Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: sin (was Re: Satan) Message-ID: Date: 30 Nov 89 07:58:57 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Services Lines: 39 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In article ap1i+@andrew.cmu.edu (Andrew C. Plotkin) writes: > >The debate over "what is sin?" is, I think, an attempt to systematically >determine answers to the question "what specific actions are sins?" If >we knew what the definition of "sin" was, we would know precisely what >we could do that God would not punish, and what we could not. (This is >-not- the same as the "what is necessary/sufficient for salvation?" >question, but certainly is related.) > I disagree. I think the question "what specific actions are sins" is uniquely ill-posed, and extremely dangerous. Actions are never sins; they are the symptoms of sin. In other words, one does not sin *by* committing a certain action; one commits the action because one is sinful. The very notion that it is conceivable that we could avoid God's judgement simply by avoiding "sinful actions" is misguided. Our sin is deep in our nature; we are a fallen species. Only Christ was without sin. To claim that his sinlessness was simply a failure to commit any sinful acts is to grossly trivialize the magnitude of His sacrifice. One important consequence of this view of sin, which I don't hear preached very often, is that no "sin" (in the sense of "sinful action") is any "worse" (reprehensible, culpable, abhorrent to God) than any other. And yet it has always been the first tendency of the "religious" to attempt to disassociate themselves from the "wicked" murderers, pimps, prostitutes, thieves, etc. How pathetic this must appear to God: a tragic example of "the pot calling the kettle black". The truly repentent Christian must recognize that he or she is *every bit* as sinful as the worst rapist or cutthroat, not just in some abstract theoretical sense, but in the only sense that matters. I'm not going to claim to be very good at this myself, but I recognize the fault as my own... -- David M. Tate | DISCLAIMER: dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu | "Hey, that's *my* dis!" _____________________________________________________________________________ Statistics is the science of inferring the obvious and the false.