What is Sin? Instinct and Intention - Modern Christianity and Science

Romans 6 begins the heart of Paul's letter. Paul speaks in an imaginary dialogue in his arguments to the Romans. He asks a rhetorical question like "Should we continue in Sin in order that grace may abound?" and then says "By no means!" again and again. Sin is portrayed like a character and Christ is the alternative that defeats Sin. We don't have to be slaves to Sin anymore! In this episode, I talk about Sin expansively. What make destructive behavior in animals not sinful? Why is it sinful when humans do these things? Most people will say it is because animals have no choice and they operate out of instinct, but humans are far more instinctual than we realize. So there much be another explanation. Matthew Croasmun's book provides a fascinating discussion about the emergence of Sin in the Christian consciousness. I also reference my discussion with Mattie Mae Motl in Season 2, Episode 15 and her recent Substack article on Romans 6 & 7.

Resource: 
The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans
by Matthew Croasmun, 2019



For the past several months there has been a civil war in Uganda. This civil war is different than you expect. Chimpanzees in Uganda's Kibale National Park have been brutally killing each other for months. These wars happen periodically every few decades. Primatologists from around the world have been studying it with great interest. What is interesting about these is that they have all the features of human warfare: strategy, battle tactics, weapons preparation and stockpiling, truces, alliances, and even peace treaties between these chimp clans.  The difference between chimpanzee and human warfare is the scale, the tools, and the sophistication of the weaponry. The underlying motives and rhythms of war are strikingly similar. Is this immoral? Is it immoral for a chimp to kill another chimp? 

Another example is that cats are often extremely cruel to their prey. Laming, torturing, and playing with their prey before killing them. Often just leaving the carcass uneaten. It looks like killing for fun. Is this immoral? When humans do these things, we think it is grossly immoral. What's different? Most of us say that humans are not cats or chimps. We have a choice. They are merely acting out of instinct. We are held to a moral standard that animals aren't.Is this true? Are we really less instinctual than animals? We are finding out that we probably aren't necessarily. 

Studies of human behavior show that when children who are less than 2-1/2 years old are consistently exposed to certain people like siblings and parents and friends, when the children become adults, they are far less likely to be sexually attracted to the people they knew as young children. Rather than social conditioning, the evidence is that we are biologically programmed to avoid incest. Disgust at incest between siblings and of children toward their parents and caretakers is instinctual. Our biology has a bias against inbreeding built in. The disgust response is so strong that we behave in many ways that we have no conscious control over. We all agree that incest is an abomination, but it usually has less to do with moral rectitude and righteousness than being in tune with our biology. Sadly, this doesn't work as well for adults toward children, or step parents, or aunts and uncles who did not have that early bond. So their disgust must come from morality and law. And children need to be listened to and protected. 

This is a bit of extreme example, but what is it that constitutes Sin is more than just our sinful nature or depravity. It is about empathy and care. It is also utilitarian. We simply don't want to hurt other people or our own wellbeing. That is why basic moral principles and laws are remarkably similar between societies that don't have historic contact between each other, regardless of religion or language or history. The differences are usually small and outbursts of gross societal immorality are usually based on trauma retribution and revenge. 

We must always ask, is Sin always a matter of choice? Are people who are psychopaths or have mental illness who do reprehensible things sinning? It is the brokenness of humanity that we see in Sin. It is always there. And it seems that sinning isn't just Sin, or breaking the law, but it is also anything that hurts other people and yourself. It is going against the organism, and the superorganism of community. More on this later. 

In Romans 6, Paul gives us one of the most cogent descriptions of Sin in ancient literature. He does this in a fascinating way that is worth exploring. Rather than just individual actions, small letter-s sin, he portrays sin as big letter-S Sin, like a character in the narrative. In the same way, he portrays Death as a character. In this way, Paul contrasts the character Sin and its brother Death in contrast to Christ and Life. This is formulation of Greek philosophy, especially from Plato, that is so familiar to us as Americans, it is hard to recognize. 

Making Sin a character acknowledges that it stands apart from choice. Paul will tell us in Romans 7:15, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” This is an early acknowledgment that we aren’t in control of ourselves and a pre-scientific insight that humans are far more instinctual than our consciousness recognizes. The truth is that we can’t control our attractions but we can only respond to them. 

The practical aspect of seeing Sin as Paul describes it is that Sin is Sin much like Shame is Shame. It just is. Because we live in Christ we can acknowledge Sin, and we can feel shame but then move on, forgiven. We are no longer enslaved by it. We can feel sorry and maybe guilty, but that is not the end. We can let it go without pretending that it doesn’t exist. 

I told you about the ambiguities of human nature vs. animal behavior, instinct vs. choice at the start of this sermon. We have all been biologically programmed for survival. Like all organisms we are very concerned with the self-preservation of our bodies. But our organism extends far beyond the individual, because we are inherently social beings. We live within the super-organism of society and also the earth around us. We are never just unto ourselves. Even the 10 trillion cells in your body aren’t only for themselves. That’s not all you are. Your body is host to something like another 40 trillion cells, bacteria, yeasts, molds, etc, meaning that you are a complete eco-system in your own body. So our super-organism is not just with other people, but with the organisms and environment of the whole earth. We can’t live without it. None of us is only unto ourselves. The denial of this and acting against this integrated super organism is the big S Sin. It is far more than just breaking the rules.

I’ll close with another biological analogy to help understand what this means. Beehives are a fascinating super organism. Bees act as a team and they hyper organized. They innately organize themselves. And like we do, they depend on their environment, plants and a whole host of other organisms, even microorganisms in their own bodies to build hives. Individuals regularly sacrifice themselves and their own individual well-being for the sake of the hive and service to the queen bee. We would call this altruism. But it is really no different than loyalty or even patriotism. We think that bees do this purely by instinct and humans do it rationally. But we do far more by instinct, social pressure, altruism, loyalty that we realize. We also do things that are destructive and selfish, sometimes willfully and other other times instinctually far more than we realize. This is Sin. 

Being in Christ not only frees us from Death, but also frees us from having to sort out every twist and turn of our own behavior. Christ frees us from Shame. Because we know what whether willful or not, we are already forgiven. That we are set free from the tyranny of Sin hanging over our heads. To live in harmony with our bodies, with our fellow human beings, but also with our environment and earth. Being free from the destructive forces that tell us that we and all that is around us are not valuable. That death is never the end of the story. To be a fully integrated person, wounded and healed, sinful and forgiven, dead and resurrected. This is what living in Christ is.