10 Unusual Questions About Sin
The
Hell is a vast territory, which God specially designed to torture the sinners.
There are pans with boiling oil, cauldrons, demons with pitchforks, and
unquenchable fire… In short, it’s the lake of fire. Is it true that the worse
the sins of a dead man, the more terrible the suffering that his soul has to
endure after death?
The Church doesn’t
teach about any frying pans. That is what Saint Isaac the Syrian writes about
the reason for the human suffering in hell: “I tell you, those who suffer in
the Gehenna are lashed by the whip of love! How bitter and cruel this torment
of love is! …The sadness that strikes one’s heart for sinning against love is
more frightening than any other possible punishment. The idea that the sinners
in hell are left without God’s love is incongruous. Love is born out of the
knowledge of truth, which (as everyone agrees) is disseminated among
all humans. However, the power of love has two opposite effects: it torments
the sinners, even as we have to suffer certain afflictions from our loved ones
here on earth, and makes those who did what they were obliged to do happy. That
is why, in my opinion, the torment of hell is actually repentance.”
The Lord is angry with sinners and punishes them with
various diseases and troubles while they are still alive, and sentences them to
eternal torture in hell after they die because sin makes God angry or offended,
right?
Sin is an action
that contradicts our very essence as human beings, and thus it is no accident
that such an action inflicts pain. As far as God’s attitude towards sinners is
concerned, this is what St. Anthony the Great has to say, “…God is never happy
and never angry because joy and anger are passions. It is foolish to think that
the Deity may feel good or bad due to our actions. God is good and He always
does only good. He never harms anyone. He is always the same. When we are good,
we can interact with God due to our association with him; when we become bad,
we are separated from God because we become different from him. When we lead a
virtuous life, we are close to God; when we become evil, we are far from him;
it doesn’t mean that He is angry with us: our own sins don’t let God shine
through us. Our sins connect us with our tormentors, the demons.”
Depends on how you
define responsibility. If you mean legal responsibility, of course not. Only
the “author” of a certain sin is responsible for it before God, people, and his
own conscience. However, the sin-inflicted damage of human nature can be
inherited from one’s parents. A vivid example is inborn alcohol addiction,
which an alcoholic mother can transmit to her unborn child.
Metropolitan Hierotheos
(Vlachos), a contemporary Greek theologian, writes, “…the Holy Fathers make it
evident that it’s not Adam’s guilt that is inherited but the consequences of
his sin, i.e., corruption and death. Adam’s sin made human nature weak and corrupt,
and therefore, it is natural that every human being, as an inseparable part of
this nature, cannot avoid the prevailing corruption… Therefore, based on all
those assumptions, we can speak of inheritance of mortality but not guilt, as
Western theology claims.”
It’s because the
Church is the spiritual hospital. People in the Church sin for exactly the same
reason that patients who stay in a hospital are ill. Saint Ephraim the Syrian
used to say in the 4th century that the Church is not only the
assembly of the righteous but also the crowd of penitent sinners. There are
spiritual diseases that cannot be cured straightaway. With that said, the
sinners who go to church hate their own sins, shed tears and do their best to
get rid of them, while those very sins can constitute the main purpose and
meaning in the life of a person who doesn’t go to church.
No, it’s not.
Indeed, there is the idea in Christianity that retaliation for one’s sin is
natural. This is what St. Mark the Ascetic writes about it: “Generally, God has
decreed that every action, good or bad, must be followed by a natural
consequence. The reward or retaliation is not invented for every occasions
separately, as some people who are ignorant of the spiritual laws believe.” At
first glance, you might think that there is a direct analogy of this teaching
with the principle of Dharma or with atheist determinism, where every event in
the life of the world is an inescapable result of preceding events. However,
this analogy is superficial. According to Christian doctrine, apart from
spiritual causes and effects, there is also the omnipotent God who is capable
of tearing up the connection between human sins and their apparently
unavoidable results. Figuratively speaking, Dharmic religions teach that if you
shoot an arrow, it will always hit the target even if you suddenly realize that
the arrow is directed at your own son. Christianity teaches that God can ward
that “arrow of sin” off even if it is almost too late.
It doesn’t mean
that you have to repent of the never-ending “train of thoughts” that’s so often
filled up with so much garbage. Only the thoughts that you “entertain in
your heart” can be sinful. Confession of all sinful thoughts is doomed to
failure: we commit these kinds of sins too often. There is a better way to ward
them off: an immediate prayer of repentance and an outcry to God for help is
the most effective means against the countless sins that every one of us
commits in our hearts all the time. You don’t have to wait for a formal confession
to ask God for help. Saint Theophan the Recluse stated in no unclear terms that
“with regard to minor sinful movements of the heart, thoughts and the like… here’s
the rule: as soon as you notice something impure, you must purify it with
repentance before the Lord. It will suffice but if your conscience signals that
there’s something wrong still, you can mention that thought during your evening
prayer with a contrite heart, and that’s enough. This kind of sins is cleansed
by heartfelt repentance.”
The Old Testament
lists several sins that couldn’t be atoned by animal sacrifice. They devastated
the soul of the person who had committed them so strongly that according to the
Mosaic Law, the person who had committed one of those sins had to be punished
by death. Among those sins were murder (premeditated or not) and forced sale
into slavery, which was regarded as its equivalent; idolatry; adultery;
fornication and various sexual perversions; sorcery and false prophecy;
irreverence towards parents and elders; failure to observe the Sabbath and
religious holidays; blasphemy and sacrilege. The New Testament Church abandoned
the practice of death atonement for these sins. However, the name “mortal sin”
which can be found in the New Testament points at the profound spiritual damage
that was punished by death in the ancient Israel. A mortal sin changes the
sinner’s life. There is some part of his or her soul that dies forever because
of it.
Saint Augustine
described this situation with extreme precision: “I was asking You to make me
chaste and I said, Please make me chaste and moderate but not now. I was
afraid that You would hear me immediately and cure my evil passion at once: I
preferred to satisfy it rather than extinguish it altogether.” If our
souls are attached to the sin, it remains attractive and desirable. The Lord
inspects our hearts, not our words. If we confess our sins hoping that the Lord
won’t hear us, the Lord won’t cure our sins against our will. He will let us
fall into that sin again and again and again… However, you still have to repent
of that sin because if you have to go to a confession and tell a priest about
your sin, you will have to overcome the barrier of shame. This shame frequently
has a therapeutic effect because it calls for our effort. Seeing our effort,
the Lord gives us the chance to see how ugly our sins really are and begin to
loathe them. Only then can a genuine repentance and liberation from those sins
be possible.
It is possible only
if that sinner is a person whom you really love and whom you can sacrifice your
own life for. Saints loved everyone equally, like God. If you aren’t a saint
but you see someone else’s sin and are willing to help that person to improve,
pause and try to be honest with yourself: what are you ready to do for that
person and for his or her improvement? How dear is that person to you? It’s not
enough to help another person to see his or her own sin. You must help them to
defeat that sin by being around and by taking up some slack. It means that you’ll
inevitably have to bear some repercussions of his or her sin. You will have to
suffer on his or her behalf and carry his or her burden according to the law of
love. If you’re not prepared to do so, refrain from criticizing someone else’s
sins and take care of your own sins instead.
Source: https://foma.ru/10-voprosov-o-grehe.html
