What is Sin?

Anyone who has ever put gasoline into a diesel engine knows how much damage it can cause.

The car does not sputter because the manufacturer is offended or angry. It sputters because it was built to run on something else.

The damage is not a punishment imposed from outside; it is what happens when we try to use something in a way that's contrary to how it was designed. The owner’s manual was never an arbitrary set of rules we're told to follow so that Ford, General Motors, or Toyota, will be pleased with us. It was written to show us how to operate the engine according to the way it was designed.

Most of us think of sin as breaking rules, and at one level it is.

But if that is all we think it is, we will misunderstand both the seriousness of sin and the tender heart of our God who warns us against it.

Scripture and the great teachers of the Church see something deeper.

Sin is not merely doing what we were told not to do. It is trying to run on the wrong fuel. It is living against the grain of what we are.

 

Missing the Mark

The most common Hebrew word for sin, chata’, literally means to miss the mark, the way an archer misses a target. Paul says the same thing in Greek: "since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23).

The image is not of a criminal ignoring a statute, or of an employee failing to meet performance standards upon review, but of an arrow that was aimed at something glorious and did not arrive.

There was a target. We were made for it. We shot askew and fell short.

Thomas Aquinas builds on an old definition from Augustine: sin is “a word, deed, or desire contrary to the eternal law” (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 71, a. 6, quoting Augustine, Contra Faustum 22.27).

Every phrase matters. Sin can be a word, a deed, or merely a desire, because sin first takes root in our will before it births an action.

And it is measured against the eternal law, though that requires some explication. Aquinas does not describe the "eternal law" as a rulebook. It is, rather, the very architecture of divine wisdom by which God directs all things to their end. It is a guide to operating according to our design.

Aquinas compares it to the design that exists in the mind of a craftsman before he makes anything (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 93, a. 1). The eternal law is, in other words, the blueprint.

A hammer can do a lot of things. Use it to hammer a nail, you're using it properly. Use it to clobber someone, you're not.

To sin is to live in violation of our original design, the design by which we become most fully ourselves, by which we flourish.

 

Several Components; One Wound

Aquinas explains several "parts" that are behind what's defined as "sin."

First, sin is a human act, something we actually choose. A hurricane is destructive, but it is not sinful, because it does not will anything. A skunk stinks, but spraying my dog is not sinful. It's doing exactly what it's created to do. Sin requires a person, freely aiming his arrow at the wrong target.

Second, sin is disordered. Aquinas insists that evil is never a thing in itself but the absence or "privation" of a good (Summa Theologiae I, q. 48, a. 1). Sin does not create anything. It warps good things and uses them toward an end it was not designed for. Even the worst sin is a distorted reach for something genuinely good: rest, pleasure, honor, safety, love. The problem is not that we want or desire. The problem is that we want wrongly. To "desire" beauty is not wrong. To "seize" someone who is beautiful to serve ourselves, even if both parties "consent" to the wrongness, is disordered. Because it is self-serving, when beauty was always meant to draw us into self-giving, toward the source of all beauty.

Third, and most importantly, Aquinas teaches that every sin involves two movements at once: a turning away from God, the unchanging good, and a turning toward some changeable, created good in his place (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 87, a. 4).

The prophet Jeremiah saw this centuries earlier: "for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water"(Jeremiah 2:13).

Two evils, not one. We leave the fountain of living water that's there, abundant, and freely given. And instead, we start digging. And the cisterns we dig always crack, because nothing finite can hold what only God can give.

 

The Original Temptation

Where does this come from? Well, the answer is there already in the third chapter of Genesis, in the beginning. The serpent’s promise was not “these rules are not fair, you should break them, do what you want.” The serpent used a more seductive tactic: "...for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil" (Genesis 3:5).

Aquinas notes, reflecting on this passage, that the first sin was pride, an inordinate desire to be like God, specifically by deciding for oneself what was good and evil rather than receiving that knowledge from God, who is alone the one who declares what's "good" in the first chapter of Genesis (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 163, a. 2).

This is the root of every sin since. Beneath the lie, the lust, the resentment, the greed, there is a quieter claim: I will determine what is good for me.

We get a little more sophisticated about how we say it. We talk about "personal autonomy" as a kind of moral good. We speak of "subjective morality," and what's right or wrong "to me." It's the same lie, repackaged in language that only sounds less religious. But it's a religious claim, at its root. It's merely a religion of the one who would make himself to be his own "god," a kind of self-worship.

We do not merely disobey the Designer; we attempt to replace him. We act as though we were the authors of our own nature, free to rewrite the blueprint of our flourishing. Isaiah said it, too: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way" (Isaiah 53:6).

We do not choose what is an obviously wicked way, necessarily. Just our own. And that doesn't sound "wicked." It's bondage, packaged to look like freedom.

The primary "attitude" toward sin throughout Scripture is not anger, but sorrow. What appears as "anger" comes from a place of love. It is the kind of "anger" I might have when my kids willfully disobey a rule meant to keep them safe, meant to teach them responsibility. When my kids disobey, I do not get "angry" just because they didn't follow a rule. I get angry because, in my love for them, I want what's truly good for them; I desire their flourishing and they're choosing the opposite.

God’s commands are not the arbitrary preferences of a jealous ruler. He doesn't give us a bunch of laws because he just doesn't "like" certain things that we do. They are the manufacturer’s description of the human heart. When he says “do not,” he is saying, “you were not built for that, and it will break you.”

Sin hurts God because it hurts what he loves. The engine seizes. The cistern cracks. The arrow falls in the dirt. We were made for more.

 

Living From the Blueprint

How does this change the way we live?

First, change the question you ask. I'm talking about when we do a daily "examen," a practice I've recommended before in these meditations. A review of our day. Instead of only “what rules did I break?” ask “where did I accept something less than how God created me to flourish? How did I turn from the fountain of goodness, and dig broken cisterns of my own? Name the good you were reaching for, and then name the disorder. I saw beauty that I was right to see, but instead of praise you as the source of all beauty, I tried to claim it, to use it to serve my selfish desires. I saw the wonderful person you'd made in your image, and I disrespected them because they did not live up to my expectations. This turns examination of conscience from an exercise in bookkeeping or "list" checking into an honest desire to grow into our proper blueprint.

Second, in the moment of temptation, ask a different question than “is this allowed?” Ask “what was I made for?” Temptation always presents a counterfeit fulfillment, or a "temporary" solution to a momentary desire. If you have a splinter, you need a needle. Often, though, when we sin it's as though we took an explosive or a chainsaw to the splinter wound. It got rid of the splinter, but it created a much more serious wound.

Third, practice receiving rather than seizing. The first sin was a grasp at what was not given; the way back is an open hand. Put another way, acceptance is key. Begin each morning by consciously accepting your life, your limits, and your calling as given rather than self-authored. Say it plainly: “You made me. You know what I am for. I will trust your design and plan for today.”

So often, we tell our children, "you can be whatever you want, if you work hard enough for it!" Well, there's a nice sentiment there, but it's also misleading. If you're short statured and lack the gift of coordination, you might not ever have the capacity to become a professional basketball player. That's okay. There is actually freedom when we recognize our limitations, it frees us from the trap of pursuing a "desire" we're not made/built for. I might be a huge football fan, but at 46, no matter how much I desire it, I'll never be Patrick Mahomes. If I live in that "fantasy" and devote too much energy to it, I won't flourish. I'll fail. By giving up that "dream" (I know, I know... giving up a "dream" is often opposite of what Hollywood teaches us) I am free to take up new dreams that better accord with who I really am, today, at this moment.

Finally, remember that the One who drew the blueprint also came to repair what we broke. Sin is real, and it is serious. Sometimes, though, we have to return the broken car to the dealer. They know the blueprint the best, and we're likely to do more damage if we try to "fix" it all ourselves. The fountain has not run dry. He is still there, still living water, still waiting for the thirsty to come home.

That's why we hear, in Revelation, how our Lord says, "Behold, I am making all things new" (21:5). That's what salvation is! It's not just a "rescue operation," it's a return to manufacturer, it's being made new again.