sin

sin, moral evil as considered from a religious standpoint. Sin is regarded in Judaism and Christianity as the deliberate and purposeful violation of the will of God. See also deadly sin.

The concept of sin has been present in many cultures throughout history, where it was usually equated with an individual’s failure to live up to external standards of conduct or with his violation of taboos, laws, or moral codes. Some ancient societies also had concepts of corporate, or collective, sin (see original sin) affecting all human beings and dating from a mythical “Fall of Man” out of a state of primitive and blissful innocence. In ancient Greek thought, sin was looked upon as, in essence, a failure on the part of a person to achieve his true self-expression and to preserve his due relation to the rest of the universe; it was attributed mainly to ignorance.

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In the Old Testament, sin is directly linked to the monotheistic beliefs of the Hebrews. Sinful acts are viewed as a defiance of God’s commandments, and sin itself is regarded as an attitude of defiance or hatred of God. The New Testament accepts the Judaic concept of sin but regards humanity’s state of collective and individual sinfulness as a condition that Jesus came into the world to heal. Redemption through Christ could enable men to overcome sin and thus to become whole. Both Christianity and Judaism see sin as a deliberate violation of the will of God and as being attributable to human pride, self-centredness, and disobedience. While insisting more strongly than most religions upon the gravity of sin, both in its essence and in its consequences, both Christianity and Judaism have emphatically rejected the Manichaean doctrine that either the created world as a whole or the material part of it is inherently evil. Christianity holds rather that evil is the result of the misuse of their free will by created beings and that the body, with its passions and impulses, is to be neither ignored nor despised but sanctified; in the Bible, the “flesh” that is spoken of disparagingly is not the human body but human nature in rebellion against God.

Theologians divide sin into “actual” and “original.” Actual sin is sin in the ordinary sense of the word and consists of evil acts, whether of thought, word, or deed. Original sin (the term can be misleading) is the morally vitiated condition in which one finds oneself at birth as a member of a sinful race. In Genesis 3, this is depicted as an inherited consequence of the first human sin, i.e., that of Adam. Theologians differ as to the interpretation of this narrative, but it is agreed that original sin, however mysterious its origin and nature may be, arises from human beings having come into the world not as isolated individuals but as members of a corporate race inheriting both good and evil features from its past history.

Actual sin is subdivided, on the basis of its gravity, into mortal and venial. This distinction is often difficult to apply but can hardly be avoided. A mortal sin is a deliberate turning away from God; it is a sin in a grave matter that is committed in full knowledge and with the full consent of the sinner’s will, and until it is repented it cuts the sinner off from God’s sanctifying grace. A venial sin usually involves a less important matter and is committed with less self-awareness of wrongdoing. While a venial sin weakens the sinner’s union with God, it is not a deliberate turning from him and so does not wholly block the inflow of sanctifying grace.

Actual sin is also subdivided into material and formal. Formal sin is both wrong in itself and known by the sinner to be wrong; it therefore involves him in personal guilt. Material sin consists of an act that is wrong in itself (because contrary to God’s law and human moral nature) but which the sinner does not know to be wrong and for which he is therefore not personally culpable.