The claim, largely made by Reformed theologies, that sin is an awareness that “things aren’t as they are supposed to be” is a common way into the doctrine of sin.
What it posits is that people have a deep awareness that the world isn’t what it could be. This awareness feels almost like a haunting. It could arise after watching a child struggle with illness. It could come from witnessing the devastation of war. It could be watching people break each other’s hearts. In each of these situations, you can look on and say- “that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”
But in each of these situations, what you may actually be observing is that "everything could be so much better.” The basic instinct that things might be better is not, in fact, a doctrine of sin. Not a Christian one, anyway. It could easily be a modern instinct that everything might be improved, with enough resources. There is no bug that cannot be patched, nothing that can’t be fixed. Surely the world is like this, too.
Modern attempts to think theologically about sin have used the category as an all-inclusive label for whatever is wrong- with us, with society, with social systems and the human immune system and developmental biology. All of these things that are “wrong” are crowded into one category, of which Christian theology is supposed to give an account. And it does get quite crowded.
To require “sin” to give an account of all of these things makes it a generic and non-theological category. It also tempts us to think about the world God made in terms of gradations of good ness- as if God made things “good” and then they declined after the fall, and the mess we live with now is simply the after effects of this fall.
This, in fact, is pretty much what Christians tend to trot out as a doctrine of sin. What this narrative prevents, however, is the development of a Christian doctrine of sin. Sin says that God has reconciled all things in Christ, and that we can now live as those who are with God, even as God has always been “with us”.
A Christian doctrine of sin does not say “things aren’t as they are supposed to be”; it says “behold, I am making all things new”. It says we shall not all sleep, but be changed.
A perennial problem with the doctrine, and one of the origin points of the problem of evil, is that some people indeed flourish under sin. Sin does not seem to produce a universal sense of alienation, nor does it promote suffering to all affected by it. The wicked can indeed flourish. Relying on a circumabient feeling of things being “wrong”, then, gives epistemic priority regarding sin the sufferer- the one who needs it least- and not the violent oppressor- the one who needs it most.
Even if this sense of things being wrong does catch us, it may capture our attention toward the wrong things.
Take, for one example, a diagnosis of “patriarchy” as “what is wrong with us”.
On the one hand, “patriarchy”, if it exists, names the unilateral rule of men (“the father”) over women. This would indicate a social system where men held power, access to resources, and authority and women did not. Insofar as this system prevailed, the value of women would be denigrated, along with their ability to participate in leadership, stewardship outside the home, and other valuable social roles.
One might name this “sin”, because it denigrates both women’s essential nature, as well as unduly enriching “men”. It might seem that “patriarchy” serves as an example of “what is wrong with us”, and so provides an opportunity to reflect on the human need for forgiveness.
But can you back yourself into a doctrine of sin this way?
The feeling that something is wrong with you is not the presupposition, much less a precondition, of thinking about sin theologically. The notion that there’s “something wrong with me” is not a precursor to a Christian understanding of sin and its partner- reconciling grace. The only thing that can orient creatures rightly to God is just this- the realization that God is with us. This grants us a new story about God and in turn, a new story about ourselves.
The problem with attempting to back into a doctrine of sin through a circumambient sense of things that are “wrong” with us, including social systems or ideologies, is that this older sense of “something wrong with us”, and the presumptions that shape it, may be in fact resistant to the concepts and sense of sin that come with a Christian notion of reconciliation. They may be concepts that demand immediate, this worldly change. They may be concepts that rely on clear categories of violated and violator. They may be largely concerned with the exchange of power, and not of renewed dispositions toward the meek and the lowly.
Among the concepts that a Christian doctrine of sin generates, I’d include wonder and delight- and maybe, foremost- mercy.
These reflections brought to you in part by David Kelsey, Eccentric Existence, 872-873. Among the texts I love, this is a top 10.
“The only thing that can orient creatures rightly to God is just this- the realization that God is with us. This grants us a new story about God and in turn, a new story about ourselves.” So good!
I would add that this view reorients (I would not say “reimagined” b/c I think this idea exists) us to a more accurate gospel. The gospel message commonly preached that says, “you have sin/are a sinner and need Jesus” falls on deaf ears to those who benefit and perhaps flourish (in a way) from their sin. The gospel that invites the hearer into the communion of Holy Trinitarian Love of a God who is with us, is compelling to the sinner and saint.
Thank you for this. We desperately need more conversations on sin that are thoughtful in this way.
MOAR!