Sin – you’ve probably heard the word before, but what is your definition of it?
According to Oxford dictionary, sin is “an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law.”
If you go to Church, sin is typically defined as “disappointing God,” or “disobeying God,” or “breaking his rules.”
This is what Soren Kierkegaard in Sickness onto Death says,
“Sin is building your identity on anything but God.”
But what exactly does that mean? In short, we all have people, things, reputations, etc. that we feel like we need to have. For example, a certain job, a specific title, a specific type of girlfriend/boyfriend, etc.
We all have things that we feel like we need to have.
However what happens when we actually get those things? Timothy Keller says that “you’ll be[come] enslaved to it.” Furthermore, “when you actually get it, it won’t actually satisfy the hole in your heart, and if in anyway you fail it, it’ll curse you for the rest of your life.”
Consequently, rather than considering sin as breaking a set of rules, what if we began viewing sin in the same way Soren Kierkegaard does? “Sin is building your identity on anything but God.”
What would change?
Here’s another question – How do you view sin
I think Kierkegaard’s definition of sin is helpful in it’s depth, yet somehow it brings up more questions.
Like, what about sins that are not about identity? They exist. Petty selfish things. Maybe greed, lust etc.
Secondly, and I think really challenging, is that what about the things we build our identity with that are not considered sinful? Like, maybe Facebook, are they now sin?
Kierkegard’s definition (like a lot of his work in general) brings us into new territory. But the territory demands to be explored! One can not simply see the shore, but one must go on it to be an explorer.
Isaiah, my question is – what is the definition of identity? I would actually state that selfish things at their core, such as greed and lust, are about identity. If you are greedy, is it not because you are dissatisfied with what you have (or don’t have)?
What do you think?
In terms of your second question, I see where you’re getting at in terms of your facebook “identity.” However, I would just like to reiterate my first question – “what exactly does Kierkegaard mean by identity?
Does he not mean one’s sole foundational identity? It’s okay to have a blog or facebook, etc, as long as you don’t place your foundational identity on it. Why? Well because if you do and the blog or facebook shuts down or someone offends you through it, you’ll probably be deeply hurt. You know?
I understand what you mean. We definitely need to define Identity first. But I guess I got off track. My main point is that Kierkegaard’s definition of sin actually goes beyond Lust, greed and selfishness.
Kierkegaard’s definition could include, let’s say, purchasing a book for the sake of adding to one’s identity. His definition wars against the axiom “I consume therefore I am” or ” I read therefore I am” or “I think therefore I am”. In fact his definition will allow no “I _______ therefore I am”, but only will allow “Jesus was crucified, therefore I am”.
I guess that’s the line of thought I was thinking.
That’s awesome Isaiah. I love the way you put it.
And above all else, I really wanted the centre of this piece to be about rethinking and redefining sin for postmoderns.
After all, in postmodernism, if truth is relative, then sin cannot be defined as breaking a set of rules – it just doesn’t work. Why? Well because we all have our own set of rules…right?
As a result, instead of considering sin as rule breaking, what if we began to see sin as building our identity on anything but God? Will that not bring up a different response from previously-“churched” or anti-“churched” individuals?
Yeah. That definitely would bring up a different response.
But it will also bring up a different response from Christians too. I wonder what it would be like to have a conversation with a Christian about sin and bring up that definition.
I think too often we look at sin simply as something that makes us feel guilty. But we often ignore the sin that doesn’t make us feel guilty. I think with a definition like this we can more effectively “rid ourselves of the sin that so easily entangles” and search out God with more depth and a pure heart.
I also like how Kierkegaard calls sin “The Sickness unto death”.
In 1 John 3:19-24 it says this,
“By this we shall know that we are of the truth and reassure our heart before him; for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything. Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; and whatever we ask we receive from him, because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him. And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. Whoever keeps his commandments abides in him, and he in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit whom he has given us.”
According to that passage, whenever our heart condemns us and we feel “guilty” or “shameful,” it is God who is evoking that emotion within our hearts. Furthermore, John mentions that we are to keep God’s commandments and do what pleases him. As a result, it makes sense that we commonly associate sin with commandment-keeping.
And in terms of the sin that doesn’t make us feel guilty, can you give me any examples? In my mind, the sin that doesn’t make me feel guilty is sin that I do not know that I am committing (the sin of omission as J.I. Packer puts it in Knowing God), whereas the sin that does make me feel guilty is the sin that I know that I am committing (the sin of commission).
Basically.
But sometimes you know in your head you should be doing something. Maybe not spending (or wasting) so much money on something you know you shouldn’t.
Or perhaps sometimes sins which you know are worse than other ones, you feel less guilty over.
I know this is really, well it’s a pop culture reference, but in the Dark Knight the Joker says this ” “Nobody panics when the expected people get killed. Nobody panics when things go according to plan, even if the plans are horrifying. If I tell the press that tomorrow a gangbanger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will get blown up, nobody panics. But when I say one little old mayor will die, everyone loses their minds!”
I walked out of the movie knowing he was right, and yet I don’t feel (overly) guilty for the fact that everyday I wake up and don’t mourn the deaths of all those who have needlessly died (like 30,000 children will die today in the developing world from preventable causes). I feel guilty that I don’t feel guilty.
I guess that’s what I mean.
Also, do you think there’s two types of guilt – guilt induced by the world and guilt (for as Jesus says in the Gospel of John “He (the couselor) has come to convict the world in regard to sin”) for lack of a better term, induced by God?
That’s a great quote from Dark Knight.
You said, “I feel guilty that I don’t feel guilty.” I agree with you, and there are times when I feel the same way. In fact, even if you mention the statistic that 30 000 children will die today, most people would just read it and shrug their shoulders. Is that not our natural human defense mechanism? I mean, we don’t have the emotional capacity to carry the burdens of this world on our hearts. If we were to mourn over the deaths of the hundreds of thousands of people who die every day, would that necessarily be healthy?
When we see the suffering of the world, it’s unhealthy to take on that burden and live with it 24/7. However, it’s also unhealthy to hear it and forget about it. So what do we do?
In Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), he iterates this profound truth – “Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.”
In that statement, isn’t Jesus talking to all of us who don’t feel the suffering of this world? Isn’t Jesus talking to all of us who wish our hearts would be broken when we hear those types of horrifying statistics, but are actually apathetic and shrug our shoulders? What if Jesus is telling us that the first step that we need to take for our hearts to be moved is to be merciful to others? For when we are merciful to others, God will be merciful to us – he will allow our hearts to beat more in rhythm with his.
There is so much in the Gospels that talk about us needing to be merciful and help the poor. I think of the sheeps and the goats story from Matthew 25.
When I was hungry…. you gave me something to eat.
But what exactly is the appropriate reaction? I think the writing in The Dark Knight is really ingenius. See, the Joker knows the difference between what is truly Good and truly evil.
He had experienced so much evil that he gave himself a choice: show the world to be evil or fail. He chose the former.
But if a Christian were forced to choose the same choice as The Joker what would he or she choose?
He (the Joker) sees the evil, and he knows he can not live in apathy or mediocricy, so he decides through his actions to show the world that the world is evil.
But clearly his actions are evil as well.
In the Gospels the call of Christ is extraordinary. It is a call to extreme sacrifice and passion. Yet sometimes Christians do not live as if “Take up their cross”.
That’s true. Then how do we encourage one another to take up their cross?
Has it been the church who has preached a watered-down gospel?
How do we raise up a generation of passionate followers of Christ who will daily take up their cross and go wherever God sends them?
There’s the rub.
That’s exactly the thought that’s been floating around in my head for a while.
Firstly, somehow (don’t know exactly how), we got to present the Gospel with the warning Jesus gave in Luke 14 “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’
“Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple.”
Second of all I think those who have commited their lives to Christ must once again be remind that God demans the whole person. All your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength.
These are tough words, but also completely neccesary!
Love so amazing, so divine, demands my strength, my soul, my all.
Not only songs that we sing but words we live by.
Right on. An amazing book to read is Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s “Cost of Discipleship.”
The questions that we need to ask ourselves are, “will we still follow Christ if someone put a gun to our head?” “Will we still follow Christ if it doesn’t benefit us in a worldly sense?” “Will we still follow Christ if that means we would go to prison?”
Will we still follow Christ if the SS threatens to destroy our lives? Yeah, I’m actually reading that book (albeit very slowly) right now. It’s pretty good.
There is a difference between cheap grace and costly grace.
I agree that there is a difference between cheap grace and costly grace, but do we truly understand it?
Has our North American consumeristic culture so altered the definition of grace that costly grace doesn’t even exist anymore?
What about those preachers who preach health and wealth and avoid the topic of suffering? These are the preachers that are on the radio and on tv. Why? Because their message sells. People want to hear “feel-good” messages that justify their compromising living. As a result, this is the message that Christians are receiving.
Prosperity Gospel? Hmmm…. I’ve heard of it, but I can’t really believe a lot of people actually believe it. I mean, it’s so much fluff.
As for whether cheap grace is a NA thing, I’d say no. Rather it is really a human thing. It’s rather perfect for our human nature, because it doesn’t demand change.
How much of consumer culture is simply north american anyway? Isn’t it the current world culture (or trying to be)? I mean Bill Gates is trying to develop a version of it for the third world, it’s his new thing. He’s trying to develop a consumer mentality in the third world in away that benefits the third world.
This whole conversation reminds me of this guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverend_Billy_and_the_Church_of_Stop_Shopping
Well. I can see how people can believe prosperity gospel. It’s all the good stuff – it’s a theology of god the genie. Why wouldn’t anyone like it?
The only bad thing about the prosperity gospel is that it’s horribly contradictory to scripture. So, if you don’t know scripture, it’s a pretty good alternative?
I didn’t know about the way Bill Gates is trying to do that. Could you give me any links so I could read up about it?
The Bill Gates article I read in the paper in may. An actual paper, so it might be a little harder to find it on the internet.
As for the Prosperity gospel, even if you don’t know scripture it just seems….. fluffy. I can’t really think of another word to describe it. It’s the religious version of a very specific american dream.
hahhaa…good way to put it.