Secondly4, the idea of sin implies that the sinner himself is the doer of the deed, or that there is to this extent freedom of the will. I do not say that he is the cause of which the deed is the effect. Causality appertains to sequent phenomena5. As regards freedom of the will, the distinction between the category of interdependence and that of causality is vital. A long series of causes, such as bad heredity, bad environment, etc., may have led A to determine to murder B.51
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The notion of the freedom of the will as here viewed signifies that no matter what the causal series may have been which leads up to the act, when the act itself is about to be performed, when B is about to experience the effect of A as cause, in that moment the relation of interdependence between A and B ought to arise before the mind of A and withhold6 him from completing his evil purpose.
Thirdly, it is characteristic of sin that the fuller knowledge that the harmful deed is sinful comes after the act,—that it is the Fruit of the Tree, the enlightenment of the eyes. As the serpent said: “If ye eat of the fruit ye shall be as gods.”
Many a man has done what is called evil, and done it most deliberately7, knowing evil as evil. Remember the career of a C?sar Borgia, the extermination8 of the Caribbean Indians by the Spaniards, the outrages9 on women perpetrated during the present war, the exploitation of human labor10 practiced on a large scale among the civilized11 nations. That the blackest crimes may be committed with a full knowledge of the horrible consequences to the victims seems hardly to admit of doubt. Evil is known as evil.
But evil in its character as sin cannot be fully12 recognized prior to the act. In this respect the Greeks had a certain prescience of the truth when they asserted that no one can knowingly commit evil; only they failed to distinguish between evil and sin. A man can knowingly commit evil, but cannot with full consciousness commit sin. The knowledge of the sin is the divine elixir13 which may be distilled14 from the evil deed 173(“Ye shall be as gods”), and the object of every kind of punishment should be to extract that pain-giving but ultimately peace-giving elixir.
Above I mentioned the criminal as the extreme type. But evils in less formidable guise15, though not on that account less evil, refined invasions of the personality of others, spiritual oppressions, sometimes deliberate, often unwitting, are included in everyone’s experience. And the process of expiation16, by which evil is transcended17 through the recognition of sin (with its prostrating18 effect at first, its strangely elevating effect later on) is alike applicable to all. The best of men have to go through this ordeal19 as well as the worst. Especially is unwitting transgression20 inevitable21. Sophocles makes it the text of his philosophy in the ?dipus, though the solution offered is that of Greek enlightenment and not that of the more profound ethical consciousness.
We have next, in close connection with sin, to consider the tremendous question of responsibility, interpreted from the point of view of our ethical principle. Responsible means answerable. Answerable to whom, and in what sense? As commonly understood, it means answerable to God the Law-giver, to God regarded as the Author of the moral law. God is likened to a sovereign. Any infraction22 of his law is an offense23 against the sovereign. Answerable means subject to the pains and penalties which it suits the sovereign to annex24 to moral offences. There is no intrinsic connection implied between pain and redemption. The pain is supposed to break the will of the offender25,174 or to mellow26 him, so that he will in future obey the mandates27 of the sovereign without a murmur28.
Again, responsibility may mean responsibility to society. Crime is infectious. A fissure29 opening at any one point in the dykes30 erected31 against crime may let in a flood. The social order as a whole is threatened in every single violation32 of law. The offender must answer for his defiance33 of the public will by being subjected to the pains or penalties which society annexes34 to his crime. The object is the same as before, to break him into submission35, to fit or force him into the social mould, to make him harmless, or if possible what is called a “useful citizen.” No internal redemptive change in the nature of the evildoer is contemplated36, except as it may be necessary to lead him to a useful or at least a harmless life. The antisocial attitude is to be replaced by the social attitude. Appeals to enlightened self-interest, and to the sympathies are commonly thought sufficient for this purpose.
Thirdly, responsibility means responsible to oneself. There is an inner forum37, a tribunal in which the spiritual self sits in judgment38 on the empirical self. Conscience, the voice of this spiritual self, pronounces the verdict. (Cf. the passages in Kant in which this figure of speech is used.) These are metaphorical39 expressions.
To grasp the meaning of responsibility from the ethical standpoint, we must lift into view the concept of the task of mankind as a whole, and of the individual as a factor in the fulfilment of that task. This intro175duces a momentous40 turn into the discussion of the subject.
The task of mankind is to arrive through its commerce with the finite world, through its unremitting efforts to incorporate the infinite plan within the sphere of human relations, at an increasingly explicit41 conception of the ideal of the infinite universe; and through partial success and frustration42 to seize the reality of that universe. Responsibility means participation43 in this task, sharing its doom44, and attaining45 in oneself, in part, its sublime46 compensation. The evildoer is to achieve the knowledge that his evil deed is sin, that is to say, that it not only carries with it harm to others and indirectly47 to himself, but that it is the defeat in him of the task which is set for the human race as a whole on earth. Instead of doing his share in fulfilling this task, in gaining a footing in the finite world for the spiritual relation of living so as to enhance the life of others and thereby48 his own, he has miserably49 sought to enhance his life at the expense of other life. The knowledge that he has so acted sears his awakened50 soul like fire, but it is also the beginning of healing. The transgressor51, now sees what he did not see before. He sees by way of contrast the holy pattern of relations which in his act he has travestied, the holy laws which he has infringed52, and in imputing53 sin to himself for transgressing54 them, he at the same time proclaims himself in his essential being holy, that is, capable of executing them, or at least of striving unceasingly to do so. It is thus that he opens within himself the sources of redemption, unseals the deeper fountains of spiritual energy.
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That man is responsible means that he is answerable to do his share in discharging the task of mankind. And when he is inwardly transformed by the consciousness of the holy laws, and of himself as intrinsically committed to holiness, he does thereby advance the business of his kind on earth. In him humanity does take a step forward on the spiritual road. In him one other member of our race has been lifted out of evil, becoming perhaps, from the spiritual point of view, a more advanced member of the forward-pressing host than those who have never passed through an experience like his, who have not been overtly55 tempted56, who have remained conventionally moral, who have not realized the evil that remains57 unexpurgated within them, and have not passed through the cleansing58 process of self-condemnation and rebirth.
The incongruity59 between the finite and the infinite order is the basis of this doctrine60 of responsibility. Mankind is responsible for seeking to embody61 the infinite in the finite. It fails to do so, but gains its compensation. The individual shares this responsibility, but both mankind and the individual jointly62 take a step forward whenever an evil deed is recognized, branded and expiated63 as sinful. The object of punishment, whether inflicted64 by society or self-inflicted, is to promote this regeneration which is the expiation.52
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NOTE
Evil in its ethical meaning presupposes worth as attaching to human beings. To do evil is to offend against worth. To assert the worth of man is to view him as one of an infinite number of beings, united in an infinite universe, each induplicable in its kind. Of this spiritual multitude ideally projected by us as enveloping65 human society only our fellow human beings are known to us. The moral law is the law which reigns66 throughout the infinite spiritual universe applied67 within, the narrow confines of human society. It is applied within those confines, it is spiritual, universal in its jurisdiction68.
The task of humanity as a whole is to embody more and more the universal spiritual law in human relationships, and thus to transform and transfigure human society. In the New Testament69 we read the expression: “the light of God reflected in the face of Christ.” The ideal here indicated may be expressed in the phrase, The spiritual universe with its endless lights reflected on the face of human society! The task of humanity is one which can never be completed, one from which mankind may never desist. To see evil as sin is to see it as contravening70 the collective task of mankind, the task of weaving the human groups more and more into the fabric71 of the spiritual relations.
To see evil as sin is to see any single act or series of acts ideally in their infinite connections. This is what I mean when I say that the knowledge of sin comes after the act. I do not mean that there may not be before the act a vague consciousness of the ramified consequences of evil, but that the fuller knowledge of it as sin is the fruit of the act. Nor do I mean that evil in its deeper significance is revealed to every guilty person. The opposite is obviously true. What I mean is that it is possible after having eaten of the Fruit of the Tree to gain the enlightenment, in other words, to become aware of the intrinsic holiness of our nature in consequence of our offense against178 the holy laws. If anyone should ask “Must I then do evil in order to gain the enlightenment?” the answer is that this question is an idle one. No one can escape doing evil. If not in its grosser forms, then in ways subtler and more complex, but not therefore less evil, every one is bound to make acquaintance with guilt72. He need not go out of his way to seek occasion, let him see to it that he improves the occasion when it comes, as inevitably73 it will, to his spiritual advantage.
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1
repercussion
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| n.[常pl.](不良的)影响，反响，后果 | |
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contravened
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| v.取消，违反( contravene的过去式 ) | |
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ethical
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| adj.伦理的，道德的，合乎道德的 | |
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secondly
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| adv.第二，其次 | |
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phenomena
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| n.现象 | |
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withhold
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| v.拒绝，不给；使停止，阻挡 | |
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deliberately
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| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
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extermination
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| n.消灭，根绝 | |
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outrages
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| 引起…的义愤，激怒( outrage的第三人称单数 ) | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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elixir
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| n.长生不老药，万能药 | |
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distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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guise
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| n.外表，伪装的姿态 | |
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expiation
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| n.赎罪，补偿 | |
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transcended
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| 超出或超越（经验、信念、描写能力等）的范围( transcend的过去式和过去分词 )； 优于或胜过… | |
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prostrating
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| v.使俯伏，使拜倒( prostrate的现在分词 )；（指疾病、天气等）使某人无能为力 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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transgression
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| n.违背；犯规；罪过 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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infraction
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| n.违反；违法 | |
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offense
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| n.犯规，违法行为；冒犯，得罪 | |
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annex
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| vt.兼并，吞并；n.附属建筑物 | |
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offender
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| n.冒犯者，违反者，犯罪者 | |
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mellow
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| adj.柔和的；熟透的；v.变柔和；(使)成熟 | |
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mandates
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| 托管（mandate的第三人称单数形式） | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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fissure
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| n.裂缝；裂伤 | |
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30
dykes
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| abbr.diagonal wire cutters 斜线切割机n.堤( dyke的名词复数 )；坝；堰；沟 | |
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ERECTED
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| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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32
violation
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| n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯 | |
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defiance
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| n.挑战，挑衅，蔑视，违抗 | |
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annexes
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| 并吞( annex的名词复数 )； 兼并； 强占； 并吞（国家、地区等）； 附加物，附属建筑( annexe的名词复数 ) | |
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submission
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| n.服从，投降；温顺，谦虚；提出 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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forum
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| n.论坛，讨论会 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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metaphorical
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| a.隐喻的，比喻的 | |
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momentous
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| adj.重要的，重大的 | |
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explicit
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| adj.详述的，明确的；坦率的；显然的 | |
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frustration
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| n.挫折，失败，失效，落空 | |
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43
participation
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| n.参与，参加，分享 | |
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doom
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| n.厄运，劫数；v.注定，命定 | |
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45
attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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46
sublime
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| adj.崇高的，伟大的；极度的，不顾后果的 | |
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47
indirectly
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| adv.间接地，不直接了当地 | |
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48
thereby
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| adv.因此，从而 | |
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49
miserably
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| adv.痛苦地；悲惨地；糟糕地；极度地 | |
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50
awakened
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| v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到 | |
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51
transgressor
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| n.违背者 | |
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52
infringed
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| v.违反（规章等）( infringe的过去式和过去分词 )；侵犯（某人的权利）；侵害（某人的自由、权益等） | |
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53
imputing
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| v.把（错误等）归咎于( impute的现在分词 ) | |
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54
transgressing
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| v.超越( transgress的现在分词 )；越过；违反；违背 | |
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55
overtly
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| ad.公开地 | |
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56
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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57
remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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58
cleansing
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| n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词 | |
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59
incongruity
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| n.不协调，不一致 | |
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60
doctrine
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| n.教义；主义；学说 | |
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61
embody
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| vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录 | |
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jointly
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| ad.联合地，共同地 | |
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expiated
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| v.为（所犯罪过）接受惩罚，赎（罪）( expiate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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64
inflicted
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| 把…强加给，使承受，遭受( inflict的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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65
enveloping
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| v.包围，笼罩，包住( envelop的现在分词 ) | |
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66
reigns
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| n.君主的统治( reign的名词复数 )；君主统治时期；任期；当政期 | |
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67
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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68
jurisdiction
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| n.司法权，审判权，管辖权，控制权 | |
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69
testament
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| n.遗嘱；证明 | |
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contravening
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| v.取消，违反( contravene的现在分词 ) | |
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71
fabric
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| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
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72
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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inevitably
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| adv.不可避免地；必然发生地 | |
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