Christian Atheism

What is sin?

We can answer this question by subdividing sin into two broad categories: that which is evil and that which is wrong. These two concepts are interconnected, but sin is not always considered evil.

Evil is sometimes difficult to define in humanistic terms. It’s terribly contextual and often very personal. The moral philosophies of an individual or a society often dictate what’s evil and what’s not. Evil is often a denomination given to people who disagree strongly with one or many morals, or even merely ideas of another individual or group. It is therefore often thrown around quite trivially and in a generalising manner. The famous philosopher Socrates states that which we call evil is merely ignorance.

On the other hand, evil can also be defined as wilful harm to others, no matter what reason. The psychologist Philip Zimbardo (you might know him from the Stanford Prison Experiment) defines evil as:

… the exercise of power to intentionally harm, hurt, destroy or commit crimes against humanity.

I personally like this definition as it is, in any context, very hard to disagree with. It also classifies evil as an intrinsic behavioural infliction, which comes from our ability to emphasize with beings around us. To put it differently: from their own standpoint, humans can be cruel, (most) animals cannot.

Back to sin. This word is often used in religious circles. In this framework, sin is a violation of one or many of the moral rules or divine laws of a religious creed for which often punishment should be received. So sin does not have to be morally dire but it can still be wrong, although what is considered against the rules is often automatically considered morally bad in many religions. Sin is not always in violation of secular law but in religious context sin is almost always a consequence of evil forces.

In Christian philosophy sin can be forgiven (salvation). To Christians this salvation came in the form of Jesus of Nazareth and his suffering. Repentance is the recognition of your own sins and accepting the sacrifice of Jesus. This view on sin is central to Christianity and in this story Jesus is the subject of his fate and destiny.

Preaching about sin was elemental to the missions of John the Baptist and his teachings motivated Jesus to preach the same and with relation to John. So what did Jesus teach us? Terrot Glover wrote a chapter on this in his excellent book The Jesus of History. He mentions the preaching of repentance and subsequential acceptance into the “Kingdom of God” as being important to Jesus’ teachings. This is irrelevant to Christian atheists. More relevant are perhaps Jesus’ moral teachings love and kindness and his clear-cut views of right and wrong. Glover discusses Jesus’ perspective on the Last Judgement (Matt. 25:31-46), itself a possible metaphor of this dichotomy. Jesus perspective shows that not the most devoted and religious Jews, but the common men and woman who instinctively lived, benevolently, a life of generosity and kindness to others will find eternal bliss. The people on the left hand were not the non-religious and the Gentiles, but the people who embraced a mean-spirited character and an ignorance of compassion. This morality is that of deeds, but Jesus’ teachings also encompass the ethics of thought.

Jesus considered anger and unclean thought sin. He meant with this, people who had strong desires for sinful acts, even if they would not follow up on these deeds. If the mind becomes tainted with these thoughts, it will function sinfully. From a Christian atheist perspective I personally believe that it is not deeds but thoughts that separate moral people from moralistic people and I therefore often condemn religiously motivated benevolence as being moralistic and often not truly genuine. I believe Jesus condemned this too.

I will not further delve into this topic for now. In my family we include Jesus’ views on sin which we consider relevant to our situation and time. Many of his moral philosophies on sin were, from secular humanist standpoint, very intrinsic to man. Much as modern-day psychologist, Jesus emphasises the fallacy of all of us to easily tip from good to evil. His teachings might provide some guidance.