III The Sense of Sin The sense of sin is something deeper than the consciousness of evil.1 Evil is a broad, vague word. It covers all that ought not to be, but it does not make clear the nature of the “ ought not." It is a general description of that which prevents perfection, destroys happiness, produces discord and misery. Sin is a precise, sharp word. It translates the idea of evil from the language of philosophy into the language of religion. It defines the nature of the "ought not" as resting on a divine law. It recognizes the presence and the guilt of a contrary will in disobedience to that law. It interprets the nature and the consequence of evil in the light that comes from God. Sin is an tion of evil. interprcta The consciousness of evil is universal. There The unrest is a feeling of conflict, of disorder, of moral of mankind. perturbation and unrest, diffused through all humanity. This is the great mark of division between the life of man and the life of nature. Emerson has described it in his poem of The 1 Fairbairn, The Place of Christ in Modern Theology, p. 452. Conscience. Sphinx. Nature is harmonious, joyful, unconscious of strife between the real and the ideal. "But man crouches and blushes, Absconds and conceals; He creepeth and peepeth, "Out spoke the great mother, At the sound of her accents This mysterious unrest, this vague trouble, this nameless, haunting distress, is an utterance of man's consciousness that he belongs to another world from that which is ruled by mere necessity. It is an instinctive confession that beyond the power of control, to which all physical life is subject, he feels a power of command, to which his spiritual life ought to be subject. This power of command makes itself known to him through conscience, which is the power of perceiving the differ ence between the "ought to be" and the ought not to be.” 66 "Whom do you count the worst man upon earth?" says Robert Browning in Christmas Eve. "Be sure that he knows, in his conscience, more In the best man's acts that we bow before: This contrast between knowledge and practice is the root of the consciousness of evil, whose symptoms are unrest, shame, and fear. "Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all." It is a feeling of resistance to a moral pressure, of disobedience to a commanding power, of discord with a dim ideal. But it is also a sense of compliance with an inward impulse, of obedience to a native desire, of agreement with a secret passion. It is not altogether dark. It could not exist in a world where there was nothing but evil. In a universe wholly material there could be no materialism. In a race utterly and totally evil there could be no consciousness of evil. Neither could it exist in a world where separate evils stood alone and had no common The light behind con science. Ithuriel's spear. ground in human nature. Each misdeed would then be a miracle. It would be a rootless, unrecognizable, nameless thing. Conscience perceives evil not only in its individuality, but also in its solidarity. When a man does wrong he feels that he is a partner in a great conspiracy, a sharer, by choice or by compliance, in a widespread rebellion. "There is in man," wrote Frederic Amiel in his diary, "an instinct of revolt, an enemy of all law, a rebel which will stoop to no yoke, not even that of reason, duty, and wisdom. This element in us is the root of all sin-das radicale Böse of Kant."1 But this feeling of radical evil and of its presence and potency in every misdeed, needs more light to make its meaning clear. Evil is known as sin only when good is known as the will and command and ideal of a personal and holy God. This is what St. Paul teaches. Revelation is given to make clear the nature of the gulf between man as he is and man as he ought to be. Evil is not a step in a progress toward the ideal. It is a chasm which cuts us off from the ideal. The reason why it cuts us off is because it is contrary to God's will, through 1 Amiel's Journal, 23d Feb., 1870, Vol. II., p. 55. The which alone the ideal can be realized. The sense of sin, therefore, is a step beyond the consciousness of evil. And it is a step toward light. It is the interpretation of evil as an offence Sin against against God, a disobedience to God, a separa- God. tion from God. It comes into being only with Theism, the faith in a holy, wise, and righteous Spirit as creator of the world. It is not until this light breaks upon the soul that Amiel's words become true: "All men long to recover a lost harmony with the great order of things, and to feel themselves approved and blessed by the author of the Universe. All know what suffering is, and long for happiness. All know what sin is, and feel the need of pardon." Religion must begin, then, even if we hold that its ultimate aim is the deliverance of men from evil, religion must begin not with a doctrine of evil, but with a doctrine of God.2 Its keynote must be the first article of the 1 Rom. iii. 20; v. 20. 2 The Gospel for an Age of Doubt, Preface to 6th ed. D |