WHAT IS SIN? WHAT PAUL MEANS BY “THE LAW IN MY MEMBERS” (ON CONCUPISCENCE)

While we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death. I do not understand my own actions… We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. I do not understand my own actions  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate… I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is not longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. (Rom. 7:5, 14-5, 19-20, RSV).

A crucial part of the Christian experience is sin. “Sin” is probably the least liked of Christian doctrines; and yet no Christian topic shows up more obviously, every day, in our world. Sin, and its effects, are ever-present for us. Almost no one – least of all the skeptic – likes this claim.

How often does one hear that this view is altogether too negative; that we are really in possession of ourselves, that we can make good decisions about right and wrong, as it were, on the drop of a hat, after some good, quiet, rational contemplation?

Or maybe, instead, we hear: morality is just common sense; and people who don’t follow it are terrible, ridiculous, some strange abomination – why can’t those wrongdoers keep up with the rest of us, we good people?

Or today, this too is likely: morality, at least as the powerful have defined it, is really injustice; “sin” is just a way of hindering us, of alienating us from ourselves, of keeping us from delighting in our bodies, our pleasures, our senses, our relationships – the real goods of life!

WHAT IS SIN? THE PROBLEM OF CONCUPISCENCE

If you are secular, these arguments (and others like them) should look familiar. Most Christians have heard them too. Yet most of these critiques “miss the mark” (incidentally, the meaning of the Hebrew word for sin!).

Sin is not so much about “doing bad things” – though this is part of it. Really, sin is about living with what Latin Fathers like Augustine called “concupiscence”[1] – it is about living with a constant tendency to embrace the things that destroy us.

It is about an absurd, masochistic love affair – the kind in which we seek security in someone who is bad for us, who we know will hurt us, who will not be dependable, who makes us feel good for a moment but then lower than ever; this, the doctrine of sin says, is the way that we relate to sin; it is the story, not just of a bad period, but of the whole of our lives.

Sin is not only the bad things we do; it is also our constant temptation, our constant preference, our constant disposition towards the things that feel good for a moment, then hurt us overall. Paul puts it this way: “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Rom. 7:19, RSV).

THE LAW IN MY MEMBERS

Paul talks about this in terms of his members, as though there were an “inner self” who objects, who wants what is good, while nonetheless the outer body does evil. Some people interpret this as though Paul were railing against our flesh-and-blood existence (a not-uncommon thing in the ancient world). But for Paul, raised in the body-affirming tradition of Judaism, this couldn’t possibly be true.

Paul, instead, is reflecting – with a sort of sad horror – on how he constantly conflicts with his own aspirations. I want to do good, he says, but I do not do it. I endlessly slip into one wrong act or another. I tell myself not to; but I do it anyway.

Sin, for Paul, is almost like an addiction: I do not want to get high again – no, I want to be sober! I want to be there for my wife, my children. I want to make my parents proud. I do not want to feel ashamed when I wake up, my head pounding, eyes crusted over as I stumble to the faucet for water, hoping (as always) that this time no one saw me. I do not want that – of course I don’t! And yet I find, at a certain point, that I can’t resist the impulse – I sit down, defeated, desperate, and take a hit. The itching in my mind, the tension in my muscles, they disappear, and I am satisfied. For a moment they do anyway – until the shame sets back in.

When I give in and get high, when I call the person I shouldn’t, when I hit whoever makes me angry, when I yell the nastiest thing I can think of – does it not often feel, in that moment, almost like someone else did it? Do you not go into a sort of disembodied state, disconnecting so fully that it is almost like watching yourself? Do we not, in the act of sin, sometimes feel like helpless onlookers? “Why doesn’t he see how stupid this is!” Thus your mind yells; and yet it is you who have done it. But at this moment your mind and your body seem split in two; your higher thinking knows better – but your members, well, they just screwed up again.

This is what Paul means. It is your thought at the moment you look on your mistake – those used needles, that man’s bloody nose, the ex you just slept with, the partner you insulted: “I do not understand my own actions  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Rom. 7:15, RSV).

SIN AND THE OFFENSE OF THE GOSPEL

That old-fashioned word “sin,” that ostentatious “concupiscence” – all they name is this simple mistake. They name the disposition towards self-destruction that occupies us all and drives us from God. Why, then, is it such an offense to everyone? Is it because judgmental people use it sometimes? I doubt it.

The real reason is this. In any modern idea of morality, you have full agency. You are fully in control of yourself: so long as you have the right knowledge, and the right moral intuitions, we believe, you ought to be able to make the right and ethical choice. You are free, you are in possession of your own will – it is therefore your responsibility to act well.

You, then, had a choice about whether to take that hit, say those words, punch that man, etc. And you made the wrong one, buddy. Now let the shame, the social shunning, the legal consequences commence. It is, after all, only just; your utterly free choice must have its ramifications.

But the Christian view of sin opposes this. No one is a free agent, it says. All are slaves of sin. We are all constantly falling into evil actions – we are all doing what we hate. Is this because we will to do it? Well, yes. Is this because we choose to do it? Actually, in a sense, no. Because the great, profound, yet deeply troubling claim of Christian sin is this: that I am not in control of my own will. I am led away from God in all respects, all the time. And it is only through God’s grace – not by my own choice – that my will can be changed to good.

This is the great offense of the Christian claim concerning sin. It is not that the concept proclaims some sort of “extra guilt” we ought to feel, in addition to the shame we already know. Grace will make us more sensitive to sin, yes, but rightly understood, the doctrine of sin does not prescribe extra guilt. What it does claim is that you are trapped in this guilt – and that you can’t get yourself out.

This, unsurprisingly, is deeply unpopular. It is contrary to American optimism. It is contrary to our notion of freedom. It rails against those who would make great paeons to “the human.” It challenges all who would see human beings as “basically good, decent, etc.” It is not that the Bible thinks we are the worst of all possible creatures; but it does see the seeds of self-destruction planted, ineluctably, in our every deed.

Because, in short, it is so contrary to what we have been taught, and to the narrative we want to have for ourselves – because of this, the Christian view is deemed a problem. But I do not think it is a problem; rather it really names a problem – the problem we all desperately try to avoid. It is the problem of evil in our everyday actions; it is the problem of histories of wrongdoing we beat back; it is the problem of cycles of hurt, guilt, shame we perpetuate, without even realizing what we’ve done till it’s too late. It is the problem, in short, of the fragility of our decency; and the terror that lurks just underneath the sweeter surface.

The Christian doctrine of sin, I believe, deals with this problem – the all-encompassing problem of our lives – better than any other proposed solution. It is the only one that is clear enough, critical enough, realistic enough, to deal with the problem. And, furthermore, I believe it is the only one that deals with it kindly – freeing us rather than condemning us, or shifting the blame ever elsewhere. For this reason, I propose, the Christian doctrine of sin should be lauded, not condemned. But this will only become clear if we take a closer look.

[1] Technically, for Augustine, “concupiscence” names just one element of sin. It is the temptation towards evil that remains in us after “original sin,” the guilt incurred by Adam and congenitally passed to all, is removed by the grace of holy baptism. This concupiscence is the site, then, of a constant struggle for the Christian, wherein he slowly, through determined effort, improves and becomes more holy/sanctified.

Yet concupiscence is one of the areas where sin is most obvious in our lives even before baptism, and hence I have decided to highlight it here. Later, when I write about anxiety, shame and guilt as broad, inchoate psychological experiences which cannot be related to any single incident or object – then, at that point, I will be talking about the psychic manifestations of original sin, and not concupiscence.

DAN TATE is a writer and blogger at Christ & Cosmos. A former atheist, he’s been surprised and amazed by the God of all things, and he’s passionate about sharing the gospel in ways that respond to contemporary concerns about theology, philosophy, spiritual practice, science, art, and more. A lifelong writer hailing from Upstate New York, he has a B.A. from Allegheny College, an M.A. from Syracuse University, and an M. Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.