A Sense of Sin
A Sense of Sin
Richard M. Gula, S.S.
Reason Informed by Faith: Foundations of Catholic Morality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1989. 89-105.
No one doubts the presence of evil in the world. We experience it in a variety of ways: national and international conflict; domestic and street violence; political and corporate corruption; and a host of manifestations of sexism, clericalism, racism, ageism, and other violations of justice. All such forms of brutality, disorder and discrimination, seem from a theological perspective, are rooted in sin. But do we ever recognize the sin and name it as such? 1
Retrieving a Sense of Sin
For some reason, sin seems to have lost its hold on us as a way of accounting for and naming so much of the evil we know. Among the many other reasons, the eclipse of the religious world view through the rise of the secular spirit accounts significantly for the loss of the sense of sin. In fact, in his post-synodal exhortation, Reconciliatio et Penitentia (1984), Pope John Paul II credits “secularism” above all with contributing to a loss of a sense of sin.2 The secular spirit questions the relevance and meaning of all Christian symbols, and even of religion itself. One effect of this secular spirit on the meaning of sin, for example, has been to reduce sin to some form of psychological or social disorder. The therapeutic perspective which pervades the secular spirit looks on behavior as either healthily adaptive-problem-solving behavior, or as unhealthy, nonadaptive, and problem-creating behavior.3 It does not call the latter sin.
1
For a survey at major attempts in the past twenty years to explore the mystery of sin, see James A. O’Donohue, "Toward a Theology of Sin: A Look at the Last Twenty Years,” Church 2 (Spring 1986): 48-54. 2 The other factors of a non-ecclesial nature which John Paul II lists as errors made in evaluating certain findings of the human sciences, deriving systems of ethics from historical relativism, and
Richard M. Gula, S.S.
Reason Informed by Faith: Foundations of Catholic Morality. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1989. 89-105.
No one doubts the presence of evil in the world. We experience it in a variety of ways: national and international conflict; domestic and street violence; political and corporate corruption; and a host of manifestations of sexism, clericalism, racism, ageism, and other violations of justice. All such forms of brutality, disorder and discrimination, seem from a theological perspective, are rooted in sin. But do we ever recognize the sin and name it as such? 1
Retrieving a Sense of Sin
For some reason, sin seems to have lost its hold on us as a way of accounting for and naming so much of the evil we know. Among the many other reasons, the eclipse of the religious world view through the rise of the secular spirit accounts significantly for the loss of the sense of sin. In fact, in his post-synodal exhortation, Reconciliatio et Penitentia (1984), Pope John Paul II credits “secularism” above all with contributing to a loss of a sense of sin.2 The secular spirit questions the relevance and meaning of all Christian symbols, and even of religion itself. One effect of this secular spirit on the meaning of sin, for example, has been to reduce sin to some form of psychological or social disorder. The therapeutic perspective which pervades the secular spirit looks on behavior as either healthily adaptive-problem-solving behavior, or as unhealthy, nonadaptive, and problem-creating behavior.3 It does not call the latter sin.
1
For a survey at major attempts in the past twenty years to explore the mystery of sin, see James A. O’Donohue, "Toward a Theology of Sin: A Look at the Last Twenty Years,” Church 2 (Spring 1986): 48-54. 2 The other factors of a non-ecclesial nature which John Paul II lists as errors made in evaluating certain findings of the human sciences, deriving systems of ethics from historical relativism, and