Joel Biermann
Admittedly, this is not one of the first questions people ask. Much more common is the question, Why do bad things happen to good people?
For Christians, though, an equally disturbing question is: Why do good people do bad things? It is a theological problem. Why do people made in the image of God defy God and choose what is wrong? Why do they sin?
The problem is entirely human. The solution is wholly divine.
The problem of (human) evil
Sometimes the offense is especially unimaginable and unnerving, but all too familiar. Some ordinary person, “a nice guy who kept to himself,” shocks the community when he inexplicably commits a heinous crime and irreparably shatters lives. An investigation ensues—not to discover what happened which is patently and painfully obvious, but to determine why it happened. Some motive must be found, some rationale provided, some explanation offered that can account for the evil that was done.
We follow the same procedure when someone we know well does something outrageously “out of character,” crashes into immorality, and crushes loved ones. We ponder the person and the situation and try to figure out why it happened. We desperately want an explanation. In all of these situations, we want an answer for the problem of sin.
People will readily admit their mistakes, but they reject the notion of personal sin.
Of course, people are not fond of the word sin. In fact, unless used to provoke laughter, it is a word rarely heard outside the church, and sometimes not even there. In popular usage, sins are limited to deliberate and serious moral failures that violate a divine command. Since the people in our world typically hold strong convictions about a nonjudgmental God and the innate goodness of every person, it is not often that any given action qualifies as sin—regardless of what God’s commandments actually declare. People will readily admit their mistakes, but they reject the notion of personal sin.
Yet sin is a reality. Supposedly good people routinely fall short, and it perplexes us.
The Christian explanation: sin
For Christians, the obvious answer is that human beings are fallen and so are corrupt. People are not good. This basic premise of orthodox Christian faith is declared succinctly in the second article of the Augsburg Confession:
Furthermore, it is taught among us that since the fall of Adam, all human beings who are born in the natural way are conceived and born in sin. This means that from birth they are full of evil lust and inclination and cannot by nature possess true fear of God and true faith in God. Moreover, this same innate disease and original sin is truly sin and condemns to God’s eternal wrath all who are not in turn born anew through baptism and the Holy Spirit.1
For Christians, humans acting in evil ways does not provoke perplexity. Believers who trust the authority of the Bible are never truly surprised by the intrusion of sin in the world. They certainly grieve the suffering it causes and lament the pain inflicted on other creatures, but they are not shocked by even the most egregious outburst of sin.
Operating with a biblical definition, Christians know that sin is any failure to fulfill the will of God in what is done, said, or even simply thought. As the apostles Paul and John put it:
Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God. For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. (Rom 3:19–23 ESV)
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness. (1 John 3:4 ESV)
In other words, God’s law, which is his will for the right conduct of life, condemns everyone who fails to keep that law. This is every human being.
Seen in this light, the prevalence and significance of sin grows exponentially. Every time we fall short of what God expects in thought, word, or deed, we sin and are condemned. Such failure includes not only sins of commission done with a “high hand” (Num 15:30–31), but even the neglectful sins of omission, things we simply and even ignorantly fail to do. Intention and deliberation are irrelevant. Anytime we do not live up to what God desires, we sin. Given this biblical understanding of sin, it is obvious that every human being is saturated with sin.
Sin’s severity: its deathly wage
The problem of sin is both universal and pressing.
The impact of sin is disastrous. Sin ruins our relationship with our Creator and with our fellow creatures. Sin isolates us, diminishes us, cripples us, kills us, and ultimately condemns us. That’s what Paul means when he declares, “For the wages of sin is death” (Rom 6:23 ESV).
Our deep familiarity with sin and its devastation sometimes blinds us to its horror. We are prone to forget that we live in a sin-soaked world that is not “normal” or operating according to God’s plan.
We need to remember that sin is the culprit of the brokenness and pain that define this world. Sin is the sole reason for the hard reality of death that finally severs every relationship and destroys every creature. Christians understand that death is not a natural part of life; it is the antithesis of life, the definitive final consequence of the ruin wrought by sin.
Sin is the culprit of the brokenness and pain that define this world.
When we become callous to the daily impact of sin and even learn to take death in stride, we are also likely to overlook or dismiss the eternal consequences of sin. But whether acknowledged or not, sin always results in spiritual, physical, and eternal death. It ends in hell.
The divine answer to sin
But God has an answer. Indeed the entire history of this world is the story of God at work restoring his creation according to his perfect plan.
That plan culminated in Jesus. As every Christian knows, the ultimate problem of sin has been fully and finally solved by Jesus. Jesus is God’s glorious and perfect answer to sin: “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Col 5:21 ESV).
That was the plan. Jesus, the eternal Son of God, became human to become the sin-bearer—indeed, to become sin—to rescue us from sin. Jesus endured the cross to cover the debt of sin, our sin. And Jesus was raised in victory over sin and death to deliver to us the victory over both death and sin—original sin, actual sin, and neglectful ignorant sin: all of it. Because of Jesus, our sin—all of it—is forgiven. Problem solved.
The persistence of sin
Well, one problem solved—and the one that finally matters most, of course. It is very good to know that for those in Christ, sin and death are not the last word. For those in Christ, God’s last word is grace, forgiveness, and life.
Yet, even for Christians, there remain at least two other nagging problems related to sin.
The first is one that Christians encounter every single day: How is it that Christians who through faith have been raised with Christ to live a new life (Rom 6:1–4) still manage with alarming regularity to fall prey to the stalking terror of sin? The fact that both Paul and John regarded such an idea as patently absurd puts an even finer point on the problem:
What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? (Rom 6:1–4 ESV)
No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. (1 John 3:6–9 ESV)
Their words seem rather clear-cut and final: Christians don’t sin. And yet, given the expansive and demanding definition of sin outlined above as any violation of God’s will, whether sins of omission or commission, the possibility of living entirely free of the stain and taint of sin will strike most Christians as an absurdity all its own.
But it is not just our daily experience that compels us to reconsider the possibility that sin might continue to assert itself even in Christian lives. The same apostles, who all but eliminated the possibility that Christians might still sin, seem to temper their own arguments.
In Romans 7, Paul offers his disarming and anguished description of the ongoing Christian struggle:
For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Rom 7:19–24 ESV)
And John also grants the possibility that even faithful children following Christ may nevertheless still have a need for forgiveness:
My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1–2 ESV)
Not only does John declare the universality of the atoning work of Christ, but he makes clear that this work is available for any who sin. This certainly includes believers who in spite of themselves sadly sometimes succumb to the bitter reality of sin.
Simultaneously saint and sinner
So, how do we unravel what seems to be a bald contradiction? Luther’s often maligned maxim, simul justus et peccator, “at once just and sinner,” is the key. Luther recognized the confounding reality that even the most sincere and devout Christian is simultaneously and for all of life at once a perfect and holy saint who does not sin anymore, and a colossal sinner who cannot escape the grasp of sin.
The most sincere and devout Christian is simultaneously and for all of life at once a perfect and holy saint who does not sin anymore, and a colossal sinner who cannot escape the grasp of sin.
This is not a contradiction, and it is not really even a paradox. It is an acknowledgment that on this side of Christ’s return, every Christian lives in the dynamic tension of standing before God as a forgiven child while struggling to live up to that status in the routine of ordinary life. There is a new spiritual man in Christ and a fleshly old man bent on sin, and yet the Christian is but one person keenly aware of the duality in which he lives. It is an ongoing, relentless battle that nevertheless already has been won. We struggle even while we are secure. We carry the burden even as we are comforted in God’s grace. Paul potently expressed the seeming incongruity of this twofold reality in his letter to the Philippians: “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil 2:12–13 ESV).
So it is that Christians do still sin, and yet remain firmly in God’s grace and forgiveness. To forsake the struggle is to forsake faith. But as long as the struggle against sin remains, so does faith which sustains the Christian.
Where did sin come from, anyway?
The second problem is an ancient question that traces back to the beginning of human history and yet echoes with significance for today. And it is one that is particularly vexing for believers who take Scripture and Christian confession seriously: How is it that we humans ended up in this sinful mess in the first place?
God created an extraordinary world filled with exquisite and delightful creatures, and all looked after by the crowning achievement of his creative work: man and woman. Adam and Eve had all that they needed to thrive with purpose and joy. The Creator had provided everything. They lacked nothing. And yet Adam and Eve chose sin.
It is often suggested that this was the tragic result of the risk God had to take in creating humans with free will in order that they be autonomous and free. But neither freedom nor autonomy, particularly when defined in the sense of “freedom/separation from God,” are prerequisites for the status of “human being.” Such ideas have roots in places other than Scripture. From the beginning, humans were—and still are—contingent creatures dependent on God and formed to do his will.
Adam and Eve were created to image God to the creation under their care, and given the necessary tools of mind and body to fulfill that work as God’s stewards. That they used their minds to entertain evil and their bodies to disobey God makes no sense in the context of the story. Yet, tragically and shockingly, it happened. And God called his absurdly disobedient creatures to account. Such is always the case.
In the Bible, the individual is simply held accountable for what he does, even as God’s supreme authority and directing plan for his creation is consistently affirmed. Again, this is not a tension that can be resolved with logic. It is simply part of Christian confession.
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Free will solves nothing
Regardless, asserting the idea of human free actually contributes nothing toward resolving the problem of Adam and Eve’s sin anyway. Appealing to human free will does not explain the origin of sin; it only changes the question: Why would God create creatures with the capacity to sin? In this way, the discussion comes no closer to a solution. We’ve simply exchanged one problem—the human choice to do evil—with another—the old problem of theodicy. All we have done is shift the blame from man to God—not unlike how the first couple shifted blame.
Whether or not Adam and Eve had free will is essentially irrelevant to the question of the origin of sin. What matters is that they ate from the tree God had forbidden. Searching out a reason for their disobedience is fruitless. No matter the degree of “autonomous free will” they did or did not possess, they did the unthinkable. In spite of all that God had established and provided, they made the irrational choice flagrantly to violate God’s will. They chose sin. Why? Only God knows.
Neither does pointing the finger at Satan help. Yes, the subtle serpent plays his part and receives his just curse, but this does nothing to temper the guilt, much less explain the monstrous choice of our first parents. Their sin makes no sense.
And yet we desperately want some way to account for the irrationality of sin because, lacking a reasonable explanation, we all become perilously vulnerable to the same disaster. This is precisely the same unsettling terror that drives us to ferret out some reasonable motive or explanation to account for the actions of mass murderers or moral failures: “There, but by the grace of God, go I.” Indeed. Barring a convincing rationale for the sin, we are faced with the alarming possibility that any human is capable of incalculable evil—a proposition confirmed with frightening consistency throughout human history.
The absurdity of sin
Actually, sin never does make any sense—not really. The illogical, inexplicable folly of our ancient parents is repeated with every absurdly inexplicable sin committed through all of time in every part of the world. Our common human lot is to choose the very thing that destroys us. Like the child inserting a key into a forbidden outlet, or reaching out to touch the prohibited skillet, we pull hell down on our own heads.
Our common human lot is to choose the very thing that destroys us. We pull hell down on our own heads.
Sin is patently absurd. It is inexplicable. Scripture and Christian confession offer no explanation; they simply assert the fact.
And in moments of honesty, we may even be willing to admit the reality of this truth in our own lives. Most of the sin that corrupts our lives is not calculated or reasonable. We do it because we choose it. There is no explanation or justification that can diminish, excuse, or even explain it. We can blame no one but ourselves—though that certainly does not prevent us from trying (once again, Adam and Eve set the example for us all).
There is, perhaps, no more incisive and provocative reflection on the terror of man’s unaccountable proclivity to choose sin than Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s remarkable little book, Creation and Fall. In two brief chapters, “The Religious Question” and “Sicut Deus,” Bonhoeffer succinctly and brilliantly explores the account of the fall in Genesis 3:
It is not the purpose of the Bible to give information about the origin of evil but to witness to its character as guilt and as the infinite burden of man. … The guilt rests upon me alone. I have committed evil in the midst of the primaeval state of creation.2
Bonhoeffer is right: there is no point in exploring the why of sin. God is certainly not to blame—a point made explicitly in article XIX of the Augsburg Confession:
Almighty God has created and preserves all of nature, nevertheless the perverted will causes sin in all those who are evil and despise God.”3
Yes, God created everything, even man, and yes, God is fully in control of everything in the universe. But man alone is solely accountable for his perverted willful refusal to do what God commands. How both truths hold together is not within the purview of a faithful confession of God’s reality.
God’s perfect answer
What is the source of sin? Man, period. He alone bears the guilt. We alone bear the guilt.
Scripture offers no explanation or resolution to the inevitable logical problems that ensue. It has no interest in explaining or making sense of sin. Instead it is fully focused on telling the story of the invested love of God that will do whatever it takes to reclaim and restore his rebellious and broken creation.
Which, of course, brings us back to Jesus, who is, we know, the one and only answer to any and every question related to the problem of sin. Wise creatures will welcome that answer with grateful joy, rejoicing that far better than the answers they may want, they have been given the answer they need.
Resources Joel Biermann recommends on the problem of human sin
Bound Choice, Election, and Wittenberg Theological Method: From Martin Luther to the Formula of Concord
Regular price: $27.99
Related articles
- Lost in Translation: How to Speak about Sin in a “Sinless” World
- What Is Evil—Biblically? What the Bible Says about Good & Evil
- No Longer Captives: Released from the Cage of Romans 7
- Finding (& Sharing) Jesus on the Romans Road to Salvation
- R. Kolb, T. J. Wengert, and C. P. Arand, eds., The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 36–38.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall (New York: Touchstone, 1997), 71.
- Kolb et al., Book of Concord, 52.
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