Nelson - Sin: A Guide for the Perplexed

SIN: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

T&T ClarkGuides for the Perplexed

T&T Clarks Guides for the Perplexed are clear, concise, and accessible introductions to thinkers, writers, and subjects that students and readers can find especially challenging. Concentrating specifically on what it is that makes the subject difficult to grasp, these books explain and explore key themes and ideas, guiding the reader toward a thorough understanding of demanding material.

Guides for the Perplexedavailable from T&T Clark:

De Lubac: A Guide for the Perplexed, David Grumett

Christian Bioethics: A Guide for the Perplexed, Agneta Sutton

Calvin: A Guide for the Perplexed, Paul Helm

Tillich: A Guide for the Perplexed, Andrew ONeill

The Trinity: A Guide for the Perplexed, Paul M. Collins

Christology: A Guide for the Perplexed, Alan Spence

Wesley: A Guide for the Perplexed, Jason E. Vickers

Pannenberg: A Guide for the Perplexed, Timothy Bradshaw

Balthasar: A Guide for the Perplexed, Rodney Howsare

Theological Anthropology: A Guide for the Perplexed, Marc Cortez

Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed, Tracey Rowland

Eucharist: A Guide for the Perplexed, Ralph N. McMichael

Process Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed, Bruce Epperly

Forthcoming Titles:

Political Theology: A Guide for the Perplexed, Elizabeth Philips

Martyrdom: A Guide for the Perplexed, Paul Middleton

SIN: A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

DEREK R. NELSON

Published by T&T Clark International

A Continuum Imprint

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Copyright Derek R. Nelson, 2011

Derek R. Nelson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the Author of this work.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN13 : 978-0-567-32551-8

For Kelly

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Writing on sin as I have for several years now, I have incurred several debts that I cannot hope to repay. The first debts are to many teachers from whose guidance I have benefitted in thinking through problems in theological understandings of creation and human nature. Here I must mention at least the names of David Kelsey, Miroslav Volf, the late William Placher, Stephen Webb, Ted Peters, and the late Timothy Lull. Richard Schenk, OP, encouraged me to press the gnesio-Lutheran seriousness of sin into the contemporary theological agenda. Though he did not make a Flacian of me, he did come close, and I am very grateful for his support. Most people would count themselves lucky to have studied with just a couple from the above group. That I can count them all teachers and friends is a great gift.

For the last 4 years I have called Thiel College home, and many colleagues here have richly contributed to my thinking on these matters. I am especially grateful for the commitment to interdisciplinarity that infuses scholarship and teaching at Thiel. Such a widening of perspectives has made me into a theologian who does not shrink from natural or social scientific approaches to theological questions, and who sees as one of his publics the wider academic community for whom particular theological commitments have neither intellectual weight nor existential import. Curtis L. Thompson read an entire draft of this text, and I have greatly benefitted from his insights. Bryan Wagoner has been an important theological conversation partner for many years now. The New Testament scholar George Branch-Trevathan helped enormously in thinking through issues as broad as Paul on sin and as narrow as the proper pointing of Hebrew verbs. Others in Greenville, such as Martin Roth (from whose gift of portions of his personal library much of my reading has come), Sean McConnor, and the sagacious Seth Myers are also to be thanked as is Larry Lyke.

Portions of this text were written with the support of the Northwestern Pennsylvania Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and I am glad to thank them, and Bishop Ralph Jones, for their support. During the writing of this book I also worked closely in pastoral ministry with the Rev. Albert Gesler, Jr., Tammy Williams, and Heather Wilt, and I appreciate their cooperation and good humor more than I can say. I would also like to thank Thomas Kraft and his many gifted colleagues at T&T Clark/Continuum. To work with them really has been a pleasure.

Last, the personal debts are always among the most difficult to properly name, though I feel them most keenly. I apologize here in print to the students at Thiel and elsewhere whose wait-time for returned tests and papers increased significantly during the writing of this text. For the parishioners at Twelve Apostles Lutheran Church in Saegertown, PA, and at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, Greenville, PA, I am grateful, especially as they listened to more sermons about sin than most folks have since Edwards was preaching.

Finally, I owe so very much to my wife Kelly, in large part due to the fact that she would say I dont owe her anything at all. Though Im certain this is one of the odder things a man has given his wife, and that she cant possibly want it, this book is nonetheless for her.

ABBREVIATIONS

CHAPTER 1

THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT SIN

Whenever I have to choose between two evils, I always like to try the one I havent tried before.

Mae West

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; thats the essence of inhumanity.

George Bernard Shaw

Tout comprendre, cest tout pardonner. (To understand everything is to forgive everything.)

French Proverb

This book is entitled Sin: A Guide for the Perplexed. I therefore need to establish at the outset that I am firmly in favor of both sin and perplexity. How can I mean this? As will become clear throughout the book, I am of the opinion that invoking the language of sin to account for the misery and evil experienced in the world bears in its wake both explanatory force and reason for hope that other alternative vocabularies do not and cannot offer.

Those, like the great philosopher Gottfried Leibniz (16461716), who intend to assuage the pain of suffering by pointing out the final powerlessness of evil, do just the opposite. One theologian who cannot be accused of not taking sin seriously enough, Karl Barth (18861968), writes of such an approach, But how faint and easily misheard is this echo when the reference is to a powerless nothing which God cannot fight and overcome as a real enemy! How trite and trivial is that which in the New Testament is not at all self-evident but a costly reality and truth. Better to insist that sin and evil stand directly against Gods intentions, contrary to Gods will, rather than to try to explain how evil fits into the grand scheme of redemption and creation. The edges of what we experience as sin and evil ought to be honed, not dulled.