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Sin is Heightened when before God
A common fallacy within the conception of sin is the thought that all
sins are considered the same before God, that it does not make a
difference who performs the sin or what it is they are doing, it is
just as evil and inexcusable as any other. This thought is strongly
tied to the idea that sin is related to our moral action and not the
spiritual relationship within ourselves that is before God. Also, it
presupposes that immoral acts, what would be called a “particular sin”,
are instances of new sin arising within the self; instead of the
expression of the continual despair that a self is in. If sin is a
spiritual sickness within the self it implies that despair (and sin)
intensifies with heightened consciousness. In that, the more
consciousness, the more despair.
A man who thinks of himself as
spiritless and does not grasp the eternal aspect within him would
accordingly not be conscious of his despair. His imbalance in the
self’s synthesis is a natural one since an aspect (the eternal aspect)
of the self has been denied of existing. His despair is not constituted
by defiance or weakness, which appear in the more severe forms of
despair, but constituted by ignorance. The despair is less intense
since he is ignorant of it, and yet the despair is further from
salvation compared to despair that is aware of its eternal/temporal
synthesis and conscious of its responsibility towards God. As an
example, consider the Pharisees in this passage:
Matthew 9
10And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many
publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples.
11And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
12But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.
13But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not
sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.
Jesus spent a lot of time rebuking the
Pharisees, but in this passage it seems to imply that he thought of
them as "whole". This is not the case; however, as I am sure Jesus was
speaking with a sense of irony. The Pharisees, who did not realize they
were in despair, was less needy for salvation than the publicans but
also infinitely further away from getting their despair healed. They
could not admit to having a problem. Indeed, they thought of themselves
as righteous, so Jesus could go no further with them. Of course, the
Pharisees were not righteous, they were still in despair despite being
completely oblivious to it, but by being ignorant of the sickness they
necessarily had to be ignorant of the cure (which was one of the
reasons Jesus got crucified in the end).
Just as despair
intensifies when a self is conscious of its own imbalance, sin is
heightened when it is before God. The despairing self that is not aware
of being before God is in much less sin since his ignorance restricts
him from directly sinning against God in defiance. The non-religious
sin is that of ignorance, but when the self becomes aware of a God its
despair becomes inherently sinful. Consider Kierkegaard's definition of
sin which I elaborated on two posts ago:
"Before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself"
Once
the self is aware of it being before God, it has to make a choice
between faith or sinful despair. If it is unable to strive
existentially towards faith it is thrusted into an even more intense
form of despair than from whence it came. This despair is founded on
either the sin of defiance (actively opposing faith) or the sin of
weakness (not being able to choose faith through the will’s weakness).
In this sense, despair that is before God becomes sin and multiplies in
severity compared with the despair that is not conscious of itself
before God.
This is why Jesus incessantly rebuked the Pharisees.
By being the “godly” men in Jewish society, their despair was before
God in the most direct way possible, and they not only sinned in
despair but taught others to do also. They turned what was known as
“religious piety” into despair, thus destroying the religion, and this
was the greatest blasphemy to Jesus. Hypocrisy is deplorable, but
religious hypocrisy is blasphemy before God.
Furthermore, those
who are unconscious of being before God have a cloak for their sin
(John 15:22-25), but those who are conscious are without excuse. As
people who are conscious of being before God as Christians, this is
both an encouraging and frightening fact. Our despair is before God and
is sin, a sin that would be considered blasphemy if it was basked in
while labeling oneself as a “little Christ”. Considering Christians
imagine themselves redeemed of this spiritual sickness they shouldn't
have to worry about all this talk of blasphemous sin, religious
hypocrisy, and intense despair... right? That is not necessarily the
case, since the Pharisees were righteous and considered themselves
justified. Christianity must accurately grasp the recourse to this
spiritual sickness of sin before it escapes out of despair. When you
consider the existential status of the majority of Christians today
this “accurate grasp” of Christ’s cure is doubtful, more on this next
post.
-- By Timothy Neal |
