Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-11T02:58:56.462Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Falling into Freedom: Searching for New Interpretations of Sin in a Secular Society*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

Mary Grey
Mary Grey
Affiliation:
La Sainte Union CollegeThe Avenue Southampton S09 5HB Hants.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

‘Whatever became of sin?’ – the title of American psychiatrist Kark Menninger's book – encapsulates the problem with which I begin. That there is appalling suffering today, organized crime on a scale which almost defies analysis – and certainly detection! – moral evil in a variety of repugnant forms and so-called ‘natural’ catastrophes which threaten the very continuation of human life on our planet, is beyond dispute. But ‘sin’? Is sinfulness still an accepted category in our society for eidier religious believer or nonbeliever? It is hard to accept that when Professor Kerkhofs (from the University of Leuven, Belgium), surveyed the attitudes on sin and guilt of European Christians in 1985, 40% of those interviewed admitted that they had never experienced any feelings of regret about their actions! There is a double tendency prevailing with regard to responsibility for acknowledged wrongdoing: increasing sense of diminished responsibility for crime seeks either to scapegoat a certain sector of the populace as blameworthy, or attempts are made to cope with criminal damage – for example, injuries sustained by drink-driving – by assessing it in exclusively (reductive) monetary terms.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , May 1994 , pp. 223 - 244
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Menninger, Kark, Whatever Became of Sin? London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1973.Google Scholar

2 See The Tablet, 26 February 1985.

3 The phrase is the tide of Rich's, Adrienne collection of poems, The Dream of a Common Language, New York, W. & W. Norton, 1978.Google Scholar

4 The late Professor P. Fransen of Leuven University, Belgium, is the author of The New Life of Grace, London, Chapman 1969, tr. by Dupont, G.Google Scholar, and for many years his numerous courses on ‘The Theology of Grace’ were a prominent feature of Leuven student life.

5 ‘God's son fell with Adam, into the valley of the womb of the maiden who was the fairest daughter of Adam, and that was to excuse Adam from blame in heaven and on earth…’ Julian, of Norwich, , Long Text, 51, p. 274Google Scholar, in Showings, tr. Colledge, E.O.S.A, and Walsh, JamesS.J., , Classics of Western Spirituality, London, SPCK and New York, Paulist Press, 1978.Google Scholar

6 For black womens' ethics, see Cannon, Katie G., Black Womanist Ethics, Atlanta, Scholar's Press, 1988Google Scholar; also the discussion in Welch, Sharon, A Feminist Ethic of Risk, Minneapolis, Fortress, 1990Google Scholar. For works of fiction, see bibliography cited in the above, and especially, Hurston, Zora Neale, Their Eyes Were Watching God, (Philadelphia, Lipincott, 1937)Google Scholar, repr. Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1978; also Walker, Alice, Meridian, New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976Google Scholar, and Morrison, Toni, Beloved, London, Chatto and Windus, 1987.Google Scholar

7 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, Crime and Punishment, London, J. M. Dent 1911, p. 267.Google Scholar

8 Fortune, Marie M., Is Nothing Sacred? When Sex Invades the Pastoral Relationship, San Francisco, Harper and Row, 1989Google Scholar; see also idem, Sexual Violence: the Unmentionable Sin, New York, Pilgrim, 1983.Google Scholar

9 Ricoeur, P., The Symbolism of Evil, Boston, Beacon, 1970.Google Scholar

10 Cox, Harvey, The Seduction of the Spirit, London, Wildwood House, 1974, p. 284.Google Scholar

11 Blake, William, ‘The Little Black Boy’, in The Oxford Book of English Verse, Oxford, Clarendon Press 1925, pp. 560–561.Google Scholar

12 See The Confessions of St Augustine, London, Collins Fontana, 1957, pp. 38–39Google Scholar, 56–58, 62–29, 82–85, 160–161, 166–167, 169–176.

13 Tillich, Paul, The Shaking of the Foundations, London, Penguin, 1963.Google Scholar

14 Cox, op cit., pp. 285–292.

15 ibid., p. 285.

16 Weil, Simone, The Love of God and Affliction, in Waiting on God, Collins Fount Paperback 1977Google Scholar, (French 1950), tr. Emma.

17 See Constance Fitzgerald, , ‘Impasse and the Dark Night’, in Women's Spirituality: Resources for Christian Development, ed. Conn, Joann Wolski, New Jersey, Paulist Press, 1986, pp. 287–311Google Scholar; Suchocki, Marjorie, Sin in a Relational World, in God, Christ and Church: A Practical Guide to Process Theology, New York, Cross roads, 1989.Google Scholar

18 See Morton, Nelle, ‘The Rising Woman Consciousness in a Male Language Structure’, in The journey is Home, Boston, Beacon 1985, p. 17Google Scholar; also Keller, Catherine, ‘Goddess, Ear and Metaphor, On the Journey of Nelle Morton’, in Journal of Feminist studies in Religion, 4/2 pp. 51–67.Google Scholar

19 Cited in Kirkham, Dominic, A New European Awakening, The Month, November 1991, p. 471.Google Scholar

20 For Process thought and Christian theology, see Suchocki, op cit; Cobb, J. Jr & Griffin, D., Process Theology: an Introductory Exposition, Philadelphia, Westminster, 1976Google Scholar; Davaney, Sheila Greeve ed. Feminism and Process Thought, New York and Toronto, Edwin Mellen, 1981.Google Scholar

21 For organic/relational/eco-feminist theological world views, see Primavesi, Anne, From Apocalypse to Genesis: Ecology, Feminism and Christianity, London, Burns and Oates, 1991Google Scholar; Halkes, Catherine, New Creation: Christian Feminism and the Renewal of the Earth, London, SPCK, 1991Google Scholar; Grey, Mary, Redeeming the Dream, London, SPCK, 1989.Google Scholar

22 Ruether, Rosemary Radford, Sexism and God-Talk, London, SCM, 1983, pp. 183–192.Google Scholar

23 Goldstein, Valerie Saiving, ‘The Human Situation: A Feminine View’ in Woman spirit Rising, eds. Christ, Carol and Plaskow, Judith, San Francisco, Harper and Row, pp. 25–42Google Scholar. (Originally appeared in Journal of Religion, Vol. 40, 1960).Google Scholar

24 Cited by Hampson, Daphne, Theobgy and Feminism, Oxford, Blackwell, 1990, p. 122–123.Google Scholar

25 Cf Redeeming the Dream, op cit., p. 17: ‘The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard was apparently aware that there was a difference. The two forms of sin, he noted, were the sin of weakness and the sin of defiance: ‘the one form is, so to speak, the despair of womanliness, the other of manliness’. See The Sickness unto Death, New York, Doubleday 1951, tr. Lown, V., pp. 183–184Google Scholar. On the question of whether despair is sin, see Bringle, Mary Louise, Despair, Sickness or Sin? Nashville, Abingdon, 1900Google Scholar. For Williams, Daniel Day, see The Spirit and the Forms of Love. Welwyn. James Nisbet, 1968.Google Scholar

26 Plaskow, Judith, Sex, Sin and Grace: Womens' Experience and the Theologies of Reinhold Niebuht and Paul Tillich, Washington DC, University Press of America, 1980.Google Scholar

27 Miller, Jean Baker, Towards a New Psychology of Women, Boston, Beacon, 1976, pp. 76–77.Google Scholar

28 Cited by Daphne Hampson, op cit., p. 124. The citation is from Vaughan, Judith, Sociality, Ethics and Social Change: A Critical Appraisal of Reinhold Niebuhr in the Light of Rosemary Ruether's works, Lanham MD, University of America Press 1983.Google Scholar

29 ‘This, above all to choose not to be victim’ was the conclusion of the protagonist of Attwood's, Margaret novel Surfacing, London, Virago, 1979, p. 191Google Scholar. The rejection of victim status remains an important part of the ‘quest for self in the feminist theological canon.

30 Katie Canon, Black Womanist Ethics, op cit, is quoting Fisher, Dexter ed., The Third Woman: Minority Writers of the United States, Boston, Houghton Mifflin 1980, p. 139.Google Scholar

31 Thistlethwaite, Susan, Sex, Race and God, London, Chapman, 1990, p. 82Google Scholar, discussing Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God, op cit., p. 132.

32 See Grey, M., Augustine and the Legacy of Guilt, New Blackfriars, 70/832/Nov. 1989/pp. 476–488.Google Scholar

33 See Milbank, Alison, ‘Josephine Butler: Christianity, Feminism and Social Action’, in Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy, eds. Obelkevich, et al. , London & New York, Routledge and Kegan Paul, pp. 154–164.Google Scholar

34 Cited from Wehr, Dernaris S., Jung and Feminism: Liberating Archetypes, London, Routledge, 1988Google Scholar, Ch. 6, ‘Analytical Psychology Through a Feminist Lens’, pp. 99–126.

35 Daly, Mary, Beyond God The Father, Boston, Beacon, 1973, (reissued 1985 with original re-introduction), p. 647.Google Scholar

36 Ruether, Rosemary, ‘Is Feminism the End of Christianity?’ A Critique of Daphne Hampson's Theology and Feminism, in Scottish Journal of Theology 1990, Vol. 43, pp. 390–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 See Daly's third and fourth books, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism, London, The Women's Press, 1979Google Scholar; Pure Lust: Elemental Feminist Philosophy, London, The Women's Press, 1984.Google Scholar

38 Here I follow the work of Scherzberg, Lucia, Sunde und Gnade in der Feministischen Theologie, Mainz, Grunewald, 1991.Google Scholar

39 See Heyward, Carter, The Redemption of God, Washington DC, University of America Press, p. 162.Google Scholar

40 Pagels, Elaine, Adam, Eve and the Serpent, London, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1988Google Scholar, Ch. V, The Politics of Paradise, pp. 98–126; Ch. VI, The Nature of Nature, pp. 127–150. For critical reaction to her argument, see O'Connell, R. J., in TS 50/1/1989/p. 201Google Scholar, and Quispel, Gillies in Vigiliae Christianae 43/1/1989/pp. 100–103.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

41 Ruether, Rosemary, ‘Dualism and the Nature of Evil in Feminist Theology’, paper delivered to Society for the Study of Christian Ethics, September 1991 in Studies in Christian Ethics, Vol. 5, 1, 1992.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 See Scherzberg, op. cit., pp. 192–193; Greshake, Gilbert, Gnade als Conkrete Freiheit. eine Untersuchung zur Gnadenlehre des Pelagius, Mainz, 1972.Google Scholar

43 Ann Primavesi, op. cit., Chs. 11, 12.

44 See Primavesi, ibid; Schungel-Straumann, Helen, Die Frau am Anfang: Eva und die Folgen, Freiburg, Herder, 1989Google Scholar; Poorthuis, Marcel, ‘Rabbijnse Interpretaties van het paradijs Verhaal’, in Tijdschrift voor Theologie 30/90/pp. 234–258Google Scholar, ‘Is De Vrouw van alles Schuldig? Joodse Interpretaties van het Paradijs Verhaal’, in Werhchrift 9/6/March 1989/pp. 19–23.Google Scholar

45 See for example, Moore, Sebastian, Original Sin, Resurrection and Trinity, Lonergan Workshop 4/1983/pp. 85–98Google Scholar; Soelle, Dorothee, To Work and To Love: A Theology of Creation, Philadelphia, Fortress, 1984, Chs. 1–3.Google Scholar

46 Scarry, Elaine, The Body in Pain: The Making and Unmaking of the World, New York and Oxford, OUP, 1985.Google Scholar

47 ibid., p. 137.

48 See Nussbaum, Martha, The Fragility of Goodness: Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, Cambridge, CUP, 1986, p. 79.Google Scholar