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Sin / Evil / Dysfunction

A note on terminology: 'Sin' is the word used in the Bible. But it gained such a bad press when Christians of many kinds used it to condemn and be harsh to people, that seculars don't like to use it. Some of them use 'dysfunction' instead. But the idea is the same: functioning in a bad way, a way that is harmful and should not be. In this page 'sin' will be used because (a) it is easier to say! (b) it is less clinical and sounds more straightforward (c) it is more versatile, be both noun and verb, whereas 'dysfunction' can only be a noun. 'Evil', which can be both noun and adjective, is used for both what underlies sin / dysfunction, and the results of that.

This page only started: here are a few notes ...

The Elevation of Sin in Judeo-hristian Worldviews

Very briefly, and over-simplified, the following Judeo-Christian viewpoints treat sin the following way, starting with the latest and working backwards:

Pentecostal worldview: Sin is not often spoken about, and evil is often seen as located in evil spirits. The remedy for evil is exorcism or spiritual warfare.
Liberal Christianity: Sin is located in the establishment: 'they', the rich and powerful, sin, while 'we' are victims of their sin. The most heinous sin is intolerance. Jesus would remark about hypocrisy.
Protestant Christianity: Sin is located in the individual, in their actions and/or heart. Calvinistic versions especially hold that everyone sins (which, paradoxically is freeing!). Christian leaders are expected to be less sinful. Dealing with sin is all important, yet there is escape from its penalty (through repentance and forgiveness because of the Cross of Christ), its power (by sanctification by the Holy Spirit) and its presence (after death in the new life).
Roman Catholic Christianity: Sin is the big problem, and all theology and practice are directed towards dealing with sin: the Mass, Confession, and various sacraments. Whereas I have called Protestant Christianity "Creation-Fall-Redemption", where sin is Fall, I have called Roman Christianity "Fall-Only": redemption is only a distant possibility, never a present reality even in part.
Eastern Orthodox Christianity:
Post-exile Orthodox Judaism: Sin is offence against a holy God, Who has given the Law (613 individual laws) by His Own logic, and it is our whole task in life to try to avoid transgressing this law: this is what sin is. In the Temple period, sacrifices were instituted by God to gain temporary forgiveness. Since then, Judaism has only repentance. The attempt to avoid sin has produced interestingly good lifestyles - and yet rigidity.
Pre-exile Israelitism: Sin (transgressing God's Law) was not taken all that seriously, and the people who were meant to be representing God were always aspiring to the destructive mindset, attitudes and practices of the surrounding pagan nations.

For over a thousand years,

The Reality of Sin and of its Consequences

See more general page on sin, which examines sin or dysfunction in the various aspects of reality - for example lying is lingual sin, selfishness, ethical sin and idolatry, faith sin.

Sin as Damaging Creation

Each aspect of reality is a 'sphere of law', in which law is like promise: "If you do X, then Y will (tend to) result", where X is good or sinful functioning, Y is beneficial or harmful repercussions. See the general page on sin.

Sin of the Human Heart

This is attitude especially of idolatry - of making something absolute that is not absolute, and grasping it, holding onto it. Only God is absolute.

Kinds of Sin

Traditional Christianities tend to focus on individual sin against God or perhaps against other people, and overlook societal sins, such as those that distort or poison the structures that govern our lives, such as prevailing assumptions about what is good. Yet, much of the Jewish Law seems concerned with the latter. It seems to me that there are at least three main types or kinds of sin:

Individual sin against God. This includes disobedience and idolatry of things in our lives. It is what King Saul was guilty of when Samuel told him "Rebellion is as bad a witchcraft" or the woman caught in adultery, when Jesus told her "Neither do I condemn you, but do not sin again." It also makes sense of David's outcry, after his adultery with Bathsheba, "Against You, You only, have I sinned."
Sin that harms others. This includes attitudes and refusal to help. This was the sin of the levite and the priest that "passed by on the other side" rather than help the man robbed and beaten by robbers. It is also behind Jesus' assertion that those who saved things for God that could have helped their parents were sinning.
Sin in the structures that govern our lives. For example the assumptions and presuppositions that society holds, about the nature of things, what is acceptable or unacceptable, and attitudes that pervade society. John's statement, "Sin is lawlessness," seems to refer to this, not just law-breaking (first type) but deep attitude or presupposition that there is no law to guide us.

In fact, the kinds of sin intermingle and each sin has effects of other kinds. For instance, David's sin was also against Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, whom he murdered. This is especially true for those who are leaders. So, for example, David's sin set the tone for his sons, setting the 'example' for Absolom to follow later. Saul's sin of disobeying God would tend to institute a mindset in society that obeying God is optional. Leaders set examples and people take their lead from them. That is why "leaders will be judged with greater strictness."

It may be that these three kinds of sin align with the three dimensions of salvation.

Why We Should Not Sin

Reason why human beings, in general, should not sin: Because in doing so, they will harm others, that is other things in the creation, disrupting and destroying the way it works for the good of all.

Reason why society should not sin: Because in doing so, it will bend its members towards evil living, which disrupts and destroys.

Additional reason why God's people should not sin: Because in doing so they, who should be representing God - showing what God is like and carrying out his work - give a false view of what God is like and fail to carry out his work. They dishonour God.

All together are called The Fall. God is angry when we sin in any of the above ways, not just for the sake of being angry, but because of his love. The first is the most basis, and applies to all. If I sin, I am not only going against what he has intended, but I am harming others. Because of his love for those others, God must be angry with me when I sin. Logical, nicht wahr? See more.

Implications

The implications of this is that God will be more angry when his people sin than when the rest of the world sins, and he has higher standards for his people. This is indeed what we can find in Scripture, if we take notice of "Judgment begins with the household of God" and that the standards by which God condemned his peoples of Judah and Israel differ from those by which he condemned others in the start of Amos.

It also implies that sin in society is more to be rooted out than sin in individuals - though these cannot be fully separated. This is why, for example, the Sabbath law and law against adultery are important for society, but there can be mercy on individuals. Unfortunately, both liberal secular society and Christians have tended to privatise these.

But what about Achan's sin of collecting firewood on the Sabbath? We have to understand the dynamics of the relationship between the individual and society, in which each forms the other. What is publicly accepted as OK for individuals begins to be the norm for society, and so if sin becomes accepted then society becomes structured to bend individuals towards sin. When a society is starting out, God has to demonstrate he means it, and it is especially important when it is a society of God's people.

Sin and God's Law

Some will notice that I seem to have left out "because sin goes against God's law / a holy God". No I did not. Rather, God gave his law to show what sin is and to guide us in the ways of good, blessing and shalom. God's law is also to enable the cosmos to function meaningfully. Thus God's law is communication and enabling; above we were talking about what is enabled.

So of course sin goes against God's law - but in this New View that is not the fundamental reason why we should not sin. The view we should not sin because it goes against God's law rests on the fact that God has authority. But the view we should not sin primarily and most importantly because it goes against God's law rests on making the authority of God the most important thing about God. That view comes from Aristotle, not from the Bible. While, in the Bible, God does have authority, it is not his most important characteristic.

Sin must not be confused with crime or transgression of laws. Human society formulates laws to define what is good and bad in individual living in society. In healthy societies, these will reflect the deeper types of good and evil but they must be worked out as expressions thereof in particular historical and cultural situations. In less healthy societies, the laws formulated give a distorted view of what is good and evil, sometimes treating as good what is evil and vice versa. Sin, however, is always against God's deeper law, his 'law for the cosmos'. In the Bible, however, when 'law' is spoken about it sometimes refers to human law, but at other times to God's deeper law.

Types of Sin

Christians tend to lump all sin together, and leave it at that. But perhaps there are different kinds of sin, for example:

Idolatry
Selfishness, "unconcern for the poor" [Ezek. 16:49]
Injustice, theft, cheating
Rebellion [I Samuel]
Greed
Hatred and disrespect for others
Lying, deceit
Laziness
Falsehood
and so on.

Note how the opposite of these brings health and shalom in human living and society. (This list is informed by Dooyeweerd's aspects of normativity and the Shalom Principle.)

If this is so, then the punishment for, or prevention of, each will be different. And the way law is formulated in relation to each of (some of) these gives different laws a different feel.

But we cannot completely separate out different types of sin, for two reasons. One is that they tend to go together and reinforce each other: someone who is selfish often becomes a cheat, and a cheat becomes a liar, and a liar becomes unjust and idolatrous. The other is that there is something that lies under and behind all these different types of sin: our turning away from God in our innermost being (our heart / ego / self), both as individuals and as society.

This is what Christian theology has labelled 'original sin'. It is an attitude or orientation of our hearts / egos away from God and away from his mandate for humanity. Being against God means that in our very natures we will tend to choose evil rather than good in all kinds of types, and turning away from our mandate we will tend to despoil and destroy the rest of creation without a care. Further, our minds become warped, so that, at least with our rationality, we believe we believe that these evils are OK or at least 'not too bad', and we end up unable to even see them as evil. Nevertheless, in our hearts, from time to time, we intuit that they are evil, or at least 'not quite as things should be'. This might be what Paul meant when he said in Gal. 5:22-23 of the fruit of the Holy Spirit of God, that "against / concerning such there is no law". See also my early notes on The Beauty of Original Sin which summarises the longer early essay commenting on Matthew Fox's Original Blessing.

Sin is destructive in a myriad ways. We cannot say, as James warned, that we are OK if we are not a thief or murderer, nor can we feel that we are better than another person because that person does more obvious sins. Jesus made clear that sins of attitude are the worst, and are the easiest to hide from others. And because of our distorted worldview sin is impossible for human beings or even human society to eradicate.

Remedy for Sin

Humans try to eradicate, or at least prevent, sin. For example by enacting laws, setting up incentives (stick + carrot), education, or even by calling sin "OK" and hoping people will be nicer. Rulers in society especially try this because, when they look over the whole of society they see that sin and evil are harmful. Problem is:

We have a distorted view of what is evil and what is good.
Law and incentives cannot prevent sin or make us good.
And we lack the power to become fully good in ourselves.

So the only remedy for sin and evil must be enacted by God, with us responding. God entered the world as the human being, Jesus Christ, who was guiltless of all the above sins, and offered himself as a 'perfect sacrifice' to rescind condemnation, let the Holy Spirit of God dwell in us, and make us again like God in our inner being. Our response must begin with repentance. This frees us and enables us to reactivate our mandate. See the whole story. Glorious!

Note that evil is, in the long-run, self-defeating. If left to itself, it is first exposed for what it is and then it finds it works against itself. Usually, human arrogance fails in ways unexpected.

This page, URL= 'http://abxn.org/nv/sin.html', is "offered to God" (click to see what that means) as on-going work in developing a 'New View' in theology and practice that is appropriate to the days that are coming upon us. Comments, queries welcome.

Written on the Amiga with Protext in the style of classic HTML.

Created: 1 October 2009. Last updated: 25 March 2018 Some new headings, and history of sin. 10 July 2018 new smalls. New .nav,.end. 21 April 2019 kinds of sin. 23 April 2019 expanded that. 27 April 2019 link to repentance, new .end; filled in a bit; link to wxn:sin. 29 April 2019 self-defeating.