“Sin is spiritual”. This is Martin Luther’s teaching asserts Gerhard Ebeling.

Reading these words I immediately responded in the affirmative. Luther, Ebeling argues, recognized that what made sin sin is the spiritual element that humans infuse into situations and mix into thoughts and actions. No question there are causal historical reasons propelling evil human actions and attitudes, there are genetic predispositions and predictable psychological patterns that track all human responses but these propensities do not comprehend the definitive center of humanness as a self-conscious body spirit unity. Sin arises from the I and its movements. ‘Spirituality’ used within this historic Judeo Christian view of reality, refers one back to this unified center where the mystery of the self-conscious I emerges and shapes itself in the battle of existence.

The ancient Eastern view of reality is different. It was shaped inside a form – spirit dualism [separation]. In this mindset the answer to human ills had to do with over coming formalism – the base externalism and materialism of existence by awakening inwardness -the native spiritual capacity and resonance that is lodged deep within human nature. In this model form, the corporeal or material, is at least lesser than another realm – the ‘spiritual’ . In its more radical conceptions, form is a mere façade, a veneer obscuring the universal spiritual essence, even trapping it. Here ‘spiritual’ connects to the dimenision within the universe and human nature that is eternally good, righteous and full of light over against that which is evil, dark, corruptible and perishing. The claim that sin is spiritual is a contradiction of this view of reality. Leaving these conceptual polemics aside I make my case for the spirituality of sin by thinking about familiar life struggles.

Consider what could happen and often does happen when we lose something or someone precious near and dear to us. Then and there a spiritual struggle transpires. We are tempted to go beyond basic grief for loss and turn on life, God and others with anger, and hardness of heart and bitterness. As an example these three descriptions represent the realm of the spiritual. Here the magnitude of human being as a self-conscious body – spirit heats up and swells and the soul becomes filled with toxic evil sentiments and feelings out of which flow words, actions and attitudes. And these attitudes often become shaped and formed – constitutional both in individuals and groups. Here the ‘sin’ of hardness of heart, bitterness, anger at God and life is spiritual and involves a spiritual struggle. The I, the self is in tumult and moving back against life with attitude. ‘Spiritual’ in this meaning refers to the great struggle of the I especially at particular junctures.

Consider what could happen and often does happen within human nature when wrong is done to us, perhaps grievous wrong. We are tempted to mix the offense with hatred, thoughts and plots of revenge often far in excess of the injury suffered, enmity, faction [separatism] as well as self-pity. These things are spiritual – that is to say they arise out of the spiritual churning of our being so that the self, that is to say the I, wounded and offended, emerges from the junctures and intersections of harm swollen and filled with toxic elements. From this genesis the self bears itself forward in a new ‘spirited’ way, a new form of being subtly or explicitly toxic. Sin is spiritual!

The ‘spiritual’ reference here indicates the potential spiritual magnitude of humanness as a self-conscious body – spirit unity – the mysterious I. The potential ‘spiritual magnitude’ endemic to the I can either become toxic – life stealing or healthy – life dealing. This view means human responses cannot be simply reduced to logical physical, social and psychological explanations of human nature as useful as these may be – the modern tendency. To do so requires a banal materialistic view of human nature. But neither does spiritual, used within the Judeo – Christian view of reality, refer to the ancient teaching originating in the East about the inner versus the outer dimension of human nature where our better angels are said to dwell, if only they can be unlocked by some spiritual healer, person or modality.*

I urge one more example that I believe exhibits the spirituality of sin before I point to what I believe is the spiritual antidote. That sin is spiritual can also be seen from the repeated predisposition of humans to take those  common things which distinguish them from others and give them undo significance so that they underwrite division from and sometimes destruction of others. Nothing dictates that particular human differences should by any provable standard rupture human community – [love your neighbor as yourself]. Distinctions (differences) prevail in the human family but what dictates that these differences should heat up and be infused with an importance and significance so as to set one group over or apart from another group? The I, or the ‘collective I’, formed in groups, ethnic groups or religious or national groups often mix these differences with pride, malice, hatred and egoism. Yes there maybe and almost always are historical provocations, wounds, and rivalries but the ‘I’, the movement of the I, transforms the experience and the situation  so that it empowers and underwrites evil separations, subjugation and dominance. Sin is spiritual! In the rise of Nazism nothing dictated that the humiliation brought on by the Treaty of Versai, or the collapse of the German Republic which weakened Germany’s historic sense national greatness, or the social ghettoism and usury of the Jews, concluded the birth of toxic Nordic Arian elitism and the correspondent systematic animism and destruction of groups and individuals who did not fit the new fiction of  ethnic  superiority and greatness. These groups included not only Jews but Gypsies, homosexuals, sickly aged people and other unwelcome minorities so called that were judged as weakening or compromising the fiction of the Germans nordic, aryan innate superiority. Sin at the end of the day is spiritual!

In an upcoming addition to this reflection I will take these thoughts one step further urging that this view of spirituality connects with a spiritual antidote in kind. By this I mean to state that just as the ancient eastern view and meaning of ‘spirituality’ connects with the idea of meditation and asceticism calculated to awaken an innate spiritual essence lodged within. These practices along with corollary teaching dis cover it, and activate it from its dormancy, thereby liberating and saving man/woman. On the other hand the historic Judeo Christian idea and meaning of spirituality connects with and to the struggle of the I. Through the Apostolic and Prophetic witness a Being greater than the self emerges from the shadows into view and makes a gracious claim  on the I . This God requires the self to rest on  his/her love, forgiveness and gracious acceptance and ultimate lordship over life, fate, death, evil and good. The struggle to downsize the self, and all the wounds and victories that the self has sustained and claimed, and requite itself in and with the magnitude of the being of  God in his goodness and grace and also in the sure hope of his triumph over all human foes and ills is a spiritual struggle. In this struggle the self, the I, is both weakened, even broken, but also strengthened. Faced with the wrath of Esau Jacob wrestled all night  with the angel and  emerged both stronger and weaker .The self’s encounter with God is similar. In his encounter with God the ‘I’ that has become  heated up and swollen with toxic attitudes in the face of trriumph and tradgey is downsized, weakened if not ‘broken’. When God who makes his debut in the word of the Gospel and Spirit shows himself to a person there a struggle at the center of one’s existence and a regrounding of the I in invisible grace . This movement ocurring time and again is  a spiritual struggle. “He who falls on the rock will be broken but he who the rock falls on will be ground to dust” Gospel of Luke chapter 21.[ “Lead me to the Rock that is higher than I” [Prayer in the Psalms of David]

*Note connecting ‘spiritual’ to the self conscious I does not mean there is no distinction between external and internal, body and spirit, it merely argues that these distinctions rest on an underlying unity and that ultimately the spiritual realm can not be released from the struggle of this self conscious I as it shapes itself in the agony and ecstasy of life. There mysterious depth to nature and human nature. To uncover a measure of this depth and integrate into it is neither a simple good or evil. In freedom everything must be digested or expelled by the self conscious I who lives by faith before God.