Sin and Sinning

The concept of ‘sin’ has little to no place in Wiccan or NeoWiccan faiths. Or, at least, they don’t in the common way taught by Christians. Nor with the same consequences. But for lack of better terminology, we shall borrow the concepts from them at least for the time being.

To ‘sin’ is, essentially, to violate any of the prime ethics of the faith- whether knowingly or unknowingly. But it is not to produce or participate in evil inherently. It is merely to go against the ethics of one’s religious community, and the commandments of the Divine according to that community’s religious and spiritual doctrines. And much like spiritual and metaphysical impurity, this is viewed simply as a natural part of material, non-Divine life.

Sins are divided into three categories: Sins directly against the Divine, sins against fellow Human Beings, and sins against the world. Likewise, there are varying degrees of severity even among these three categories themselves. For instance, there is a significant difference between a sinful action committed unintentionally or in ignorance, and those committed intentionally or in wilful defiance- with the worst being those committed with full knowledge and deliberate intention, with explicit intent to cause harm.

In Catholic theology, the act of sinning is, at its most base level, about pursuing your own self-centered, short-term satisfaction over any larger term or common good, or doing right by a set of shared ethics and values. And doing so is what breaks societies and communities down. Virtues, and values, and ethics are the other way around: Altruistic, long-term work for others towards a shared common good.

Take, for an example, the Catholic sin of gluttony: When people in a society are starving and others have so much money and food and toys and land they couldn’t ever even touch all of it in their lifetime, and yet they keep on taking more and more for themselves, that society collapses. Their contrasting virtues of temperance, prudence, and charity, however, are about making sure that everyone’s needs are met before any individual pleasures are addressed. When we live by these virtues and eschew these sins, society does a lot better. Less people die.

Forgiveness for sin is a central notion within Catholicism, however, without which the relationship between Humans and God could not be possible. This is codified as the act of being restored to a good relationship with God, others, and self, following the period of spiritual alienation known in Christian tradition as sin. Forgiveness is the sinner’s transforming acceptance of the unconditional mercy of God, mediated by a Priest through the act of absolution.

There are several steps in the process of Catholic forgiveness. The first, contrition, is a heart-felt rejection of the sinful condition and decision not to sin any more. The second is confession, when the condition of sinning is narrated by the transgressor to a Priest, and by formulating the wrong, that which is right is thereby reconfirmed and the moral order reinstated. By the further act of absolution, the Priest ritually disengages the morally flawed person from their wrongdoing, putting them once again on equal footing with the members of the moral community and accepting them back into it. The essence of Catholic forgiveness, overall, is therefore the restoration of broken bonds.

Through the mediation of the Priest the bond between believer and God is restored, ideally helping the sinner to restore peace of mind and achieve psychological reintegration. This intrapsychic act translates into the social with the changed individual perhaps behaving differently, taking steps towards others to restore additional broken bonds. In a religious community then, the symbolic act of sacramental forgiveness (between human being and God) should ideally result in practical forgiveness (between social persons), thus repairing the ruptured social fabric.

In Jewish tradition, however, to "Sin" (chet) means "to go astray" or "to miss the mark"; it is a bad or foolish idea, or a harmful deed, which acts as a disruption of the flow of energy between Creator and Co-Creative Creation (Humanity). In other words: One has "lost their head" and incorrectly channeled one's base Human instincts- potentially even forgoing one's yetzer ha‑tov ("good inclinations") in favor of one's yetzer ha‑ra ("evil inclinations")- and thus strayed from what is good or correct. When one strays from the path, however, there is always an opportunity to return to it. The Divine's attribute of mercy means that it doesn not fully punish those who sin, but rather grants the sinner the opportunity to repent- and thus be rid of the power of yetzer ha‑ra.

Similar to in Catholicism, in Judaism repentance (or Teshuva, "returning") requires the active recognition that the transgression as a negative thing. It also requires active recognition of any harm it has caused to others (or to the Divine, or its creation), and the active attempt to repair that damage where possible (including a sincere appology for that transgression and its harm). The transgression must be disavowed and renounced. And the individual must redirect themself back toward "godly behavior", and resolve to live and behave differently in the future.

In NeoWicca, the concept of sin is very similar, and the process works much the same way- although we have no contract with our God, and no intercessors. Still, the similarities exist.

While we may not have a similar contract between us and our own Divine, we still have an obligation to treat our fellow Human Beings with mutual respect, to worship the Divine appropriately, and to care for and protect the Earth. The action of sin denies those obligations, disrespects both the Divine and the Divine Spark that exists within all of creation, and undoes the good work that may have already been done. Further, it deprives us of a right, equal, and loving relationship with the Divine and the many facets of its creation, and breaking social and other bonds. Repeated ‘sinning’ therefore drives a wedge between us and the Divine, between us and our fellow people, and between us and the Earth- all of which we are supposed to hold in love and balance.

What is important in most traditions with these concepts (especially ones with the concept of “righting” or “returning” or “absolution” after Sin), however, isn’t that one never ‘sins’, so to speak. But that one makes a genuine attempt to follow the values they profess to believe in, and to uphold the tenets of the faith they profess membership within. Moreover, the integral part is that, when they do not uphold these values, they acknowledge these failures, take responsibility for them, and attempt to make the proper amends for them afterwards; the goal is to try our best, and to learn from our mistakes as we make them.

In our case, within the Wiccan denominations, making the proper amends is as simple as making a formal apology to the wronged party or the appropriate offerings or sacrifices to the Divine- thereby petitioning for their forgiveness as a sign of maturity and responsibility-taking. Further, then undergoing the process of spiritual purification, which washes away spiritual and metaphysical pollutions of the Spirit that may have been caused by the misdeed, and brings one’s self back into alignment with the Divine spirit; reminding us of why we uphold these values in the first place.