CHAPTER V

SIN

WE found three main stages in conscious life, which we denote by these names-perceptual, mental, spiritual ; to which these seem roughly equivalent-animal, human, Divine. The mental seems to plant itself in the perceptual and develop until it is fit soil for the spiritual. But the development does not proceed directly and steadily to its goal. There occur wrong developments, which have to be undone. The perversion arising from wrong development in the mental nature in its attitude towards good and evil is called “sin."

The word "sin," with its equivalents in other languages, was originally applied to the wrong act rather than to the state of the soul from which the act proceeds. But the increasing sense of the importance of personality has drawn attention more to the sinful disposition.

Sin presents a variety of aspects-intemperance in the pursuit of the objects of animal desires, transgression (or the disposition to transgression) of the laws of the community, rebellion against God, life and aims contrary to the ideal lines of human development, selfishness, a moral and religious disposition unsuited to the spiritual life. Sin in its widest sense includes immorality; in its narrower, as a religious malady, it is wrong attitude of the personality to God; in its specifically Christian sense it is a condition of the soul inimical to spiritual life.

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Our subject will fall under four main heads: the origin of sin, the nature of sin, the abolition of sin, original sin. The first two divisions interpenetrate :

in considering the origin of sin we shall consider sin in its aspect of intemperance; in dealing with the other main aspects of sin we shall be tracing the origin of its more essential nature.

First, how does sin come into being?

The attribution of sin to free-will does not solve the question. For freedom in its highest form does not appear to involve the likelihood of doing wrong. Rather is perfect freedom that of the perfect will which consistently does and is right. It cannot be freedom as such which occasions wickedness.

Or is sin due to the influence of devils? It is difficult to estimate the truth conveyed by the biblical idea of evil spirits. We must allow for the personification natural to primitive thought, so that evil tendencies might be conceived as malignant personalities. But whether there be or be not devils, and whatever be their origin, and however great their influence on mankind, some beings must have become bad of themselves. And we want to know how this

happened.

Or is sin, after all, not wrong development, but only an inferior stage of development? But sensual vice is destructive of health and beauty and strength. It makes a man worse than a savage and even, in a sense, than a brute beast.

It seems then that sin is a perversion of the mental

IF. W. Myers wrote, with reference to the evidence from psychical research for devils: "Perhaps the most striking part of this negative evidence is the absence, in well-attested cases, of any mention of evil spirits other than human. The belief in devils has played an enormous part in almost all human creeds, and it was undoubtedly strong in the minds of many of the persons with whom communication has been held. Unhappy figures have been seen; regret and remorse have been expressed. But of evil spirits other than human there is no news whatever" ("Human Personality," vol. ii. p. 203).

nature which inevitably befalls it as it develops. Accordingly we should grasp the tendency of the development of the mental nature, so as to understand how sin comes into being.

We will suppose, as the starting-point, a state of innocence with a low degree of conceptual consciousness, such as might belong to barbarian races, who seem capable of continuing in nearly the same condition almost indefinitely. We can perceive two main essential differences between such a state of primitive innocence and the ideal perfection of the mental nature.

The life in the state of innocence is adapted to a certain place in the world, and is in harmony with natural forces, which are modes of Divine activity. This fitness of the individual to his place in the world is determined by the nature and mutual relations of the activities which make up his life. If he is to live healthily, he must eat and drink and sleep as his natural instincts prescribe. And all this he does in response to feeling, not because he knows that his body needs repair. The transition from desire to satisfaction involves bodily movements, and the bodily movements become by association themselves objects of desire; but the immediate cause of their becoming this is that they are the means to the satisfaction of the desires, not that they have a vital effect on the organism. But a completely rational being would be

The relation of desire to pleasure has been a subject fertile of psychological controversy. The theory known as psychological hedonism is that desire has for its object pleasure. Against this it has been argued (notably by Bishop Butler and T. H. Green) that since the pleasure arises only from the satisfaction, the desire is prior to the thought of the pleasure. To the pessimistic school of thought desire is inherently painful, and pleasure arises from the alleviation of pain.

Perhaps it would be truer to say that a desire is an incomplete psychical state which tends towards completion. The appetites and pleasures are not joined together anyhow. Rather does the succeeding pleasure include the desire. This is more evident in the faculties of the mental nature. An unfinished poem or picture or sonata gives

conscious of the principle of his life and of the union of himself, through that principle, with the Divine order; while all habits and actions would be voluntary consequences of that principle.

But the life of the completely rational being would have also a different kind of content and be animated by a different kind of principle from the content and principle of a life just at the commencement of human evolution. The acts of the savage, for instance, are directed towards the bodily preservation and welfare of himself, his family, and his tribe; but the acts of the completely rational being would be directed towards the preservation and enhancement of the best kind of life, bodily, mental, and spiritual, of all conscious beings whom he could affect. In virtue of this principle of willing the best of all, such a soul would be akin to God.

The state of innocence is one of unconscious harmony with natural forces, and accordingly is not one of sin or opposition to the will of God, at least so far as that will expresses itself in the forces of Nature. On the other hand, it is not a state of goodness, which is conscious and purposive life in harmony with the will of God as that will is at the source and centre. Therefore for man to develop out of the state of primitive innocence into the state of rational life he must undergo two changes: he must gain conscious control of his life so as to perform his various actions in view of one main principle and purpose, instead of willing each separately for an isolated end; secondly, the principle a sense of dissatisfaction which is removed through its completion. A desire, we may suppose, is an incomplete psychical state which becomes completed in the satisfaction. Since certain bodily movements are required before a desire can be completed, it will tend to give rise to these movements. And so the movements may become objects of desire. But the primary object is that which the desire tends to become, namely, the satisfaction or pleasure. The pleasure is not desired because it is just a pleasure, but because it is the complete psychical state of which the desire is an incomplete state.

itself must reflect the will of God as regards the full life of humanity, instead of comprising only the appetites of the lower life of Nature in himself and a few others. In this passage from innocence to rationality sin comes into being. Can we discover the cause and manner of its origin?

The mental force which is to shape itself into a living rational nature is at first without proper content. It is only the potentiality of wisdom and goodness. Hence it makes its first objects among the contents of the lower order of consciousness, in which it finds itself. It concerns itself with the desires and satisfactions of the bodily senses.

The pleasure of the appetites thus become the objects of cogitation and deliberate purpose. The mind seeks to extend and increase them beyond what is usual. The good to which thought and volition are directed is more continuous and intense animal pleasure. Such is the origin and such the nature of intemperance or vice; and intemperance is sin in that it is a use of the rational will which is contrary to the Divine will operative in the world. And this antagonism manifests itself in the destruction of bodily health which is consequent on the disproportionate increase of certain bodily functions and the unnatural excitation of certain nerve-centres. We do not need to go back to prehistoric epochs to verify this account of the origin of vice. The natural and healthy child who becomes corrupted through the eager quest of increased pleasure is an instance of the fall of man. The feeling of depression that is characteristic of the sensualist, which he seeks to alleviate through narcotics and stimulants, indicates a mental and nervous energy which is in lack of an object on which to expend itself. For this feeling, as the name suggests, is due to the vitality which is, so to speak, pressed down through having no outlet.

The mental energy would be stimulated and de