Clergy and Educators

ICJS Scripture Forum, 2001
Session #6

Scripture Forum
Session #6
Chizuk Amuno Congregation
March 15, 2002

This session was devoted to an examination of sin and repentance in the Roman Catholic tradition. The presentation began with "Some Questions About Sin":

Question 1:

Is sin (exclusively? basically? primarily?) a verb or a noun?

Is sin a moral (halakic) category
or an ontological (dogmatic) category?

Is this a variation on the orthodox v. orthoprax question?

Discussion:

• From a Jewish point of view the objective standard of judgment is behavior: Behaviors are required, permitted, or forbidden. This would make sin both a verb and a moral category (emphasizing ortho-praxy and human agency). It is possible, however, that doing a certain thing more and more could cause certain behaviors to become habit, i.e., something one is -- an ontological category.
• Question: In asking if sin is an "ontological" category, are we asking if sin is constitutive of being human, or is it a reality present in the world into which we are born? This is an important distinction.
• Presbyterian viewpoint: What is wrong is inherent: The cosmos is stained with human sinfulness. Human beings cannot will or act their way back into a condition of righteousness, and it is not possible to remake the human condition without God's help. This would make sin more a noun than a verb.
• A mild Jewish objection: This condition is some-thing that we cannot fix alone, but we can fix things together with God. Taking the attitude
  that there is nothing human beings can do leads
  to quietism.



• At this point the notion of "holiness" was brought into the discussion. It was stated that in Judaism "sin" is a verb; in Christianity it's more of a noun. In Judaism the verb-noun conundrum revolves around the concept of "holiness." Viewed from the verbal standpoint, holiness is acquired through performance of mitzvot.
• A Roman Catholic response: There is a potential to be holy, but there is no necessity in its becoming ("holiness" as a noun). Human beings are created with an openness to be mirrors of the divine, and this allows us to "do holy" ("holiness" as a verb).
• A minor debate then broke out:
  The way "holiness" is being described makes it sound like an achievement. Israel wasn't rewarded with covenantal status.
  Response: There are midrashim that support both sides of this issue.
• To believe that Israel was rewarded with cove-nantal status raises the danger of believing that the covenant has been superseded because of Israel's sinfulness and that Israel has slid into a condition from which it cannot recover.
• Doing teshuvah overcomes the notion of supersessionism.
• Christian anthropology: I am both redeemed and a sinner at the same time.
  Jewish anthropology: Yetser tov and yetser ha-ra exist together in each person.
• Sin as noun-or-verb, moral-or-ontological: I cannot separate what I do from who I am. It is hard to think of sin as not being part of me; you sin because you are.
• Another Jewish viewpoint: Sin is something that I do but not something that I am (that is, I am not a sinful person): I miss the mark, but inherently I know what is good. Sinning causes another sin and leads to sin.
• Christian response: Sin is not a matter of accumulation. How many sins make a sinner?



• Returning specifically to the issue of "holiness" from a Jewish point of view: The essence of God is holiness. Our manifestation of God's holiness is "the glory of God." We don't understand God's essence in the sense of the numinous. What we do understand is God's demonstration to us of what holiness can be. Israel has the potential through the covenant to share in God's holiness and to add holiness to the world.
• Christian response: Christians, of course, have a sense of the mystery and transcendence of God, but they are not as concerned about "messing with" God's essence because of the doctrine of the Incarnation; God has already "messed with" God's essence.*
  (*The following clarification of what is intended
  in saying that the doctrine of the Incarnation explains how God has already "messed with" God's essence is taken from remarks made by Dr. Rosann Catalano in response to Dr. Sulayman Nyang during the November 27, 2001 ICJS program, Islam and the Jewish-Christian Encounter: What Does God Require of Us?: "The Incarna-tion is a doctrine that tries to articulate the idea that human being, that is to say, being human (whatever it means to be human), includes the capacity to reveal or to disclose who God is. So we would say that in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and in the person of the Risen Lord, in the person of Jesus Christ, Christians come to know [who God is]. Jesus is the mediator, which is to say, Jesus mediates, is able to disclose to us who God is; and that disclosure is possible in and through human nature.")
• From a Jewish point of view, to say this is to be presumptuous.
• Question: Does this have an analogue in calling the land of Israel "holy"?
• Response: I don't know yet.



• Holiness and sin do not represent a polarity. They are actually close together in that they are two faces of everything that I can be.
• Response: It is better then to call it "sinfulness" and "righteousness."
• There is something essential to us as well that is not action-based, e.g., the holiness of a newborn child, a holy being in the sense that it is the sanctity of life in which the baby participates.
• In regard to Christians and babies, babies are conceived in sin and born in lust; they are not holy. The purpose of baptism is not to wash
  away sin but to make the baby a member of
  the community.
  (N.B. See the Rite of Penance, p. 12, paragraph 2: "This victory [of Christ over sin] is first brought to light in baptism where our fallen nature is crucified with Christ so that the body of sin may be destroyed and we may no longer be slaves to sin, but rise with Christ and live for God. For this reason the Church proclaims its faith in 'the one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.'" This para-graph leans toward the Western/Augustinian side of the theology of baptism.)

Question 2:

Am I a shit-encrusted mirror (Gregory of Nyssa)
or a snow-covered shitheap (Luther)?

Discussion:

• Gregory of Nyssa sees the human being as a reflection of God.



• Is God's action in human history primarily
  a response to sin (Redemptio, Dominicans)
  or a divinizing self-communication (Theosis, Franciscans)?
• The Western view -- that God's action in human history is primarily a response to sin
  -- contends that God would not have sent Christ if Adam had not sinned.
• The Eastern view -- that God's action in human history is primarily a divinizing self-communication -- maintains that Christ would have come even if Adam had not sinned.

Question 3:

Who is in charge here?

• It is not possible to deny divine sovereignty or human agency.

Question 4:

Does ritual "work"?

Discussion:

• Complaint: It's all so interior. (See especially the Rite of Penance, p. 14, §6: "The follower of Christ who has sinned but who has been moved by the Holy Spirit to come to the sacrament of penance should above all be converted to God with his whole heart. The inner conversion of heart embraces sorrow for sin and the intent to lead a new life. It is expressed through confession made to the Church, due satisfaction, and amendment of life. God grants pardon for sin through the Church, which works by the ministry of priests.")
• The ritual does work. But, as was the case with the Mishna Yoma text, the ritual is not magic and a mechanistic/ritualistic approach to repentance doesn't work. You cannot go and repeat the sinful behavior and expect the ritual to work. Absolution is given; the individual must then take steps to become a penitent (or the ritual doesn't work).

Some time was spent hitting the high spots in the Rite of Penance. There are no notes from this review. Then the discussion took some interesting twists:

• Question: Why did we start with the question of sin and repentance and spend so many months on it? This is not the central issue.
• Another question in response: Where would you begin to explicate your tradition and show its wisdom and beauty?



• The discussion then turned to confession in the Roman Catholic Church. Rosann spoke of her own personal experience. She mentioned coming out of the confessional with the feeling of God's love empowering her to do the hard work of cleaning up the mess caused by sin. That is, she first felt a sense of restoration and then a good sense of obligation to make right what was done wrong.
• The point was then made that this feeling and sense of empowerment has to be available in every religion.
• It was explained that rabbis also experience "confessional" situations and give a kind of absolution. There is a danger in these situations because the people can talk about them, but the rabbis (like Christian clergy) cannot.
• In Judaism rabbis do not presume to speak for God. The relevant questions are: What does God demand of you? How do you lead a righteous life in God's presence?
• Another rabbi present added that rabbis are in a sense mediating God's will, and so in a certain sense the rabbi does speak for God (but with the understanding that mistakes are the rabbi's responsibility).



• The desire was expressed to know more about the confessional experience. Does the priest represent God? Is the priest surrounded by a sense of awe? How do the people understand the priest's medi-ating God's presence?
• Response: The sacrament can slide into something magical and bizarre. When the priest said, "I absolve you," there was no doubt that it was God speaking. This was a very powerful moment.
• The Roman Catholic priest present described the sacrament as being "disclosive" of God.
• Question: In reference to the role the priest plays and the unique authority invested in the priest, could the underlying theological affirmation be made by anyone in the community?
• Response: In the Roman Catholic tradition (only) certain people are invested with that authority.
• In the sense that the authority is invested in a particular individual and not just a member of the community, the Catholic tradition is more biblical than rabbinic.
• In the Presbyterian tradition confession occurs within the community, and forgiveness comes
  from the community.
• There seems to be a danger in concentrating power and authority in particular individuals.
• Roman Catholic response: This is not a general thing. The priest is invested with the authority
  to function in a particular way in a particular sacramental setting. And it's a practical way of organizing the church.
• Objection: The particular can and has been generalized. The priest has been set apart and surrounded with a sense of awe.
• A Jewish observation: The communal form of confession seems a lot cheaper than the Church's "cheap grace." Judaism is less susceptible to the charge of "cheap grace" than other religions.
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