What is sin?

1 • Sin bin!

The word “sin,” in our times, I believe, elicits both laughter and embarrassment.

If it slips out unintentionally in a conversation with a non believer, it gives you a sense of discomfort, as if you’ve said something wrong…

Concrete Example: A couple of months ago, I went on a road trip with a friend to attend Lucca Comics (*).

While chatting about various topics (it’s a four-hour drive from Rome), the subject of “religions” came up (I swear I didn’t bring it up! I only discuss these things on my blog; in public, I pretend to be a normal person!).

My friend, who is agnostic, commenting on Christianity, said:

Caught a bit off guard and not sure where to start, I just looked at him with a blank, somewhat sleep-deprived expression and had to awkwardly remain silent.

(*) (Lucca Comics & Games is an international festival held annually in Lucca, Tuscany, dedicated to comics, animation, games – role-playing, board, card -, video games, and fantasy and science fiction imagery: it is similar to the San Diego Comic-Con)

2 • Sin in the Third Millennium

Until my grandmother’s generation, the word “sin” evoked a sense of “moralism” among people: something that was better left undone if you wanted to avoid public condemnation…

In our era, however, in the collective imagination, the term “sin” is associated with something beautiful but forbidden, something intriguing that “winks at you,” that “will be our little secret,” that follows the philosophy of “let him who wishes to be happy, of tomorrow there is no certainty.”

Contributing to shaping this idea, among many other things, is a considerable number of advertisements in which hell is depicted as a place somewhere between a college fraternity and a nightclub with happy hour after 9:00 PM, where carefree people dance, flirt, and have fun…

…while heaven is the epitome of boredom: slightly eccentric old ladies singing “Hosanna to God” (“But what the heck does ‘Hosanna’ mean?”), bored angels playing the harp…

3 • Sin in the Judeo-Christian Tradition

For the Romans, the word “peccatus” meant “to stumble, to make a false step” (cf. Horace, Epistles, 1, 1, 8-9).

The sense was similar in Jewish culture; so much so that, in the Book of Proverbs, God says:

To the people of Israel (even before Christians), it was clear that sin (besides being an offense against God) was harmful to humanity.

Certainly, the Israelites cared about loyalty to the Lord, faithfulness to the Tablets of the Law, and the respect for His commandments… but they knew well that this devotion was not about “indulging the dictates of a capricious deity”!

In Jewish culture, the Law was (and is) always and in any case a benefit for the people:

The wisdom literature of the Old Testament is imbued with the wisdom of the Chosen People, who remember that every time they acted contrary to what God indicated – every time they sinned, in other words – the consequences were unpleasant…

… not because “God was wicked and made them pay dearly,” but much more simply because (as also stated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church):

In some contexts, this is more evident: if I steal, I am taking money from someone (someone else); if I kill, I harm someone (someone else).

Then there is a less visible harm: what I do to myself. It may not be visible, but it is no less harmful.

It’s curious that God (assuming He revealed Himself in the Galilean carpenter we always talk about) also calls this harm “sin.”

(However, we’ll come back to this when we talk about sexuality, or else we’ll still be here tomorrow morning).

In any case, the fundamental aspect of Judeo Christian culture regarding “morality” is this: God’s laws are for the humanization of life.

They are not “obligations” imposed from above.

They are an invitation to live something that is good for you.

4 • Fifty Shades of Sin: Venial, Mortal, etc.

You don’t need a “catechist diploma” to recognize that some sins are more serious than others: gossiping about someone, throwing stones at them, or stabbing them are not exactly the same thing, right?

I don’t know if you still have memories of when, as kids, your parents forced you to go to Parish Religious Education Program, saying, “or else the PlayStation goes in the trash!.”

I don’t know if you remember the difference between mortal sin and venial sin… in case you don’t:

• Mortal sin is “the serious one”
• venial sin is not is not

One thing that has always “struck” me is the conditions for a sin to be considered mortal.

In addition to there needing to be “grave matter” – a technical term to say you’re “messing with the Ten Commandments” (*) – there are two other requirements that a sin must meet to be “mortal.”

(*) (or if you prefer, “you’re going against the natural moral law,” which we talked about last month)

In other words:

• Deliberate consent: what you do must be the result of a free choice (not subjected to coercion).
• Full awareness: you must be conscious that what you are doing is morally wrong.

These may seem like obvious things…

…but the “disruptive” consequence of these premises is that sin has a strongly personal dimension.

Let me explain with an example.

The act of stealing itself is a moral disorder… this holds true for the Sumerians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Jews, the Greeks, the Christians, the Hindus, the Buddhists, etc. (as I mentioned earlier, if you want to revisit this thing about natural moral law, we talked about it here)…

…but…

…the act of stealing is not necessarily a sin!

For example:

• If I, being a pampered individual with a full stomach, go to the market and steal an apple for amusement, I commit a mortal sin (since I would be well aware that I am doing harm to the fruit vendor and depriving him of the money he deserves).
• Now, imagine a teenager from a gang in the suburbs of Detroit (**) enters a store and steals something…
  Perhaps when he was little, his grandmother (who is no longer around) told him that stealing is wrong; he probably still has a vague memory of her. However, it’s just a distant echo…
  Add to that the environment in which he grew up, the dynamics of the group, the fear of looking like a “wimp” in front of friends, the challenge of “bet you can’t steal something”…
  In short, in all cases where the conscience is not fully formed (whether due to a problematic family, a chaotic social context, or whatever it may be), we can talk about venial sin.

• As a third example, let’s imagine a homeless woman who has no money to buy food for her hungry child. Worried about the child’s health, she goes to the market and steals food to nourish him. In this case, the woman is not committing a sin, not even a venial one! In fact, “in case of necessity, everything becomes common. Therefore, it is not a sin if someone takes another’s property, made common to him by necessity,” (*)

(*) (If anyone thinks that I came up with this in a burst of originality, they can check St. Thomas Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae → S.Th. II-II, Q 66, art. 7… it’s all Church teaching! 😇)

5 • Sin in Other Religions

The things I wrote in the last paragraph (about the responsibility we have for our actions) may seem obvious to our eyes, but in many contexts, they are not at all (quite the opposite!).

When compared with other traditions, especially those distant from Judeo-Christianity, a significant difference emerges.

In many cultures, both ancient and modern, sin is perceived as something objective: if I perform an action, I am morally responsible for it, regardless of whether I act consciously (or not) and whether I am aware (or not) of what I am doing.

This concept of “guilt” does not capture the personal aspect of sin but only the objectivity of the action.

I’ll try to clarify with two examples, one from the past and one from our days.

5.1 • Ancient Example: Greek Culture

I don’t know if you are familiar with the Oedipus Rex, the tragedy by Sophocles (496 BC – 406 BC)…

For those who, as teenagers, didn’t bleed over the story of the Greek hero “champion in the art of being unfortunate,” here’s a summary:

In short, Oedipus’s guilt is not in the least mitigated by his ignorance. He is – unknowingly- a miasma for Thebes.

The mere fact of having committed those acts qualifies Oedipus as “guilty” in the eyes of the gods and the people.

5.2 • Modern Example: Indian Culture

A quick consultation of the scrolls of the lost buried library of Visakhapatnam (a.k.a. Wikipedia) will allow you to discover that saṃsāra is the cycle of life, death, and rebirth in Indian religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on).

In practice, according to this belief, the soul of a person who has led a virtuous life reincarnates in the next life into a higher caste than the one they lived in (with the hope of eventually breaking free from the cycle of reincarnations and reaching nirvana, the freedom from desires that are a source of unhappiness).

On the contrary, a person who has behaved wickedly reincarnates into a lower caste… or even into an animal in the worst cases.

In Indian society, if a Brahmin (a member of the highest caste, closest to purity and nirvana) resides in the same building as an outcast (someone impure, outside the caste system), he “descends in caste,” becoming an outcast himself.

This happens regardless of whether he is aware of it or if it is due to contingent factors like urban overcrowding.

In essence, unless a “progressive” Brahmin is influenced by Western thought, he will never violate this taboo.

6 • Sin according to Jesus

But let’s get back to Christianity, to the Church… to Jesus!

What does “our” Galilean carpenter think about sin?

Many people, when they think about the relationship between Jesus, the Church, and the forgiveness of sins, have something like this in mind:

Some even claim that the concept of “sin” has nothing to do with Jesus’ preaching! It’s an invention of the Church, which uses shame and guilt to subjugate people’s consciences and maintain its base power over the world!

If it were up to Jesus, the only rule would be: “Between consenting adults, anything goes!”.

Now.

Without getting too philosophical or delving into 1968-style exegesis, let’s open the Gospel.

There’s a paralytic “ill for thirty-eight years” (John 5:5).

And Jesus, after healing him, says, “Do not sin any more, so that nothing worse happens to you” (John 5:14).

I don’t think one needs to be a biblical scholar to observe that, for Jesus, sin is worse than a physical paralysis of thirty-eight years.

6.1 • Jesus Forgiving Sins

I fear that this is an aspect of Jesus’ character that is often overlooked: Jesus forgiving, “pardoning sins.”

Some might think it’s a trivial detail, like “the color of the irises” or “how many pairs of sandals he wore” (which “at a certain point, who cares about?”).

Let’s go back to the Gospel:

I have only mentioned a few examples, but the word “sin/sins” appears 75 times in the Gospels (question: what are the most frequent words in the texts of Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John?).

Why such insistence?

Often, a fundamental aspect of the “deposit of faith” is overlooked.

What is it?

Let’s revisit the definition of “sin” that I wrote earlier (from the “Catechism of the Catholic Church”)… this time in its entirety (previously, I had cut out a part):

Sin is a wound in the heart of man.

It wounds his nature.

Jesus has compassion for sinners because – like a doctor – he recognizes this wound.

In sin, there is not only a “social” dimension, like: “Oops! I’ve wronged Jake! Now I apologize to him and everything is back to normal!”

There is also a “personal” dimension, something that touches the cords of man, my cords, and hurts me.

A wound that requires a doctor.

6.3 • “Which of them will love him more?” Simon answered, “I suppose the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.” (Luke 7:42-43)

In all the Gospel episodes where Jesus forgives, another truth about human nature emerges, often overlooked: goodness is not something we already possess! Left to our own devices, we are capable of very little.

As Saint Paul wrote to Titus:

It’s the same Paul, however, who in another letter reminds the Romans:

In what sense?

Simply put, Paul is recounting his own experience.

In other words, only by drawing on God’s forgiveness can Paul receive the grace that opens his heart (cf. also Luke 7:40-50).

Only by receiving mercy from God can Paul have a gentle gaze towards others, not judging them, not depriving them of their dignity, despite their falls (*).

(*) (In the past, it was said: “hate the sin and love the sinner”; without His gaze, one inevitably ends up loving the sin along with the sinner and justifying anything… or, conversely, hating the sinners more than their sins)

Only by apologizing to God for the harm Paul has done to others can he receive the gift of empathy that allows him to be merciful to others when they make mistakes.

Otherwise, it’s the same old “spiritual hernia” that the ancients called Pelagianism (of which Pope Francis extensively spoke in the apostolic exhortation “Gaudete et Exsultate,” points 47-62).

… which, in the long run, leads to a mental attitude like:

• “How on earth can you be so selfish! I’m appalled! Haven’t you understood that you should be good?!”
• “I’m outraged by your behavior!” (cf. Luke 15:28)
• “Okay, enough with these prayers and confessions! We get it that we have to do good to others! Let’s make an effort to do it!”

As Pope Francis calls it: “a will without humility.”

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(Fall 2019)