Sin

I

Introduction

Sin, in religion, transgression of a sacred or divinely sanctioned law or practice, specifically such transgression as regarded by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Some idea of right and wrong is found in most religions. Perhaps the earliest manifestation of it was the strong opprobrium attached to violating a taboo. But only in the Judaeo-Christian and Islamic traditions has the characteristic notion of sin developed, with its elevation of wrong-doing into a direct crime against the Supreme Being. In Gnosticism and Manichaeism, fusions of Christian thought with Zoroastrian influences, sin was regarded as a manifestation of the human spirit's fall from the divine realm and its imprisonment in the evil material world. In Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, the concept closest to sin is that of demerit, the accumulation, through wrong deeds, of evil consequences, which must be purged in the process of transmigration.

II

Jewish and Christian Conceptions

In no other sacred book is the sense of sin so fully developed as in the Bible. Throughout the Scriptures sin is the element in humanity that puts human beings at enmity with God, requiring repentance and God's forgiveness. In the New Testament, sin is the essential human condition that calls for the redeeming work of Christ. In the Christian Church, however, it was not until the controversies between the British monk Pelagius and St Augustine of Hippo, the great Father and Doctor of the Church, that the doctrine of sin was fully developed. The early Greek Fathers of the Church regarded sin as opposition to the will of God. They did not, however, affirm that the guilt of the sin of the first man, Adam, or the corruption of his nature descended to all humanity. The early Christian ecclesiastical writer Tertullian, in his doctrine of traducianism, held that sinfulness had been propagated from Adam. But it was reserved for Augustine to formulate the doctrine of original sin. He maintained, against Pelagius, that Adam's sin corrupted humanity's whole nature; that his guilt and its penalty pass to all his descendants; that all human beings are born in a state of sin; and that because of Adam's original sin, they are incapable of satisfying God and are naturally disposed to pursue evil. Pelagius emphasized free will and individual moral effort and denied original sin. The Orthodox Church has continued to affirm that the human will is as free as Adam's was before the fall. The 13th-century Scottish Scholastic philosopher John Duns Scotus admitted that humanity had lost by Adam's fall its justitia originalis (Latin, “original righteousness”), but he laid stress on the freedom of the will.

III

Protestantism

During the Protestant ReformationMartin Luther and John Calvin maintained the Augustinian emphasis on original sin and on God's grace as the means of redemption. Huldreich Zwingli regarded sin in the manner of an inherited disease; Arminians and Socinians denied hereditary sin altogether. The 19th-century German Protestant theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher argued that sin is due to the inability to distinguish between one's absolute dependence on God and one's relative dependence on the temporal world.

Roman Catholicism distinguishes between mortal sin, which destroys the individual's relationship with God and merits eternal damnation, and venial sin, which, although serious, does not cut off the individual from God. Protestants have rejected this distinction.

IV

Islamic Conceptions

The cardinal sin in Islam is human pride, which violates the unity of creation by presuming human autonomy and revolts against the divine order by denying man's fundamental purpose: service and obedience to God. Despite Islam's genesis in the Judaeo-Christian tradition, the Koran specifically denies the Christian doctrine of original sin, stating that God forgave Adam for his transgression in the Garden of Eden. Yet fallible humans tend to miss the divinely prescribed limits to their being and aspire after the unlimited status of God, especially when tempted by Satan. In Islam, sin is therefore a consequence of human weakness rather than an inherited condition of corruption. The chain of prophets sent by God to testify to the divine purpose and call humanity back to the right path is proof of the eternal human tendency towards error. Unbelief is therefore a sinful expression of pride: the Arabic term for an unbeliever, kafir, means literally “ungrateful”. The unbeliever's heart is sealed by God against the true word. But honest repentance will restore the penitent to a pure, sinless condition, for God is ever-merciful. Repentance is expressed by a convesion to the truth.

Islamic doctrine states that sin is punished by God, who is a perfectly moral judge of all things. The final, complete judgement of sin will take place on Judgement Day, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hell-fire.