I would start out by first offering this disclaimer: I am not a Christian, Hindu, Jew, Muslim, Baptist, Methodist. I am however a person of faith and spirituality a man who love philosophy and accordingly have an interest in one of its many applications: theology.
People often consider God’s greatest gift to man to be that of free will. They often then go on to say that through the act of sin man has turned his or her back on god through that act. First off, I don’t think that is quite as simple a situation as that. I believe that sin falls into two categories. Reinhold Niebuhr called those two divisions: historic sin and natural sin. In his model historic sin is always predicated by man’s abuse of the gift of free will while natural sin has more to do with events such as the untimely death of a child.
Sin itself is not an easy concept to wrestle with. There are typically three issues that must be addressed and understood in considering sin: first man’s unique position between nature and spirit as a free being, second the presentation to man by the devil (metaphoric or literal) of the idea that man can reject the position given to him by the creator, and third is man’s anxiety to secure his own position in contrast to the order created by God. This anxiety is requisite for the emergence of sin. As to whether it remains a catalyst or something more remains a subject of debate. Sin in this particular model is not inevitable but man seems by his nature to have a compulsion towards anxiety through his inability to dwell between worlds.
People often consider God’s greatest gift to man to be that of free will. They often then go on to say that through the act of sin man has turned his or her back on god through that act. First off, I don’t think that is quite as simple a situation as that. I believe that sin falls into two categories. Reinhold Niebuhr called those two divisions: historic sin and natural sin. In his model historic sin is always predicated by man’s abuse of the gift of free will while natural sin has more to do with events such as the untimely death of a child.
Sin itself is not an easy concept to wrestle with. There are typically three issues that must be addressed and understood in considering sin: first man’s unique position between nature and spirit as a free being, second the presentation to man by the devil (metaphoric or literal) of the idea that man can reject the position given to him by the creator, and third is man’s anxiety to secure his own position in contrast to the order created by God. This anxiety is requisite for the emergence of sin. As to whether it remains a catalyst or something more remains a subject of debate. Sin in this particular model is not inevitable but man seems by his nature to have a compulsion towards anxiety through his inability to dwell between worlds.
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