The Spiral of Sin
Consider a leaking seal on a water pipe in a house, it is just a drip. If not fixed promptly, the leak worsens over time, causing water damage to walls and floors. This could lead to more serious issues like mold growth and structural damage, escalating the situation from something minor to total destruction. The reality of sin is very much like this situation. Sin by its nature leads to further sin. The truth is we can't stop the leak, even among Christians. This does not somehow mean that grace is not efficacious or that those who sin do not "work on stopping the leak" rather it is the nature of the "leak" itself. In some ways, perhaps where it matters most like child abuse, we can stop the majority of the leak and this is that for which Christ died, yet it will never be a complete enterprise until heaven. In this way perhaps the excess water can be diverted and stopped from creating its own reinforcement. I would posit that the nature of sin is that it weakens our nature, forms rationalizing philosophies, and encourages further sin even by swaying culture in its direction.
First, sin is an act against reason and reality. God established a good order and us good (Genesis 1-2). The reality is God made us free, in such a way that we can choose to love Him or choose against loving Him, Him Who is Truth Itself. Our sins are acts that are contrary to the goodness and harmony we were made for, just as self-destructive tendencies like drug addiction take away from physical health. As an analogy, sin can be much like a proportionally sizable pebble or rock thrown into a clock. It will wear down the gears, and push components out of alignment, and in turn, those things must be bent back into place, but the clock will not be the same until it is stripped of its parts and reassembled. The analogy breaks down as all do (who does the bending? What about the breakage in the gears?), but that is helpful for this point. It seems clear that any act against a perfect love, especially One which is infinite, perfect, the Author of our nature, and the Source of our existence, is a fundamentally unreasonable act. If it is unreasonable what reason should be given to someone to not commit it? Clearly, they have been deceived about what is good as we see in Genesis 3, we also see the physical implications of going against "salute" the Latin word in the Creed describing both "Health and Salvation".
Second, sin is an act against the right conscience i.e. proper moral judgment. Sin is a moral disease in addition to an act against reality i.e. an act against good, preferred reality with God authored. In many ways, this resonates with the idea that it is an act against truth as above. There is an objectivity to what is good, which can be skewed in our corrupted and fallen creature (cf. Proverbs 3:5-6).[1] As such sins create further brokenness and hurt in us as it persists just as the first sin began that tendency.[2] Moral judgment, or practical judgment as Aquinas termed it, is an application of the natural law (practical reason) which is written on the heart (Hebrew 8:10). This judgment is skewed by sin (this is what makes serial killers, rapists, and other badly corrupted folks appear helped as it were by their choice of sin) and helps us to continue mis-prioritizing goods, mistaking greater good for objectively lesser goods. Every action if done in certain contexts or frequencies forms habits and thereby disposes us to further sin of such a sort which disorders man in such a mis-prioritization of goods, shifting the human potencies in the direction of vice and away from virtue. This ipso facto depreciates the goodness and strength man has in being free to choose high goods sins he trades it habitually for lesser goods.
In conclusion, sin is the transgression of the law, a moral disease or disorder, a fault against love, a degradation of the self, a corruption of society, a weakening of one’s capacity to love God, and a turning away from the good for which man was created. By renouncing the grace and love of God, we form bad habits, and the more we sin, the stronger its pull becomes—its end is addiction. Our hunger for the good can sometimes cause us to starve, for in choosing a false good, our condition only worsens.
Sin is the root of every dysfunction, whether directly or indirectly. It corrupts us so deeply that we cannot save ourselves—we need a Savior! There is no salvation apart from the Cross, and that same sacrifice is made present again and again in the sacraments, most especially in the Eucharist. By the grace of God, the leak of corruption can be lessened—indeed, nearly stopped—lest our whole lives collapse upon themselves under the weight of sin.
God’s grace not only assists us in avoiding evil but also enlightens us to recognize what is truly good in virtue. By grace, our desires are purified, so that we no longer seek what is evil but instead long for the goodness of a well-ordered nature—without remorse, and with a holy ambition to love perfectly. This alone can keep us from sin.
FN:
- Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I-II, q. 94, a. 2, at New Advent, www.newadvent.org.; Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1791.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1865.
Written by Carter Carruthers & also available soon at Missio Dei
