THE CORE OF SIN
Genesis
3:6-7 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree
was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was
with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they
realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings
for themselves.
Since on his own man cannot live in
God’s truth, he provisionally remains caught in the conflict between openness
to the world and selfhood. Man remains imprisoned in his selfhood. He secures
himself through what has been attained, or he insists on his plans. In any
case, to the extent that he is able, he fits what is new into what was already
in his mind. In this way not only does he readily damage his destiny to be open
to the world; he also closes himself off from the God who summons him to his
destiny. The selfhood that is closed up within itself is sin.
Since Augustine’s profound insights,
in Christian theology the selfhood that is closed up within itself and in its
worldly possessions has been understood as the real core of sin. If the most
widespread manifestation of sin is greed, in greed man’s love for himself is
still at work as its innermost motivation. Self-love prevents us from turning
to other men for their own sake, and, not least, it hinders us in loving God
for his own sake. Thus, as the Augsburg Confession summarizes it, sin asserts
itself on the one hand in unbelief by denying God the reverence and grateful
trust due him, and on the other hand in the greed by which man makes himself a
slave of the things for which he strives.
Later Soren Kierkegaard saw that sin
took effect in still a third direction: not only in man’s relation to God on
the one hand and in his relation to the world and to his fellowmen on the
other; but also in man’s relation to himself. Where man does not live by trust
in God, anxiety appears, namely, anxiety about himself...It is through anxiety
that the sinner remains related to his infinite destiny. In despair, however,
man separates himself from his destiny, whether it be that he gives up hope for
it or, on the contrary, that he wants to achieve it on his own and only wants
to be indebted to himself. Both anxiety and despair reveal the emptiness of the
ego that revolves about itself.
