Why Its Impossible to Knowingly Sin (Objective Moral Values)
What is sin? How is it defined? An immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law, is one definition. A transgression of the law of God says another definition. Something that violates Gods will is yet another definition.
If we accept those definitions, then my claim is that its impossible to knowingly sin. The proof is simple: we dont know Gods laws. We dont know Gods will. God has failed to make his will and laws known to us. (P.S. following common usage, I speak of God as masculine.)
The emphasis is on the word know. Yes, we know what other people who claim to be speaking for God say what Gods will is. There is no shortage of priests, preachers, gurus, imams, and TV evangelists who claim to know what Gods will is. But thats just people talking. God himself hasnt made it clear. All we have are the conflicting, contradictory views of preachers and the contradictory views of scripture.
Jews say God doesnt want us to eat meat and dairy together. Hindus say God doesnt want us to eat beef. Muslims say God doesnt want us to eat pork. Christians say God is perfectly OK with us eating a bacon cheeseburger.
Of course, God has failed to make his will known about much more important matters. Is it OK to kill another human being? The Fifth Commandment says no. But 1 Samuel 15 has God ordering killing of human beings: Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. Dont forget to murder the infants, says God, allegedly. And heres a list of wars that some major Christian denomination declared unjust and forbade its believers from fighting. And heres the list again. Thats right, the list is empty.
Believers often claim objective moral values exist, and go further to claim the existence of objective moral values proves God exists. But here again, God has failed to make objective moral values known to us (assuming they exist). For a few centuries, Christians in Western Europe burnt or hung women thought to be witches, following the direct command of Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live in Exodus. Then we figured out that maybe we didnt need to do that. Christians in the United States for centuries owned slaves and said God was OK with that, based on rules in Exodus about owning foreign slaves. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that it was not moral to own other people as property.
If objective moral values about slavery and witches exist, God failed to make them known. Weve had to struggle to discern what is moral and what is not.
Its as if we must base our views of right and wrong on human intuition and empathy.
If we accept those definitions, then my claim is that its impossible to knowingly sin. The proof is simple: we dont know Gods laws. We dont know Gods will. God has failed to make his will and laws known to us. (P.S. following common usage, I speak of God as masculine.)
The emphasis is on the word know. Yes, we know what other people who claim to be speaking for God say what Gods will is. There is no shortage of priests, preachers, gurus, imams, and TV evangelists who claim to know what Gods will is. But thats just people talking. God himself hasnt made it clear. All we have are the conflicting, contradictory views of preachers and the contradictory views of scripture.
Jews say God doesnt want us to eat meat and dairy together. Hindus say God doesnt want us to eat beef. Muslims say God doesnt want us to eat pork. Christians say God is perfectly OK with us eating a bacon cheeseburger.
Of course, God has failed to make his will known about much more important matters. Is it OK to kill another human being? The Fifth Commandment says no. But 1 Samuel 15 has God ordering killing of human beings: Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys. Dont forget to murder the infants, says God, allegedly. And heres a list of wars that some major Christian denomination declared unjust and forbade its believers from fighting. And heres the list again. Thats right, the list is empty.
Believers often claim objective moral values exist, and go further to claim the existence of objective moral values proves God exists. But here again, God has failed to make objective moral values known to us (assuming they exist). For a few centuries, Christians in Western Europe burnt or hung women thought to be witches, following the direct command of Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live in Exodus. Then we figured out that maybe we didnt need to do that. Christians in the United States for centuries owned slaves and said God was OK with that, based on rules in Exodus about owning foreign slaves. Eventually, we came to the conclusion that it was not moral to own other people as property.
If objective moral values about slavery and witches exist, God failed to make them known. Weve had to struggle to discern what is moral and what is not.
Its as if we must base our views of right and wrong on human intuition and empathy.
Comments (8)
The definitions you offered are fine (with me) and you did well to bring them up. Few do that.
Now about the proof: I believe we know well Gods laws because it is us who created the concept of God, his attributes, the principles involved that are related to him, etc. We must also never forget that there are different "Gods" created by different cultures, civilisations and religions. So, when we define "sin" as "an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law", we know well what such an act can be. BTW, I prefer using "moral rules and principles" instead of "divine law", because they are more concrete and are agreed upon among a group of people of same civilization, culture and religion.
So, not only it is not impossible to knowingly sin, but we always know that we sin. This is what confession is all about. It's another thing if we try to justify or "burry" --try to forget, negate, etc.-- the fact that we have sin.
BTW, note that to sin one must know about and agree with what these transgressions and the moreal rules an principles on which they are basd are and also be aware of the act of transgression. That is, one must also be able to distinguish between right and wrong, according to these moral rules and principles. Insane and in general mentally heavily sick pople, for example, often cannot do that.
As far as I can see, you dont address evidence in the original post but merely assert the contrary.
But if you believe we always know when we sin, then you should be able to say if stem cell research is a sin, capital punishment is a sin, abortion is a sin, masturbation is a sin, contraception is a sin, etc. Of course, you can give your opinion about such questions. But other people would disagree. And a few centuries ago, if you said burning witches or owning slaves was a sin, the great majority of Christians would have disagreed with you.
God has failed to make his will and laws known to us. So, we struggle to determine right and wrong. In the U.S. the struggle once led to a civil war, with both sides feeling that God was on their side.
Sin is just more Christian fascism. A sadistic-masochistic concept.
Since god/s are missing and all we have are 'old books which say a thing', along with a thriving marketing department (preachers, priests and rabbis), it seems to me we have no reliable way of demonstrating 1) if there are god/s 2) which god/s are the real ones 3) whether those god/s have views on human behavior and 4) what those views are exactly. A futile quest if ever there was one.
In the meantime, some Christian churches fly a rainbow flag of inclusion and others want gays to burn in hell. When it comes to sin and moral behavior all we have are opinions.
I think its possible to both sin knowingly and unknowingly. The standard position by most Christian and Catholic Churches is more similar to that of Natural Law. That is, we can come to know what both Gods will is with reference to reason and emotion. If either of these are faulty, I think the argument is we can sin unknowingly. However we can also sin if we know what the right thing to do is and yet choose to do otherwise. Of course, moral disagreement does pose a problem here.
If youre making a larger claim about objective moral values or facts in and of themselves (I.e. if there are moral facts, how would we come to know them; see Mackies argument from Queerness), of course, this is not a problem unique for theistic morality in general. In fact, I think secular morality struggles more with this than theistic-based morality. Without a clear telos, the idea of right or wrong goes out the window.
Most morality is practical. We want our streets and nation to be safe.