In reading Blaise Pascal’s, Pensées, I’m reminded of something I’ve thought about but never really tried to write down, so I will try.
Many people feel that Christianity is unnecessarily harsh in its doctrine of sin. People feel that the notion of sin produces an unhealthy negativity toward the self, perhaps a self-loathing. It can also be used in judgmental and self-righteously harsh ways as people condemn and judge others for their sin.
It seems that people either turn the negativity inward, or project it outward, or both. This is a common criticism of Christianity and the doctrine of sin. When we embrace the doctrine of sin and try to understand it from a biblical perspective, the truth is far more positive than we might suspect at first blush.
For one thing, the idea of sin is a great equalizer. When the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short, it is mitigating one of the chief ways people feel badly about themselves, which is in comparison to others. The idea that all humans have sinned the negativity trap that comes from comparing ourselves to other people.
Paul says that anyone who has sinned in one way has transgressed the entire law. Thus, it makes no difference whether one person may be more or less sinful than another person. We are all in the same boat. To think that I am better than or worse than someone else by comparison is to misunderstand the doctrine of sin.
The great poet of the 18th century, Alexander Pope, says in more poetic language, “To err is human.” We all know this intuitively. If we are honest, we see our faults and our failures in ourselves that other people do not even see. This self-awareness can and does produce feelings of negativity even if we do not subscribe to the Ten Commandments or Christian morality.
The entire quotation from Alexander Pope is: “To hear is human, to forgive is divine.” When we struggle with our own failures and faults, we can find ourselves in an endless feedback loop of negativity. The answer to that vicious cycle is the idea of divine forgiveness. This is what the Bible teaches us.
The doctrine of sin also eliminates a primary way people are cruel to each other – by establishing comparisons that render certain people less than. This is the outward manifestation of negativity that flows from the reality that human beings are error-prone. Whether it’s the Ten Commandments, a cultural or societal standard, or a self-imposed standard, we all fall short. When we turn that negativity outward, we focus on the errors of other people; we judge them; and we become self-righteous if we think we are better than them.
The doctrine of sin levels this playing field also. I once heard the analogy of people escaping a natural disaster in California by taking to the sea. The best swimmers might outdistance the lesser swimmers, and the worst swimmers among us might perish quickly in the ocean waters. Not even the best of swimmers, however, are capable of swimming the entire ocean to reach the shores of China.
The doctrine of sin is similar to this analogy in the sense that the best of people still fall short. As Paul stated, the doctrine of sin is a losing proposition for us: it is all or nothing – if we have failed to keep only one part, we have transgressed the entire law because we are still sinners. It doesn’t matter how far any individual swimmer makes it out into the Pacific Ocean. Every swimmer will fall short of making it to the opposite shore.
When we understand that our position relative to each other makes no difference, we are not apt to judge others or to feel superior. The Bible eliminates all of that if we take it seriously, because all have sinned and fallen short so that there is no reason for boasting merely merely because some people sin more or less in one way or another.
In this sense an accurate understanding of the biblical doctrine of sin, is the great equalizer. If we truly understand a biblical view of it, the reality of sin puts us all on the same level. It equalizes all people in relation to each other and in relation to God. We are all in the same position relative to each other and relative to God.
The biblical solution for sin, of course, is God’s grace/forgiveness. The solution for sin is not doing better, but in receiving God’s grace and forgiveness and in willingness to extend that grace and forgiveness to others. As Paul also says, “If we are forgiven by grace, where is the boasting?” Sin and grace eliminate boasting and mitigate against pride, which is the root of all sin according to great thinkers of old.
Continue reading “A Biblical View of Sin Turns the Negativity of Condemnation and Judgmentalism into Hope and Human Flourishing”
