(c) Knowledge of the sinfulness of an act or feeling is also an aggravation of transgression, but it is not essential to constitute it a sin. Moral blindness is the effect of transgression, and, as inseparable from corrupt affections and desires, is itself condemned by the divine law.
It is our duty to do better than we know. Our duty of knowing is as real as our duty of doing. Sin is an opiate. Some of the most deadly diseases do not reveal themselves in the patient's countenance, nor has the patient any adequate understanding of his malady. There is an ignorance which is indolence. Men are often unwilling to take the trouble of rectifying their standards of judgment. There is also an ignorance which is intention. Instance many students' ignorance of College laws.
We cannot excuse disobedience by saying: “I forgot.” God's commandment is: “Remember”—as in Ex. 20:8; cf. 2 Pet. 3:5—“For this they wilfully forget.” “Ignorantia legis neminem excusat.” Rom. 2:12—“as many as have sinned without the law shall also perish without the law”; Luke 12:48—“he that knew not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten [though] with few stripes.”The aim of revelation and of preaching is to bring man “to himself” (cf. Luke 15:17)—to show him what he has been doing and what he is. Goethe: “We are never deceived: we deceive ourselves.” Royce, World and Individual, 2:359—“The sole possible free moral action is then a freedom that relates to the present fixing of attention upon the ideas of the Ought which are already present. To sin is consciously to choose to forget, through a narrowing of the field of attention, an Ought that one already recognizes.”
(d) Ability to fulfill the law is not essential to constitute the non-fulfilment sin. Inability to fulfill the law is a result of transgression, and, as consisting not in an original deficiency of faculty but in a settled state of the affections and will, it is itself condemnable. Since the law presents the holiness of God as the only standard for the creature, ability to obey can never be the measure of obligation or the test of sin.
Not power to the contrary, in the sense of ability to change all our permanent states by mere volition, is the basis of obligation and responsibility; for surely Satan's responsibility does not depend upon his power at any moment to turn to God and be holy.
Definitions of sin—Melanchthon: Defectus vel inclinatio vel actio pugnans cum lege Dei. Calvin: Illegalitas, seu difformitas a lege. Hollaz: Aberratio a lege divina. Hollaz adds: “Voluntariness does not enter into the definition of sin, generically considered. Sin may be called voluntary, either in respect to its cause, as it inheres in the will, or in respect to the act, as it procedes from deliberate volition. Here is the antithesis to the Roman Catholics and to the Socinians, the latter of whom define sin as a voluntary [i. e., a volitional] transgression of law”—a view, says Hase (Hutterus Redivivus, 11th ed., 162-164), “which is derived from the necessary methods of civil tribunals, and which is incompatible with the orthodox doctrine of original sin.” [pg 559]On the New School definition of sin, see Fairchild, Nature of Sin, in Bib. Sac., 25:30-48; Whedon, in Bib. Sac., 19:251, and On the Will, 328. Per contra, see Hodge, Syst. Theol., 2:180-190; Lawrence, Old School in N. E. Theol., in Bib. Sac., 20:317-328; Julius Müller, Doc. Sin, 1:40-72; Nitzsch, Christ. Doct., 216; Luthardt, Compendium der Dogmatik, 124-126.
II. The Essential Principle of Sin.
The definition of sin as lack of conformity to the divine law does not exclude, but rather necessitates, an inquiry into the characterizing motive or impelling power which explains its existence and constitutes its guilt. Only three views require extended examination. Of these the first two constitute the most common excuses for sin, although not propounded for this purpose by their authors: Sin is due (1) to the human body, or (2) to finite weakness. The third, which we regard as the Scriptural view, considers sin as (3) the supreme choice of self, or selfishness.
In the preceding section on the Definition of Sin, we showed that sin is a state, and a state of the will. We now ask: What is the nature of this state? and we expect to show that it is essentially a selfish state of the will.