The Challenge of Others

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One of the most difficult things for us to do is the task of locating sin properly. One common mistake, one that we have addressed a number of times before, is the mistake of locating sin in stuff. This mistake thinks that sin must be resident in material things—in sex, in alcohol, in refined sugar, in tobacco, and so on.

Faithful Christians know better than this, knowing that sin is a function of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. But there is a subtlety here also. We sometimes forget that hearts do not exist in any solitary way. Think of this another way. All sin, every sin, is always a sin in relationship to others.

If you could be alone, truly alone, you could not sin. Moreover, you could not even be you if you were genuinely, completely alone. In the world God made, relationship with others is as necessary as contending with height, breadth and depth. Even if you were to go off into the mountains to live alone, every moment of every day, you will still be living in relationship with the triune God in whom we all live, move and have our being.

So sin is not found in material stuff. Neither is sin found in a solitary human heart. Sin is always found in the human heart in relationship to other hearts. But notice what follows from this. When sin is in the stuff, sin is simple. That is why people are attracted to the legalistic systems that operate on this calculus. “Don’t drink beer” is the rule, and you are either obeying it or you are not. When sin is in your own heart, and it is your solitary heart that you are thinking of, sin is simple. Sin is defined by how you think and feel about things. You descend into your own heart to look for sin, and as it turns out you always look in the same old places, and you don’t look in the nooks and crannies—the first places that others would look.

If sin is a function of relationship, then the complexities are such that only the grace of God can sort it all out. And sin is a direct function of relationship, isn’t it? What are the two great commandments, the two commandments that sum up all ethical responsibility that can be found in the Bible? What are those commandments? Love God and love your neighbor. All the law is encompassed in relationship. This means that sin cannot be understood, analyzed, confessed, or forsaken without reference to the thoughts, loves, intents, and desires of those others.

Therefore . . . love God. Love one another.

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andrewlohr
andrewlohr
7 years ago

Think it overstates the inherent relatedness of sin–‘Each man knows the plague of his own heart,’ eh? and I have plenty of internal work to do that, of course, is done in God and affects my relations to others, but MAY not be visible to other people.

Lance Roberts
7 years ago

We have to be careful to state that while “sin” is not in things, some things can be evil. These wouldn’t be the atomic elements but things that are constructed from them. For example, when the big art thing was a picture of Jesus in a glass or urine, that was an evil object, even if the individual elements weren’t evil. That’s why music and movies can be evil, even through notes themselves are neutral.

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

I’m going to disagree. Inanimate objects cannot be good or evil. So a painting or a movie does not have an actual “being” beyond what it represents to us, what it reminds us of in relationship to others. Also, Romans 8:28 applies, “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” That awful art piece created a lot of horror and yet perhaps some good came of it, perhaps it woke some people up, perhaps it led others to reaffirm their relationship with Christ.… Read more »

Lance Roberts
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

And I will have to disagree with both your statement that inanimate objects can’t be good or evil, and your implication that good and evil are subjective. Evil is objective and defined by God. We may have a hard time always applying the principles he gave to discern where the line is, but there is always a line. Man with his sin nature can create evil objects, like pornographic movies, or idols. They glorify evil and sin and rail against God and his holy decree. Note, I’m not talking some form of Manicheasm where all material things are evil. Nature… Read more »

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

Lance, could you give an example of an object which is evil in itself, separate from the intention of the maker or the user? A doll could be created as an object of idolatry by a wicked person, yet found by a child and treated as a harmless toy. A child’s harmless doll could be stolen and used in a satanic rite. Ordinary clothing catalogues with pictures of children have been used as pornography by the depraved. I agree that evil is objective. We use material objects to commit acts that are objectively evil. But I don’t see how the… Read more »

Lance Roberts
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I certainly don’t believe that evil is some mystical quality that is absorbed. Some constructed things are just objectively evil. More examples: a) the Ephesians burned the sorcery books, (b) some communication is called by the Bible bad, evil or corrupt.

wisdumb
wisdumb
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

Ok, take the other extreme of inherent goodness.
Would you say that the blood of Christ is inherently good?

Malachi
Malachi
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

Well, we all know that a fully-automatic assault rifle with 35-round clip, bipod, laser-guided scope complete with crosshairs, heat shield, a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time…THAT is an inherently evil thing! So evil, in fact, that it must be illegal to own. And especially more than one.

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

I did not intend to imply that good and evil is subjective, but rather that an inanimate, material object cannot be either good or evil. I think porn is an excellent example of the subjective nature of “things.” There is nothing inherently evil about either nudity or sex until people come along and begin to objectify the subjects, to perceive people as commodities, to covet and envy, to create an idol. The thing itself is not evil outside the context of the relationship it has with the people perceiving it. As to nature being both spiritual and material, you may… Read more »

Lance Roberts
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

No. nudity and sex aren’t just evil when their objectified, they’re evil when they’re done in a way God said not to, i.e. in public. Evil is not (completely) based on a relationship to people, it is a fact of the objective order of creation. Note that I’m not saying some things aren’t used in an evil way, which would be the relationship you’re talking about, in fact it can go farther since the Bible says some things can be a sin for one person but not for another. I’m only limiting myself to things that are created by man.… Read more »

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

“No. nudity and sex aren’t just evil when their objectified, they’re evil when they’re done in a way God said not to, i.e. in public.” Well, I’m certainly not interested in public nudity or sex, but I believe you have now entered a subjective definition of good and evil, of what you think God wants from us. He does clothe us in skins in the book of Genesis, but beyond that, I’m not so sure He actually condemns either nudity or public sex. Nudity could be a Greek statue or children playing in a sprinkler. God did create us naked… Read more »

Lance Roberts
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

No, it’s not subjective, at least not since the fall. God is the one who clothed them as you pointed out. This one is based a lot on intent, since it’s not a sin to be spied on or stripped naked by force or be accidentally exposed. Those statues certainly are pornographic. One of the sad elements of the church in our culture is how they have accepted pornography as long as it is called art. If you say public sex and nudity are not a sin, then you lose any ability to argue against pornography.

mkt
mkt
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

“There is nothing inherently evil about either nudity or sex until people come along and begin to objectify the subjects, to perceive people as commodities, to covet and envy, to create an idol.”

Healthy heterosexual men are going to struggle with lust when women are running around nude in public–if the women are the least bit attractive, anyway. To suggest the men should just get over it and stop objectifying the women is, well, ridiculous and one reason our culture is so screwed up.

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  mkt

Well,I mentioned Greek statues which I was thinking of as male, and children playing in the sprinkler. Obviously if men find either of those things sexually stimulating, we can hardly blame the children or the statue for the sin.

I do not believe men should be shamed for objectifying women. I’m pretty sure that objectifying women on some level, is exactly what God designed men to do.

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

Wood, glass, pee, iron, steak, pencils, wine. Which are good and which are evil?

The answer, I submit, depends entirely on what you do with them. Morality is incoherent without agency.

Lance Roberts
7 years ago

Exactly. None of those elements are evil, only the constructed product.

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

Right, and the difference between a constructed product and a tree is that a constructed product has been made by a person to do some definite thing. Once it has been made, it may be used for that thing, or a different thing, but the inert object is morally passive throughout. The person’s intention that matters, not the thing itself. A cross, for instance, can be used to punish murderers; on the other hand, it can be used to murder Christ. It’s not the cross that matters. It’s the heart of the one that uses it.

Lance Roberts
7 years ago

No, some created things are evil in and of themselves. Please see all the examples I’ve listed in this thread.

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

And I’m saying that theory is nuts. A thing cannot have have moral qualities without moral agency. That’s incoherent. Now, the examples you cite are generally communicative objects – a book of sorcery or a film. But surely it isn’t the book itself that is at fault, as if it willed the state of affairs such that it contained evil ideas. It is the evil content, not the book as a book that is the problem. And the evil content is wicked because it is a lie, or a blasphemy, or some other expression of the moral agency of a… Read more »

Lance Roberts
7 years ago

So I’m glad you agree that content can be evil :)

I do disagree with you that a “will” has to be behind evil. Evil is not a force, it’s a state (actually it has multiple meanings which encompass them both).

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

Content (e.g. a man’s speech written down) can be evil because it is the direct expression of a man’s will, which can be evil. Let me ask you this: can a thing created accidentally be evil?

Lance Roberts
7 years ago

I think if you had 10000 monkeys typing on typewriters and they came up with the same text as the referenced content then you would still have evil. Otherwise you’re saying that all evil is subjective, which would imply God is not objective, which would imply God doesn’t exist.

Ultimately, I agree the hard thing is to come up with examples that don’t show intent of the maker, though in practice that doesn’t matter much. Men create evil things with intent, and so we have them.

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

To make evil a matter of the will is not to argue for its subjectivity. A will that is opposed to God is objectively evil, and every action produced by that will is likewise objectively evil. God’s non-existence simply does not follow from that.

On the other hand, I see no reason to imagine that evil can inhere in a mere object. That’s the part I object to. It smacks of fetishism, as if a book of heresy (say) is spiritually contaminated. Do you have any biblical grounds to support your view?

Farinata degli Uberti
Farinata degli Uberti
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

Oh, and, relatedly: can a parrot swear?

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago

No. The word that makes us want to cover the parrot’s cage is harmless or even beautiful in other languages. And, smart as parrots are, the intentionality we think we hear in their speech is just not there.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

The object was evil to us, and distasteful even to most ordinary unbelievers. Yet if the desecration had been done in absolute innocence by a toddler, it would not have been evil. I think we can’t eliminate the doer’s intentions.

Lance Roberts
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

It’s not that is was evil to us, it was evil to God. It fought against his glory. You can sin and do evil without the intent to do so, intent is not the defining line of good and evil.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

I can’t see that. There is no sin without sinful intention. If an undiagnosed brain tumor makes me have a seizure and mow down a pedestrian, there is no sin. On the other hand, if I intend to mow down a pedestrian but fail. I am guilty of great sin and evil.

If I drop a crucifix into a trashcan with the intention of committing blasphemy, there is evil to God. If a pagan who has never seen a cross and has no idea of its significance does the same, he has committed no sin.

bethyada
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

You 2 are discussing sin and evil which are not the same. The death of the pedestrian is an evil, for which a specific person may not be culpable.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  bethyada

The death is a misfortune, a tragedy, an awful thing, but I don’t think it is evil in the sense that Lance was using it, as an evil to God, such as the blasphemy in his first post. I think that it is meaningless to talk of evil without reference to intention. We don’t think of a tsunami or a man-eating tiger as evil, no matter how many people are killed. When Milton has Satan say,”Evil, be thou my good,” what could that possibly mean other than as a declaration of intention? I would argue that evil–fundamentally, the choice of… Read more »

Indigo
Indigo
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

When you say ‘sinful intention,’ do you mean the intention of sinning (disobeying God) or do you mean the intention of doing that thing that happens also to be a sin?

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  Indigo

A very good question. I am not sure that they could be easily separated. My church teaches that if I am mistaken about the sinfulness of a particular act (I think that something is a sin but it actually isn’t), I commit a sin if I go ahead and do it anyway because my intention is to defy God. If I have a genuine belief that a disputable act (take dancing, because some Christians think it is sinful and others don’t) is morally okay, and I believe that this act does not dishonor God, I have not sinned–even if it… Read more »

Indigo
Indigo
7 years ago
Reply to  jillybean

I agree that a well-trained conscience plays an important role. Romans 14:23 tells us that whoever has doubts is condemned if he eats, because the eating is not from faith, and whatever is not from faith is sin. It’s interesting that you say ‘I fall into sin without even thinking about God.’ I have been used to the notion that forgetting God is the origin of every sin we commit. This includes our sins of omission and our sins of commission, when we fail in the first and greatest commandment to love the Lord your God with all your heart.… Read more »

ME
ME
7 years ago
Reply to  Lance Roberts

“You can sin and do evil without the intent to do so, intent is not the defining line of good and evil.”

Quite true. I’m in agreement there. What’s that phrase in politics, “the law of unintended consequences?” Or perhaps, the saying,” the road to hell is paved with good intentions?”

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

The good intentions don’t generate the sin and lead to hell; unless the intentions are to commit sin, they can only lead to hell when good intentions are all we have and we go no further.

All human decisions and actions have unintended consequences. That can’t determine whether the decisions and actions are sinful or evil in themselves.

ME
ME
7 years ago

“Neither is sin found in a solitary human heart. Sin is always found in the human heart in relationship to other hearts……This means that sin cannot be understood, analyzed, confessed, or forsaken without reference to the thoughts, loves, intents, and desires of those others.”

Wilson should be careful. He’s wandering dangerously close into social justice territory. Next thing you know he’ll be speaking of the collective sins of predatory lending, prisons for profit, and the fascinating cause and effect relationship between judgmental Christians and evangelizing atheists and feminists.

jillybean
jillybean
7 years ago
Reply to  ME

I think there is nothing wrong in our confessing collective sins, as long as they are real sins and as long as we recognize that we must first repent of all our individual sins. Social justice has become a term of opprobrium, but I don’t think we are free to reject it. Scripture condemns predatory lending as wicked. If my church is getting money by investing in payday loan companies, there is a place for collective repentance. I think the problem arises when I start thinking that using plastic bags is the major sin God wants me–or all of us–to… Read more »

Nord357
Nord357
7 years ago

And that boys and girls is how cows really eat cabbage.