Sin is an archers term that literally means to "Miss the mark", but you already know this. The Greek term is "hamartia":
1a) to be without a share in
1b) to miss the mark
1c) to err, be mistaken
1d) to miss or wander from the path of uprightness and honour,to do or go wrong
1e) to wander from the law of God, violate God’s law, sin
Quite, but in Scripture harmartia is meant in the sense of 1d and 1e above.
Harmartia in the philosophical sense is generally attributed to Aristotle, in
Poetics. Scholars still argue its meaning, as 'missing', as 'error' or as 'offence'.
Free choice and willful choice are two different birds...
OK, but the issue is responsibility. To make a wilful choice, one must be free, must one not? Another question, whether one acts wilfully, or without thinking, doesn't really alter the matter. Either way, one is responsible for one's actions.
If one is coerced, one can act against one's will, and not be held responsible for one's actions.
Are you suggesting that we cannot sin "unintentionally"?
Technically, yes ... but 'I didn't mean it' doesn't always cut the mustard, as they say. Ignorance of the law is no defence in law. But there is a distinction between sin as an act which knowingly harms another, and sin as an act with unforseen consequences. Often people don't consider the consequences (or avoid that issue) so it's a huge 'grey area' ...
... 'grey area' is utterly the wrong term. It's the area of human relations, there's nothing grey about it at all, it's most colourful, it's where all the colour is ... we'll have to think of a better term. Perhaps, 'it's a rainbow of consequences'?
In Scripture God laments the unintentional sin, it's the intentional ones that really annoy Him.
We sin (Miss the mark) because we are imperfect, and those sins cause evil (Calamity).
No, or rather yes, but that's the mild stuff. That's nothing.
The other sin is the knowing that my actions will inflict suffering upon another. That's the meat of the matter, as it were.
Intentional infliction of harm would be an intentional sin, but wouldn't that still be a result our imperfect (Natural selves)?
No, because we know better. You can't murder someone, then shrug and say 'nobody's perfect'?
I'm not saying that's what you're doing, but I am asking where you draw the line. At what point you say 'I didn't know' or 'I can't help it' is not an acceptable excuse?
We are misguided in judgment, thus we sin often. It is only when we submit to Gods love that we are able to "Center the target", or rather meet the mark God has set for us, no?
The target for God, yes, but moral fault exists in secular systems also. I think it's possible for atheists to be 'good' by any human measure; for humanists to be good by the same degree, 'I've met humanists who'd make better Catholics than some Catholics I know' argument.
I'm sure there are atheists and humanists in paradise ...
Scripture is not about being good, Scripture is about a union with God, and what is required to attain to that union.
That we should experience the most intimate union with the Divine, a union such that only filial or nuptial metaphors come anywhere near to expressing it.
I think existence is perfect, meaning complete, but our world and our natural selves are incomplete. God's love completes us, just as it will complete (Perfect) our world, but that's just my personal view.
OK.
I see it differently. I think the world is by nature finite, contingent and therefore imperfect. Only God is perfect, infinite, absolute ... I think the message of God is that He is hear, now, with us in this world, if we listen, and if we do as He wills.
Will that mean no more tsunamis, no more Aids, a cure for cancer and the common cold, no more Downs Syndrome? No, I don't think it does ...
By comparison with God, man’s identity is not simply in himself but outside himself, which is why he can only attain it by ‘transcendence’. The Christian believer discovers his true identity in him who, as ‘the firstborn of all creation’, holds all things together (Col. 1:15ff), with the result that we can say that our life is hidden with him in God (Col. 3:3). Through identification with Christ I discover my own entirely personal identity.” –Joseph Ratzinger, The Feast of Faith (Ignatius Press, 1986, p. 29).
God bless,
Thomas
