What exactly is sin? It’s an age-old question. Part of the problem is classification: What some fervently regard as sinful, others regard, equally fervently, as righteous. Consider the fervor that has been expended on, oh, I dunno: same-sex marriage; Communism; polygamy; suicide bombing; divorce; sharing Communion with the unbaptized; even the 1979 Prayer Book.
But fervor doesn’t answer the question: What exactly is sin? Those learned in theology and theodicy will doubtless see the following thoughts as sophomoric, but here goes anyway.
It seems reasonable to conjecture that sin might be a label for our
cosmic inadequacy, our inability to truly grasp what ought to be, and
what we need to do to get there. (In a sense, this is a variation on
the argument that sin is simply ignorance.)
Limitations: of Knowledge and of "Mental Circuitry"
Let’s start with some premises. I claim that the following premises are well-enough established that they need no proof here:
- The universe is complex. We don’t know everything about it, not even close. The more we learn, the more we realize there still is for us to learn. What we think we know is usually quite serviceable, but experience teaches that what we think we know might later turn out to be incomplete, or even flat-out wrong.
- Each of us is limited, not just in our knowledge, but in the adequacy of the "mental circuitry" with which we acquire, share, process, and act on our knowledge.
Think about how these facts affect what every one of us does all the time.