33 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90PWFEeRApAPHL CONVERSION and VIRTUES For Only Teacher: Susan Ong I. Key Concepts / Topics 1.

Sin: The Biblical Perspective Biblical Terminologies: Hatta, Pesha, Awon, Hamartia, Anomia, Adekia, Skotos The Concept of Sin in Scripture Sin as a religious reality Sin as an arrogance of Power 2. Traditional Understanding of Sin Sin as an act Sin as a fact Sin as a state Sin as direction 3. Diversity of Sin Original Sin Personal Sin Mortal Sin Venial Sin Social Sin 4. Conversion 5. The Universal Call to Holiness II. Objectives At the end of this unit, the students are expected to 1. know and understand the Christian concept of sin, the many ways of understanding this reality known as sin, and the diversity of sin; 2. understand the Christian concept of conversion and its implications in our daily life; 3. appreciate the sacrament of reconciliation as channel of conversion. III. Discussion SIN No one doubts the presence of evil in the world. We experience it in a variety of ways: national and international conflict, domestic and street violence, political and corporate corruption, violations of justice, etc. All these seen from a theological perspective are rooted in sin. 5 / Private SIN, Use

34 Moral life then requires that we recognize in ourselves the tendency to sin and acknowledge ourselves as sinners when we have done evil. PCP II presents Jesus mission to liberate from sinfulness as well as his call to us for overcoming the reality of personal sin and sinful structures. 1 Today this sense of sin seems to have radically weakened by secularism; we are caught up in the outrageous consumerism that surrounds us. And through the radio, TV, print media and the internet, we continually face so many examples of bribery, corruption in business and government, cheating in family life, and lying in personal relationship, that we often end up rationalizing for our own misdeeds: Anyway, everybody is doing it or I have to do it because. Some conclude that the sin of the century is the loss of sense of sin. 2 Despite the natural piety of the Filipino, an authentic Christian sense of sin is gradually being eroded due mainly to religious ignorance and the consequent secularistic set of attitudes and values. (Secularism as we all know questions the relevance and meaning of all Christian symbols, and even of religion itself.) A true sense of sin is a grace as we perceive in the saints, who manifested a far keener sense of sin than the ordinary sinner. SIN: The Biblical Perspective A. Biblical Terminologies Both the Old and New Testament use a very rich vocabulary to describe the reality of evil and sin. The three words used most often in the Old Testament to describe sin are as follows: 1. Hatta which literally means missing the mark. It stresses that sin is the voluntary rejection of the will of God. 2. Pesha which means rebellion; it shows how in sinning the person rejects God and his love 3. Awon which denotes guilt; it basically refers to the way sin disturbs the inner being of a sinner. In the New Testament the words used to signify sin are as follows: 1. Hamartia is like hatta, designating sin as the freely chosen act to reject Gods loving norm for human life. It connotes a deliberate action rooted in the heart and missing the intended mark. 2. Anomia which means lawlessness. It is used often in the singular thus denoting that sin consists in the spirit of rebellion and contempt for God and his law. 3. Adekia which signifies injustice. It stresses that sin is a refusal to accept God and his reign revealed in Christ and a refusal to live in the justice that God has given.
1 2

PCP II 53-54; 81-86; 266-70 RP 18; Reconciliato et Poenitentia, John Paul II, 1984.

35 4. Skotos which means darkness. It shows that sin is an opposition to the truth of God, to Jesus Christ who is the way, the truth, and the life, to ones fellowmen and to the truth of being a human person.

The story of the fall of Adam and Eve in Gen. 3:1-14 portrays dramatically the reality of sin and its essential features. Analyzing the event we can have the following: a) Deliberate violation of a known precept of God (Gen. 3:3-6). The violation constitutes the outward act of disobedience of the protoparents. It is an expression of their inner rebellion. They move to sin partially by suspicion of Gods love for them, partially by their yearning beyond the limits of their freedom given to them by God through his precept, partially because of their desire for the immediate good, that is, to know the good and evil, promised by the performance of the sinful act. b) The rebellion caused them harm (Gen. 3:7) c) They were alienated from God, from one another, from themselves, and from nature: (Gen. 3: 8-24) d) Forced by sin, they tried to resort to all types of rationalization (Gen. 3: 8-15) e) They were not able to do anything to prevent the disastrous effects of their rebelliousness or sinfulness (Gen. 3:14-24) The first sin would produce a long train of successive sins: Cain killed his brother Abel (Gen 4:8f), the reign of violence and vengeance in the practice of Lamech (Gen. 4:23-24), the overall evil which provoked the great floods (Gen. 6:5-7), and the blasphemous intention of reaching the heaven with the building of the tower of Babel (Gen. 11:4f). B. The Understanding of Sin in Scripture 1. Sin is a religious reality. This means that for the biblical authors, sin is meaningless apart from the presence of God and our obligation. The God of the Bible is the God of the covenant who has made a commitment with us and who expects from us our commitment in return. I will be your God and you shall be my people. The covenant expresses the most personal kind of relationship between God and us. The primary claim of the covenant is that God loves without having done anything to attract Gods attention or to win that love. Gods covenant is a bond of completely gratuitous love, pure grace. But Gods initiative of love does

36 not destroy our freedom. God makes an offer we can refuse. Gods offer of love awaits our acceptance; once we accept the offer of love we commit ourselves to living as the covenant requires. The covenantal context of sin is not understood within the legalistic framework in relation to personal relationship with God. In worshipping the golden calf (Ex. 32), Israel missed the mark of covenantal love, or sinned not so much because Israel broke one of the laws of the covenant, but because Israel broke the personal bond of love of which the love was an external expression. God and not the law was the final object of Israels fidelity. Sin in the Bible is not merely breaking a law. Sin is breaking or weakening the God-given bond of love. The law was an aid to Israels fidelity and pointed to the responsibilities of being in relationship with God. To speak of sin in legal terms is to miss the important aspect of sin as a religious reality, relational reality which expresses our refusal to respond appropriately to Gods love and mercy. Sin, simply put is refusing to live out the gift of divine love. The response to which the gift of divine love in the covenant calls us may be summarized in a threefold manner: 1. to respect the worth/dignity of ourselves ans others as constituted by Gods love; 2. to live in solidarity with creation and with one another as covenantal partners; and 3. to develop the virtue of fidelity as the proper characteristic of every covenantal relationship. Sin would be to act contrary to these covenantal requirements. elaborate each of these covenantal requirements. Worth / Dignity (Dangal) Our hearts hunger for love; we have a passionate longing to know that we count in the eyes of someone special. We long to know that we are loved, valued and the source of delight for another. The persistent cry of the heart, Do you love me? is asked not just of people significant to us, but ultimately of God. The covenant responds to this cry of the heart longing for worth with a firm yes. The covenant insists that grace is the first move. We are not so much of searchers but the ones searched out. Because God has taken the initiative to enter into covenant with us, we matter to God in a most serious way. This is what it means to have worth. Our worth (as persons) comes from Gods offer of divine love as a free gift and is not conditioned by our achievements. The following biblical passages and images help us understand divine love as our true source of worth and security: a) Is.43:1,4;Is. 41:8-16: I have called you by name you are mineI will give you the whole nations to save your life, because you are precious to Let us briefly

37 me and because I love you and give you honor. Here we read of God loving the people of the covenant for their own sake and not for the sake of being useful or powerful. b) Hosea 11:1-9. One of the most powerful texts which communicate that our worth is established by divine love by using the image of a child to explain our relationship with God. Gods love for a rebellious people is expressed through the image of the parent for a child. c) Mt. 18:1-5. One of the favorite images of Jesus for those whose lives are grounded in Gods unconditional love is the child. When Jesus is asked who is the greatest in Gods reign, he reaches into the crowd, sits a child beside him and says, Unless you become like this, you will never understand greatness. What makes a child such a powerful image? The childs worth is not based on its achievements, but simply by generous love of the parents. That is what we are like before God. From this perspective, therefore, we recognize that our worth and security remain grounded in God and not in ourselves. However, the modern heresy of individualism insists that we generate our worth with our own power. Sin refuses to believe that we are lovable apart from our virtue. Instead of grounding our worth in divine love, sin attempts to establish worth on the basis of surrogate loves which we create for ourselves to give us the security of being lovable and acceptable. But when we rest our worth on something besides divine love, we create an idol. Creating surrogate loves is the sin of idolatry. These loves may be our talent, our goodness, our efficiency, our charm, our wit, our bright ideas, our wealth, our social position and prestige, or whatever else we might create in order to secure our worth and make ourselves somebody. When we fill ourselves with these self-created loves, we have no room for divine love. Not until we overcome the temptation to regard ourselves as selfsufficient that we are able to let go and surrender to the deepest truth about ourselves as being grounded in divine love. But letting go is hard; yet surrendering is the only way to allow God to secure us in divine love. Solidarity (Pakikiisa, Pakikipagkapwa-tao) The covenant establishes our worth or dignity as well as cultivates our relationship with one another and with all creation. In Jesus Christ we affirm that all creation is under the covenantal grace of God and we recognize that our responsibility to care for all things is related to the sovereignty of God (Col. 1:1520). Because the covenant is all-inclusive, we have no other way of relating to God except in and through our relationship with everything else. Gods love in the broadest sense is not limited just to humanity but is directed also toward all creation. We who consciously accept their covenant with God accept responsibility for all that is included in Gods love. One vital lesson here that even science would confirm is everything in the universe is bound

38 together by an unbreakable bond of relatedness. In short, nothing exists by itself as an independent entity. Everything exists in dynamic relationship. Obviously, the covenant also includes the human moral community. By calling us into covenant, God calls us to be social. The moral community lives by the same covenant principle which governs the working of the universe, namely, the principle of cooperative community. From this perspective, it means that we have no life without community and cooperation. Of course, we have individual differences, diversity, and tensions which come out with are part of life. In fact, we can enhance our lives to the extent that we are able to sustain a high degree of diversity within a cooperative community. But our covenantal commitment requires that we develop communities with respect to integrity of creation or universe; always bearing in mind the interrelatedness of things. Jesus version of this covenantal commitment is friendship. The amazing grace of the divine choice for us in covenant is Gods friendship with us. Jesus summed up the witness his life had given to this divine choice when he said to his disciples: I no longer call you servants but I have called you friends because everything I have heard from my Father I have shared with you (Jn. 15:15). Jesus final command to his disciples is to love one another as he loved them, i.e. with the love of friendship (Jn. 15:12). Sandra Schneiders interprets the result of this divine choice to be friends as Christian solidarity: the mutual interdependence that can put every gift at the service of the community, that can sustain mutual challenge and correction for the good of all, that can enhance the dignity of each without degrading any, that can govern itself without recourse to coercion or violence. In his social encyclical Solicitudo Rei Socialis (On Social Concerns, 1987), Pope John II spoke of solidarity as a virtue, a moral and social attitude: This then is not a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of so many people, both near and far. On the contrary, it is firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good; that is to say to the good of all and of each individual, because we are all really responsible for all. (n. 38) The covenantal laws express the responsibility we have to and for one another by virtue of our sharing in the same divine love. This is the core of the inseparability of the great commandment to love God and others as we love ourselves. The great commandment requires that each of us recognize that the other person matters for his/her own sake and not just as the means to an end. Pope John Paul IIs encyclical on social concerns advocates or promotes this same aspect of responsibility in its understanding of solidarity:

39 Solidarity helps us to see the other whether a person, people or nation not just as some kind of instrument, with a work capacity and physical strength to be exploited at low cost and thus discarded when no longer useful, but as our neighbor, a partner, to be made a sharer, on an equal footing with ourselves in the banquet of life to which all are equally invited by God. (n. 39) Christian solidarity (from this covenantal perspective) means that our lives extend beyond a private relationship with God and neighbor to embrace the whole social order social structures, institutional structures, economic systems, etc. Our lives are unavoidably characterized by the structural relationships which can act for or against the fundamental worth and well-being of all. The fruit of Christian solidarity is shalom that peace which is not just the absence of violence, but the peace which is the justice of communal wholeness and wellbeing wherein competing rights and claims are achieve in a proper balance. Sin, from this of an inclusive covenant and solidarity, affects all the relationships to which we are called. It is rooted in radical independence. Sin fails to respect within a cooperative community by promoting the domination of one form of life. In cannot be limited to breaking the law. Sin is an offense against God in a sense of failing to respect what God loves. Personal sin shows its effects in society and creation as a whole. It shows itself as a violation of the covenant by introducing disorder and strife into the interdependence of covenantal relationships. We have come to recognize the structures (institutions, systems, policies, political practices) which support this disorder as social sin. Throughout life we have the opportunity to make better our world. When we live with indifference, jealousy, envy, contempt, domination, possessiveness, or prejudice and ignore situations of need requiring works of justice, mercy and love, we are failing to heed the summons of divine-human solidarity. In so doing we pronounce a judgment against ourselves. One of the meanings of the great judgment scene in Matthews parable of the sheep and goats (Mt. 25:31-46) is that people did not recognize in the hungry, thirsty, naked, sick, and imprisoned the summons of divine-human solidarity. Our obligations inherent in being social are inseparable from the bonds that link us to God. Isaiahs image of true fasting, for example, shows that within the covenant anti-social behavior is similar to irreligious behavior. The kind of fasting I want is this: remove the chains of oppression and the yoke of injustice, and let the oppressed go free (Is. 58:6). Human solidarity is a part of our relationship with God. To betray a social commitment demanded by justice is to betray God and to perpetuate social sin. Fidelity (Faithfulness) Christian solidarity as demanded by the covenant relationship (which implies responsibility to and for one another) needs fidelity, in order to come to

40 its fullest expression. What I want is loyalty, not sacrifice (Hos. 6:6). Fidelity, trustworthiness and loyalty are various ways of expressing the central virtue of the covenant. From the perspective of virtue, covenantal living asks, What sort of person should I be? The answer: be faithful, be trustworthy. Live a life that demonstrates hesed, Gods faithful love for us. Imitating this faithful love which binds the covenant together is the moral mandate for living in covenant. Fidelity is the very weave of the fabric of the covenant. To rend this fabric through infidelity is to ruin the whole cloth. Therefore, fidelity or trustworthiness binds the covenant partners or people together. Dominating control by some and subservient submission by others pull them apart. For the covenant to be sustained, each person must be trustworthy. When one cannot trust another, the relationship of love breaks. We have experience betrayal of trust when a person we believe to have commitment but acted otherwise. If this would persist in the community in the community, it would infect all our relationships with fear and suspicion that fidelity is not being practiced in our commitment to one another and the community. There are a lot of bible stories about fidelity and betrayal but let us mention one here. In the story of Judas of Gethsemane, Judas is an important for understanding covenantal fidelity. Judas shows us the real possibility of betrayal. His betrayal provides the contrast to Gods faithfulness to Jesus and Jesus fidelity to God. With Judas in the story, we see more clearly the centrality of fidelity in the lives of those who made covenant with Jesus as disciples. To violate fidelity is to violate the call to follow Jesus in the imitation of Gods covenantal, steadfast love. Sin from this perspective is the power-play of infidelity. Sin is refusing to believe that God can be trusted and that others are worth trusting. In making acts of trust, we entrust the other with power. We hope that power will not be abused. Sin, however, abuses the power because sin cannot let go of the fears and suspicion which keeps us from regarding the other as gift, entrusted by God with personal worth. Sin abuses the power we give to one another when we entrust other persons with something of value to ourselves: a personal secret, our health, our property, etc. Sin abuses this power by not keeping the trust which has been entrusted to through our various types of commitments. Rather than living in trust as creatures empowered with gifts to set one another free, we live in suspicion of anothers gift and abuse our power by controlling, dominating or manipulating these gifts to serve our own self-interest. This is sin as infidelity, an arrogant use of power. To summarize our first concept that sin fundamentally a religious reality, which means that sin makes no sense apart from the presence of God in Christ and through the Spirit, and our awareness of being in relationship with God. However, we are using sin in a similar way other than this fundamental relationship to God. The three common similar uses of the word sin are as follows:

41 1. original sin a theological code word for the human condition of living in a world where we are influence by more evil than which we do ourselves; 2. material sin transgressions of a law or acts of wrongdoing like killing, abortion, sex outside of marriage; 3. social sin the consequences of individual choices which form oppressive social structures like racism, sexism, anti-poor policies, etc. 2. Sin as arrogance of power To understand sin primarily as a matter of the quality of our relationship in the covenant suggests both a transcendent and immanent dimension of sin. The transcendent3 dimension expresses a break in our relationship to God. This is our refusal to the invitation to live with God in love. But we do not experience or express this relationship to God apart from our relationship with all things, especially other persons. Our sins is our way of rebelling not only against God (which we rarely do if ever) but also against the living images of God other persons. This would lead us and accounts for the immanent 4 dimension of sin. We understand the immanent dimension of sin when we see the importance of the human community as a place in and through which we receive and give love. Sin in its immanent dimension is our refusal to love our neighbor/others and at the same refusing also to be loved by them. We sin when we turn inward and cut off the dynamics of receiving and giving love, care and concern for others. In this sense, sin always a type of self-absorption. Whenever loving, peace-keeping, and justice-doing relationships are weakened or destroyed, sin is present in some form; whether that form be lying, gossip, stealing, abusing, ignoring, prejudice, etc. In the American bishops pastoral letter on moral life, To Live in Christ Jesus (1976), we read: Personal sin is a spirit of selfishness rooted in our hearts and wills which wages war against Gods plan for our fulfillment. It is rejection either partial or total, of ones role as a child of God and a member of his people, a rejection of the spirit of sonship, love and life. 5 In this statement, sin is some form of selfishness. Sin as selfishness is first a matter of the heart, before it becomes manifested in external actions. We become sinful to the extent that we turn inward, refusing to respond, and so cut off the dynamic of giving and receiving love. This is to harden ones heart in the biblical sense. In sin, we cease to pay attention or care about anyone outside of ourselves. Selfishness is self-absorption; it is the failure to love and accept
3

Transcendence (Latin surpassing) refers to the Otherness of God, whose existence goes beyond the universe and is not to be identified with it. 4 Immanence (Latin remaining in) means God also exists apart from and beyond the whole universe. The revelation of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit came through the history of salvation, which culminated with the incarnation of the Son and sending of the Holy Spirit. 5 To Live in Christ Jesus (Washington:USCC, 1976), p. 5; cf. Sharing in the Light of Faith (Washington : USCC, 1978), #98.

42 love. Some metaphors6 used today to convey this meaning of sin: rebellion, isolation, alienation, estrangement, and arrogance of power. Each expresses a different nuance of love turned in on itself. Let us have a look at arrogance of power. Rollo May in his book, power and Innocence provides a powerful scheme for understanding sin as arrogance of power. First, May establishes the point that all of us have power. But not all of it is demonic. His analysis changes the common understanding that the more loving one is the less powerful one is. Love and power, in fact are not opposites. We need power to be able to love in the first place, since power, as May defines it is the capacity to influence change in others and situations for good or ill. Rollo May then distinguishes five kinds of power which can be in all of us at different times. The moral issue is concerned with the proportion of each kind of power within the total spectrum of ways of expressing ourselves in relation to others. 1. Exploitative and manipulative power is destructive. These are forms of power over another and often can be equated with force or violence. E.g. dictators, bullies, etc. 2. Competitive power acts against another. It can act destructively when it puts another down, or it can act constructively to bring out dormant capacities in another (and yourself) and bring vitality to a responsibility. 3. Nutrient power acts for the sake of another by giving care. This kind of power is vital in relationships between friends, and loved ones. 4. Integrative power acts with another to draw out the best in the other person. The arrogance of power in the misdirected hearts (of some people) seeks a greater proportion of exploitative, manipulative, and competitive power over nutrient and integrative power. Sin as the arrogant use of power separates us from loving, life-giving, peace-keeping and justice-doing relationships. Our responsibility as covenantal partners is to care for and to serve one another through nurturing and integrative power. Jesus great commandment of love makes this all clear. Sin arises out of our desires and efforts to protect the self we have made in order to guarantee that we are lovable and loved. When we set out to protect the self we have made, we set ourselves against God, against nature, and against one another. Self-serving interest destroy bonds of peace and justice, and spread conditions of fear, hatred, and violence which usher in disharmony of the world which we know as social sin the cooperation in the continued maintenance of oppressive structures in society and in the world.

Metaphor is a figure of speech which comprise of a word or phrase that transfers its meaning to another use, as means of illustration.

43 We break the dynamic power of sin our lives when we realize that we are in fact profoundly loved apart from our achievements and our virtue. Only Gods love is so permanent and profound as to release us from our sins. This is offered to us through the sacrament of reconciliation. Divine love is the only love which will satisfy our longing hearts. Divine love opens our hearts to nurture the lifegiving, peace-keeping and justice-doing potentials in ourselves and in others so that we might transform human relationships and institutions. When we accept the gift of divine love, then we are taking Jesus words: No longer do I call you servants; I call you friends (Jn 15:15). As friends we become united with the mission of Jesus to use our power so that all may have life in abundance. Traditional Understanding of Sin7 Tomothy OConnel categorized four traditional understanding of sin: sin as an act, sin as a fact, sin as a state, and sin as a direction. Sin as an act A sin is an action by which I refuse to do what I believe God wants me to do, and thereby injure or harm my neighbor. This action implies the use of freedom and knowledge on the part of the person performing it. In other words, sin is something actual. Sin as a fact Tradition in the church affirmed the existence of original sin. This we may call sin as a fact, that is, something we do not do, but as something we are subject or expose, vulnerable to. In other words, original sin exists prior to our personal acts of freedom. It is a human condition of living in a world where we are influence by more evil that we do ourselves. Our whole being and environment is infested by this condition of evil and brokenness. We feel the effects of its presence and poison our lack of freedom and our inability to act as we should. St. Paul knew the force of this evil when he said: I do not do the good I want to do, instead I do the evil I do not want to do (Rom. 7:19). Sin as a state A person in a state of mortal sin describes the situation in which a person is continuously cut off from God, and is no longer in a state of grace. It describes sin as a quality of that person in that particular situation, so that the person would be described as being in sin. Sin as direction The human person is a free being that possess the power to choose the direction of his/her life. Ones freedom gives the person to say yes or no. This
7

Timothy OConnel, Principles for Catholic Morality, rev. ed., New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 1990, p. 80-87.

44 power to decide either for good or for evil defines the direction of his/her life. To choose sin means giving up the better world that one deserves; it means letting go of the dreams for ones happiness; it means isolation from God and addiction to all forms of idolatry. Because the human person is free, he/she charts the direction of his/her life by the very option he/she takes. The Diversity of Sin8 In moral living, we find ourselves using sin in various ways without taking the time to distinguish clearly what we mean. Perhaps the most familiar use of sin is personal sin; this is the classic notion of actual sin (mortal and venial). It refers to personal culpability for choosing, in knowledge and with freedom to be unloving and selfish. This is usually the sense of sin we confess. Sin, however, is also a fact a force or power in the world which is greater than the sum of individual acts of sin. Some theologians call this sin as sin of the world. Today we are hearing more about a third kind of sin which has some features of the sin of the world but which is also related to personal sin in that we share some responsibility for it, this is social sin. Let us try to discuss each of this kind. Original Sin Original sin is the theological code word for the human condition of living in a world where we are influenced by more evil than what we do ourselves. Our whole being and environment is infected by this condition of evil and brokenness. As a result, we find ourselves somewhat alienated from our deeper selves, from others, and from God. We need redemption, or the healing of divine love. Despite our brokenness, we can still become who we were made to be through Gods redeeming love or grace which enables us grow toward wholeness and in communion with ourselves, others, God and nature. While the original sin fall us in the direction of radical selfishness and independence, the energy of grace moves us toward interdependence and communion. However, these two opposite forces within are not easy to deal with especially the negative pull of original sin; that is why we need to open ourselves to the presence of redemptive love. This gift of redemptive love is mediated to us in and through the human community our families, our neighborhoods, and the wider community like the church, our countrymen, etc. which witnesses to justice, truth, peace, and other virtues. In fact, one of the ways of the interpreting the effects of baptism is to see it as initiating us into a life-giving, peace-giving, and justice-doing, supportive community committed to living according to the gospel. The fact that the power of grace and original sin are part of being human makes responsible moral living a truly demanding task. Because of original sin, struggle and tragedy will always be part of our moral striving. Personal Sin9
8 9

Gula, Richard. 1989. Faith Informed by Reason. New York, Paulist Press. pp. 106-121. Gregory the Great (+604) drew up a list of 7 capital sins pride, avarice, envy, lust, gluttony, anger, sloth capital not because they are necessarily grave but because they easily become vices and sources of sins.

45 In the Bible, sin is primarily and always a rupture in our relationship with God. The greatest sin is the direct rejection of God. This is idolatry. The direct rejection of the true God and the setting up of idols are the first offense mentioned in the Ten Commandments. One of the great missions of the prophets was to call Israel away from idolatry and back to fidelity to the one true God of the covenant. In the New Testament, Paul lists those sins which can exclude one from the reign of God. (1 Cor 6:9-10; Gal 5:19-21). The synoptic gospels have the saying of Jesus about blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as the sin which will not be forgiven ( Mk 3:28; Mt. 12:31-32; Lk 12:10). This sin will not be forgiven because the person who commits such blasphemy is closed to power of the Spirit to save. The clearest reference to degrees of sin is found in 1 Jn. 5:16-17. There we find the designation of sins as deadly or unto death and which are not deadly or not unto death. But no examples are given by the author. However, this is the hint in the Scriptures about degrees of sins, which takes development in the church. Let us have brief discussion of the present understanding of mortal and venial sins as degrees of sins. Mortal Sin The Catholic tradition has required three conditions to be present in order for a sin to be mortal: 1. sufficient reflection 2. full consent of the will 3. serious matter The first two have to do with the person and the third have to do with the action as expression of the person. The condition of sufficient reflection is fulfilled when we reached evaluative knowledge. Only then is mortal sin possible, for only with evaluative knowledge have we reached the kind of knowledge which entails the self-involvement of a personal commitment to a person, event, or action. The traditional requirement of full consent of the will implies personal freedom. The kind of freedom which fulfills the requirement of full consent of the will is what the theologians call basic or core freedom. This is the freedom of self-determination which gives expression to the basic character or dominant direction of our lives. It gets expressed in those significant choices which arise from a deep level of self-awareness and self-possession (master of oneself) so that they can significantly reinforce or redirect the fundamental direction and commitment of our lives. The basic question of serious matter is not how much of a big deal the action is in itself, but how deeply involved we are in the action, the quality of the action and the effects of the action. The gravity of the matter implies the two

46 conditions. In some cases matter is considered grave when its object is deliberately opposed to the love of God and neighbor. Some theologians speak of mortal sin as a negative fundamental option. This means that mortal sin, as an expression of the person from the deep levels of knowledge and freedom makes a conscious decision to act in a way which fashions a style of life that turns us away from relating to God, others, and the world in a positive life-giving, peace-keeping. And justice-doing way. Through mortal sin we no longer build up and promote wholesome relationship, nor do we contribute to the well-being of human community and all creation. Venial Sin Venial sin is something similar to mortal sin. We have already discussed that mortal sin demands a significant degree of self-awareness, selfmastery/possession and self-determination in order to be an expression of ones whole life in a way that radically reverses ones positive relationship with God, others and all creation. Sin so often enters our lives through some form of avoiding the call of conscience to exercise nutrient and integrative power (caring and loving) and meet the demands of love and justice. We psychologically detach ourselves from these demands and become submerged in our own self-interest. We act against another with destructive forms of competitive power by telling our piece of gossip, delivering a nasty sarcasm, or exercising any other power-play to keep ourselves secure. Our sin only quickly escalates through defensive efforts to keep guilt away. We persevere in our pride until the fruits of sin come forth projected blame, self-pity, angry attacks, cruelty, distrust, cynicism about anothers goodness, and other forms of arrogant power. While these may not be monstrous evils, they put us seriously in the realm of venial sin. Venial sins however, do not embody the whole of our lives in such a radical way as to turn us away from God. Every act does not really carry such weight as to change radically the direction of our lives. For one reason, many of our choices and actions are not done with open eyes of clear vision. We do not see what is before us rightly, and so do not respond to what is really there. Furthermore, many of our daily choices do not appear to our consciousness so it does not express full freedom. Most of our daily choices are not relevant enough to alter in a radical way our whole life plan or direction of life towards God. Simply put then, venial sin is acting inconsistently with our basic commitment to be for life and love. Venial sin does not spring from the deepest level of our knowledge and freedom so as to change our fundamental commitment to be open to God, others and the world. Social Sin

47 The notion of social sin articulates how social structures can shape our existence for the worse. It describes the consequences of individual choices which form structures wherein people suffer various forms of oppression and exploitation. Social sin reflects the dialectical nature of human existence. Social sciences would help us see that through our freedom we create society by embodying meaning and value in social structures and ecclesial structures are also embodiment of meaning and values. These structures in turn affect us through the process of socialization particularly the way we use our freedom. As a result, what we see, what we think, what we believe, what we value, and what we do depend a great deal on the social context of our lives. By participating in these structures we sustained them and help to produce their effects whether we want to or not. Sinful social structures are the result of acts of personal freedom in the first place; the relationship of personal sin to social sin is inevitable and inseparable. Since we participate in the process of creating society, we share in the responsibility for causing social sin. But being responsible for causing social sin does not automatically mean we are morally culpable for it. Culpability demands knowledge and freedom. So once we become aware of the social structures which influence our lives for the worse, then we need to be attentive to the decisions we make and to the actions we take that supports such structures which are destructive and oppressive of human well-being. However, as often happens, we get so caught up in the worldview and spirit we have created by these structures that we cannot see clearly the evil we perpetuate. As a result, our moral sensitivity to evil grows dull; our blindness and ignorance consequently limit our culpability for social sins. Since the real responsibility for social sin lies with each individual, sinful structures will not be transformed until we who are responsible for them alter the way we use power to influence change in ourselves, others, and structures within which we live. The right use of power lies behind the reality of social sin and remains a major moral issue in our world and in the church. Modern Social Sins10 On March 9, 2008, the Vatican newspaper published a list of seven modern social sins. The list was included in an interview with Monsignor Gianfranco Girotti, who suggested they were new sins which have appeared on the horizon of humanity as corollary to the unstoppable process of globalization. The modern social sins are: 1. 2. 3. 4.
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destroying the environment genetic manipulation obscene wealth creating poverty

Giraldes, Manuel. The Weapon Against Envy. World Mission. October 2009.no. 227 Vol. XXI. P.25.

48 5. drug trafficking 6. immoral scientific experimentation 7. violation of fundamental rights of humans Mohandas Karamachand Gandhi popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi, one of the most influential figures of our time had already elaborated his own list of the sins most spiritually perilous/dangerous to humanity. And curiously, they area also mainly social sins: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. wealth without work pleasure without conscience science without humanity knowledge without character politics without principle commerce without morality worship without sacrifice

Conversion The Greek word for conversion is metanoia (which means change of heart). The first conversion that takes place in the life of a Christian is brought about by faith and baptism. This conversion is accompanied by repentance which implies turning away from sin and turning to God. One of the best descriptions of metanoia has been given by Pope Paul VI. Metanoia he says, means conversion, repentance, inner change. It means a change of outlook a change of ones thoughts, ideas, way of judging oneself and others, to change ones conscience from false to true. Conversion also means correcting our moral orientation in line with the truth which directs our lives to order, love and God. To change ones erroneous and faulty mentality calls for humility and courage to say to oneself: I have been wrong which requires considerable strength of character. To give up certain fixed ideas, attitudes, mentality, and behavior calls for a spiritual revolution, possible only for one who sacrifices what is most personal in him/her own convictions to the truth. For those who are usually dominated by passionate instincts or by illicit interests, to change course in the direction of righteousness and virtue, is a very sufficient and meritorious process, as overwhelming attempt at renewal. To forgive an offense, to overcome a capricious dislike, to reject opportunity to use violence, etc. can be an exercise of penitence along the right line of Christian love. Christian repentance/conversion is first of all a virtue an interior force, a basic tendency in a person which leads the sinner to detach himself from sin and destroy in him the forces of evil. It is essential in the life of the Christian and forms an important part of his program of life. Pope John Paul II reminds that conversion to God always consists in discovering his mercy, that is in discovering that love which is patient and kind (1

49 Cor. 13:4) as only the Creator and Father can be (Dives in Misericordia, 1980 n. 13). Dimensions of Total Christian Conversion11 1. 2. 3. 4. moral conversion affective conversion intellectual conversion religious conversion

The Universal Call to Holiness You therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect (Mt. 5:48). For he sent the Holy Spirit to all to make them to love God with their whole heart, with their whole soul, with their whole understanding, and their whole strength (Mt. 12:30), and to love one another as Christ loved them Jn. 13:34; 15:12). The followers of Christ, called by God not in the virtue of their works but his design and grace and justified in the Lord Jesus, have been made sons (and daughters) of God in the baptism of faith and partakers of the divine nature, and so are truly sanctified. They must therefore heal on to and perfect in their lives those sanctifications which they have received from God. They are told by the apostle to live as is fitting among the saints (Eph. 5:3), and to put on as Gods chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, love, meekness and patience (Col. 3:12) to have the fruits of the Spirit for their sanctifications(Gal. 5:22; Rom. 6:22). 12

11 12

CFC n. 1797 Vat. II Lumen Gentium n. 40 (Dogmatic Constitution on the Church).