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Sin is not dependent on Morality
Since sin is a spiritual sickness, it is essentially related to the
self and its dialectical status. Sin in the most basic sense arises out
of the despair in the self, and consciousness of this sin comes only
though awareness of the eternal and spiritual aspect of the self.
Scriptually speaking, the Old Testament Jews were only vaguely aware of
sin and was not formally introduced until the life of Jesus. The
knights of the Jewish faith, the Pharisees, were exalted through the
Old Testament conception of sin but was scorned under Christ.
For
sin was just this: the breaking of the law. A complex system of social
and legal rules were established to punish those who sinned, and those
who kept the law were in the sight of God considered upright and
perfect. For adam and eve, the sin was not found in listening to the
Devil or even having the intention of eating the fruit, but when they
physically ate of the fruit (thereby transgressing God's law). Now, as
a set of moral constructs that form a lawful society this external
conception of sin is both adequate and effective, but it did not
correclty describe this spiritual sickness called sin.
Jesus
did not come to overthrow this morality, but to internalize the notion
of sin based on how it affects and controls our self (spirit). Through
a series of ethical fine-tunings in the jewish law (Matthew 5:21-22,
27-28, 43-44) Christ had shown that sin is not related to the external
act of breaking God's law but the spiritual condiiton that acts in
defiance to the reality of God (whether conscious or ignorant of the
existence of God). Sin becomes not dependent on morality (morality
defined in the narrow sense of external action). This, however, does
not exclude morality from sin but gives morality a significant part in
constituting sin. As Jesus quipped, "by their fruits ye shall know
them" (matthew 7:20). Thus the definition of sin found in the last
post:
"before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself"
is
entirely consistent with the idea that Christianity is an existential
communication, since the self expresses itself existentially. For
example, sexual lust will often lead to sexual immorality, blood lust
will often lead to violence, greed will often lead to theft or
exploitation, and even if it dosen't such things are a vice to the
self. A self that is in despair will most likely produce these vices,
and a self that is affirmed will imitate Christ through existential
selflessness. The expression of the self is existential by nature, and
in this sense morality is closely married to sin but neither are
dependent on the other.
Sin not being dependent on morality
gives us the ability to "have our cake and eat it too", meaning we can
explain both internal and external despair, and also morality can be
given unlimited signifiance within the notion of sin. However, if sin
is then taken to be dependent on morality the self is ignored in
despair. The self is ignored out of the lack of their being sinfulness
within the despair of the self before God, and thus salvation from real
sin never occurs since the self is always in despair (even when 'saved'
from moral sin).
I believe it important for sin and morality
to have separation in the technical sense, but as has been elaborated
on earlier the existential shows what we actually are spiritually.
Nevertheless, the diagnosis of humanity's spiritual sickness is not
moral in essence. It is related to the self and the self's relationship
with God, which, quite paradoxically, is expressed existentially (but
not existential in nature).
-- By Timothy Neal |
