Introduction
A young pastor walks up to the pulpit to deliver a sermon on sin and redemption to a congregation. After days of poring over familiar verses and running through the three points he will deliver, he eloquently presents the core message of the gospel, that sin separates humanity from God, but that sin has been defeated through the sacrifice of the son of God, Jesus, and that through Jesus, humans can be freed from sin and death.[1] As a family of new Christians drives home that morning, they discuss the sermon and the mother attempts to explain it to the daughter who was in Sunday school: “Since everyone sins, and sin separates from God, it doesn’t matter what type of sin you do—God forgives it all!”
Meanwhile, a travel-worn poet works his way through a layered hellscape of boiling blood, scorching sand, and bodies frozen in fields of ice. Each step amplifies the feeling of dread, and each person he comes across conveys a greater sense of agony than the previous.
One scene seems much more severe than the other, and for a purpose. The first is a genuine approach to understanding the gospel. The sermon was accurate, and the only potentially dangerous statement on the ride home was: “it doesn’t matter what type of sin you do.” This perspective, extrapolated from well-meaning and theologically accurate teachings, misinterprets the Christian tenet that all sin separates us from God to mean that all sin is equal in the eyes of God.
The second scene depicts Dante Alighieri, the 13th and 14th century Italian poet and author of The Divine Comedy, voyaging through his version of Hell, seeing certain sins met with more severe punishments than others in the afterlife. Dante represents the other extreme—the medieval belief that sin can be understood as a rigid moral hierarchy met with an equivalent punishment hierarchy.
The problem is that today many have an unclear picture of what sin is and how to address it. Many people are misled to believe that sins are equal in severity, while many others believe that different sins have different salvation ramifications. This article treats the first misunderstanding, exploring three questions about sin. First, how has modern Christianity fallen short of an orthodox Christian perspective on sin? Second, how has sin been judged in the Christian tradition regarding its effect on salvation? Third, how has the Christian tradition used sin as a moral frame of reference? The paper argues that orthodox Christian conceptions of sin have been watered down over the years to the popular modern belief in a weaker sin where all sins are equal in severity. This watering down, emphasized in juxtaposition with Dante’s medieval, narrative take on sin, detracts from the impact of the gospel on the spiritual lives and moral outlooks of Christians.
First, it is crucial to define what is meant by sin. The foundational theologian and Catholic Church Father, St. Augustine, defines it as “an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.”[2] Now, Augustine in this instance describes sin as a finite action of rebellion against God, but it can be well proven both scripturally (through the Bible) and behaviorally that sin is also something like a condition or disease that brings about these utterances, deeds, and desires contrary to God’s law. Thus, sin itself is the chasm any human will find between himself and God, while Jesus Christ is the bridge. Theological literature penned by key theologians in Christian thought from St. Thomas Aquinas to the Reformed (post-reformation Christian theological school of thought) theologian Petrus van Mastricht have largely agreed on the central aspects and effects of sin beyond some minor differences which will become evident.
The Modern Picture of Sin
Christians today have been heavily influenced by piecemeal salvation messages made up of theologically accurate statements that convey an inaccurate picture of sin. To attain a fair picture of how far conceptions of sin have fallen from their theological orthodoxy, we look first to where they are now in the context of modern evangelicalism.
Modern perspectives on sin can be found through analysis of adjacent concepts such as salvation and atonement. In the words of the renowned theologian, J.I. Packer, “As sinners justified by faith and heirs of promised glory, we rejoice in salvation and think no more about our continued shortcomings and how God might ‘weigh’ them.”[3] Packer refers to the Christian who routinely hears Bible verses such as: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death,” and forgets Paul’s lament just a chapter earlier: “For I do not do the good I want to do. But the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is the sin living in me that does it.”[4] In both passages, Paul is speaking from the perspective of a Christian, so that even though he is set free from the law of sin and death, he is still limited by the sin condition. Churches tend to emphasize the first point to the detriment of the second point, thus weakening the call for Christians to grapple with their own sins and to turn to the Lord to help them in their day-to-day sin struggle. Associated with this phenomenon is a loss of the reality that certain sins are certainly worse than others—we do not “weigh” them.
The Puritans, a protestant Christian sect from the 16th and 17th centuries, set the example for deep meditation on sin, which modern Christians have begun to lose, in favor of a more forward-facing attitude towards sin. According to Packer, “One of their spiritual disciplines (not yet one of ours, generally) was self-examination each evening to discern what actions in particular, done or left undone, they needed to ask pardon for.”[5] The process described here is the Christian practice of repentance and confession, critical for engaging daily with God’s forgiveness and judging one’s own sins to ask for his help in overcoming them in the future. The practice of confession has lost the prevalence and importance in modern times because, according to another Christian scholar, “we look towards the methods of the doctor rather than of the spiritual guide; we ask how we can shape the future rather than how we can annul the past.”[6] In other words, an ambitious pursuit of progress has come at the expense of reflection; we cease to examine our own individual and societal sins and look for solutions within our own realm of feasibility rather than God’s. Self-sufficiency replaces reliance on God. Meanwhile, reliance on God is the principal way humans get closer to him.[7] To lose the need to be concerned with the act of sinning is to refuse reliance on God for personal betterment, which Christians call sanctification, and to forget the need for Jesus.
Christian Tradition on the Effect of Sin on Salvation
The most surefire way to obtain a more orthodox account of the weight of sins is to look to both the Bible and the centuries of tradition concerning sin. The traditional view fundamentally agrees with the modern perspective but takes much more seriously the threat sin poses to salvation.
The core relationship between sin and salvation is outlined in the Bible. Paul writes, “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”[8] It follows that “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”[9] This is the rationale behind the idea that sin is a condition present in all humans, condemning us all to a spiritual death. The tragedy is that many Christians forget the wages that they do not have to collect and become deceived in their own state of sin.
That sin is a universal condition only to be overcome by the grace of God is a premise agreed upon by all denominations of Christianity. From there, however, Catholics divide individual sins into two categories regarding salvation: venial sins, which do not directly merit loss of salvation, and mortal sins, which directly merit loss of salvation.[10] For the Reformed, on the other hand, according to Stephen Hampton, a theology professor at Cambridge, “all sin is mortal in nature, and all sinners would be destined to condemnation, were it not for the death of Christ.”[11] Both agree on the foundation that the condition of sin merits damnation, but Catholics choose to differentiate individual sins based on salvation while the Reformed do not. It will be made clear that this does not change the practical orthodox approach to sin, but the Catholic use of venial sins in particular sheds some light on the modern sin mindset.
Dante’s Limbo provides an acute understanding of the relation between venial sins and the mindset of the modern Christian. Limbo is the highest (least severe) circle of Hell, reserved for what Dante calls the “virtuous pagans,” including his guide, the Roman poet, Virgil. Virgil prefaces Limbo by telling Dante, “Now I wish you to know, before you walk further, that they did not sin.”[12] In an analysis of Virgil and Limbo, an English professor at the University of New Jersey writes that this claim “is without foundation and without merit from the perspective of someone who accepts the reasoning and presuppositions of Augustine and 1 John. It is a prideful denial of the very foundation of Christian belief.”[13] But perhaps Virgil was referring to only mortal sins, conveying that the virtuous pagans had not committed anything graver than venial sins. After all, “Venial sin allows charity to subsist, even though it offends and wounds it.”[14] Even if it were true that the only sins the virtuous pagans committed were solely venial, they still ended up in Hell. This is because, in the words of Augustine, “do not despise these sins which we call ‘light’: if you take them for light when you weigh them, tremble when you count them. A number of light objects makes a great mass.”[15] Steinberg’s point is made. Catholics and Reformed Christians agree that even if there are “light” sins, they are part of a broader, damning condition in all humans. This number of “light” sins for Virgil culminated in a crippling pride, which prevented him from admitting his wrongs, even after death. Modern Christians influenced by the modern message of being saved once so that they never need to worry about sin, risk becoming Virgil, writing off sins as something near venial, without considering their salvation implication. This isn’t to say that a Christian who does not take his sins seriously is necessarily condemned to Hell, but rather that his spiritual life is damaged in the lack of the whole picture of redemption.
Virgil and his Purgatory counterpart, Statius, demonstrate the difference between confession and denial in the spiritual life of a Christian. It has been seen that Virgil refuses to confess his sins even after death, but Dante’s depiction of the poet Statius, “is willing to acknowledge his sinfulness, even though that sinfulness is relatively trivial and ordinary.”[16] This fictitious decision by the canonically pagan Statius placed him in Purgatory rather than Hell, representing how humility before God triumphs over the weight of salvation-threatening sin. As Purgatory in Dante’s text represents the journey closer to God, Dante’s juxtaposition here demonstrates the loss of closeness a Christian will have with God without confession and repentance from sin. In other words, an integral part of sanctification is confronting sin for what it is: a threat to salvation—but one that has been overcome.
Christian Tradition on the Ranging Severity of Mortal Sins
One of the most respected attributes of the Christian faith from the outside is its morality. Even those who do not accept the doctrine generally understand that Christians are trying to be good and want to see good in the world. But a Christianity with all sins being equal lacks a concrete moral frame of reference. Without this frame of reference, how is the Christian to morally evaluate right living here on Earth?
Here, Dante’s construction of Hell paints a vivid picture of the differences in severity of mortal sins, meaning sins that are considered directly salvation-threatening from the traditional Catholic perspective. As a preface to Dante’s ranking, it is important to note that in medieval Catholic thought, “sin is the evil of the action that is committed, whereas punishment represents an evil for the one committing it,” as articulated by the Medieval studies researcher, Florina Rodica Hariga in her study of the 14th-century French scholar Étienne Gaudet’s work on sin.[17] It was common understanding that a sin’s punishment is proportional to its degree of evil. Under this conception, Dante uses his system of contrapasso to link punishment to earthly sin, thus providing a hierarchy of sins committed on earth.
The Catholic Church believes that mortal sins should be judged by the degree of “grave matter” present, meaning sin is judged by the standards of the Ten Commandments. For example, “The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.”[18] The second to last human soul Dante meets in Inferno, Count Ugolino, betrays both his country and family by committing treason, condemning his sons to starvation, and then eating them.[19] Ugolino commits one of the gravest sins by this metric. Not only does he kill and betray, but he kills those closest to him, and those who are most innocent. Dante conveys how some sins are more damaging in terms of their effect on others, and on the soul.
Reformed teaching aligns with this framework, going further by explaining the rationale behind this “grave matter.” J.I. Packer recounts the main elements of the Puritan Westminster Larger Catechism concerning sin. The first metric for sin “is the extent to which the transgressors know better, are in the public eye, and are objects of public trust, ‘guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others.’”[20] This is a direct consequence of Jesus’s words: “whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.”[21]
Dante’s best representation for a guide to others, who abuses his duty, is his old mentor, Brunetto Latini. Dante places Brunetto lower than the heretics, who outrightly denied God.[22] Though Latini didn’t outrightly deny God, his damage went deeper, through the improper guidance of his trusting students. Towards the end of Latini’s interaction with Dante, Latini urges Dante, “Let my Treasure be commended to you, in which I live still, and ask no more.”[23] In his Treasure, however, Latini commits a sin of “theological imprecision” by altering the words of Augustine.[24] Even after death, Latini is leading his sheep astray. Latini is found in Dante’s seventh circle of Hell, rather than in the sixth with the heretics, because Dante realizes the spiritual implications of dragging other innocent learners off the path of righteousness towards death.
Packer notes that another sin metric is “the extent to which, defying conscience and censures from others, the transgressors act ‘deliberately, willfully, presumptuously, impudently, boastfully, maliciously, frequently, obstinately, with delight, continuance, or relapsing after repentance.’”[25] Sins are worse when they are in continual, active defiance against God. For this metric, we turn to the Simonist Popes, who used their church power for financial gain, condemned by Dante to the eighth circle of Hell. Dante reserves some of his harshest words for these popes, exclaiming, “I would use heavier words; for your avarice afflicts the world, trampling the good and raising up the wicked,” and “You have made gold and silver your god.”[26] The Simonist Popes committed some of the gravest sins by idolizing material wealth and prioritizing it before God. Further, they were guides to others and example setters in the Christian faith. The gravity was only amplified by the fact that they were in constant and continual defiance to the direct work of God, delighting in their sin.
This framework presented in the Bible and Christian tradition and extrapolated on by Dante isn’t meant to be an exact guide to which sins to punish or resist more than others. Rather, looking back at how certain sins were weighed reminds us of the ranging severity of current sins. From the Catholic tradition, we were given the metric of “grave matter,” and from the Reformation, this system was refined to explain sins by who is affected by them and how they are affected. For example, is the victim of the sin an innocent learner or a family member, and is their salvation, life, or livelihood affected? From these distinctions, it is much easier to construct a moral framework with which to approach problems in the world.
Conclusion
Sin is separation from God, but its nature remains cloudy to Christians and non-Christians alike. As we have seen, there has been a movement in modern Christianity away from knowledge and repentance of sin in favor of the knowledge that we are free from it. This has led to a decrease in confession and repentance, which have been replaced by an attitude directed towards fixing the future. Sins committed each day on this path to a better future, then, seem as if they hold less weight. But disregard for sin is disregard for the enormous sacrifice made for humans by a loving God. Without daily introspection and confession, the sins start to lose focus, and the gravity of each one of them slips by without notice.
Though the most important part of sin is that humanity is freed from its punishment through Christ, to live as Christians requires understanding sin as a hindrance to personal growth and a necessary contributor to a moral outlook. Modern Christian denominations who have embraced a more progress-oriented approach to sin should look to the personal reflection of the Puritans and the disciplined confession of traditional Catholicism and encourage repentance from the pulpit to a greater degree than it is today. Sin is crucial to Christianity, since it is the very barrier between God and man that Jesus Christ came to destroy. Understanding sin in the context of its full moral weight deepens understanding of the gospel—the central message of Christianity—and better equips us to pursue God and understand the moral life he desires for us.
[1] Romans 3:23; Romans 6:23, John 3:16; John 11:23
[2] Catechism of the Catholic Church, Ascension Edition (Ascension, 2022)
[3] J. I. Packer, “All Sins Are Not Equal,” Christianity Today 49, no. 1 (January 2005): 65
[4] Romans 8:1–2 (NIV); Romans 7:19–20 (NIV)
[5] Packer, 65
[6] William F. Lofthouse, “The Atonement and the Modern Pulpit,” The Harvard Theological Review 8, no. 2 (1915): 182–204, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816000008592
[7] Jeremiah 17:7-8
[8] Romans 6:23 (NIV)
[9] 1 John 1:8 (NIV)
[10] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 454
[11] Stephen Hampton et al., Sin, Grace, and Free Choice in Post-Reformation Reformed Theology, Oxford Handbooks (Oxford University Press, 2016), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199937943.013.5
[12] Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri. Volume 1, Inferno, trans. Robert M Durling, Ronald L Martinez, and Robert Turner (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 73
[13] Glenn A Steinberg, “Dante, Virgil, and Christianity: Or Statius, Sin, and Clueless Pagans in Inferno IV,” Forum Italicum (London, England) 47, no. 3 (2013): 475–96, https://doi.org/10.1177/0014585813497332
[14] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 454
[15] Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis, In Epistolam Ad Tractatus Cecem (n.d.)
[16] Steinberg, 488
[17] Florina Rodica Hariga, “The Boundary between Venial and Mortal Sin in Medieval Philosophy Transposed in the Manuscript Paris, BnF, Lat. 16408,” Hermeneia, 27 (2021): 168–78
[18] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 455
[19] Alighieri, 515–519
[20] Packer, 65
[21] Matthew 18:6 (ESV)
[22] Alighieri, 155–161
[23] Alighieri, 237
[24] Jeffrey Turco, “Restaging Sin in Medieval Florence: Augustine, Brunetto Latini, and the Streetscape of Dante’s Vita Nuova,” Italian Studies (ABINGDON) 73, no. 1 (2018): 15–21, https://doi.org/10.1080/00751634.2018.1409933
[25] Packer, 65
[26] Alighieri, 293; Alighieri, 295