Chapter 2: Sin

Sin is a word as employed by the religious as it is spurned by the non-religious. The religious use sin as a delimiter of specific acts whose avoidance makes them feel justified, even when they knowingly contradict what they say they believe. Many non-religious feel that calling something a sin is a deeply offensive and judgmental act. Both groups are equally incorrect about the meaning and value of the concept.

What is sin?

In order to understand sin, it is helpful to begin with consideration of its opposite. Righteousness is the opposite of sin. Righteousness, like its opposite, is a term that most people consider to be religious in nature, when it is actually of utmost importance to all people, no matter their beliefs.

Righteousness means “optimal behavior with respect to reality.” Though it happens to be the case that God knows better than anyone what reality is and the path through it that yields the greatest joy, righteousness is only a religious concept for those who already believe in God. Just as with sin, we can debate the application of the term, which is contextualized on the understanding of the individual, but there ought to be no dispute that righteousness is universally good, desirable, and worthwhile, just as we can say that no matter who you are, sin is not good, desirable, or worthwhile. These things are so by definition.

Righteousness leads to what a person wants. Sin leads to anything else. These are not contrived meanings. They have been this way since the beginning of man.

The Hebrew word for sin is “chatah.” It means to miss the mark, or to deviate from the path that would lead you to the target you are aiming at.

What to aim at

Potential targets for our desire are innumerable. What is best?

This is a simple question, but the answer requires sufficient discussion to merit an entire section of this book. As a preview and placeholder, let us begin here with a discussion of the concept of ideal.

The power of the concept of ideal transcends all differences among all people. No matter the individual or their circumstances, or how often it changes, at any moment, each and every person has a concept of ideal.

A person’s ideal is not going to be an actual person they know. Every person they know will have some or many flaws—deviations from their ideal. Instead, their ideal is the synthesis of their experiences, their culture, and their capabilities into a hypothetical person. A person’s ideal is the composite of the best aspects of human character and action that they’ve witnessed or imagined. Though this ideal person exists only in their mind, as far as they know, their idea of him or her is so vivid that they can imagine what that person would do in every circumstance in which they find themselves.

This ideal that you, me, and everyone else has is one and the same as our idea of what God is like. This is just as true whether a person believes in God or not. God is the embodiment of the actual ideal. Your idea of God is your estimate of the ideal. Everyone, whether they believe in God or not, has an idea of what they imagine him to be like, and that is their model of the ideal human.

This idea is sure to be equally offensive to both the religious and the secular, and yet of vast value and importance to both. The religious would argue that it is blasphemous to reduce the unknowable infinity of God to the limited embodiment of a human. This is one of the many ideas that Jesus was killed for.¹ Secularists will bristle at the fact that, in spite of claiming not to believe in God, they nevertheless judge themselves daily according to their idea of him. All the guilt they feel is actually as a result of their knowing failure to live up to a God they claim not to believe in. Offensive, indeed, yet true in both cases.

The ideal and the human capability of perfect mapping

Humans have a phenomenal ability to extract and apply values from one situation to another. Even children can readily extract and apply values from the stories they are told, even while they are too young to read for themselves.

The ability for humans to map the ideal transcends differences in circumstance. We can aptly extract and apply values from stories even if the character is taller, stronger, richer, or smarter than us. We can do it across time and across cultures.

For example, we can study the life of Christ and, in so doing, give an answer to the question of “what would Jesus do?” across a surprisingly broad set of circumstances with confidence sufficient to motivate astonishingly deep sacrifice. We can do this in spite of his being the Son of God, in spite of his having lived 2,000 years ago, and in spite of his culture and language being wholly different from ours. Unfortunately, it is rare to find a person whose effort to do as Jesus would do in their place matches their ability to imagine what he would do in their place.

God requires everything we have to give, all the time.

...O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day. (D&C 4:2)

We must ask and answer the question “what would Jesus do” and do it, in every moment of every situation of every day of life. We have to do all things “in his name,” or according to his character:

And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. (Colossians 3:17)

Salvation requires you to live according to your sincere answer, and to do all in your power to learn more.

The target is God

Our definitions of righteousness and sin are dependent upon the selection of a target. While you can choose to aim at anything, the ideal target is...the ideal target.

God—the ideal model of human character—is the ideal target. Jesus said:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. (Matthew 5:48)

Can anyone be better than perfect? In God, we find everything worth aiming for: his character, his situation, his joy, and his presence.

Sin means deviating in any way from your sincere understanding of ideal behavior. In other words, sin is deviating in any way from what God would do in your place.

There is an important interplay between the secular and religious views of ideal. The religious have an explicit idea of God, but shy away from overtly attempting to live according to it, deterred by the distance they feel between themselves and God. They fail to realize that their idea of God is not God himself, but merely their estimate of who and how he is. This estimate is much more reachable than God himself (and, as I will argue later, completely within the capability of every person to adhere to). The secular view of ideal tends to feature the kinds of practical, everyday applications that religionists are deservingly ribbed for overlooking, as the Lord and his followers have aptly and repeatedly pointed out (see, for example, Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan or his rebuke of the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew 5:20). However, the practicality of the secular ideal tends to be counterbalanced by lower expectations and less stretching than the explicit idea of God.

The target is not fixed

Until now, everything we have said about the ideal has been couched in the individual’s present understanding. However, God is not limited to what you understand about him. He exists and is how he is independent of anyone’s beliefs about him.

God is at least as good as the amalgamation of the best you can imagine a person being across all situations.

Anyone’s idea of God will necessarily be less than the real thing, because their understanding of him will be less than his understanding of himself until and unless they know everything he does. This does not invalidate any point made so far. In fact, it is an important feature of this line of reasoning, not a flaw.

The target—your idea of God—is not fixed. It is capable of improving in accuracy over time, like a rifle scope can be zeroed through adjustment after noticing where the shots land.

We do not have to speculate about the process of increasing our understanding of God.

The Lord said he was both the path and its fulfillment:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6)

By learning about and becoming like the Son, we learn about and become like the Father. We will return to this later.

Omission and commission

Sin can be an omission or a commission.

When you fail to do what you imagine the ideal human would do in your place, you are committing a sin of omission. When you do something other than what you imagine the ideal human would do in your place, you are committing a sin of commission.

When you fail to do what you imagine God would do in your place, you are committing a sin of omission. When you do something other than what you imagine God would do in your place, you are committing a sin of commission.

You can sin anytime, anyplace, in anything

Good and evil are not static externalities. Good and evil occur inside of you. You decide which to follow, and it is a moment-tomoment process—one that spans every domain.

Every single situation provides an opportunity to conform to or deviate from your model of ideal human character.

The domain of sin spans one’s actions, thoughts, and desires. It applies to the entirety of anything of which you are aware.

Our idea of God ought to be a fine scalpel that operates at the most private and precise level. It ought to guide us in the most subtle of motives and smallest of actions.

Sin is not a list

Suppose that one could write a list of every sin. After all, the scriptures include various lists of things that the various writers consider sins. For example, Paul wrote:

19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. (Galatians 5)

Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to create an exhaustive list of sins.

...I cannot tell you all the things whereby ye may commit sin; for there are divers ways and means, even so many that I cannot number them. (Mosiah 4:29)

The impossibility of listing all sins is due to the fact that lists of sins are comprised of rules: specific prescribed behavior in specific situations. Unfortunately, specific situations are too numerous and varied to admit their complete and precise description as rules. A complete list of rules of optimal behavior would necessarily require the whole universe to contain them.²

Even if it were possible for someone to name every sin, how do you suppose you would receive such a list? On the list would be many things that you do not believe are sins. What reason would you have to believe them? And where would they come from? Presently, there are many competing lists of alleged sins. Who decides which is right?

Naming sins is insufficient to precisely identify them

Even if it were possible to enumerate the full set of sins, and even if the world agreed on what the complete set of sins was, there would still be massive disagreement on when these sins were or were not taking place.

Assigning a name to a sin does not solve the question of whether or not someone is committing it. After all, the Lord was falsely accused of a great many named sins, including blasphemy (see Matthew 9:3), drunkenness (see Luke 7:34), impropriety with women (see John 4:27), sedition (see John 18:37), and even tax evasion (see Matthew 17:24-27).

Sin is individual and contextual

What qualifies as a sin is different for different people. One’s conscience is informed by their knowledge:

Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin. (James 4:17)

The erroneous idea of sin as something you can list makes it easy to incorrectly judge others.

When you see behavior in others that you believe is sinful, there are two possibilities. First, they could actually be sinning, acting against their sincere understanding of God’s character. Second, they could be acting in total compliance to their sincere understanding of God’s character, but their understanding of his character is different than yours. In this case, the question is whether their understanding of God in that scenario is greater than yours.

The reason that people were able to find fault with Jesus during his mortal life, in spite of him being sinless,³ is that they were judging his actions according to their understanding, not his. His understanding was greater than theirs.⁴ He better understood reality itself and the character of the Father. Therefore, his idea of consequences and of what benefited the most differed greatly from theirs. They could have used these differences to learn more about reality or the Father, but instead, they judged him by their lower standards:

And the world, because of their iniquity, shall judge him to be a thing of naught; wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. (1 Nephi 19:9)

When you see what you perceive to be sin in others, you ought to investigate why they are doing what they are doing. You might learn more about God than you previously knew.

Judgment of behavior is good

Many recoil at the idea of sin because they don’t feel comfortable with someone being able to judge the value of the actions of another. This position is based on two ideas that are equal in their obvious falsehood: that all people are equally good, and all behavior is equally effective.

That value hierarchies exist in all human concepts and actions is obvious. Any who claim that one behavior is equally as good as another are lying, and they know it. Their every action is based on ranking judgment between options available.

It is no major leap to infer that the goodness of one’s ranking can be assessed by objective, rational inquiry. This, too, is an activity engaged in by every human every day, and those who claim it is not possible or appropriate are liars on the grandest scale.

The ability of honest investigation extends beyond personal experience and applies both to the goodness of the outcome sought and the efficacy of the path to obtain it, both of which are choices among many options.

It is abundantly clear that it is possible to accurately judge behavior, but this does not imply that it is easy.

The universality of sin and the error of “original sin”

As children, we have no understanding of what God would do in our place. We are not born with a belief in God, let alone a knowledge of how he is. We do not even have the ability to apply the secular definition: we are not born acting consciously. It takes time for us to develop the capacity to think, act, and reflect on those actions. It takes time for us to begin to observe the world and make judgments about what we perceive.

Children cannot sin until or unless they arrive at the ability to understand value. Only then can they choose to act in a way that is less than their understanding of ideal.

Until or unless children arrive at the ability to understand value, they are absolved from the penalties of sin by the atonement of Jesus Christ.

For everyone else, arrival at accountability coincides with their choice to sin:

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:23)

As all men sin, all men require repentance. However, the sin we are responsible for is our own, not the sin of Adam and Eve.

Too many Christians distort the concept of sin by couching it in the choice of Adam and Eve to break God’s command and eat of the tree of good and evil in the garden of Eden.

The impact of sin on an individual has nothing to do with Adam and Eve outside of providing an environment where you could make your own moral choices and thereby commit sin.

The idea of original sin is a clever way to get people not to accept responsibility for their choices. By reducing any accountability for sin to the fall of Adam and Eve, too many religious leaders have— intentionally or not—excused individuals from recognizing that they are capable of sinning or not sinning. It’s difficult to adopt the idea of accountability for someone else’s choices without feeling a false freedom from accountability for our own. Religions amply teach that a person’s sin lies beyond their power to choose. This is wrong.

We are not held accountable for Adam’s sin in any way except that we all die physically. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ overcomes that penalty. We are held accountable only for our own choices.