The Bible: Commentary and Controversy

So let’s talk about prayer, which at least one dictionary describes as “a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.” It’s described variously in the bible as seeking God’s favor, pouring out one’s soul to the Lord, crying out to heaven, drawing near to God, and kneeling before the Father.

It is also commonly described as “talking to God,” which is a quite different thing. No pleas, no seeking favors, no crying out. Just talking. I like that definition best, but that’s just me. But all those definitions raise an important question: to whom and/or what god are we praying?

If you read my post on sin, you already know the answer; it depends on your belief system, and on the specific situation in which you find yourself. I remember the old adage: “there are no atheists in foxholes,” and believe there is a great deal more truth than poetry in that quote.

But is that universal? Must we need god in order to believe in him/her/it/they? That’s a really interesting question. Was Voltaire right when he said “If God did not exist it would be necessary to invent him?”

Do atheists pray? And if they do, who or what are they praying to? When my favorite atheist, Bill Maher, gets in a dicey situation, does he “pray” to anyone for help? If a child of his was injured, or stricken with a terrible disease, would he simply hope his child survived, or that the doctors would do the right thing? When my son was diagnosed with cancer at age two and a half, I looked up God in a hurry, and begged Him to save Angus. Didn’t work, but I’m not sure it was God’s fault.

It’s my contention that everyone prays in some form or another, to some person or thing – or another. The horseplayer hanging on the rail at the track may pray to jockeys or horses: “Please run faster, Midnight!” Wives making dinner might silenty pray to husbands: “Oh, please mow the lawn tomorrow.” Children shrinking in their seats might pray silently and fervently to the teacher: “Oh, please don’t call on me today.” After the event there are thankful prayers: “Oh, thank you horse,  or husband, or teacher. And if their prayer wasn’t answered, they might pray in another way: “Damn you, why didn’t you… etc.”

Strictly secular. But that can change with the insertion of one little word. “Oh please make Midnight run faster,” “Oh please make him mow the lawn tomorrow,” “Oh please make her not call on me today.”  Which raises the prayer to a higher power (pun intended).

Which answers the question: must prayers acknowledge the presence of, and be directed to, god? Well, yes. At least a god of some sort. Which brings up another question: If we admit the existence of a higher power, and decide to pray to him/her/it/they, how do we define that higher power?

God – or the apostles – brilliantly answered that question with the creation of Jesus, which anthropomorphosed an indistinct, shadowy figure spoken of in the old testament, and gave us a real live person to pray to. Much easier than praying to an all-encompassing being floating somewhere up in the sky, which whom we have no earthly connection. Jesus was the lifeline thrown to us to pull us out of the murk into which we had sunk. Or at least that was the premise. And it worked beautifully. Jesus became a handhold to heaven we could see, and touch, and talk to, and take pictures of – a human being that was also God himself.

So what is sin? And if you sin against someone, who is it that you sin against? One dictionary defines it as “an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law,” and adds this strange phrase: “a sin in the eyes of God.”

Another, stating that this is the “true definition of sin” says it is “an offense against religious or moral law; an action that is or is felt to be highly reprehensible, as “it’s a sin to waste food.”

And check out this definition from Christian hamartiology, which describes sin as “an act of offense against God by despising his persons and Christian biblical law, and by injuring others. In Christian views it is an evil human act, which violates the rational nature of man as well as God’s nature and his eternal law.” Wow! We could write a book about that definition. “The rational nature of man?” Whoever accused us of that? But I digress.

According to Augustine of Hippo (354–430) (and the bible) sin is “a word, deed, or desire in opposition to the eternal law of God,” or “a transgression of the law.” Obviously that definition applies only to those who believe in God, which leaves the atheists and agnostics and my Uncle Jack  pure as the driven snow as far as sin’s concerned.

Okay, since we’ve cleared that all up, let’s look at the types of sin, of which there are two… no, three, uh… or four… uh, wait – twelve? Oh, boy. Okay, the first two are:

1.     Original

2.     Personal

Original being, of course, the sin that was passed down to us by Adam and Eve, and is in all of us. As David said: “Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.” Hopefully there’s a way to cleanse us of that universal sin; we’ll keep an eye out for it.

Personal sin being, evidently, as simple as “sins of commission and sins of omission.” In other words, we can sin by doing or by not doing something. Which tells us nothing about what sin is; it merely gives us a short handbook on how to sin. But that’s okay; the world and literature are overflowing with definitions of sin.

The next definition offers three types of sin:

1.     Original

2.     Venial

3.     Mortal

Original we know about, okay, but what are the other two? What constitutes a “venial” sin? Catholicism evidently defines it as “a relatively slight sin that that does not entail damnation of the soul.” I love the majestic scope of that definition. It convinces me that I must find out what acts cause so grievous a sin that they mean my soul is damned for all eternity, and be very careful to avoid those acts. Oh. Those, evidently, would be classified as “mortal” sins.

Simplybible says there are four kinds of sin: sins of attitude, action, neglect, and intent. Again we’re told how we might sin, but not what the sin might be. But here tradition comes to rescue us, naming the  seven deadly sins: pride, envy, wrath, sloth, greed, gluttony, and lust.

Enough already.

You could read for a lifetime about what sin is, and how to commit it, and what to do after you’ve done it, and so on and so on. As someone once said about creating laws against specified behaviors: the more you define the law, the better you define the loopholes. The true definition appears much simpler to me.

The two categories of sin (without all the twaddle)

If you consider it long enough, and with the right attitude, it will become clear to you that there are really only two categories of sin:

1.     Sins that separate us from God (for believers)

Let me again bring up one of the most evil and despised men of all time: Hitler, considered to be practically the definition of sin, particularly mortal sin. But that is the common judgment of him, and has nothing to do with whether Hitler actually was or was not a “sinner.” The true test is whether he sinned according to his own beliefs, not ours. I haven’t studied his life, nor do I care to, but many theories supposedly explaining him abound. They’re all twaddle, of course, because we can’t know unequivocally what was in his (or anyone’s) heart and mind. If he was convinced he was doing the right thing according to his belief system, he obviously wasn’t “sinning.”

The point is: if I believe in a God, whatever that god might be: a spiritual being, money, climate change, a brazen idol, we have formed a belief system according to that belief. Whatever we do that falls outside of that system is therefore a “sin.” In other words, whatever separates us from our “god” constitutes a sin, and the gravity of the act constitutes the gravity of the sin. If climate change is my god, and my preferred method of transportation is a Bombardier BD-700 or a more traditional Boeing 747, I am obviously committing a sin.

2.     Sins that separate us from ourselves (for everyone).

Suppose at the checkout counter I see a twenty dollar bill fall out of a woman’s purse, and I stealthily pick it up, pocket it, and don’t say anything to her. If I know that is wrong according to my own personal belief system, then it is a sin, and that sin separates me in some degree from myself: it will nag at me, perhaps for the rest of my life. Suppose I am totally dedicated to losing weight, and I sneak a Hershey bar. Sin. Why do so many criminals want to be caught, want to be punished? Because they have sinned against their belief system, which has separated them from themselves, and they want to be whole again, which requires atonement and punishment.

Obviously the whole concept of sin is integrally intertwined with our belief system. If I believe I should behead a sinner, or stone an adulteress, or electrocute a murderer, then doing so is a righteous act, and not doing so is a sin. If we all had the same belief system there would be no confusion. But that ship sailed a long time ago.

So. Sin defined. I think we’ll take up prayer next.