Against God and Nature

The Doctrine of Sin

Thomas H. McCall, John S. Feinberg

• Verlag: Crossway
• Jahr: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781433565229
• Thema: Theologie & Religion
• Thema: Christliche Theologie

Without a proper understanding of sin, there can never be a proper understanding of the gospel. Sin is opposed both to God's will and to nature, leaving us in need of God's grace and redemption. This comprehensive exploration of the doctrine of sin looks at what the Bible teaches about sin's origin, nature, and consequences, engaging with historical and contemporary movements. Dealing with difficult issues such as original sin, angelic sin, corporate sin, greater and lesser sins, and more, this book ends with a discussion on divine grace, which is the only hope for the problem of sin.

Chapter One

Introduction

Sin is whatever is opposed to God’s will, as that will reflects God’s holy character and as that will is expressed by God’s commands. Sin is fundamentally opposed to nature and reason, and it is ultimately opposed to God. The results of sin are truly catastrophic—sin wreaks havoc on our relationships with God, one another, and the rest of creation. It is universal in human history and manifests itself in various cultural expressions. It wrecks human lives, and it leaves us broken and vulnerable. It also leaves us needing grace and longing for redemption.

I. The Study of Sin

And yet we commonly find ways to downplay, deny, or ignore the reality of sin. The words of Walter Rauschenbusch remain relevant and convicting: “We have been neglecting the doctrine of sin in our theology.”1 As Martin Luther King Jr. puts it, “In the modern world, we hate to hear this word ‘sin’”—and this despite the sobering realization of the fact that sin is “one of the basic facts of the universe” and is “set forth on almost every page of the Bible.”2

So how do we know sin? The answers may seem obvious, but the sober truth is that the very existence of sin (as a religious category and theological doctrine) is sometimes denied. Moreover, the Christians who do believe in the reality and gravity of sin often disagree over different understandings of the doctrine itself. So what sense can be made of it? How can we know it?

On one hand, it seems that sin can be known merely from observation of human existence.3 Sin is sometimes said to be “the only empirically verifiable doctrine of the Christian faith”—and this statement is often accompanied by the assumption that it clearly is empirically verifiable.4 As King expresses the point, “we just need to look around a little, that’s all, and we discover it everywhere.”5 Sin can be known through the study of human existence and experience; we learn of sin through social and intellectual history, through psychology and sociology—and we learn of it by introspection. There is much to be said for this approach, for it is intuitive to many people not merely that unfortunate things happen but that many things are wrong—morally wrong—with our world. Moreover, witness to the depravity of humanity can be found in many religious and philosophical traditions. For instance, an ancient Sumerian inscription tells us that “never has a sinless child been born to its mother.”6 The Chinese philosopher Xunzi claims that all people “are born with feelings of hate and dislike in them. . . . Thus, if people follow with their inborn dispositions and obey their nature, they are sure to come to struggle and contention, turn to disrupting social divisions and order, and end up becoming violent. . . . it is clear that people’s nature is bad, and their goodness is a matter of deliberate effort.”7 The evidence is clear enough that even Karl Barth, when commenting on Romans 3, will say that “[t]he whole course of history pronounces this judgment against itself. . . . If all the great outstanding figures in history . . . were asked their opinion, would one of them assert that men were good, or even capable of good? Is the doctrine of original sin merely one doctrine among many? Is it not rather . . . the Doctrine which emerges from all honest study of history?”8 On this approach, much can be known about sin apart from divine revelation; “even those who do not know that Jesus Christ is Lord know sin.”9

On the other hand, many theologians argue forcefully that we cannot really know sin apart from divine revelation.10 As William H. Willimon says, “We have no means of being cognizant of sin without the grace of God.”11 For Christians, knowing sin as sin “is derivative of and dependent on what Christians know about God as revealed in Christ.”12 Barth articulates a thunderous statement of this view:

As the opposition of man to God, his neighbour, and himself, sin is more than a relative and limited conflict which works itself out only in himself and which can therefore be known in the self-consciousness and self-understanding which he can have of himself. As the one who commits sin man is himself totally and radically compromised. Where there is a true knowledge of sin, it can be only as an element in the knowledge of God, of revelation, and therefore of faith, for which he cannot in any way prepare himself. Man is corrupt even in his self-understanding, even in the knowledge of his corruption. He cannot see, therefore, beyond the inner conflict and its purely relative compass. He can never really see his sin, and himself as the man of sin. He cannot turn to a true knowledge of his corruption, but only evade it. God and His revelation and faith are all needed if he is to realise the accusation and judgment and condemnation under which he stands, and the transgression and ensuing need in which he exists.13

Barth is certain that accurate self-diagnosis is impossible. Willimon concurs: “The only means of understanding our sin with appropriate seriousness and without despair is our knowledge of a God who manages to be both gracious and truthful. . . . Only through the story of the cross of Christ do we see the utter depth and seriousness of our sin.”14

There seems to be a further problem. If sin is what the Bible says it is and does what the Bible says it does, then it is “deceitful” and causes blindness (Jer. 17:9; cf. John 12:40; Heb. 3:13; 1 John 2:11). As Ian McFarland points out, “Because sin is something of which everyone is guilty all the time, the very capacity to know it and name it is vitiated by human beings’ status as sinners. It follows that human beings can know the depth of their sin only as it is forgiven—and thus only as it is made known to us by the one who forgives. . . . the concept only has meaning from within the context of Christian belief.”15

But Barth also raises another concern; this is the worry that our attempts at such self-diagnosis are not only impossible but are also idolatrous. As he puts it,

Nor is it clear how it can be otherwise than that a doctrine of sin which precedes Christology and is independent of it should consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, move in the direction of [idolatry]. To affirm evil as such it is forced to have an independent standard of good and evil and to apply that standard. But independently of Christology what standard can there be other than a normative concept ...