Irredeemable Sin

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Heyo, I've been cleaning up a few old plays of mine for a series of contests coming up in my neighborhood, and I was thinking about stuff. One of my plays tackles the issue of irredeemable sin, the idea a man could be such a monster in the past that no amount of decent actions in the present could save him. In my mind it is an interesting premise and made me wonder about where we draw the line so that no level of saintly actions or level of noble sacrifices could make up the karma deficit.

Where would you draw that line? What actions would be irredeemable? Is redemption possible even for the worst of sinners? Etc... The answers do not have to be religious as I don't believe the question is bound by any one religion or lack thereof, but I'm interested in what people think.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Massive destruction-
of an environment, or a species, or of someone's psyche, e.g through torture.
no forgiveness for these things.

 

[cheerful_deviant]

Rape and murder of children is unforgivable for me. The taking of a life so young an inocent for nothing more than a few minutes endulgance is unforgivable. No punnishment could ever be to severe.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

...irredeemable sin, the idea a man could be such a monster in the past that no amount of decent actions in the present could save him.

What actions would be irredeemable? Is redemption possible even for the worst of sinners? Etc... The answers do not have to be religious as I don't believe the question is bound by any one religion or lack thereof, but I'm interested in what people think.

LC,

Just FYI, many Christians believe that no amount of decent action can ever save anyone. For them, salvation/forgiveness is a gift, an "Amazing Grace," granted to anyone who believes Jesus is the son of God, and not a quid pro quo deal that can be eaned by a certain number pf good deeds.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Stella_Omega]

And would the Protestant god redeem the man who killed the last nesting Dodo?

Or the men who flattened a Kentucky mountain and diverted its lead-bearing tailings into the water supply?

I wouldn't, if I were god.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

And would the Protestant god redeem the man who killed the last nesting Dodo?

Or the men who flattened a Kentucky mountain and diverted its lead-bearing tailings into the water supply?

I wouldn't, if I were god.

Stella, what we individuals can bring ourselves to forgive and what many believe God will forgive isn't always the same thing. To most folks, it seems somehow unfair, almost counter-intuitive, that a Mother Teresa type and a truly repentent mass murderer could be equal in the eyes of God.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Boxlicker101]

"Good" or "evil" is in one's perspective. Some think Hitler was a great man. Some think Khoemeini was next to God. There are eople who almost worship the Rev. Phelps, known from other threads.

 

[rgraham666]

It's unrestrained use of power for me.

Whether it's something like The Holocaust, or rape-murder of a child, the person or people with the power didn't restrain themselves from using it.

So, they're beyond forgiveness, in my book.

 

[impressive]

The "sins" themselves -- the most heinous crimes & abuses -- are unforgiveable. However, I don't believe any person is irredeemable.

 

[AppleBiter]

I believe that no sin is irredeemable. HOWEVER -- that having been said -- it's just a good thing that I don't have God's job. There are a lot of wicked, wicked people *cough* PHELPS *cough* that I would consider irredeemable. But, I suppose that's why He's in charge and not me. *shrugs*

 

[BlackShanglan]

I'm Rumple's poster-horse, I think. That's essentially how I see things. It's not a question of what I can forgive, and thank goodness for that. It's a question of what a divine and all-powerful, all-knowing being can forgive.

If that sounds like a free ride for people who have done horrible things, I will add this: I believe that no one can truly desire forgiveness without accepting responsibility. I don't believe that God forgives those who do not honesty and sincerely repent of their actions and recognize the gravity of the terrible things that they have done. That alone is a a great deal to ask of a human (or horse); we are most of us myopic creatures, blinded by self-interest to the full ramifications of much of what we do. I believe that God understands this and weighs in the balance the sincerity with which we have sought to open out our vision and carefully examine our actions.

Essentially, I think it's wrapped up in the parable of the prodigal son. It's not the son's safety that is the chief source of joy at his return - at least not as a wonderful priest explained it in recent years, to my delight and enlightenment. It's the son's repentence that is the focus: his decision to change his life, accept that he's made a total mess of it, and beg forgiveness from the person who had tried to help him, but whose assistance he had scorned. In that light, anyone's forgiveness can be a beautiful thing, because it begins with that person rejecting the evil s/he has done and trasforming into a real and better person. On that level, yes - I could be happy to see even Hitler in heaven if it meant what I was seeing was a person who had so transformed that he recognized the terrible evil of his actions and had dedicated himself forever to repudiating them. Seeing good triumph over evil is a beautiful thing, even if it's within a single person.

As for irredeemable sin, I tend to go with Marlowe on this one. The one sin that cannot be undone is despair. Faustus's fate is sealed, ironically, by his refusal to believe that there is a divine being so much greater than he that it can forgive even the worst of evil. He insists that he is too wicked to be saved - and so he is. I like Marlowe's take - that even selling one's soul to Satan is not irredeemable. It's only the commitment to doing evil and the rejection of all possible forgiveness entailed in it that really damns Faustus. Despair or arrogance - whatever causes one not to seek God's love and forgiveness in honest sincerity, that is the only thing that can prevent one from receiving it.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I tend to work on the relaxed agnostic modle. Forgiveness is God's provence and God, whatever for he/she/it/them takes, will get it right.

From a non religious POV, I don't really believe a large number of sinners are redeemable. I have trouble with the concept of storing up good and evil. It's like Calvin at Christmas. Trying so hard not to Cream Suzy with a slushball because he's afraid it will cut into his loot on Christmas day.

Or wondering how good he has to be to make up for the noodle incident (which was never proven to be his fault by the way )

 

[BlackShanglan]

I tend to work on the relaxed agnostic modle. Forgiveness is God's provence and God, whatever for he/she/it/them takes, will get it right.

From a non religious POV, I don't really believe a large number of sinners are redeemable. I have trouble with the concept of storing up good and evil. It's like Calvin at Christmas. Trying so hard not to Cream Suzy with a slushball because he's afraid it will cut into his loot on Christmas day.

Or wondering how good he has to be to make up for the noodle incident (which was never proven to be his fault by the way )

I love your examples.

And I agree. I think that the ledger-based system looks at deeds and weighs them, but my thought on God is that he's looking for a final product: the soul itself.

Shanglan

 

[Colleen Thomas]

I love your examples.

And I agree. I think that the ledger-based system looks at deeds and weighs them, but my thought on God is that he's looking for a final product: the soul itself.

Shanglan

It's rare when I can't apply Calvin & Hobbes to life Waterson was a genius

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

I firmly believe in karma, as well as many Gods. Divine justice, or nemesis, will not damn you to an eternity of torment, but it will pay you back piecemeal for your injustice to others. Each act of cruelty or malice will have consequences, whether through reincarnation or some bad luck in this life. One might call it being cursed by the Gods. As far as I can tell, the only fatal "sin" is hubris: not pride so much as unrestrained arrogance. Hubris usually carries its own punishment with it. At the risk of sounding biblical, an odd thing for a pagan, I agree with Solomon's proverb "a haughty spirit" goes before a fall. There is healthy pride, contrary to what some think, and then there is hubris. President Bush is a classic case of the latter, IMO, just to cite an example.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Stella, what we individuals can bring ourselves to forgive and what many believe God will forgive isn't always the same thing. To most folks, it seems somehow unfair, almost counter-intuitive, that a Mother Teresa type and a truly repentent mass murderer could be equal in the eyes of God.

Rumple Foreskin

HOw would you know that mass murderer is truly repentant?
I would say- by his actions (or hers, of course) This person would have to save at the very least an equal amount of lives as he had destroyed, and would have to take onto himself the burden of suffering equal to that which he caused.
It's possible, and I know it's been done. And, too, in the longest of worldviews, individual lives don't matter all that much.

but- how can he redeem the destruction of an entire species of one of our fellow-creatures? That is a crime agains LIFE in big capitol letters.

We can't bring back Dire Wolves, or Passenger Pigeons, or the Polynesian flightless birds that were killed by the Lighthouse keeper's cat.

We can't prevent the deer in Kentucky from eating contaminated plants and dying stunted- or the people from eating those deer and passing the lead on to their own children.

These harms are far past the point of repariation.

 

[impressive]

These harms are far past the point of repariation.

Therein lies the difference between forgiveness and redemption.

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

Look, religious views are firmly held opinions about the Universe and such. They are not universal. Stella believes strongly in conservation, and rightly so. Most Baptists, in my experience, for instance, don't give a flying flip about the environment. They think that the Apocalypse and the Rapture will prevent such issues from ever affecting them or their children. It's a simple difference of opinion. If your world-view says that there IS NO TOMORROW, you're not going to worry much about it.

The Baptist theology, and that of other evangelicals, is that faith alone will save you. Works are not enough and never can be enough. They regard salvation as a gift. I don't personally believe that anything exists from which I NEED to be saved. That's a drastic difference. I disagree with them, but respectfully. I also regard good works as very important, as they affect karma. Of course, my idea of virtue and theirs are two different things.

 

[Boxlicker101]

Don't forget, what may on its surface be an evil deed might have been a good deed. Somebody might point to Harry Truman and say: "That horrible man ordered the nuclear bombing of Japan, taking hundreds of thousands of lives."

That would be true, BUT: If those bombs had not been dropped, Japan, even though hopelessly beaten, would have fought on, resulting in more death and suffering. In the long run, it was the lesser of two evils.

I'm sure there are a good many more examples in history.

By the way, far more species of animal have gone extinct naturally than through the intercession of humans.

 

[gauchecritic]

If you're going to call it sin or evil then you can't leave out religion.

If you subscribe to the idea that it is a person's inalienable right to pursue pleasure (aka happiness) then it is also true that happiness can indeed be a warm gun.

If you consider moral values as something that can be coined by organised religion then you have sin or evil.

If your moral values are unrestricted by a common lot or by religion then there is no such thing as sin, irredemable or otherwise.

I've quite often read that treachery is the worst sin. Were Hitler's generals with their bomb in the briefcase, sinners?

It seems were discussing absolutes and, if I remember correctly, only amicus, on these boards, believes in absolutes.

 

[BlackShanglan]

HOw would you know that mass murderer is truly repentant?
I would say- by his actions (or hers, of course) This person would have to save at the very least an equal amount of lives as he had destroyed, and would have to take onto himself the burden of suffering equal to that which he caused.

Interesting. I've generally thought of penitance as an internal state - something within the person him/herself. Your definition seems to me more to work on external acts - a sort of weighing of the person's good and bad actions over his or her life and figuring out the balance. In that point of view, yes, I can see that some sins would be irredeemable, as there are some actions that can never be undone, and whose results cannot be reversed. Personally, I lean toward a judgement of the final state of the person rather than the final results of his or her actions, but I can see the logic in your position as well.

Hmmm. How does your system deal with people who don't forsee the consequences of their actions? Your lighthouse keeper, for instance, who didn't intend to destroy a species, just to keep a cat. It reminds me of a situation recently in which an employee of a Japanese company managed a really spectular typo in a stock trade and accidently wiped millions off the value of his company in a single agonizing cock-up. I found myself wondering what I would do if I was his employer. Fire him for destroying the company? Or accept that typos happen, even in God-awfully unhappy circumstances? It's a tough call. There, at least, one might argue that he knew he was doing something complicated and potentially dangerous to screw up; what do we do with the lighthouse keeper, whose grasp of global ecology might well have been nonexistant?

I've quite often read that treachery is the worst sin. Were Hitler's generals with their bomb in the briefcase, sinners?

Might it depend on what they thought it was most important to be true to - Hitler, or higher ideals, or the German people? Or am I too closely equating treachery and disloyalty?

 

[gauchecritic]

Might it depend on what they thought it was most important to be true to - Hitler, or higher ideals, or the German people? Or am I too closely equating treachery and disloyalty?

I was bestowing royalty on Hitler and therefor inferring that he was the state.

In much the same fashion that regicide is treachery. That is to say; violation of allegiance. (Like Napoleon assuming the title of Emporer.)

(which explanation in no way alleviates latent accusations of pedantry )

 

[Colleen Thomas]

If you're going to call it sin or evil then you can't leave out religion.

If you subscribe to the idea that it is a person's inalienable right to pursue pleasure (aka happiness) then it is also true that happiness can indeed be a warm gun.

If you consider moral values as something that can be coined by organised religion then you have sin or evil.

If your moral values are unrestricted by a common lot or by religion then there is no such thing as sin, irredemable or otherwise.

I've quite often read that treachery is the worst sin. Were Hitler's generals with their bomb in the briefcase, sinners?

It seems were discussing absolutes and, if I remember correctly, only amicus, on these boards, believes in absolutes.

But application dosen't have to be moralistic at all. While good and evil are essentially moral constructs, they can be discussed religious value neutral within the disipline of ethics, can they not?

Ethically speaking, your Sr. VP for r&D could locate your R&D plant in india, near a huge population center. Let's assume your R&D involves retardants for Haxm at fires. Let us further assume after thre of four years of profitable operations, using native labor not working for union scale, you have amjor accident and thousands of people living nearby are injured or killed.

You can discuss his "sin" from wo or three eithcial standpoints, none of which neccissarily is moralistic.

If during it's time of operation your company was able to do critical testing and you cae out with three or four retardants that become industry standard, making the gains from the plant several thousand times more than the cost of rebuilding, relocating, the settlement to victims and families and a fat bribe to the governenment, within the realm of bussines ethics, your Vp may well still be considered a solid company man and such regrettable mistakes will be forgiven. That judgement is morality abscent, but within the bounds of bussiness ethics, might well be supportable, as bussines ethics will tend to place bottom line profits above most other considerations.

Like wise, in Bio-ethics, a Dr., who pronounces a patient brain dead and allows the facility to pull the plug, even against the wishes of the family, is rarely considred the villian. Moralistically, his decision is the one that cleared all the legal hurtles and allowed the patient's lifes upport to be cut off. Bie-ethically speaking, however, so long as he has several expert opinions that the patient is brain dead an beyond any hope of recovery, he is in an unassialable position. Moral outrage is usaully focused on the adminstrators who make the decision to cut their losses or the state for failing to intervene.

I think you can discuss he redeemability of sin, within the framework of ethics, while minimizing the application of religious morality in the discussion.

It shoulkd be noted that Ethics is also called Moral philosophy. So strictly speaking, you may well not be able to. That' s not my opinion, but it is certainly supportable to those who hole the opinion it is.

 

[tolyk]

I think this has already started to slide away from the question at hand. Lucifer didn't ask what we think god would find unforgivable, he asked what WE find unforgivable. A few have answered the question, but it's turning into a religious debate. This is why I try to respond to a post like this from the first post, not after reading the entire thing. Or at least think of my responce first.

Rape is inexcusable to me. I mean, look at the consequences it has, it completely alters the life of the victim, often leads to suicide or at least feelings of worthlessness. All for a moment of pleasure for the rapist?

 

[tolyk]

I've been discussing this with a friend since before I posted, and here's the answer he came up with.

"Part of redemption is forgiveness. If you cannot allow a person to redeem themselves, that, in and of itself, is unredeemable."