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II. The Essential Character of Sin
Sin is one of the saddest but also one of the most common phenomena of human life. It is a
part of the common experience of mankind, and therefore forces itself upon the attention of all
those who do not deliberately close their eyes to the realities of human life. Some may for a
time dream of the essential goodness of man and speak indulgently of those separate words
and actions that do not measure up to the ethical standards of good society as mere foibles and
weaknesses, for which man is not responsible, and which readily yield to corrective measures;
but as time goes on, and all measures of external reform fail, and the suppression of one evil
merely serves to release another, such persons are inevitably disillusioned. They become
conscious of the fact that they have merely been fighting the symptoms of some deep-seated
malady, and that they are confronted, not merely with the problem of sins, that is, of separate
sinful deeds, but with the much greater and deeper problem of sin. of an evil that is inherent in
human nature. This is exactly what we are beginning to witness at the present time. Many
Modernists at present do not hesitate to say that the doctrine of Rousseau respecting the
inherent goodness of man has proved to be one of the most pernicious teachings of the
Enlightenment, and now call for a greater measure of realism in the recognition of sin Thus
Walter Horton, who pleads for a realistic theology and believes that this calls for the
acceptance of some Marxian principles, says: “I believe that orthodox Christianity represents a
profound insight into the whole human predicament. I believe that the basic human difficulty is
that perversion of the will, that betrayal of divine trust, which is called sin; and I believe that sin
is in a sense a racial disease, transmissible from generation to generation In affirming these
things the Christian Fathers and the Protestant Reformers spoke as realists, and could have
assembled masses of empirical evidence to support their views.”[Realistic Theology, p. 56.] In
view of the fact that sin is real and that no man can get away from it in this present life, it is no
wonder that philosophers as well as theologians undertook to grapple with the problem of sin,
though in philosophy it is known as the problem of evil rather than as the problem of sin. We
shall briefly consider some of the most important philosophical theories of evil before we state
the Scriptural doctrine of sin.
A. PHILOSOPHIC THEORIES RESPECTING THE NATURE OF EVIL.
1. THE DUALISTIC THEORY.
This is one of the views that were current in Greek philosophy. In
the form of Gnosticism it found entrance into the early Church. It assumes the existence of an
eternal principle of evil, and holds that in man the spirit represents the principle of good, and
the body, that of evil. It is objectionable for several reasons: (a) The position is philosophically
untenable, that there is something outside of God that is eternal and independent of His will.
(b) This theory robs sin of its ethical character by making it something purely physical and