Mr. P. Mikula wrote these remarks according to lectures given by Father B. Bily (22.2.1921- 28.2.2002)
A common conception is that “sin is the greatest enemy of man”. But is this true? We will show that sin can be an enemy, but that it can also be an “ally”. It sounds unusual, but if we read Lk 7, 36-50 and ponder the meaning of the text, we will have a new view not only on the question of sin, but also on the real enemy, which is different than our view and is really our worst enemy. Closely linked with this is also: “You claim that you see and therefore your guilt continues.” (John 9, 41)
Christians have focused on sin as the main parameter and therefore a religion of fear has developed. A person then asks himself: “Was it a sin, or was it not a sin?” He then has a feeling of satisfaction when he avoids sin, or finds out that it was a small sin. Love of God is taken as a given, but people are afraid of sin. But temptation is a signal of the fact that something is not right with a person. (“Since they did not think it worthwhile to retain knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind” – Romans 1, 28). The goal should be to love God above all else. The goal is to build a real bond with God and then God will mold your heart. If your heart is not molded, then a person remains in limbo and one should try to acknowledge this. Such differentiation is not acknowledged either in the Old Testament or in the New Testament. There the discussion is of sins which lead to death, but in reality they are really sins against the Holy Spirit. Therefore a much bigger emphasis should be placed on the subject of behavior according to the rules of fair play, and this even in areas where unsuitable action is still not considered a sin in the classic sense. In the “religion of fear” a person is afraid of sin, even though sin can be considered a symptom and a signal of an unresolved bond with God. Then he only watches out for sin, instead of reacting to sin thus: “Please, God, my bond with you lacks depth…..” If he looks at the fight against sin only, then that is really “superficial cleaning of winepots”, because he does not work on the bond with God, but only treats symptoms.
Mistakes are crucial; however a person is not always aware of them, and therefore some mistakes are classified as sins. Mistake – sin leads to an awareness of mistakes. That is why we are forced to look for the causes. Thus we have the opportunity to learn how to act correctly, even when we have incorrect opinions or defective thinking (whether innate or learned). It is also necessary to stress that a mistake can also be relative. That means that for a person living according to a certain degree of understanding (of the Bible) the very same action can be allowed that can be forbidden to a person living according to a different understanding. For example, in the Book of Moses divorce is allowed, but not in the New Testament (Mt 5, 31-32). Or according to Moses’ Law, David, who ate consecrated bread, sinned, but Jesus praises him and uses him as an example. In fact, he invites us to solve this conundrum (Mt12, 1-8).
What are the Ten Commandments? It is said that God made a covenant with Moses and gave them (Jews) the Law. However, the Ten Commandments are not the Law. The Ten Commandments are an indication of mistakes, so that I can recognize where I deviated from the right path. Sin is also an indicator of the fact that I have gone away from the true path. With the Jews, God punished the breaking of the law. With Christians, he goes further in this area. He punishes the cause and that is why “reminders” occur. God punishes: “They did not care to know God well….”. Sin is an indicator of the fact that in a certain area of thinking I am off and that I closed my eyes to certain things. We should be building our resistance to major sins using minor sins by sensing wrong information and fixing it in advance. One can also say that sin is evidence of a psychic program gone wrong. I have to control that psychic program. By controlling the psychic program I can get rid of many mistakes. The least I can do is to acknowledge it. The goal of Christianity is not to no commit sins. The goal of Christianity is to develop as a person and to acquire new characteristics. I can acquire these characteristics when I begin to do something. (“make friends for yourself by unrighteous mammon…” – Lk16,9) and only then can these new characteristics be formed. The role of sin, when it is rightly perceived, is that it invites us to grow, that it shows us the faults that we have and that we must resolve. When I see a mistake, I have to acknowledge it first of all. I can rely on the fact that if I find a mistake, I will grow. God wants us to act independently and that we have the greatest share in our own growth. Jesus says: “Every sin will be forgiven, only sins against the Holy Spirit won’t be”. Such a sin goes against a person’s development. If a person realizes this, then ordinary sin even begins to be an “ally”. Of course, I have to forgive others, so that God may forgive me. (“Remember that those people might not be aware of it”) Then a person begins to realize that he also makes mistakes that he is not aware of and he arrives at the right prayer: “Lord God, please, I have forgiven others, forgive me too”. The goal of purgatory is to waken a desire to develop one’s personality and then a person can work on himself (without being forced to do so). The just acknowledge that they were wrong. (Mt 25, 31-46). Those of higher quality can obtain new teaching (requalification) even on earth, that is, they will be awoken. The criterion for getting into heaven is not not committing sins, but being compatible with God, having “other” eyes. Not committing sins is an empty goal; it does not guarantee growth, it can lead to passivity and fear. The goal of Christianity is to form a new type of personality in co-existence with Jesus. But I have to know how this looks; otherwise it is all empty words. In some areas I can co-exist with Jesus and in some not. According to this my level of personal development can be classified. In this case sin is a signal that I have not understood the meaning of Christianity, and that in certain areas I am off. Not thinking things through leads to the worsening of a state of crisis and sins begin to accumulate. When a person reacts wrongly to sin, the sins begin to build up until a sin against the Holy Spirit can occur and damnation.
From Jesus’ parables we know of the people run in (from everywhere), of those who did not put their own house in order, those who did not have the “cloaks” during their life, that is the right thinking and traits. Everything is given to them, just like animals are given instincts. But some refuse (like the person who refused the wedding cloak and was thrown out). God extends his offer to everyone, at least as a first step, but it depends on the person if he accepts the offer or not. That first step in the best state is full-blooded Christianity. Otherwise this applies: “Gather all the people in the street and in the square and force everyone”, which means that everyone has a chance. Here one can see the difference between God’s way of thinking and the devil’s. And the damned person is damned not because God did not offer him a cloak, but because God offered it to him and he refused. The devil does not “drown” a person in hell, the damned “drown” themselves. Their mentality and way of thinking keeps them in hell. Everybody there feels that they have been wronged and that someone has wronged them. They even blame God. People who sinned against the Holy Spirit are there. People who have not sinned against the Holy Spirit get a cloak.
In many ways we are all failing. John the Evangelist writes: “Whoever thinks he is without sin, is a liar and there is no truth in him.” Therefore the person who reacts to sin by only tying to avoid sin is giving himself an unrealistic goal. This should already be enough as an argument. The mistake is that we have an image of being damned due to our sins. But sin is evidence of a poor thinking (e.g. hypocrisy, not wanting to open our eyes) and that is in our power to change. Then psychic blindness develops from it as result of adaptation. If a person wants to get rid of the blindness, he has stop not opening his eyes. But if he is blind, he is not sinning. He does however bear the consequences of blindness. (“When a blind man leads a blind man, they both fall into a hole.”) At confession, we confess our sins. We do not consider that in the Our Father we should “forgive us our sins…”. Pasteur made a discovery. Everybody could prove how things were by repeating it, but not everybody accepted the conclusion. But today nobody denies the conclusions he drew. Many people, even highly educated people did not want to adapt. They simply had their own “views”, they had a deformed learning process and defect in accepting information, or they were vain. And that was their fault. But how many people died due to their fault? Jesus says: “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you see, your guilt remains.” Here one can clearly see, that sin precedes “seeing”, a faulty position, with which one must deal with right away.
We can ask ourselves: “Why did God create Man? Why do people sin?” In the beginning a person can choose and we can also choose. Why are sins here? As we have already said, it is so that a person can awaken. But the problem of the causes of sin is narrowed to hereditary sin. Let us look closer at the issue of Adam’s sin. The tree of life was in Eden, but Adam and Eve were not interested in it. While Adam and Eve ate from the tree of life, they did not think about what function it had. They could have had contact with God, they could have looked forward to it. When Eve was being made, Adam could have easily said: “Can I watch?” But he was not at all interested. The creation of Eve might have taken a long time, but he was more interested in sleeping. He was interested in a partner, but he did not have any other interests. Contact with God did not mean anything else for him. During Eve’s creation, he could have seen a lot and understood a lot. He did not inquire about the meaning of the tree of life. He was satisfied with himself. We see that this does have the characteristics of sin, but it is a big drawback. Adam was not interested in his own development, he was self-satisfied, his development was curtailed and that is why there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That was not the tree of death, the tree of sin, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. One can say: “When you eat from the tree of life, you will have eternal life, but if you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you can recognize good according to how you act.” The tree of the knowledge of good and evil made everything clear. Adam knew what was at stake and he had to make a decision. If Adam, after he had eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and realized that he had made a mistake, had said: “God, please, I made a mistake; I thought that we had discovered I don’t know what; I am ashamed; can’t I remedy it?” things could have proceeded differently. God pretends to search for Adam and behaves indifferently: “Adam, where are you?” God “plays at” finding him: “Why are you hiding?” “I am ashamed…” Even here he did not say “I am ashamed.” Instead of this, the well-known attack against God is voiced: “The woman that you gave me made me do it….” i.e. “I can’t help it…” Only now is Adam’s fate decided. This was the reason he was expelled from paradise. And so, the original plan, God’s plan that a person can get into heaven easily and directly is changed. And therefore people suffer from woes and sins. Adam had a body and had kids and they inherited a deformed development from him. In the case of original sin, this does not mean original sin as people normally think of it, but of this deformed development. The consequence of Adam and Eve’s sin is the expulsion from living in paradise and the increase in the type of sins, which really should serve as a warning to people. A deformed person is beset by sins. In Adam’s case there was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and today sin allows a person to recognize that something is wrong. Jesus said that every sin, if a person says “God, forgive me” will be forgiven. The common conception of original sin is therefore incomplete and in certain instances very wrong. After a bad decision punishment comes as a consequence of that bad decision. Once it was: “The woman that you gave me made me do it…” Today it is: “I don’t care about religion, I will make my own way” But for us in a sense it is easing the situation. Through Adam’s sin we lost the direct path to heaven and a peaceful life in paradise. But we can attain a peaceful life of ease, serenity and without pain even outside paradise which is not dependent on Adam viz. Elijah, Elisha and hypothetically even Enoch. Adam did not give eternal life in paradise, but the tree of life. Adam only made the entrance to it difficult. Jesus offers us his Body and Blood as a source of eternal life in the sense of being God’s child. In Rv 2,7 Jesus promises the tree of life to the Ephesians in paradise. This however means direct entrance into heaven. The idea that original sin is the reason why a person cannot attain salvation is crazy. We have the Jesus’ parable of those who are invited and those who are forced to attend a wedding. Even those who are invited to the wedding and declined the invitation are forced to attend in the end. God is not interested in seeing a person suffer. According to the Gospel every person can attain salvation if he himself decides that he is interested in doing so. And that can happen even after death. A person will not be damned if he accepts the cloak, that is, the necessities for compatibility with God. Therefore Adam’s sin is not the prime reason why Jesus went on the Cross. The Old Testament resolves this problem by punishment for sins up to the third and fourth generation, and rewards up to the thousandth generation (Ez 18). Adam’s biggest mistake was not his sin, that is that he ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but that after meeting God he evidently committed a sin against the Holy Spirit.
Jesus does not act on the basis of original sin. In the Bible we do not find it written about. We have seen that an explanation of the type: “Adam sinned and through original sin we have lost eternal life” or “Adam underwent a test for all of humanity and he failed” will not stand. How could we then solve the case of Enoch, or Elijah, who had contact with God and were taken into heaven? Why did God take people into paradise and then “chase” them out of there. God shows his plan; so that people will recognize in what areas they have deviated form God’s plan and rehabilitate themselves spiritually, either during their life or after death. Mt 25 discusses this (“… we did not know you…” but “ you did good deeds” ). These are points against rehabilitation beginning only in purgatory.
Another common idea that Jesus went to his death as atonement is also wrong. According to such ideas, we can make a model: “I go to school, where my dad also went to school and got low grades. I want to learn, but there is the problem of my father’s low marks. The teacher is fair; he can’t give me a good mark. He’ll find a solution; he’ll give a low mark (that my father “earned”) to his son, who knows the material well and deserves a good mark. So the teacher’s son will get a bad mark, which I inherited and I will get his good mark. What king of justice is that if I get a bad mark simply because my father was a poor student? Similarly the idea of “limbo” as station prior to hell was shown to be stupid and has therefore been scratched. However the Babylonian malformation and a familial malformation (through one’s upbringing) do exist. Heredity does exist. What we have here is accepted heredity, but also refused heredity. A person carries genetic material from his ancestors. Color-blindness from a grandfather is well known and carried via the mother. The big men of humanity had an old father, leaders had a young father. Genetic material is also passed on in animals. When St. Paul says: “We died with Adam and we will rose with Jesus”, then evidently there is no question of explaining Adam’s sin , but of making Jesus the polar opposite.
A certain schemata has developed: “Who will get into heaven?” “The person who does ot commit sins will get into heaven.” Why do sins exist?” “Sins exist because they are the consequence of original sin coming from Adam.” We can’t be surprised that Pelagius did not like and that it appeared ridiculous to him and he began to proclaim that Jesus’ death was unnecessary and that Jesus went as an example and by this theory he gained many followers.
In conclusion we can summarize that a mistake-sin that a person commits can be caused by several reasons:
A lack of sufficient development (e.g. blindness)
Misleading information ( e.g. incorrect teaching)
Carelessness, underestimating danger
Concurrent events (e.g. a boy likes to go to church and serve as an altar boy, but on Sunday there is a soccer match in town and he commits a sin) – this leads to a personal crisis. Here the confessor should call attention to the mistake and state that this is not only a question of sin, but of poor faith, a poor understanding of God, Jesus, and the catechism. Therefore the correction has to be through finding the reason why one has a weak faith, getting rid of it, and again building up one’s faith.
Forgetting, when a conflict arises in a sinner
Increasing one’s efforts to get rid of sin, instead of reprogramming oneself psychically. This is the biggest danger which a sinner faces. It is Judas’ complex, in which a person always says he “will not do it” instead of changing his thinking with Jesus’ help. Then the inability to change occurs and crisis ensues. After Jesus’ trial Judas sees his mistake and can make a decision. But he opts for his rehabilitation by committing suicide.
Ending up in a place from which one can’t be extricated. A person see his own sins, does not want to acknowledge them and begins to compensate (he begins to “tithe mint, anise, and cumin”) and becomes a Pharisee.
A mistake can be relative. That means that for a person living according to one level of understanding one action can be allowed and if he lives according to another level that same action can be forbidden. Examples:
In Moses’ Law divorce is allowed, but it is not in the New Testament (Mt 5,31-32).
According to Moses’ Law, David, who ate consecrated bread, committed a sin, but Jesus praises him and uses him as an example. In fact, he urges us to think through the problem. (Mt 12, 1-8).
Out of interest, let us think about the following text. In Malachi, we find: “I remember the days of your youth.” The sacrifices of the Israelites in the desert were pleasing to God. Where therefore did the Israelites go wrong when they were in the desert? Hypothetically an old mental program of the type “We cannot rely entirely on God …” was still present. During Moses’ contract with God on Mount Sinai, they had proof such as the cloud above the tent containing the ark of the covenant. When they had problems with food and water in the desert, Moses gave them water and manna, Sometimes God did not fulfill their wishes immediately so that they would pray for further spiritual development, so that they would change their thinking, so that they could enter a deeper level of thinking, like that of the New Testament. Moses also did not completely change from his previous spiritual development. Sometimes he was at a loss and he was not able to solve disputes (for example his father-in-law had to advise him) and God did not advise him. Why? Because Moses was supposed to solve it himself or one of the people was. On the other hand, the Israelites were not weighed down by a misshapen religion. However, they did not have a complete set of psychic parameters for their growth and therefore they needed “training”. They could
solve it themselves or Moses could solve it. They did not do this and neither did Moses. Even Moses fell short of the mark when he was supposed to perform a miracle and get water from the mountain. And because of that he received the order “You will not enter!” Shepherds and cow-herds entered into the Promised Land. This led to the loss of learned men and the temple was built by pagans.