Mar
10
2010
Are We Still Responsible for Sins for Which We May Be Genetically Predisposed?
The key to answering this question—which usually arises in discussions about homosexuality and Christianity—is to insist (with the Bible) that genetic dispositions are not equal to sinful determiners. Our individual makeup and background provide the context for sin and may fuel the craving for sin but never alleviate the responsibility for our sin and the requirement that we imitate God’s holy character.
Ultimately, we are all equal in Adam, though our sins can take various forms. And we may all be equal in the sin-free, sin-conquering Christ, where the ground is level before the cross where he bore God’s wrath and won the victory over his enemies.
Here’s a helpful word from Tom Schreiner giving a brief New Testament overview on this question of sin and responsibility.
Even if some sins could be traced to our genetics, it would not exempt us from responsibility for such sins. The Scriptures teach that all human beings are born into this world as sons and daughters of Adam, and hence they are by nature children of wrath (Eph. 2:3). They are dead in trespasses in sins (Eph. 2:1, 5), and have no inclination to seek God or to do what is good (Rom. 3:10–11). We come into the world as those who are spiritually dead (Rom. 5:12, 15), so that death reigns over the whole human race (Rom. 5:17). Indeed, human beings are condemned by virtue of Adam’s sin (Rom. 5:16, 18). Such a radical view of sin in which we inherit a sinful nature from Adam means that sinful predispositions are part of our personalities from our inception. Hence, even if it were discovered that we are genetically predisposed to certain sinful behaviors like alcoholism or homosexuality, such discoveries would not eliminate our responsibility for our actions, nor would it suggest that such actions are no longer sinful. The Scriptures teach that we are born as sinners in Adam, while at the same time they insist we should not sin and are responsible for the sin we commit. We enter into the world as slaves of sin (Rom. 6:6, 17), but we are still morally blameworthy for capitulating to the sin that serves as our master.
25 Comments
Indeed, most if not all of us are genetically predisposed towards certain sin, be it alcohol abuse, greed, or simple pride. Trying to excuse your personal sins by claiming “God made me this way” is not only incorrect, it’s bordering on blasphemy (by blaming God for our sin).
What about in the case where a person is missing a psychological component to keep them from sinning? For example, someone I’m close to is said by psychologists to lack impulse control. He has what’s now referred to as anti-social and narcissistic personality disorders, what used to be called sociopathy. He may or may not “know” some thing is wrong to do by some objective standard, but that has no influence on his choices.
Great question Shane! Things always get complex with personality and psychopathology. I’m not sure what your friend is going through, but I know I wonder why God would ordain for me to be biologically predisposed to my particular oddities!
Your friend’s impulses (or desires) guide his decision making (Antonio Damasio has some good books on this subject from a neuroscience perspective), and it’s those desires which matter most; not his capacity to clamp down on those desires by living by an objective moral standard. God cares about his heart, and what’s driving him; not his capacity to live a “Kantian” ethic. Jesus was quite impulsive about pleasing God.
Psychology views impulse control mainly in terms of the inhibition of neural regions such as the amygdala by “cognitive” areas such as the pre-frontal cortex and insula. But according to the bible, impulse control is more about the impulse, and less about the control. It’s about the new heart directing actions in alignment with God’s will, rather than your own will clamping down on impulses. It’s about desiring God above all else rather than trying to control sin by religion. Tim Keller gave a good sermon on this titled “self-control”.
Sometimes it can be a blessing to have a lack of impulse control, because it makes it easier for you and your Christian friends to see what you most desire. When your heart is revealed, your idols are exposed. That’s a helpful advantage in smashing idols. Many people have trouble seeing their idols because outwardly they are full of “impulse control”, like the Pharisees who were very controlled on the outside, but had not been changed on the inside; their impulses remained.
Thanks, Pete, for the reply.
My friend’s situation is pretty complicated. A lot of his lack of impulse control can lead to hurting himself and others in terrible ways: drugs/alcohol, violence, sex, crime, etc. And the narcissism basically disallows him from feeling empathy which compounds the problems as regards others.
I do like your point that it’s our impulses that God wants to work on in the first place rather than our ability to control them. My friend has had moments where it seemed he was spiritually connecting with God, but, in light of other behavior, it now seems that those moments were more about manipulation and delusions of grandeur than honest, humble spiritual change.
Hard to summarize it all in a comment, of course. I will check out both Damasio’s work and Keller’s sermon (already a big fan of the teaching coming out of Redeemer). Thanks, Pete!
Maybe he’s actually dead in his transgressions?
A book worth reading is “The Myth of Mental Illness: Foundations of a Theory of Personal Conduct.”
Thanks, J, for the reply. I assume you mean that maybe he is still gripped by sin and not been made new in Christ. That could be. Sure would be the simple way to understand it.
I’m somewhat familiar with “The Myth of Mental Illness” and the anti-psychiatry movement generally. Though I’m not a mental health professional, my own experience leads me to think that the truth falls somewhere in the middle between the pro-psychiatry and anti-psychiatry movements.
It is interesting that the anti-psychiatry folks would equate modern mental illness diagnoses with pronouncements of possession or other spiritual disturbances. For Szasz and other anti-psychiatry advocates, both possession and mental illness are equally unscientific(therefore, not real)and useful to those in power for keeping the “sinful” or “mentally ill” subjugated or locked-up (showing the Marxist underpinnings of the anti-psychiatry movement).
I think the anti-psychiatry folks play a good role in balancing out the desire to call every strange or undesirable behavior evidence of a mental illness. It just flies in the face of my own experiences to say that mental illness as a category is false. I also think that anyone who says, as anti-psychiatry folks must, that we totally understand the human brain is to be treated very skeptically.
Thanks Shane,
My reference to “The Myth..” was not to place me in any “aniti” camp nor to say that I am completely on board with the book. It was as you say to bring a balance to an out of balance axle (or how bout whacked out balance). With that said, I find that your experience with mental illness is opposite of mine. Most people that had been diagnosed with the increasing list of sicknesses were nothing close to actually having some kind of irreparable biological/chemical problem. Most of them have been men and women who had spent years and decades cycling through the same anxieties, worries, and desperation with diverse tragedies and causes. But the greatest tragedy is that all the mental health professionals as well as M.D.’s have condemned them by speaking death in their ears:”You will probably never get better and you must stay on this medication for the rest of your life.” So what I want to know from the Christian is how does this relate to Jesus’ approach to the same kind of people? So the balance should be between our ignorance as Christians and us learning how the Kingdom comes with power.
I recall watching Falwell on Larry King touting free will in a discussion on homosexuality. I thought to myself Falwell wasted a opportune time to explain the gospel in light of sinners being _enslaved_ to their will.
People, don’t make the same mistake that Falwell made by claiming that homosexuals are responsible for their own actions because they were not born with that disposition. Falwell’s pelagian tabula rasa theology is antithetical to the gospel.
As someone with degrees in biochemistry, genetics, and theology, I can say pretty definitively that we are genetically predisposed toward death. Our DNA and the proteins that operate on it are literally bent toward death.
Since the reality of spiritual death has a physical counterpart, I would not at all be surprised if spiritual depravity and sin had a physical manifestation. Still, I agree with Scheiner that, “Even if some sins could be traced to our genetics, it would not exempt us from responsibility for such sins.”
Responsibility has to do with the law of God, not one’s _ability_ to obey it. This was Falwell’s pelagian assumption.
If I am drunk driving, I do not have the ability to obey traffic laws. Nevertheless, I am still guilty if I break them because it is the law. Likewise we are all born determined not to obey God’s law; nevertheless, we are still guilty when we disobey it.
Al Mohler made similar arguments on his blog last summer:
http://www.albertmohler.com/2009/07/16/then-again-maybe-not-the-gay-gene-theory-takes-a-hit/
“The flesh wars against the Spirit, so you can’t do the things you desire.”
But God, when he fills us with His Spirit, empowers us to not fulfill the lusts of the flesh, as we trust in Christ our Lord, Savior, and Friend.
If the law never said you shall not covet, then to covet would have been there, but not empowered.
The power of sin is the law.
Love is the fulfilling of the law. The love of the Holy Spirit in each and every believer.
Thanks for the post. Excellent words to take to heart.
I thought the Reformed tradition in general sees man’s corrupt nature and concupiscence as itself a sin that is worthy of God’s wrath.
So then the matter is not even “am I judged for committing a sin that I had an inherent tendency to commit” but that we are judged for having any inherent tendency to commit sins, even when those tendencies aren’t actualized.
So there. Pretty tough, but that’s the Reformed view.
Pduggie’s point strikes me as very important, and frequently neglected.
It is sometimes said that, if you can believe Genesis 1:1, then you can believe the rest of the Bible. So likewise, if you can believe that someone would deserve to suffer eternally simply because of his/her ancient ancestor’s sin (or simply because of his/her inherited “nature”), then you can believe anything about sin, justice, moral responsibility and desert.
….which would make God a monster,
unless,
He Himself took on that nature, and became the sin that nature inherited, so that we could be given His nature, and, one day, the body that nature was meant to have.
2 Corinthians 5:21
My favorite verse.
Great point, Rachel. Praise God.
[...] Justin Taylor asks “Are we responsible for sins for which we may be genetically predisposed?“ [...]
The Bible uses from memory 16 key words to describe sin, everything from missing the mark, to refusing to worship and of cause being unjust. All these words are set against the Torah, especially the Ten Commandments. Are we genetically programed to create false God’s? Are we genetically geared to worshiping images?, Do our genetics make us not want to worship God? Do we treat our parent’s poorly without honoring them because of genetics? Do we have genetics that make us want to steal,kill, covet and commit adultery? Here is the real point: science is in kindergarten with regard to genetics. The Genome was discovered yesterday in scientific terms and to argue dogmatically for instance there is or is not a genetic Gene seem unwise at this stage of history. Other sciences have very different explanations for behavior. The truth is Christ has overcome all our short comings with the Cross, God now accepts man despite our nature, Jesus paid the price!
Yes it is true that the reformed view assumes that in Adam we all sinned and are deserving of God’s wrath. A fulkl orbed biblical view also recignizes that there are individual sins on which account the wrath of God will come i.e Col 3:6. (this post is in regards to the previous comments about ther reformed view. And for the record I think Screiner has done a good job of gathering some biblical facts on this subject. For sure when we articulate this biblical position it needs to be done so with compassion which is lacking from the quote).
I spoke with a man the other day, he is 92 years old, and asked him if he was a Christian. He asked what I meant by that.
“Do you trust in Christ? Have you told God you are a sinner, and need His mercy?”
He said, “I’m not a sinner.”
He was a very nice man; a good man. And he felt he wasn’t a sinner. I said Jesus was the only Man who ever lived who wasn’t a sinner, and was perfect.
He said to me, “I’m perfect.”
I cracked up. I never heard anyone ever say that before.
It was a good time of talking about the Lord and the Gospel. His pastor was actually in his house at the time: A Lutheran pastor.
I thought, this man is nice, and a fine citizen. And yet he will be judged for evey sin he has committed, though they may not be as many as most people, God will call him to account for his sins. And without Christ, there is no forgiveness.
He didn’t understand this truth, and yet he went to church, and named the name of the Lord, and was nice.
Only God can open the heart of the most decent of men, as well as the vilest of men in this cursed world.
The man asked me stop back and have a beer. I said I would if I could bring my Bible. I pray God will open his heart, and draw his soul to Christ for mercy and salvation.
I posit to all contributors that “sin” is the absence of “Shalom”. That word is most often simply translated as “Peace”. But what the greeting of “Shalom” is in reality is the prayer that “everything should be as God intended.”
From that perspective, there is absolutely nothing in this world, including “all behaviors and all religions”, that are exactly as God intented. Because of this, I continue to be absolutely bumfuzzled about why certain “sins” (un-Shalom-isms, for lack of a better terms) are more “sinful” than others. It is a sin to lie, to commit adultery, to be lustful (in thought or deed), to be homosexual, etc., etc. — I have never understood why the liar, the adulterer, etc. are so much less vocally maligned that the homosexual.
Indeed, there seems to me to be an almost holier-than-thou glee at the railing against homosexuality. And this seems to me to be so very hypocritical to not so denigrate the liars and the cheaters (unless, of course they are of a political persuasion other than that one espouses.
“are more “sinful” than others” -Moye
To murder an innocent person is surely more evil than cheating on an exam. There are more heinous sins for sure.
Fornication is one of the most serious of sins. Paul the Apostle tells us to flee this particular sin. And if you do a biblical study you find that sexual impurity is quite serious.
And yet, all sin is evil. For it offends God. And God will deal with every sin ever committed by His created masterpiece, the human race. We are created in the image of the Lord God, and to have even a simple thought of rebellion is hateful to the Lord. We need to be pure; as pure as Christ was, when He lived and walked in this world.
[...] Read as Justin Taylor considers whether or not we are still guilty for sins to which we may be genetically predisposed. [...]
For what it’s worth, if anything, here are a few of my own thoughts on the topic:
1. On the face of it, it would seem contradictory to think there is a gay gene in light of the fact that, for genes to to be genes and continue in a population pool, genes need to be passed from one generation to the next generation, yet homosexuals obviously can’t reproduce. As such it wouldn’t appear to confer a reproductive advantage but in fact it’d seem to confer a reproductive disadvantage.
I think some scientists respond that, it does confer a reproductive advantage, even if we don’t exactly know why yet. They speculate that maybe if a heterosexual has something like a recessive gay gene (which of course then assumes the gay gene is a recessive trait or something similar, which would also need to be established), then it might confer a reproductive advantage for the heterosexual. As such the gay gene is kept in the genetic pool. I don’t know if there are any studies to back this up though. PubMed would be the place to go.
2. Still, even if there is a gay gene, as already pointed out, it doesn’t mean there’s therefore no moral responsibility involved – any more than if there was an “alcoholic” gene or whatever.
3. We’ve only sequenced the human genome in 2003 or thereabouts. We’re still in the process of analyzing it, trying to figure out what it all means. There’s still so much to learn! At this point, I think it’d be presumptuous for someone to actually come down and explicitly state they’ve found the gene or set of genes that codes for homosexual desires.
4. Human sexual attraction is hugely complex. So I think it’s a bit overly simplistic for someone to say a gay gene exists. There are so many other factors involved. Not just genetics but also hormones and environment (e.g. family and upbringing, culture).
Broadly speaking, at least as far as I understand, there’s no one-to-one correlation between a gene or set of genes and a specific condition for most medical conditions or maladies or diseases or whatever. Sure, there are well-known ones like Down Syndrome or cystic fibrosis which do have a firm genetic basis. But from what I understand these are more the exception than the rule. Most conditions in human beings aren’t so neatly or perfectly correlated. Most things range along a spectrum with “genetic causes” on one end (e.g. Down Syndrome) and “environmental causes” on the other end (e.g. fractures).
5. At least from what I can tell, I think a lot if not most of the current research in trying to understand human sexual attraction is bound together not only with microevolution but also macroevolution. If one doesn’t think macroevolution has been scientifically established, then one might take issue with some of the discussion around human sexual attraction. The framework in which to frame the discussion regarding the origins of human sexual behavior might itself seem rickety.
6. For better or for worse, ethical or unethical, many scientists have a vested interest in oversimplifying science for the public (e.g. continued research funding). See this comic for example. I think the same or similar might apply to the gay gene and genetics research. Maybe I’m wrong but that’s my impression.
This paragraph isn’t important. I just thought some might be interested in the complexities of cancer. Also it might be slightly technical. So please feel free to skip. For those who are interested, as the comic notes, there’s no single “cure” for cancer. Cancer is complicated and can vary from person to person. Nevertheless several conditions must adhere in order for cancer to develop (e.g. DNA damage, failure of DNA repair, genetic mutation, activation of oncogenes, inactivation of tumor suppressor genes, diminished apoptosis, angiogenesis, etc.). Cancer is basically the unregulated growth of abnormal cells. In a word, the cells have become immortal and keep dividing and dividing, nonstop. To simplify things, think of the gas and break pedals on a car. In order for the car to speed up, faster and faster, nonstop, and then crash, not only does the gas pedal have to be depressed, but the brakes have to also fail. In cancer, the gas pedal is constantly depressed (i.e. the activation of oncogenes which stimulate growth) and the brakes have failed (i.e. the inactivation of tumor suppressor genes which would normally keep the cell from “growing” out of control). Again, there’s way more to it than that, but I think that’s a good starting point. In any case, I hope it helps one to get a taste of the complexities involved in finding a cure for cancer.
7. As a side note, in case anyone might think otherwise, scientific research isn’t a perfect endeavor where everyone is always entirely transparent about everything and knowledge is freely shared and so forth. Often there are petty jealousies and rivalries, among other things. For example, see James Watson’s The Double Helix which talks about his and Crick’s discovery of DNA as well as Maurice Wilkins’ and Rosalind Franklin’s major contributions. (BTW, Wilkins also received the Nobel along with Watson and Crick. But Franklin sadly was not treated fairly, I don’t think. She didn’t get the Nobel although she arguably deserved it as much as the other three guys.) It’s quite a revealing look into scientific research. Our peer review process is probably better, but I don’t think things have changed a whole lot. Fundamentally, we’re still sinners.
I’d like to just add a complicating factor in all of this. When we say “This or that gene of neuron is responsible for X, therefore I am not”, we are making a “category error”, as Gilbert Ryle called it. We can’t so easily cross levels of analysis between biology and intentionality. We could take the “intentional stance” as Daniel Dennett likes to put it, but that’s a functional pragmatic approach; not a helpful one for answering questions of moral responsibility.
There are two ways we can go about a solution to this analytical blunder. We could speak only in neural terms, asking “Which neurons are responsible for these other neurons not working as they should?” yet that wouldn’t make sense, because we would have a hard time functionally defining “responsible” or “should” at the neural level of analysis since we don’t have a definition of neural moral purity (Perhaps we could scan Jesus’ brain during various temptations and experiences…hmmm…).
A second solution is that we could trace out the exophenotypes (external expressions of underlying genetic neural mechanisms), and then speak only in terms of these exophenotypic categories. However, it is unlikely that these categories would happen to form concepts such as “responsible”. Additionally, given that the genetic effect on neural arrangements depends on environmental input, precise conceptual “bridging laws” from genes to endophenotypes (i.e. neural concepts) to exophenotypes would be very unlikely.
So where does that leave us? Well, pretty much in the same place we’ve always been. Sinners who need to repent of their sin (or biology, or whatever level of analysis you wish to describe sin – personally, my conscious experience is more available to me than my neurons or DNA), who are reliant on Jesus for salvation. Perhaps the only difference is that we can now see that blaming it on the brain is a mistake of logic, and we need to repent of our analytic, scientific, enlightenment pride, and return to scripture once again. That includes those of us with alcohol genes, porn genes, lazy genes, violent genes, gay genes, stealing genes, gossip genes, I just cheated on my wife again genes…and any other genes which our conscience, empowered by the Holy Spirit, informed by scripture, and encouraged by friends, reminds us to repent of.
How much fun is neurotheology?! :o)