly to be understood as ultimately against God. According to Aulen, “Sin is a concept which cannot be used except in a religious sense,” and for Orr, strictly speaking, we wrong fellow humans and we sin against God.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British mathematician and unbeliever, after attempting a nontheological approach to sin, concluded: “But although the sense of sin is easy to recognize and define, the concept of ‘sin’ is obscure, especially if we attempt to interpret it in nontheological terms.”

Sin presupposes the existence of God as a personal being, as the Holy One. Apart from a personal God, sin would have little meaning, for the elements of personal offense and disrupted relations vis-a-vis the personal God would be removed. Sin presupposes that in God’s nature and will there is an objective frame of reference definitive of sin.

C. SIN OR IGNORANCE AS THE CHIEF HUMAN PROBLEM?#

Many in the modern era have opted for the concept that ignorance, not sin, is the fundamental human problem. This view is rooted in the teaching of Socrates (c.470-399 B. C.) that if one knows the right he will do the right. This view was shaped by the Enlightenment view of progress, according to which the attainment of full information would lead to human goodness. The view must meet the challenge of the rap- idly exploding volume of information available today. How could any human being possibly know all of this? If he could, how would he live, and what would his relationships with other human beings be?

The Christian doctrine of humankind has emphasized the human inability to do and fulfil the right and true, thus pointing beyond lack of information or even lack of knowledge on a deeper level to human beings’ opting rebelliously and wrongfully.

D. AWARENESS OF SIN#

Although clearly teaching that all human beings are capable of being conscious of sin, Christian theology has sometimes affirmed that the meaning of sin is made known more fully in and through the Christian revelation of God. This is partly due to the gospel’s exposure of the disposition of humans to hide or conceal their sin, which hiding thus blurs their perception of sin itself until exposed to and by the light of the gospel. But it is also due to the more serious rejection of the self-giving, loving, redeeming action of God in Jesus Christ.

II. INADEQUATE VIEWS AS TO THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF HUMAN SIN#

Before examining the acceptable answers to the question of the nature of sin, we should take note of two unacceptable views which hvae often claimed to have support in the Bible and in the Christian tradition

A. THE VIEW THAT SIN IS DUE TO HUMANKIND’S ESSENTIAL FINITUDE OR CREATURELY WEAKNESS (PHILOSOPHICAL NATURALISM)#

1. This view may be grounded in an overemphasis on the Old Testament concept of humans as “flesh” (esp. Isa. 40:5-8) to the neglect of the Old Testament doctrine of sin. The Old Testament does describe humans as “flesh” in the sense of their creaturely weakness and mortality. The principal terms in the Old Testament for sin, however, are other than basar (flesh). Consequently this view removes the element of willfulness from sin.

Accordingly, man sins because he is a creature and is inherently weak. The biblical emphasis is rather that man sins in spite of the fact that he is created in the image of God.

2. This view was taught by Theodore Parker, who held that sin is related to humanity’s moral and spiritual progress as falling is related to a child’s learning to walk. Thus sin as moral blundering helps humans to learn how to live morally and spiritually. On the contrary, both Scripture and human experience bear witness that human beings learn to sin by sinning.

Although Reinhold Niebuhr wrote much concerning human finitude, he did point out that sin is not to be attributed to finiteness but rather to the refusal of humans to admit their dependence on God and their efforts to hide this dependence from themselves.

Therefore, while it is true that humankind as finite and creaturely is subject to temptation and does sin, neither creatureliness nor finiteness in itself is the root cause of sin. It is not that humans are creatures and therefore sinners. Rather, it is that humans are creatures but also sinners.

B. THE VIEW THAT SIN IS DUE TO BODILY APPERTITES OR INSTINCTS, OR ULTIMATELY TO HUMAN BEING’S POSSESSION OF BODIES (PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM)#

1. This view has often been based on a misunderstanding of the biblical term “flesh,” especially Paul’s use of the term and particularly in Romans 7-8.

• Paul referred to formerly living “in the flesh” as a way of life (7:5, RSV) and also to the present “flesh,” or sinful nature (7: 18; 8:5a).

• He alluded to a conflict or warfare between the “law of my mind” and “the law of sin” and acknowledged that he served the former with his “mind” and the latter with his “flesh” (7:23, 25b).

• To set one’s mind on the “flesh” would mean death, hostility to God, and being nonpleasing to God (8:6-8). The opposite of this is to set one’s mind on the Spirit of God (8:5b, 6a, 9).

• Paul also in this context referred to the fact that “sinful passions” were at work and sin was indwelling his “members” (melesin) (7:5, 23).

But Paul never identified “flesh” and “members.” It is obvious that Paul’s use of"flesh" goes far beyond the use of the term in Isaiah 40. Yet Paul’s distinction between “mind” and “flesh” and between “flesh” and “Spirit” should not be identified with a body-soul dualism.

“Flesh” in Romans 7-8 is a religio-ethical distinction rather than the physical aspect of a physical/metaphysical distinction. These chapters do not provide Paul’s concept of the origin of sin or of the cause of sin but rather present “the flesh” as the dominating sinful tendency in human beings.

2. Paul’s concept of “flesh” in Romans 7-8 must be interpreted in relation to Paul’s teachings elsewhere. In Gal. 5: 19-23 the “works of the flesh” include what we today call sins of the mind as well as sins expressed through the body. That Paul had a high regard for the human body may be seen in:

• His call to Roman Christians to present their “bodies” as “a living sacrifice” to God (12:1)

• His teaching the Corinthians that “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you” and hence they should “glorify God” in their bodies (1 Cor. 6:19-20)

• His admonition, “let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit” (2 Cor. 7:1)

Paul’s close association of “the flesh” and “the members” in Romans 7 may indeed have been indicative of the fact that some sins are expressed through the human body, but Paul did not identify the human body as the source of sin.

3. Romans 7-8 should also be related to the teachings of Jesus, especially to the fact of his greater condemnation of-to use a modern term-“the sins of the mind,” namely, pride and hypocrisy, than of the so-called “sins of the body.”

4. This view has been derived from or augmented from certain non-Christian sources, even though it has been embraced by Christians.

These sources include:

• Greek idealism, with its concept of the superiority of mind over body or matter

• Gnosticism, with its premise that matter is inherently evil

• Asceticism, with its mortification of the body so that the soul may prosper

• Manichaeism, with its probable residual influence upon Augustine of Hippo’s doctrine of original sin.

5. This view has been modified during the modem era under the impact of evolutionary thought. Accordingly, sin is said to be due to the remains or relic of the brute in humans or to the animal instinct in human beings. Hence sin is seen as a phase of human development, release from which is anticipated in future evolutionary development. Thus soul-body dualism gives way to an animal/man sequence.

We ought not, therefore, to conclude that the principal cause of sin is the fact that humans are physical, for human beings consent to even the most sensual sins. The answer concerning the nature of sin and its origin must be found elsewhere.

III. DEFINITIONS OF SIN THAT SEEK TO EMBODY THE ESSENCE OR CORE OF THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SIN#

It would be possible and indeed valid to investigate concepts of sin as these are expressed the different types ofliterature in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, following strictly the method of biblical theology. But because so many of these concepts are found in several of the types of biblical writings, it seems more useful to examine the topics themselves, noting how and where they are set forth in the Bible.

A. SIN AS VIOLATION OR DISOBEDIENCE OF THE DIVINE COMMANDMENT, OR THE LAW OF GOD#

1. The most commonly used biblical words for sin, the Hebrew verb hata, and the Greek verb hamartanein, both meaning “to miss the mark”, implied a deviation from an objective standard. Whereas to the modern person, these Hebrew and Greek verbs may indeed suggest a mistake rather than a wilful, conscious sin, in biblical usage the terms pointed to “a voluntary and culpable mistake”.

2. The Greek New Testament used the noun parabasis, derived from the verb parabainein, meaning “to go past, pass over, overstep, transgress, or violate”, for the transgression of the Mosaic law (Gal. 3:19; Rom. 2:23; 4:15; Heb. 9:15) and for the transgressions of Adam (Rom. 5:14) and of Eve (1 Tim. 2:14).

3. The New Testament, especially Paul, used the noun paraptoma, meaning “falling beside, deviation, or lapse” and derived from the verb parapippein, meaning “to fall beside, deviate from the right path, or turn aside” as a term for sin. The verb was used in the Septuagint to translate to Hebrew verb ‘abar, meaning “to cross over or pass by”. Paraptoma is translated in the RSV as “trespass” or “trespasses” in Matt. 6:14-15; Mark 11:25; Gal. 6:1; 2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 4:25; 5:15-18, 20; 11:11-12; Eph. 1:7; 2:1, 5; and Col. 2:13 and as “sins” in Jas. 5:16. The word has been connected with treachery.

4. The New Testament used the noun anomia, meaning “lawlessness” in Matt. 7:23; 13:41: 23:28; 24:12; 2 Thess. 2:1-12; and 1 John 3:4. It used the noun adikia, meaning “unrighteousness”, in 2 Thess. 2:10, 12; Rom. 1:18, 29; 2:8; 3:5; 6:13; Heb. 8:12; 2 Pet. 2:13, 15; and 1 John 1:9; 5:17. Anomia always referred “to a breaking of the law of God in the broader sense”, “never… to a breaking of the law in the narrow sense of the Mosaic regulations.”

5. Often during the postbiblical history of Christianity, the moral law has been interpreted in abstact fashion and apart from the personal nature and will of God. Consequently, sin tended to be reduced to the “breaking of rules” and such thinking to bring about the danger of “moralism”. The definition of sin as violation of divine law can be adequate only when the moral law is properly understood as the expression of the nature and will of God Himself.

B. SIN AS BREAKING THE COVENANT WITH GOD, OR COVENANT UNFAITHFULNESS#

1. Inasmuch as the concept of the covenant was very important in the thought of the Old Testament, it is not surprising that sin should be defined or expressed in the Old Testament as covenant-breaking.

The most commonly used Hebrew verb for breaking the covenant was parar, meaning “to break off.” It was used in the Pentateuch (Lev. 26:15-16; Deut. 17:2; 31:20) and in the major prophets (Isa. 24:5; 33:8;Jer. 31:32; 33:20; Ezek.16:59; 17:19; 44:7).

The other Hebrew verb used to convey the idea of transgressing the covenant was ‘abar, “to pass over.” It is found in Josh. 7:11a, Judg. 2:20, 2 Kings 18:12, Hos. 8:1, and Jer. 34:18a.

Walther Eichrodt traced the parallel occurrence in Israelite history of two strands of teaching about the covenant: one that assured that the covenant would continue and the other that it would be abrogated.

2. In the New Testament, the concept of sin as covenant unfaithfulness, which is much less prominent than in the Old Testament, is seemingly conveyed by the word asynthetous in Rom. 1:31, which word the KJV translated as “covenant breakers”; Weymouth, RSV, and NIV as “faithless”; and the NASV as “untrustworthy”. The translation “covenant breakers” seems to be accurate inasmuch as the word comes from syntithemi, “to join together, or covenant” and has the alpha privative.

C. SIN AS WILLFUL, PRIDEFUL REBELLION AGAINST GOD, OR TURNING FROM GOD#

1. The Old Testament term pesa’, which often has been translated “trangression”, may more accurately be rendered “rebellion”. Norman H. Snaith held that pesa’ supplied the religious meaning of sin in contrast to ethical violation and called this religious meaning “theofugal”. The Old Testament used other Hebrew words to connote rebellion.

2. The Bible, especially the Pentateuch, records three notable Israelite rebellions between the Exodus from Egypt and the entry into Canaan.

• First, ther was the rebellion at Rephidim, called Mass (“proof” or “testing”) or Meribah (“contention” or “rebellion”), where there was a lack of water and there was murmuring or fault-finding against Moses (Exod. 17:1-7; Deut. 33:8; Psa. 95:7b-11; Heb. 3:7-4:11)

In the Hebrews passage, apostenai (3:12) means “to fall away”, and the word “provocation” (parapikrasmos) (3:8, 15) is derived from the verb parapikrainein, meaning “to provoke, exasperate, or rouse to indignation” and used in 3:16

• Second, there was the rebellion at Mount Sinai, which involved the making of the golden calf (Exod. 32:1-35; Deut. 9:6-21).

Reference is made to “a stiff-necked people” (Exod. 32:9), “a great sin” (Exod. 32:21, 30), and “a stubborn people” (Deut. 9:6, 13) who “provoked the LORD” (Deut. 9:7) and “have been rebellious against the LORD” (Deut. 9:7)

• Third, there was the rebellion at Kadesh-barnea, involving the reports of the spies to Canaan and a proposed return to Egypt (Num. 13:1-14:38; 32:8-13; Deut. 1:26-40).

There were also the lesser rebellions at Taberah (Num. 11:1-3) and at Kibroth-hatta-avah (Num. 11:31-34).

3. The New Testamentt employed terms indicative of rebellious disobedience.

• The noun apeitheia, meaning “disobedience”, was used in Eph. 2:2c and 5:6c, and its cognates, the adjective in Tit. 1:6c and 3:3a and the verb in 1 Pet. 2:8b and 3:20a

• The verb apostenai, “to fall away”, was used in the parable of the soils (Luke 8:13) and in Heb. 3:12

• The noun apostasia, meaning “falling away, apostasy, or defection” was used eschatologically in 2 Thess. 2:3

4. Augustine of Hippo, commenting on Psalm 19, declared that pride began with the “apostasy from God”.

D. SIN AS IDOLATRY, OR THE WORSHIP OF THE CREATURE OR THE CREATED - WHETHER OTHER CREATURES OR MAN HIMSELF - INSTEAD OF THE CREATOR#

1. The Old Testament frequently alluded to idolatry both as sin and as utter folly.

• The tower of Babel was to be constructed with the motive: “let us make a name for ourselves” (Gen. 11:4c).

• The first commandment of the Decalogue prohibited the worship of “other gods” (Exod. 20:3; Deut. 5:7)

• Idols made by and worshipped by human beings are utterly lifeless (Ps. 115:4-8; Isa. 40:18-20)

2. Paul’s most focused and emphatic statement about idolatry was descriptive of the Gentile world (Rom. 1:22-25)

The noun asebeia, meaning “ungodliness” or “irreverence”, and derived from the verb sebein, meaning “to worship”, was together with its verbal and adjectival cognates, used of the lack of true worship in Romans, 2 Peter, and Jude.

3. Numerous Christian theologians have identified sin as idolatry.

• According to Martin Luther, “That to which your heart clings and entrusts itself is, I say, really your God”

• John Calvin discussed the veneration of images as idolatry in an anti-Roman Catholic context and in contrast to the worship of the true Triune God

• Reinhold Niebuhr declared: “The most classical definition of sin in the New Testament, that fo St. Paul [is as follows:]… The sin of man is that he seeks to make himself God.”

• Humanity’s rejection of general revelation, according to Emil Brunner, “becomes the source of the vanity of idolatry”

• Cherbonnier elaborated on the theme that hardness of heart is the “hallmark of idolatry”

• For John Macquarrie, sin as idolatry had an ontological base

• Millard Erickson has opted for idolatry, rather than sensuousness or selfishness or pride, as “the essence of sin”

E. SIN AS UNBELIEF, OR NOT BELIEVING OR TRUSTING IN THE TRUE GOD#

1. The Old Testament does not contain a well-developed concept of “believing not” or “trusting not” in Yahweh God, but there are some usages of the Hebrew verb ‘aman, meaning “to believe” or “to remain steadfast”, with the negative (Num. 20:12; Deut. 1:32; 9:23; 2 Kings 17:14; Ps. 78:22, 32)

2. In the New Testament unbelief, or believing not, commonly meant the deliberate rejection of the revelation of God in Jesus and hence of Jesus himself. Believing not is a major theme in the Gospel of John.

3. Unbelief was also presentend in the New Testament in its intensive form: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit (Matt. 12:22-32); “an evil, unbelieving heart” (Heb. 3:12); deliberate sinning after receiving the knowledge of the truth (Heb. 10:26-29), and the “sin that leads to death” (1 John 5:16c)

4. Unbelief is not the rejection of postbiblical dogmatic formulations about the person of Jesus as the incarnate Son of God but of Jesus himself as God’s Son and Word, the Revealer and Redeemer. It implies an exposure to the light and truth of God in Jesus Christ, and it involves a deliberate rejection of that light and truth.

F. SIN AS SELFISHNESS#

Certain modern Protestant theologians, particularly in the United States and Great Britain, have given a high priority to the definition of human sin as human selfishness.

• Alvah Hovey (1820-1903) reckoned “preference of self to God” as accounting “for nearly and perhaps all sin”

• According to James Orr, sin “is the exaltation of self against God: the setting up of self-will against God’s will: at bottom Egoism”

• A. H. Strong affirmed that “the essential principle of sin” is “selfishness”

Such a definition of sin in terms of selfishness makes selfishness to be very comparable to idolatry. The definition of sin as selfishness was especially important among the adherents of the Social Gospel.

Some forms of the definition of sin as selfishness have tended to make sin too anthropocentric. Selfishness can suffice as a definition of sin only if conceived of as the assertion of self-will in opposition to the divine will as well as contrary to the well-being of one’s neighbor.

G. SIN AS SLOTH, OR APATHY#

Harvey Gallagher Cox (1929-), an American Baptist theologian and Harvard professor, criticizing the prevalence of the concept of sin as prideful rebellion - a human being “as the fist-shaking contemptuous insurrectionary” - on the ground that it is more Greek and bourgeois than biblical, has opted for “sloth” as the key contemporary term for sin.

“Sloth” is a translation of the Latin word acedia, which was derived from the Greek noun akedos, which was composed of a - “not”, and kedos - “care”. Hence the basic meaning is said to be not caring, or apathy.

The Church Fathers listed “sloth” along with pride, covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, and envy as one of the seven deadly or capital sin. Sloth is man’s abdication of responsibility, of his “gubernatio mundi”.

Cox’s doctrine of sin as sloth is an important addition to our understanding of sin, although the idea of sloth as sinful is very old. It is more an expression of the sin of omission than of the sin of commission. But it is hardly adequate as the primary insight regarding sin and surely not as a total or exclusive definition of sin.

IV. QUESTIONS ABOUT THE NATURE AND MEANING OF SIN#

A. IS SIN NATURAL OR UNNATURAL?#

The issue to which this question is addressed involves the proper correlation of human creaturehood, human sinfulness, and the universality of sin among human beings.

Sin is not “natural” in the sense that God made men sinners. Rather, God pronounced the entire creation “good”. Sin must be explained in terms of the willful or volitional actions of human creatures. In this sense, sin is “contra-natural”, for it is contrary to God’s order and design of creation. Certain post-Reformation Lutheran theologians, notably Matthias Flacius (1520-75), came dangerously close to embracing the view that sin is in every sense natural.

On the other hand, sin is “natural” in the sense that the prevalence or universality of sin among humans makes the sinful to seem to be the order of nature. It was seemingly in this sense that Paul reflected on the past lives of Christians: “so we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3b, RSV). Calvin seems to have addressed our question from its two standpoints when he wrote that “man is corrupted by a natural viciousness, but not by one which proceeded from nature”

B. IS SIN ALWAYS FULLY DELIBERATE, VOLUNTARY, AND CONSCIOUS?#

There has been a Christian viewpoint, especially explicit and strong in the Wesleyan tradition, that has insisted on the absolute necessity of voluntariness and knowledge of divine law in respect to sin. John Wesley once declared:

Nothing is sin, strictly speaking, but a voluntary transgression of a known law of God. Therefore, every voluntary breach of the law of love is sin; and nothing else, if we speak properly.

The same voluntariness was reiterated by the British theologian, F.R. Tennant, who defined sin as “an activity of the will, expressed in thought, word or deed, contrary to the individual’s conscience, to his notion of what good or right, his knowledge of the moral law or the will of God.”

But more recently, this invariable voluntarism has been questioned in the Wesleyan tradition itself. Some would see the questioning as the result of the treatment of the unconscious in the novels of Fyodor Dostoyevsky and the probing of the unconscious by Freudian psychology.

Frederic Greeves (1903-85), an English Methodist, argued for the existence of some ignorance in respect to sin. He has observed that “the problem of human ignorance is not the same problem as that of human impotence, our ignorance of what is ‘right’ is the concern that weighs most heavily on our present-day thought, whereas it was man’s inability to do the will of God which most deeply concerned the New Testament writers and most of the great teachers of the Church. It is, then, in this conscious or unconsious rejection of God as God that sinning consists.”

One caution, however, needs to be observed with respect to the recent espousal of unconsious sin. One needs to ask and perhaps to keep on asking the question: How is the sin of ignorance to be related to human accountability before God?

C. OUGHT WE TO SPEAK OF SIN OR OF SINS?#

Actually both of these terms are proper and appropriate. Biblically, theologically, and ethically, one can speak both of “sin” and of “sins”.

On the one hand, “sin” (singular) is an attitude or state. The rabbis had their doctrine of yeser ha-ra, or “evil imagination”, especially in the Mishnah and perhaps also in Ecclesiasticus. Their doctrine was probably derived from Gen. 6:5 and 8:21. Jesus in his teaching stressed the motive rather than merely the overt act of sinning. Jesus taught that the nature of the tree determines the nature of the fruit (Matt. 7:17) and stressed inner defilement rather than the ceremonial defilement of the Pharisees (Mark 7:15). The Gospel of John stressed the singularity of sin or the sinful state in 1:29b: “Behold, the Lamd of God, who takes away the sin of the world”

On the other hands, “sins” (plural) are deeds or acts or omissions, both in the sense of occurrences and of habit. The Old Testament emphasized and identified sins as acts or deeds, and the New Testament retained this pattern while intensifying the idea of sin (singular). The New Testament contains vaiour pasasages that constitute catalogues or listings of particular sins; especially noteworthy are Rome 1:29-31, which contains 21 sins, and Gal. 5:19-21, which cites 15 “deeds of the flesh”.

Therefore, both “sin” and “sins” are essential to the biblical understanding of sin. Sinful motives issue in sinful actions. Sinful actions or deeds or omissions establish the pattern or habit which is the sinful state.

D. OUGHT “SINS” TO BE CLASSIFIED?#

Late Judaism, just prior to the time of Jesus, made “an increasing attempt to differentiate between different kinds of sins.” Roman Catholic dogmatics and moral theology have for centuries made a distinction between “mortal sins” and “venial sins”. But even in such a system, the actual identification or classification of particular sins depends on the knowledge and will fulness of the sinner. Efforts to effectuate a strict or rigid classification of sins are most likely to be misleading or fruitless and hence are unwise.