26

The Sinner and the Victim

George Hunsinger

Over the course of the past century, Christian theology has increasingly
witnessed the rise of victim-oriented soteriologies. The plight of victims,
variously specified and defined, has been regarded by prominent theologians
as the central soteriological problem. It can scarcely be denied that the bloody
history of the twentieth century has brought the plight of victims to the fore.
Nor can it be denied that Christians have too often seemed ill-equipped to
bring the plight of victims, especially victims of institutional oppression and
social injustice, clearly into focus for themselves so that reasonable and faithful
remedies might be sought. Victim-oriented soteriologies have undoubtedly
made an important contribution to a better understanding of the church’s
social responsibility.
Polarizations and animosities developed, however, to the extent that the
plight of victims displaced the soteriological plight of sinners, or even eclipsed
it. Victim-oriented soteriologies tended to define the meaning of sin entirely
in terms of victimization. In effect, sin ceased to be a universal category. It was
defined almost exclusively in terms of perpetrators or unjust institutions. Since
by definition victims qua victims were innocent of being perpetrators, they were
to that extent innocent of sin. If sin attached only to perpetrators, however,
victims could be sinners only by somehow becoming perpetrators, or at least
collaborators, themselves, a move not unknown in victim-oriented soteriologies.
With their polar opposition between victims and perpetrators, victim-oriented
soteriologies arguably displayed a logic with sectarian tendencies.
How the cross of Christ is understood by these soteriologies is worth noting.
The cross becomes significant mainly because it shows divine solidarity with
the victims, generally ceasing to retain any other relevance. (In extreme cases,
the theology of the cross is denounced as a cause of victimization. However,
434 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

such denunciations, when meant de iure, exceed the bounds even of heterodoxy
and so cease to be of constructive interest to the church.) The cross, in any
case, is no longer seen as the supreme divine intervention for the forgiveness
of sins. It is not surprising, therefore, that more traditional, sin-oriented soteri-
ologies should react with unfortunate polarization. When that happens, sin
as a universal category obscures the plight of oppression’s victims, rendering
their plight just as invisible or irrelevant as it was before. Atonement without
solidarity then comes to exhaust the significance of the cross, and forgiveness
takes place without judgement on oppression.
The task of ecclesial theology in this situation is to dispel polarization by
letting central truths be central, and lesser truths be lesser, but in each case
letting truth be truth. No reason exists why the cross as atonement for sin
should be viewed as logically incompatible with the cross as divine solidarity
with the oppressed. Good reasons can be found for connecting them.11 The
great historical ecumenical consensus remains, however, that the central signifi-
cance of the cross, as attested by Holy Scripture, is (in one way or another) the
forgiveness of sins. This established consensus in fact pervades every aspect
of the church’s life, not least including baptism and the Lord’s Supper. It has
by this time withstood the onslaughts of unbelieving modernity, so that the
only question today is not whether the ecumenical consensus will survive, but
whether those churches devitalized by modern scepticism will. No ecclesial
theology can be valid which fails to affirm the forgiveness of sins as central to
the meaning of the cross. ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do’
(Lk. 23.34).
Lesser truths, however, which are certainly weightly in their own right, ought
not to be pitted against central truths. Lesser truths, moreover, gain rather than
diminish in significance when decentred, for they no longer have a role foisted
upon them that they cannot fulfil. A properly ecclesial theology will attempt to
do justice to both central and lesser truths as well as to their proper ordering. As
I will try to show, the category of ‘the sinner’ needs to be distinguished carefully
from that of ‘the victim’ in order to set forth their inner unity.12

11
For a book-length development of these ideas, see Nathan D. Hieb, Christ Crucified in a Suffering
World: The Unity of Atonement and Liberation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2013).
12
These opening paragraphs are a lightly re-written excerpt from my essay ‘Social Witness in
Generous Orthodoxy,’ in George Hunsinger, Conversational Theology (London: T&T Clark, 2015):
205–32.
 The Sinner and the Victim 435

1. ‘The sinner’ is a universal category while ‘the victim’

is a limited or circumscribed category.
Sin is seen as a universal category throughout Holy Scripture. Perhaps the Bible’s
most sustained indictment against it is found in the opening chapters of Paul’s
letter to the Romans. The apostle seals his harrowing argument by quoting from
the Psalms: ‘None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks
for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one
does good, not even one’ (Rom. 3.10-12; Ps. 14.1-3; Ps. 53.1-3).13 The conclusion:
‘For there is no distinction, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’
(Rom. 3.22-23). Much the same emphasis appears in the Johannine literature. ‘If
we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ (1 Jn1.8).
Jesus himself seems to suggest a universal propensity toward sin when he states:
‘If you then who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children’ (Mt.
7.11). Long before him Jeremiah had lamented: ‘The heart is deceitful above
all things, and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?’ (Jer. 17.9 RSV).
The same thought appears in the first book of the Bible: ‘The Lord saw that the
wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually’ (Gen. 6.5 RSV). Not even the
most blameless person is excluded: ‘Surely there is not a righteous man on earth
who does good and never sins’ (Eccl. 7.20). Luther never tired of reverting to the
prophet Isaiah: ‘But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses
are as filthy rags’ (Isa. 64.6 KJV).
By contrast, ‘the victim’ as a social category is clearly limited in scope. Not
all persons are victims of social injustice.14 By definition, if there are social
or political classes of victims, there are also victimizers over against them,
regardless of whether they operate at a level that is more individual or more
cultural and institutional. The poor, for example, are often victims of oppression
and exploitation by the rich. The Ninth Commandment, which forbids false
witness against one’s neighbour, indirectly forbids social prejudice against
‘people belonging to any vulnerable, different or disfavoured social group. Jews,
women, homosexuals, racial and ethnic minorities, and national enemies are
among those who have historically suffered from vicious attitudes of prejudice.’15
Lies go hand in hand with violence, and negative stereotyping accompanies

13
All scripture passages are from the English Standard Version unless otherwise noted.
14
In this essay I am thinking about victims of systematic, social injustice, not isolated cases, or more
or less random acts of victimization. This approach is in line with victim-oriented soteriologies.
15
Question 115 in The Study Catechism: Full Version (Louisville, NY: Witherspoon Press, 1998),
pp. 67–8. This is a document of the Presbyterian Church (USA), which I helped to write.
436 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

victimization. Negative stereotyping underwrites crimes of humiliation and

abuse as are indirectly forbidden by the commandment against murder. False
witness is a sin that creates victims and generates violence.
When the Old Testament prophets condemn violence against the poor, they
are implicitly condemning every form of victimization and social injustice. The
prophet Amos vents his moral outrage:

Hear this, you who trample upon the needy,

and [bring to ruin] the poor of the land,
saying, ‘When will the new moon be over,
that we may sell grain?
And the sabbath,
that we may offer wheat for sale,
that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great,
and deal deceitfully with false balances,
that we may buy the poor for silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
and sell the [debris as] wheat? (Amos 8.4-6)

To sum up, this analysis points to a complex situation. All victims are sinners,
but not all sinners are victims. Indeed, some sinners, far from being victims, are
beneficiaries of social injustice while others are (guilty) bystanders. As we will
see, what the victim qua victim needs is justice while what the sinner qua sinner
needs is a Saviour. The victim needs redress through works of the Law while the
sinner, who is devoid of good works in any relevant sense, needs the Gospel.

2. Sinners, who undertake evil, are tainted by an unshakable guilt,

while victims, who undergo evil, retain a basic innocence.
Sinners are those who undertake evil, whereas victims of injustice are those who
undergo evil at the hands of others. The difference between ‘sin’ and ‘victimi-
zation’ is the difference between wrongdoing and innocent suffering.
There is a sense in which ‘victimization’ always involves innocence. All
victims are sinners, but only insofar as they share in the universal human plight.
The victim qua victim, however, is a victim, not a sinner. It is essential not to
blame the victim for the plight of being a victim. Blaming the victim is a well-
known ploy of the oppressor. It is an all-too-familiar tactic, for example, in cases
of racism, sexism and anti-Semitism. Victims are constantly encouraged by the
powerful to enlist in their own oppression by blaming themselves.
 The Sinner and the Victim 437

The oppressor, exploiter or perpetrator, on the other hand, is always

a sinner, but in two different forms, categorically and more specifically:
categorically because of the universal plight, more specifically by wrongful
deeds of oppression. The universal plight does not excuse the wrongful
deeds. The oppressor needs to repent of his oppression as well as of his more
categorical sinfulness.
Perpetrators qua perpetrators, and victims qua victims: both need the deliv-
erances of grace, though not necessarily in the same ways. Insofar as they are
categorically sinners, however, they both need grace and repentance in exactly
the same ways. In this sense sin is the great equalizer.
Sin as a general condition and sin as oppression need to be kept distinct.
Among the oppressed, and among those who identify with their cause, the
failure to recognize sin as a universal category applying also to themselves
tends toward the sin of superbia: pride, self-righteousness, self-justification. In
superbia sin is externalized in the other. This is the deadly sin of progressives
who champion social justice. ‘You who boast in the law, do you dishonour God
by breaking the law?’ (Rom. 2.23 RSV).
Among those not directly implicated in the victims’ misery, the failure to
recognize victimization as a wrong that cries out for rectification tends toward
the sin of acedia: apathy, sloth, indifference. In acedia injustice is seen as
something unpleasant but not as a cause for great concern. This is the deadly
sin of moderates who turn their heads, pretending not to see. ‘Now by chance
a priest was going down that road, and when he saw him he passed by on the
other side. So likewise a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed
by on the other side’ (Lk. 10.31-32).
Among those who are complicit in perpetrating social injustice, the failure
to consider the needs of others as being comparable to their own tends toward
the sin of avaritia: avarice, greed, rapacity, covetousness. In avaritia injustice is
not so bad after all. This is the deadly sin of conservatives who rationalize the
unacceptable. ‘What causes wars, and what causes fightings among you? Is it not
your passions that are at war in your members? You desire and do not have; so
you kill. And you covet and cannot obtain; so you fight and wage war’ (Jas 4.1–2
RSV).
As serious as the plight of the victim is, the sinner’s plight is more deep-seated
and all-inclusive. Anselm’s question cannot be avoided: Have you considered
‘how great the weight of sin is’ (quanti ponderis sit peccatum)? Although the one
plight is more weighty than the other, the plight of victims is disturbing enough
and ought never to be minimized. Sin and victimization both need to be taken
438 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

with full seriousness – in the right way, and at the right time. Neither is taken
seriously when the one is downplayed at the expense of the other.

3. The plight of the sinner is fraught with mystery

in a way that the plight of the victim is not.
Discourse about human sinfulness is necessarily a broken discourse. Sin defies
ordinary modes of comprehension. Almost everything about it is opaque. Its
origins, its depths and its consequences are strange, sinister and frightening.
Without a conscious effort, under the influence of grace, the temptation to
domesticate sin can scarcely be resisted. Sin is domesticated whenever it is
portrayed as being more intelligible and less severe than it is.

The mystery of sin’s depths

Sin is at once a brute fact and a dark mystery. Its eerie presence in every aspect
of human life is unnerving. Although it may not be surprising that sinners live
in a state of denial about their plight, even their denial can be discomfiting.
There is nothing more characteristic of sin than self-deception.
In Romans 1.18-31 Paul sets forth sin as radical before he reveals it as
universal. Sin is not only a matter of wrongdoing, but also of spiritual blindness
and disordered desires. It is a condition manifest in every wrongful deed and
prior to every sinful action. It affects the head, the heart, and the hand. No
aspect of human nature is untainted by its power. It has disfigured human
nature as a whole. The extent of this radical corruption is what the Reformers,
following Augustine, meant by ‘total depravity’. They did not mean that the
image of God (imago Dei) as created good was lost, but that sin as a spiritual
disposition corrupts all human works even at their best.
Referring to human beings after the Fall, Paul describes their unfortunate
condition:

they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened
… They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness,
malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are
gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil,
disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless … [moreover] they
not only do [deplorable things] but give approval to those who practise them.
(Rom. 1.21, 29-32)
 The Sinner and the Victim 439

A basic difference thus emerges between the sinner and the victim. Because
sin is both radical and universal, it involves the corruption of the human
heart. Yet while all human beings share in this corruption, no one is a victim
by nature. Being a sinner is a fundamental condition whereas being a victim
is an accidental property. Oppression does not corrupt the true essence of its
victims. It would be more accurate to say that it corrupts the true essence of
the oppressors. Oppressors have succumbed to sin in one of its most pernicious
forms: what Augustine called the lust for domination (libido dominandi). As the
lust for power, advantage and glory, oppression violates the inalienable dignity
of its victims, who are created in the image of God.
The imago Dei throws the mystery of sin into sharp relief. Created goodness
stands in paradoxical tension with humanity’s universal dissolution. ‘The
Christian estimate of human evil’, writes Reinhold Niebuhr, ‘is so serious
precisely because it places evil at the very center of human personality: in the
will … Man contradicts himself within the terms of his true essence. His sin
is the wrong use of his freedom and its consequent destruction.’16 Created in a
state of integrity, humanity languishes in corruption.

The mystery of sin’s origins

Despite all attempts at explanation, the origins of sin remain obscure. Appeals
to ‘free-will’, for example, are unsuccessful. They fail to grasp that free will is a
necessary but not a sufficient condition for humanity’s fall into sin. Augustine
was surely right when he argued that human beings were created in a state of
grace sufficient to keep them from falling. Likewise, ascribing sin’s origins to
a built-in anxiety about human ‘finitude’ fails for similar reasons. Inordinate
anxiety is more cogently seen as a consequence of sin rather than its prior
explanation. Once again, the argument proceeds as if original grace were insuf-
ficient. Every attempt to ‘explain’ how sin originated creates more problems than
it solves.
Descriptive analyses seem preferable to causal explanations. When
Kierkegaard suggested that ‘sin posits itself ’, he was being more nearly descriptive
than explanatory.17 To regard sin as self-positing is to treat it as an irreducible

16
Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribners’ Sons, 1941),
p. 16.
17
Although it was Niebuhr who made this statement famous, Kierkegaard’s text does not quite seem
to contain it. See Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man, pp. 181, 252; but cf. Soren Kierkegaard,
The Concept of Anxiety (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014), p. 67. Niebuhr was following an older
German translation of Kierkegaard from the Danish. The idea is important regardless of its source.
440 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

mystery, not as a problem to be solved. If Augustine was right that grace is

irresistible, then sin – as both a universal fact and a radical human corruption –
is ultimately something that defies all powers of explanation. From a theological
standpoint, it is inexplicable. Barth therefore saw it as the ‘impossible possi-
bility’. Sin exists only as something intrinsically absurd.
These puzzles are compounded when we turn to the origins of the species
as seen by evolutionary biology. Michael Horton may be correct when he
writes: ‘Christian theology stands or falls with a historical Adam and a
historical fall.’ Otherwise, he warns, ‘two serious problems ensue: first, sin
must be attributed to creation itself (and therefore to the Creator); second,
there is no longer any historical basis for Christ’s work.’18 Horton does not tell
us, however, how to square a historical fall with evolutionary biology. Kelsey,
Barth and Schleiermacher find this problem so intractable that they reject the
Fall’s historicity, but this only leaves them impaled on Horton’s dilemma. Alvin
Plantinga, who argues that evolutionary biology is not necessarily incom-
patible with an original human couple, posits that God breathed their souls
into them. They then fell inexplicably but culpably from original integrity
into sin’s distress. Whatever the plausibilities of this scenario, it would satisfy
Horton’s worries.19
A historical fall might make sense of sin’s radicality, but there would still be
the problem of its universality. The affirmation that sin is universal belongs to
the traditional doctrine of ‘original sin.’ Again, we find both descriptive and
explanatory elements. No ‘explanation’ of how original sin came to be univer-
sally transmitted, however, seems to be satisfactory. Two of the main ones are
the Augustinian idea of sexual transmission and the Calvinist idea of divine
imputation. Neither account makes it clear how all others can be held respon-
sible for Adam’s sin.
Rather than look for causal explanations, it seems better to think of sin’s
universality in terms of an inscrutable participation. The fall into sin by the first
human couple did not ‘cause’ sin in the rest of the human race. The mystery of
universal sinfulness is related to Adam’s sin not by causation but by spiritual
participation. We sin ‘in Adam’ not because of Adam. ‘Sin came into the world
through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all because

18
Michael Horton, The Christian Faith (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2011), pp. 424–5.
19
I am lifting out the merely descriptive element. Plantinga is heavily into apologetics and theoretical
explanations based on his (perhaps not always plausible) sense of ‘probabilities’. See Alvin Plantinga,
‘Historical Adam: One Possible Scenario’ (02/14/13). Available online: http://thinkchristian.refram-
emedia.com/historical-adam-one-possible-scenario
 The Sinner and the Victim 441

all have sinned’ (Rom. 5.12). ‘As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made
alive’ (1 Cor. 15.22). ‘In Adam’s fall sinned we all’ (Puritan proverb). ‘In each
the sin of all, in all the sin of each’ (Schleiermacher). We find ourselves in a
fallen condition that we readily make our own, at both the individual and the
social levels. It is as if each one of us would have wilfully rebelled against God
to disastrous effect regardless of who occupied in the original position.
The breadth and depth of human sinfulness can finally be known only by
revelation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church seems exactly right: ‘The
account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval
event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation
gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the
original fault freely committed by our first parents.’20 Here a historical fall is
affirmed but no explanation is given of its transmission. The universal mystery
of sin and its terrors are revealed to faith through the Word of God.

The mystery of sin’s consequences

Sin is not only radical and universal. It is also a power that holds us in bondage.
‘Whoever commits a sin is a slave of sin’ (Jn 8.34 NKJV). For the first human
beings, before the Fall, it was possible not to sin (posse non peccare). After the
Fall, it was not possible not to sin (non posse non peccare). Apart from grace we
are enslaved to sin as a dominating power that rules over us (Rom. 6. 6, 12). ‘For
I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do’ (Rom. 7.19).21
Guilt and power are not two separate parts of sin, but two ways of seeing it as a
whole. Though the guilt is prior to the enslaving power, bondage follows inexo-
rably from the guilt. The sin which holds us in bondage is humanly irreversible.
We can neither undo our guilty past nor remedy our deep-seated corruption.
Apart from grace, we have no hope of deliverance. We are incapable of the good
required for our salvation.
The plight of the victim is therefore distinct from the mystery of sin.
Victimization is neither universal nor radical nor irreversible in the specific
ways that sin is. Although sin and victimization are contrary to the will of God,

20
Catechism of the Catholic Church, #390 (New York: Doubleday, 1997, 2nd edn), p. 110, italics
original.
21
From Augustine through Aquinas to Luther, Calvin and Barth, Rom. 7.14-25 has been seen as
pertaining to the Christian life. The decisive arguments for this view are (a) that the passage is
written in the present tense and (b) that the experience it describes would not be possible apart
from faith. Therefore it does not seem to describe the believer’s pre-Christian consciousness or
experience.
442 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

they are so in different ways: God condemns sin while extending compassion to
the victims. Condemnation and compassion are both grounded in God’s perfect
righteousness. Just because God is perfectly good by nature, he cannot possibly
condone sin, but for the same reason he takes victims of injustice to heart.

4. Sin is a theological category whereas victimization is a

sociopolitical (and psychological) category.
We now come to the heart of the matter. A difference in kind is mainly what
distinguishes the sinner from the victim. All sin is against God, and some sin is
exclusively against God. ‘Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is
evil in your sight, so that you may be justified in your words and blameless in
your judgement’ (Ps. 51.4). ‘They did not honour [God] as God or give thanks
to him, but they became futile in their thinking and their senseless minds were
darkened’ (Rom. 1.21). Sin, it should be emphasized, is not primarily a moral
category, but a theological and spiritual category. It pertains first of all to our
relationship with God (the vertical dimension), and only in consequence to our
relationships with one another (the horizontal dimension). Sin (vertically) is
the great spiritual disorder (the tap root), from which all our social and moral
disorders arise (lateral roots).
Sin in its vertical or Godward vector manifests itself in the following:
unbelief, spiritual blindness, idolatry (i.e. worshipping something as God which
is not God, especially worshipping that which makes for death); religious indif-
ference; rebellion against God’s will; disordered desires – loving the wrong
things, loving the right things wrongly, not loving God above all else, loving
ourselves at the expense of God and our neighbours (self-seeking); not trusting
God to meet all our needs (Phil. 4.19) while denying God’s grace as sufficient for
us (2 Cor. 12.9); a sense of entitlement and resentment toward God as opposed
to a proper fear and gratitude; manipulating God through religion (not least in
politics); turning from God through anxiety and despair; treating God merely
as an instrumental value (as a means to our ends) rather than as the Highest
Good (summum bonum) by whom all other goods are contained, relativized
and judged.
Sin is not primarily estrangement. It is primarily a matter of enmity toward
God. ‘While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son’
(Rom. 5.10). Sin is rooted in a willful disorder at the core of our being. To be a
sinner is to be an enemy of grace. The preposition that goes with sin is against.
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to
 The Sinner and the Victim 443

be called your son’ (Lk. 15.21). Only because we sin against God are we also
estranged from God. The paradox is that though sin is something we volun-
tarily commit, we cannot free ourselves from it by our own devices. As already
suggested, the sin that holds us in its grip is beyond our powers of deliverance.
Although sin is sometimes defined as ‘missing the mark,’ this idea, though not
entirely wrong, remains at a superficial level. It overlooks the weightier matter of
sin as rebellion against God and estrangement from him. Sin is not like a failure
in archery. It is a deep-seated corruption of the heart, the hand and the mind.
Social injustice, on the other hand, is an outrageous form of moral evil. It
operates at the horizontal rather than the vertical level. As a shameful violation
of human beings, it is also a sin against God, but only indirectly. The vertical and
the horizontal, the social and the theological, the primary and the secondary,
are related by a subtle pattern of unity-in-distinction. All sins against human
beings are also sins against God, but some sins against God are not necessarily
sins against human beings. If reductionism and confusion are to be avoided,
these aspects need to be kept distinct.
The unity of sin in its vertical and horizontal dimensions was noted by Calvin:
‘Nor is it strange’, he wrote, ‘that [Micah the prophet] begins with the duties of
love of neighbor. For although the worship of God has precedence and ought
rightly to come first, yet justice which is practised in human relations is the true
evidence of devotion to God.’22 Here the practice of justice is inseparable from
devotion to God. Devotion to God, however, is not exhausted by the practice of
justice. Given our disrelation to God as the backstory, social and moral conse-
quences can be allowed to take the spotlight. Warring madness might serve as
an example: ‘Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood;
their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity … The way of peace they know not, and
there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked, no one
who goes in them knows peace’ (Rom. 3.15-17; Isa. 59.7-9 RSV). This passage
is immediately followed by another: ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes’
(Rom. 3.18; Ps. 36.1). This denunciation would apply to warmongering politi-
cians, no matter how pious. Hitler kept Daily Bible Readings at his bedside.
Under the title ‘The Roots of Violence,’ Gandhi constructed a list of evils:

Wealth without work,

Pleasure without conscience,
Knowledge without character,
Commerce without morality,

22
Comm. on Micah 6:8.
444 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

Science without humanity,

Worship without sacrifice,
Politics without principles.23

What Gandhi anchors in moral defect could be extended more basically to our
fatal disrelationship with God (as Gandhi might in his own way have agreed).

5. The remedy for the sinner lies in the gospel whereas the remedy
for the victim requires works of the law.
Sin needs a salvation beyond human powers to effect. Victimization, on the
other hand, demands remedies that can be humanly achieved. Only God can
save us from our sins, but victims and their allies can unite to rectify social
wrongs. This is a far-reaching difference between the sinner and the victim. The
remedies stand in inverse proportion, so to speak, to the maladies. Whereas the
malady of sin is active, its remedy is a gift to be received. For victims of injustice,
on the other hand, the situation is much the reverse. The malady is inflicted, but
the remedy depends on concerted social action.
The New Testament populates its stories with people who are incapacitated.
The blind, the deaf, the lame, the possessed, and most remarkably the dead,
have no power to deliver themselves from their afflictions. Their hope depends
entirely on a quality of mercy that visits them from without.24 All these sorry
figures can be interpreted symbolically as representing the incapacitations
of sin.25 Sin as a power is debilitating. It renders sinners helpless to rescue
themselves.
For Paul, the grace of Christ, as grounded in his saving death, comes
precisely to those who are lost. It comes to sinners who are helpless, ungodly,
and at enmity with God. It does not give them what they deserve, but precisely
what they do not deserve. It delivers them despite an inexcusable guilt.

For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly …
But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us … For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God

23
See Frank Woolever, Gandhi’s List of Social Sins: Lessons in Truth (Pittsburgh, PA: Dorrance
Publishing, 2011). The list was first published in Gandhi’s weekly newspaper Young India (22
October 1925).
24
In the stories they must, of course, be moved to accept this mercy by faith.
25
This point, it should be mentioned, pertains to the remedy not the malady. Unlike sinners qua
sinners, the needy figures in the New Testament stories are not responsible for their plights (cf.
Jn 9.2-3). The remedies, however, are analogous, because only a miraculous power of deliverance
suffices in each case.
 The Sinner and the Victim 445

through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be
saved by his life. (Rom. 5.6, 8, 10 NASB)

Grace thus serves to deliver the undeserving and capacitate the incapacitated.
The saving work of Christ is something that encounters us by grace here and
now. It is a gift to be received not by works of the law, but by grace through faith.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked … But
God, being rich in mercy … loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses
… For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own
doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works. (Eph. 1.1-2, 4-5, 8-9)

For Paul, salvation from sin – from its guilt and power – is a free gift that is
extended apart from works of the law (Rom. 3.20, 28). Salvation from sin is
something grounded in the Cross and made available to faith through the Gospel.
The deliverance of victims from injustice, on the other hand, is not essen-
tially a gift but a task, and an arduous one at that. Whereas the deliverance of
the sinner moves, as it were, from the active to the passive (from complicity to
receptivity), the deliverance of the victim moves from the passive to the active
(from affliction to resistance). Sinners cannot save themselves through works
of the law, but works of the law, as works of love and justice, are exactly what
victims of injustice need. For victims to be delivered from their sorry condition,
their works, in concert with others, are indispensable.
The merciful God who delivers from sin is the same God who denounces
injustice and identifies in solidarity with the oppressed. This God hears the cries
of those who suffer wrong.

The Lord is a God of justice, who knows no favourites. Though not unduly
partial toward the weak, yet he hears the cry of the oppressed … The Lord is
not deaf to the wail of the orphan, nor to the widow when she pours out her
complaint … The prayer of the lowly pierces the clouds; it does not rest till it
reaches its goal, nor will it withdraw till the Most High responds, judges justly
and affirms the right, and the Lord will not delay. (Sir. 35.12-14, 17-18)

The theme of compassion toward the lowly runs throughout the Old Testament.
‘The Lord works righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed’ (Ps.
103.6). ‘The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of
trouble’ (Ps. 9.9). ‘When they cry to the Lord because of oppressors, he will
send them a saviour and defender, and deliver them’ (Isa 19.20). ‘He will have
compassion on the poor and needy, And the lives of the needy he will save’ (Ps.
72.13).
446 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

Echoes of these themes are found in the New Testament as well. In the
Magnificat, the advent of Christ forebodes a great reversal. ‘He has cast down
the mighty from their thrones, and exalted those of low degree’ (Lk. 1.52 RSV).
At the outset of his ministry, Jesus identifies himself with the messianic words
of Isaiah: ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to
proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the
captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are
oppressed’ (Lk. 4.18; Isa. 61.1). Jesus, in his person, embodies God’s solidarity
with the oppressed.

‘For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink,
I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was
sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous
will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see thee hungry and feed thee, or thirsty
and give thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger and welcome thee,
or naked and clothe thee? And when did we see thee sick or in prison and visit
thee?’ And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one
of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.’ (Mt. 25.35-40).

The impediments to social justice today are far more structural than personal.
Vast amounts of wealth and power are concentrated in the hands of the few.
It is astonishing that many believers who uphold a traditional view of sin as
something universal, radical and corrupting cannot bring themselves to apply
this doctrine to social structures. Nevertheless, as recognized by Oscar Romero,
‘When the church hears the cry of the oppressed it cannot but denounce the
social structures that give rise to and perpetuate the misery from which the cry
arises’.26 A doctrine of sin without structural analysis is not enough.
Because the problem of injustice is structural, resistance to it must be struc-
tural as well. As political theorist Gene Sharp has argued, structural injustice
can be overcome through the practice of nonviolence. ‘Nonviolent struggle’, he
writes, ‘is the most powerful means available to those struggling for freedom.’27
According to his analysis, nonviolent resistance involves three main elements:
(i) protest and persuasion, (ii) noncooperation, and (iii) nonviolent intervention.
Above all, it involves disciplined and organized mobilization. Sharp writes:

26
Quoted in Ted Fortier, Jeanette Rodriguez, ‘Oscar Romero: Still Presente!’ Sojourners
magazine, March 2010. Available online: https://sojo.net/magazine/march-2010/oscar-
romero-still-presente#sthash.rBChfOMb.dpuf
27
Gene Sharp, From Dictatorship to Democracy (New York: The New Press, 2012), p. 22. For many
historical examples see Peter Ackerman and Jack Du Vall, A Force More Powerful: A Century of
Non-Violent Conflict (New York: Palgrave, 2000).
 The Sinner and the Victim 447

Very importantly, in order to have maximum impact, this noncooperation

and disobedience must take the form of mass action. While individual acts
may at times be scarcely noticed, the defiance of organizations and institutions
– churches, trade unions, business organizations, the bureaucracy, neighbor-
hoods, villages, cities, regions, and the like – may be pivotal.28

As Sharp recognizes, churches can play an important role in the success of

nonviolent social movements.
From a theological standpoint, sinners who know they have been delivered
by grace have a responsibility to act in accord with they grace they have
received. They have a responsibility to take the needs of others as seriously
as God in Christ has taken their own. Faith in the Gospel is inseparable from
works of the Law. Social responsibility is required of the faithful who know they
have been delivered from sin by grace. Obedience to God is inseparable from
resistance to structural injustice. Gratitude for grace means solidarity with the
poor and the oppressed.

6. Sin fosters illusion whereas victimization furthers insight.

We arrive at another difference between the sinner and the victim. Sinners
justify their sins to themselves (and others) whereas victims do not justify their
victimization, unless they have been indoctrinated. Sinners are lost in illusions
whereas victims can attain a degree of insight.
Sin is not merely a matter of wrongdoing, nor is it seated exclusively in the
desires of the heart. It is also a matter of blindness. Sinners are blind not only to
their own sinfulness but also to the needs of others. Self-justification and social
indifference are among the intolerable results.
Victims, on the other hand, have built-in incentives to understand their
plight. The oppressed can tend to know the oppressors better than the oppressors
know themselves. This point has been made incisively by Jean Baker Miller.

Subordinates … know much more about the dominants than vice versa. They have
to. They become highly attuned to the dominants, able to predict their reactions
of pleasure and displeasure … [M]embers of the subordinate group have certain
experiences and perceptions that accurately reflect the truth about themselves and
the injustice of their position … To the extent that subordinates move toward freer

28
Sharp, How Nonviolent Struggle Works (Boston: Albert Einstein Institute, 2013), pp. 15–16.
Availableonline: http://www.aeinstein.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/How-Nonviolent-Struggle-
Works.pdf
448 T&T Clark Companion to the Doctrine of Sin

expression and action, they will expose the inequality and throw into question the
basis of its existence. And they will make the inherent conflict an open conflict.29

The antidote to spiritual blindness for sinners rests outside themselves in

revelation and grace whereas the antidote to false-consciousness for subordi-
nates is latent in the dynamics of the situation itself.

7. The sinner’s peril and hope are eternal whereas

those of the victim are temporal.
Because all sin is essentially against God, its peril and hope have to do with
eternal life. Victimization, by contrast, is more nearly social and political, so
its peril and hope are correspondingly this-worldly. The difference between the
sinner and the victim emerges sharply at this point.
The sinner’s peril points to divine judgement and eternal loss. It is because sin
represents a shattered relationship with God that ‘the wages of sin is death’ (Rom.
6.23) – and this is necessarily so. The death dealt by sin is spiritual and eternal,
because it means estrangement from God as the Fountain of life. To be cut off
from God can only mean endless misery. The peril of sin is greater than anything
that can be conceived. The phrase ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth’ appears seven
times in the New Testament to describe the destiny of impenitence.
The victim’s peril, on the other hand, is often a very present suffering in
time of trouble. It finds little relief in human history. God’s solidarity with the
oppressed does not prevent them from dying in untold numbers while seeing
little justice in their lives. The temporal hopes of the victims, despite occasional
and hard-won progress, are disappointed more often than not. Even the most
inspiring social victories – intrinsically good and well worth attaining – leave
deeper questions in their train.
Given the disappointment of temporal hopes, is there a hope beyond history
for the countless victims of social injustice? Indeed, is there a hope for the
pious who have a remarkable capacity for ignoring their plight? Do not those,
and especially believers, who neglect the needs of the poor make themselves a
liable to judgement? ‘Then he will say to those on his left, “Depart from me, you
cursed … For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave
me no drink”’ (Mt. 25.41-42).

29
Jean Baker Miller, Toward a New Psychology of Women (Boston: Beacon Press, 1986, 2nd edn),
pp. 10, 11, 12. Miller also concentrates on social dynamics that inhibit consciousness-raising among
subordinates.
 The Sinner and the Victim 449

If there is a hope for history’s mangled victims, not to mention for socially
reprehensible believers, and even for the impenitent to find final repentance,
then grace must have the last word. The promise of the Gospel is that all our
miseries are no match for the triumph of Christ.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth
had passed away … And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold
… God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear
from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning,
nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away’ (Rev.
21.1, 3-4)

In the resurrection of the Crucified Saviour, the hope of the sinner and of the
victim are one. ‘Behold, I make all things new’ (Rev. 21.5).