The Human Person and a Theology of Sin

THE HUMAN PERSON AND A THEOLOGY OF SIN Timothy O’Connell Beginning of moral theology: the human act Human acts are passing things but human beings are not (they change, they grow, they deteriorate but continue nonetheless) THIRD DIMENSION -we experience actions that do not stand by themselves, but rather reveal and manifest and express a person that lies beneath -I am a person: First, I assert my own personhood because I experience myself as being more than my actions. I am never apart from my action. The “being” and “doing” of my life coexist. Second, it is personhood that gives actions their human importance. The action itself is not important, what’s important is that it’s mine. Third, moral theology means that human beings are responsible for their behavior, and this responsibility comes from personhood and the fact that the actions pass but the agent remains. Paradox: personhood is the one thing about human beings that we cannot actually see. As a person, I am a subject. I cannot become an object, even to myself. PERSON AND AGENT -We can be viewed as agents, as doers of human acts. But we can also be viewed as persons, as beings who precede, ground, and transcend those actions. HUMANS AS AGENTS (do-ers) -objects, able to be analyzed -changeable beings HUMANS AS PERSON (be-ers) -subject, simply there, self-aware and implied in activity -perdure beyond the lifespan of any individual action KNOWLEDGE -human acts = reflex knowledge, we know that we know -we discovered that our personhood cannot be reflected on and could not be the direct object of our attention = nonreflex knowledge = knowledge of our core human person FREEDOM -essential component of a human act (human as agent) = liberum arbitrium/freedom of choice = the freedom made possible by the presence of options and multiple possibilities. This is a Dividing freedom. It is a freedom that takes the experience of life and separates it, divides it into alternatives. This freedom is a limiting freedom, for it

takes one from the situation in which all options are open, to the situation in which all options but one are foreclosed. To be involved in a certain human act means that the agent is involved in no other act. CATEGORICAL FREEDOM -Only objects can be categorized and my personhood is not an object. It is a subject. Inasmuch as I am a “being”, the only free decision to be made is the decision “to be or not to be”. The central core of myself, the “I” that is my personhood, is confronted with a reality that transcends all categories. TRANSCENDENTAL FREEDOM. It is not a freedom that determines the limits of my life. Rather, it is a freedom that opens up life. If I say yes, I am bringing myself into being, thus I am de-limiting myself by not saying no. -To assert the existence of human as person in addition to human as agent is not to assert that personhood exists apart from action. Rather it is through my action that my personhood is expressed and realized. The cosmic exercise of transcendental freedom occurs only in and through the exercises of categorical freedom. HUMAN IDENTITY -“fundamental stance” = lack of this is the characteristic of childhood. This affirms and expresses and creates and effects the person (adults) have chosen to be. When we made this fundamental option, we were nonreflexly aware. -not all human acts are alike. Some are pure and simple, focusing on a particular categorical object. Others are actions that arise from the very core of ourselves as persons, we are choosing a transcendental subject for ourselves. -human acts are rich symbols of the person we are choosing to become, and like all sacraments they tend to effect that which they symbolize. In these human acts that carry and include a fundamental option, we as beings of depth, as persons, create ourselves. FOURTH DIMENSION -time. Including the reality of time makes us realize that to understand the actors more completely, we must also watch them move. Human life is temporal life, changing life. -growth. Change is cumulative. Life is not only a process, it is also a progress. We become progressively more free, but progressively more accountable at the same time. -It is not to say that we become better people as we grow older. But it is to say that the depth with which we choose increases with time and age. Paradoxically, we become increasingly capable of both good and evil as the years go by.

-At the transcendental level, this growth means that our fundamental stance is progressively deepened as we take hold of our lives and increasingly affirm them. -fundamental direction – the most significant factor is the direction that the life process is taking. -the process of life involves a reciprocal causality, where the agent shapes his or her acts and the acts shape the agent. Thus in the process of life we develop “habits”. We develop our character: “the qualification of man’s self agency through his beliefs, intentions, and actions by which a man acquires a moral history befitting his nature as a self-determining being. A THEOLOGY OF SIN -To be human is to be responsible for oneself. To be responsible is, in some sense, to be obligated. To talk about ourselves as obligated, whether to ourselves or to God, is to talk about morality. Morality = refer to the whole realm of obligation and human responsibility. I am a being responsible and accountable, and therefore obligated. But to discuss morality within a religious frame of reference is inevitably to introduce the notions of sin and sanctity. SCRIPTURAL SIN -Covenant is the context within which the biblical notion of sin makes itself evident. Sin is infidelity to that covenant, our failure to live up to our part of the bargain. Even unintentional mistakes could be considered sins, since they too, are not in accord with God’s will for the world. -Sin is our failure to accept the claims of the God of revelation on ourselves. -Sin is idolatry -Self sufficiency, or idolatry of the self, is the greatest sin. -In the biblical understanding, the reality of sin is not directly connected to any particular action in itself. Rather, the focus of attention with regard to sin is the meaning of the action, the significance of the action for God and persons, and the effect of that action on their relationship. Sin is the failure to love God and to serve God. -Sin can be viewed also as a state. Sin is the state of alleged independence, of imagined self sufficiency. Sin is the hardness of heart that lasts, the ears that will not hear and the eyes that will not see. TRADITIONAL VISION -A sin is an action by which I refuse to do what I believe God wants me to do, and thereby injure my neighbor.  sin as an event or an act rather than a reality  actual sin

-original sin  something we are subject to -mortal sin  a situation in which a person is abidingly cutoff from God, out of the state of grace, and liable to hell. Fact  act  state SIN TODAY: A FACT -we start with sin as a fact because our experience of sin starts with sin as a fact. -baby example: sin here is not something the baby does; it is something the baby discovers, experiences, encounters. But it is sin. Indeed, it is original, the original sin. -the point of the garden story: we do not really know why things are often so bad in our world. No item of history will explain our predicament. Still, we believe in God. And so we will not blame God. If blame must be placed somewhere, we will place it on ourselves. We will accept responsibility for the darkness that inhabits our world. We will accept the guilt. All of us- and not God – are responsible for the mess we are in. In yet another sense, this sin is original, for it comes from the very beginning. -Above and beyond sin as a fact, there also exists sin as an act. The deeds we have done, the acts we have perpetrated are usually not grand acts, they are often small and trivial. Still, we in our own unique ways have made things worse. If sin is a fact today, it is partly our fault too. No longer is it sufficient to say “It’s a shame and I need help.” Now it became necessary to say, “I was wrong and I need forgiveness.” A DIRECTION -For the first time I realized in a genuine and convincing way that I was free. I was not on a leash; no one controlled me. I had the power to say yes or not, to affirm or reject whatever was presented. That freedom was a frightening thing. I almost wished it didn’t exist. But it did, and that made all the difference. I had the power to make sin my very state of life. This is the reality and possibility of the state of sin. -better word is direction, sin could be or not be the direction of my life. I discovered that I could shape the direction of my life. That is a human insight. And I understood the alternative directions as sanctity and sin, union with God and isolation from God, fidelity and infidelity. That is the conviction of Christian faith. FACT  ACT  STATE