The problem I see with how people define sin is 1) most people have no blinking idea what it even is, and so resort to vague, esoteric Bible verses, and 2) when they do define it, they do so along ethical lines: e.g., sin means "don't do this or that as a principle." But to my thinking, sin is much more than a matter of principles, like ethics is. This understanding of sin is indeed ethical, more particularly related to mores, rather than a religious understanding, at least articulated by Kierkegaard. According to him, there's the ethical, but there's also the religious. Where the religious comes in is pure particularlity, where God basically has a specific set of commands for each individual, which by fulfilling the self becomes itself (as opposed to the self it would like to be on its own accord, or the vacuous self it is when it's not strong enough to become the self it's called to be).
What are examples of these commands? Go and get a cup of coffee. Go and buy stuff from a local store (rather than Wal Mart). Go and vote for someone who gives a damn about the poor. Go hang out with an old widow across the street. Go post stuff on Christian Forums. And a million others. These commands are precise, incredibly concrete, and so close to us that we miss them the more we try to focus on them. These things are little points of possibility which Kierkegaard would say are given down by God at each moment, and as such they're capable of becoming parts of our intentionality. A person is the thing he's doing; therefore, his fulfilled (and fulfilling, present-progressive) intentions constitute his self. So living through with these commands is living through with a real, authentic self, which is precisely the self God has for you. You also have freedom: the freedom to be yourself or the freedom not to be yourself, and this is necessarily the hard freedom that takes muscles and grit. By definition it's always harder to become something than to be just "who you are" (which would actually mean negating yourself, given that the self is founded in becoming); hence there's always a pushing against the grain with the freedom of selfhood. And in a very real sense being a self is a verb, not a noun. Which reminds me of Pascal: "our being is founded in movement; absolute stillness is death."
So I have a conscious but mostly preconscious sense of what I should be doing at any given time. In doing this particular act in this particular moment, I become myself; by not doing it, I'm either in defiance (refusal, rebellion) or weakness (just too tough, man). This is sin. This command is set down by God, arguably by the Logos (or Christ in incorporeal form) or the Word: that is, the word of God for each of us is a particular word at a particular moment, which in fulfilling we have real spiritual being, and in not doing we're very much not existing in a spiritual sense, and we're (meant to be) spiritual beings.
For Kierkegaard, sin and faith are opposites; "whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). If we understand faith not conceptually (that's a post-Enlightenment false definition), but relationally, basically in the same way as we mean it when we say "I was faithful to you," then sin is the refusal to have the trust or commitment to God that makes up this faith. Here is where the idea of the Word comes in handily: by following someone's word or "command", we're living faithfully to them. Hence to relate to God means to fulfill his commandments, which in fulfilling we become ourselves.
This sometimes is "limited" to the ethical; e.g., when we help an old lady cross the street and stuff. But often the ethical doesn't even apply in our particular situation, given that we don't have any rules to apply. This big collection of gaps between ethical requirements (general principles) is where the religious sphere -- the highest for Kierkegaard -- becomes indispensable. Which reminds me of a quote by Tolstoy: "without faith, it is impossible to live." It's only by faith that you fulfill the commands given by God that go fill the huge gaps given by ethical principles.
You want to talk about a relevant theology? Read some Kierkegaard, man.
What are examples of these commands? Go and get a cup of coffee. Go and buy stuff from a local store (rather than Wal Mart). Go and vote for someone who gives a damn about the poor. Go hang out with an old widow across the street. Go post stuff on Christian Forums. And a million others. These commands are precise, incredibly concrete, and so close to us that we miss them the more we try to focus on them. These things are little points of possibility which Kierkegaard would say are given down by God at each moment, and as such they're capable of becoming parts of our intentionality. A person is the thing he's doing; therefore, his fulfilled (and fulfilling, present-progressive) intentions constitute his self. So living through with these commands is living through with a real, authentic self, which is precisely the self God has for you. You also have freedom: the freedom to be yourself or the freedom not to be yourself, and this is necessarily the hard freedom that takes muscles and grit. By definition it's always harder to become something than to be just "who you are" (which would actually mean negating yourself, given that the self is founded in becoming); hence there's always a pushing against the grain with the freedom of selfhood. And in a very real sense being a self is a verb, not a noun. Which reminds me of Pascal: "our being is founded in movement; absolute stillness is death."
So I have a conscious but mostly preconscious sense of what I should be doing at any given time. In doing this particular act in this particular moment, I become myself; by not doing it, I'm either in defiance (refusal, rebellion) or weakness (just too tough, man). This is sin. This command is set down by God, arguably by the Logos (or Christ in incorporeal form) or the Word: that is, the word of God for each of us is a particular word at a particular moment, which in fulfilling we have real spiritual being, and in not doing we're very much not existing in a spiritual sense, and we're (meant to be) spiritual beings.
For Kierkegaard, sin and faith are opposites; "whatever is not of faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). If we understand faith not conceptually (that's a post-Enlightenment false definition), but relationally, basically in the same way as we mean it when we say "I was faithful to you," then sin is the refusal to have the trust or commitment to God that makes up this faith. Here is where the idea of the Word comes in handily: by following someone's word or "command", we're living faithfully to them. Hence to relate to God means to fulfill his commandments, which in fulfilling we become ourselves.
This sometimes is "limited" to the ethical; e.g., when we help an old lady cross the street and stuff. But often the ethical doesn't even apply in our particular situation, given that we don't have any rules to apply. This big collection of gaps between ethical requirements (general principles) is where the religious sphere -- the highest for Kierkegaard -- becomes indispensable. Which reminds me of a quote by Tolstoy: "without faith, it is impossible to live." It's only by faith that you fulfill the commands given by God that go fill the huge gaps given by ethical principles.
You want to talk about a relevant theology? Read some Kierkegaard, man.
