What is Sin

I’ll be honest, that doesn’t sound unorthodox, that sounds near definitionally orthodox. All that is good is only good as it reflects God, evil is disorder, privation, deviation from that.

That’s why I like the distinction between material and formal sin, something can be materially sinful without someone being actually guilty of sin through invincible ignorance, etc. Formal sin happens when the will is involved, even if something is not materially sinful (a drunk or confused man might take something he believes belongs to another, but actually belongs to himself. No material theft occurred but the man intended to commit theft).

Jordan Peterson clued me into the idea of sin being “missing the mark” or missing what you’re aiming at.

He didn’t take the next step to identify what the target is — Jesus Christ.

So sin is anything which deviates from following Christ. Repentance is reaiming ourselves at him and trying again.

This sounds a lot like the Hebrew description of sin as literally ‘missing the mark’, but I suspect G is trying to say more than simply that. Is he saying even non-sins are sins if they stand between us and God?

Don’t let me put words in your mouth, G.
Any clarification?

Somewhat related to this is my thoughts on the word evil or sinister.

I’m not fully invested in this idea, but I think it might apply in some cases and it perhaps it is accurate in a deeper meaning.

Our understanding of the word “evil” is heavily influenced by the fairytales with the unredeemable bad guy, or Hitler like people. It’s something usually “sin”ister, which we take to mean just super duper bad and totally separate from “normal” good people who just make mistakes.

But that further confuses our notions of sin- someone who sins is evil and has all these wicked, horrendous connotations about them.

That’s different from the everyday notion of repentance being to adjust course/aim or simply to change.

When Jesus says sufficient unto the day are the evils thereof, is he talking about murderous dark forces?

I see evil in this sense is anything that is a burden, perhaps an unnecessary one. He calls Peter Satan, a stumbling block, simply because Peter expressed confidence in him not being killed.

This shows the Lord’s view on evil is not (always?) so murderously dark, but anything that’s an obstacle or a stumbling block or a burden.

Not sure how well I fleshed this out, but Jesus didn’t really seem focused on talking about the big bad Hitlers of the world, who we typically think of as being evil. He brought evil down to the common everyday experience of of us. It somewhat fits into the worldview of the following line, “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. “

Zen,

That fits but I was thinking more of when people say “but it’s not his fault’ of some issue that a person has. To which I say, so what?

Yes, with some sinful inclinations, we may or may not be able to do anything about it.

But a broken leg is still a broken leg. And there is no sense in pretending otherwise.

Dang, that’s the way to put it. I will probably steal that.

I think it has to do with the nameless virtue. it’s hard to acknowledge that you are broken in some way. Actually acknowledge I mean.