From the author: Based on materials from the course “Theoretical Foundations of Christian Psychology” It is no secret that the concept of “sin” (sinfulness, guilt) is traditionally one of the cornerstone religious concepts that underlie the Christian doctrine of salvation and creating a whole system of healing or transformation of a person and the corresponding relationship between the “shepherd” and the “flock”, which is based on an attempt to change a person by turning to faith through the appropriate “sacraments” and “sacraments” (baptism, confession, communion, repentance, etc.) as if to free oneself from the action of “sin”. As is known, the path of liberation (purification) from “sinfulness” is the path to achieving holiness and the basis of spiritual salvation in Christianity and Orthodoxy. Interest in the concept and category of “sin” is explained by the fact that this concept has been present in religious understanding almost unchanged since the first centuries of Christianity and a large number of manipulations are currently associated with the concept of “sin”. Their essence is in exploitation and hanging on the consciousness of the adept and the convert the shameful label and burden of “sinfulness”, as a converted form of “guilt” and “guiltyness” without explaining the essence of the issue. For monastics and the clergy, who are more distant from the world, such an attitude towards “sin” is not as critical as for laity who are constantly in the world, since this attitude (of guilt) very often becomes a means of deeply conditioning the consciousness and psyche by excessive self-abasement with consequent self-reproach, self-denial and self-torture with loss of joy and meaning in life. It is no secret that in some cases such self-denial from excessive “sinfulness” without sin and “guilt” without guilt can lead to manifestations of religious masochism, self-mutilation and suicide. Ritual castration was at one time one of the pathological forms of the fight against “sinfulness” through cutting off and damaging the genitals. It is obvious that in the religious literature of past centuries, due to the lack of appropriate knowledge on physiology, psychology and the structure of the cognitive sphere, the concept of “sin” was universal and essentially the only way to describe the nature of the deep damage to human nature by egoism (self) and passions. At the same time, over the last 100 years of the development of science and psychology, the concept of “sin” has ceased to be universal and exhaustive, since the study of the cognitive sphere has made it possible to discover many mechanisms of this very “ sinfulness”, right down to the genetic level. As a result of this, the “sinfulness” of man and the nature of “sinfulness” became partially explainable from physiological and psychological points of view. So what is “sin” from the point of view of natural science, religion and Christian psychology, as a science of the soul? Let's start with definitions. 1. Sin is an action or thought, which, as a rule, is associated with a deviation from a righteous life, a direct or indirect violation of religious commandments (instructions and orders of God) - Wikipedia.2. Sin is a thought, thought, desire, decision, attraction, action or inaction that contradicts the Divine moral law. Sin - from Greek. ἁμαρτία – missing the target, miss – ABC of faith.3. Sin is a perversion of human nature as a result of falling away from God, the fall of a person into an unnatural (less than natural) state, lawlessness as a violation of the norm (law, order) of human existence, determined by God. Sin is an act contrary to the law of God; guilt before the Lord - Orthodox Encyclopedia.4. Integrative psychology about sin: “So, our dualistic world is a fallen world, and original sin consists in the fact that each of us is closed in on ourselves. But you say that not only Eastern, but also Western mystics argued that the root cause of sin and hell is in the separate Self? - Yes, of course. The isolated Self and its loveless acquisitiveness, lust, alienation. Similar provisionscan be found in the writings of mystics of different traditions. Here is my favorite quote from the remarkable author William Law, an English Christian mystic of the eighteenth century, which I will now read to you: “Here the whole truth is stated briefly. All sin, death, damnation and hell are nothing more than the kingdom of the self, various manifestations of narcissism, self-aggrandizement and self-searching, which alienate the soul from God and lead to eternal death and hell.” Or from the Sufi Abil of Cairo: “There is no other hell than selfishness, there is no other paradise except self-sacrifice.” Not to mention the assertion of Christian mystics that the only thing burning in hell is pride...” (Ken Wilber, Grace and Fortitude)5. The Holy Fathers about sin: “...Sin that is silent is a purulent harm in the soul” (St. Basil the Great, Creations, Part 5, 163). “Sin is a voluntary deviation from what is in accordance with nature into what is unnatural (unnatural )" (St. John of Damascus, An Accurate Statement of Faith, 123) "The evil prince - the kingdom of darkness, having first captivated a person, so invested and clothed the soul with the power of darkness, as they clothe a person in order to make him a king and give him all the royal robes, and so that From head to nails he wore everything royal. So the evil prince clothed the soul with sin, desecrated its entire nature, captivated it all into his kingdom, did not leave a single member of it free from his power, nor thoughts, nor mind, nor body, but clothed it in the purple of darkness. Just as in the body (during illness) not just one member suffers, but the whole body is completely subject to suffering, so the entire soul suffered from the infirmities of vice and sin. The evil one clothed the whole soul, this necessary part of man, this necessary member of him, in his malice, that is, in sin, and thus the body became suffering and corruptible.” (Philokalia, Vol. 1. St. Macarius the Great, Instructions on Christian Life). “... Zealous indifference to sin produces in souls some incorrigible habit. For an old spiritual passion or a time-established thought of sin is difficult to heal, or becomes completely incurable when skills, as most often happen, turn into nature. Therefore, we should desire that we not even touch evil” (St. Basil the Great, Works, Part 1 165-166).6. A.I. Osipov about sin: “We must distinguish between three types of sin: “personal sin, i.e. the one that every person commits, violating the voice of conscience, the voice of reason, the voice and letter of the law; generational sin is a fairly new concept, as it turns out, but which is very important both for understanding the issue of salvation and for assessing our life in general. And the third category, the so-called original sin. This question is of particular importance to us, since it is directly related to the understanding of what Christ did for humanity.” (Professor MDA, A.I. Osipov, About sin) From the above definitions follows the idea that “sin” is a multisyllabic concept and category relating to both a person’s personal actions and the very nature of man in its instability in truth and tendency to arbitrariness (self-will) and lies. In the most abstract sense, “sin” can be understood as the general direction of all human aspirations from God (Spirit) towards the world (matter), as a movement led by sensuality and countless demands of the flesh and physiology, contrary to spiritual demands. In the most specific sense, “sin” can be considered as a private offense against conscience that is not repented or confessed. Thus, in the most general spiritual, philosophical and psychological sense, sin (sinfulness) can be considered as a deviation of life (actions) from the spiritual law prescribed from above, which leads to damage by a person to himself. In this regard, sin is a miss or failure to fall into the line and goal of life according to God (Spirit). The principle of miss is gravitation to the periphery or getting stuck at all levels except the spiritual (collective unconscious) From the words of the respected MDA professor A.I. Osipova clearly followsthe idea that one should distinguish between three levels of “sin” in human nature: the level of the conscious (personal sin), the level of the individual unconscious (ancestral sin) and the level of the collective unconscious (original sin). What are these three types and levels of sin? and how applicable is the concept of “sin” to them? – personal sin in the form of conscious violations of conscience, as an instrument of spiritual and moral law, is the only type of sin to which the concept of sin is applicable, since we can recognize it and therefore correct it in ourselves. – generational “sin” in the form of hereditary inclinations, predispositions and diseases is not rightfully considered a sin, since we do not choose parents and the burden of the family, but receive them by inheritance, as a form of hereditary (information-genetic) burden. Thus, ancestral “sin” is a consequence of damage to the genus. – original “sin” in the form of a person having an ego-mind, as a form of manifestation of his self, is also wrongfully considered a sin, since this form of organization of thinking is damage to all humanity as a species, and not the personal sin of a particular person. Thus, one should distinguish between the concept of damage to human nature (original, ancestral) and, in fact, personal sin, as a moral crime before one’s conscience and the highest spiritual and moral law. Speaking about “sin,” we cannot ignore the mechanism of how sin works in the cognitive and mental-spiritual spheres. The main tool for tracking sin in the mental and spiritual sphere is conscience, as a practical consciousness of good and evil. “Just as reason is appointed to open to man another, spiritual, most perfect world and let him know about its structure and properties, so conscience is appointed to form a person into a citizen of the world where he must subsequently move. For this purpose, she announces to him the laws there, obliges him to fulfill them, judges him according to them, rewards or punishes him. Conscience is called practical consciousness. In this regard, we can say that it is the power of the spirit, which, conscious of law and freedom, determines their mutual relationship. By occupation or action, conscience is seen as a legislator, a witness, or a judge, and a rewarder (executor).” (St. Theophan the Recluse, Incarnate economy, the experience of Christian psychology, On conscience, p. 366) Thus, any evil, as a form of manifestation of “sin,” in the human soul is opposed by conscience, as the ability to intuitively recognize evil, manifesting itself in three main functions: - legislative (affirming the truth) - witnessing and judicial - executive (punishing) Saint Theophan the Recluse in his work “What is spiritual life and how to tune in to it” identifies the following stages of the entry of any sinful thought and passion into the soul: 1st level of depth of entry (mental) - the mind when a vicious thought or image only appears in the focus of attention and does not move to the level of feeling and will (desire). 2nd level of entry depth (sensual) - feeling when a false thought does not stop at the entrance, but is associated with feeling and generates desire, including will. The 3rd level of entry depth (desirable) - will - when a false thought does not stop at either the first or second levels, but connecting with the mind, feeling and desire (will), generates determination (intention) which is inevitably followed by a false action, called sin itself. “Note: thought gave birth to feeling, thought and feeling gave birth to desire. The soul is full of passion. But all these are still mental impurities and sins. There is still a long way to go. Between desire and deed there is always a determination to do something with consideration of how to carry it out.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, What is spiritual life and how to tune in to it) 4th level of entry depth (decisive) - intention - when a false thought, clothed in a thought form, acquires the power of determination (intention) towards itexecution. 5th level of entry depth (activity) - action (act) - when a false thought, clothed in the thought form of a lie, having received an impulse of the power of intention, is realized in practice. Essentially, St. Theophan described the psychological scheme for the penetration of any evil into the human soul and “sin” - from thought to action. As can be seen from this diagram, there are several intermediate stages at which any evil or passion (sin) can still be stopped without allowing its realization (realization). You can stop any evil from incarnating: At the level of the mind, i.e. between the mind and feeling (at the level of thought), At the level of feeling, i.e. between feeling and desire (at the level of feeling), At the level of desire, i.e. between desire and intention (at the level of will), At the level of decision, i.e. between decision and action (at the level of decision). As St. Theophan says, the first three stages usually occur very quickly (in an instant) and it is difficult to separate the mind, feelings and will (desires), but the next stage of the formation of determination has a more significant delay and does not work automatically. “A thought, feeling and wish - passionate - sometimes run through the soul in an instant, not allowing you to come to your senses. In this case, they do not make us guilty, as long as, having come to our senses when even a desire arises, we drive them away with hostile anger at them. Our guilt in thoughts, feelings, and desires depends on our delay in dealing with them, after we notice them and do not drive them away, but dwell on them.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, What is spiritual life and how to tune in to it, Different degrees of development of passion: passionate thoughts, feelings, desires and actions. Fighting them) Thus, stopping and getting stuck in sin (forbidden fruit) is the basis for establishing there is a vicious connection with it. At the same time, at the stage of formation of a decision (determination), there is a significant delay associated with the act of action, as the highest act of will, which must be ultimately correct. That is why at this stage, as it were, everything is carefully weighed one last time before “cutting off”, i.e. implementation of the will. “Between desire and deed there is always a determination to do something with consideration of how to carry it out. How determination is formed is not always visible. It is already present in a weak form in desire, then it grows along with thinking about the matter, that is, the selection of means and the establishment of methods and circumstances. When everything is thought out, the determination is complete.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, What is spiritual life and how to tune in to it, Different degrees of development of passion: passionate thoughts, feelings, desires and actions. Fighting them) Similarly, there is always a delay between the formation of determination and action, when a decision can still be made canceled and not allowed to be implemented: “When everything is thought out, the determination is completed. Then the work inside is already done. In the face of God and conscience, sin has already been committed: the commandments are despised, conscience is trampled upon. Sometimes a lot of time passes from a wish to a decision with thinking about the matter.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, What is spiritual life and how to tune in to it, Different degrees of development of passion: passionate thoughts, feelings, desires and actions. Fighting them) Thus, any sin, like damage to the soul, has two stages of its development: - internal sin (the first 3 stages) before the formation of sinful determination, - active sin (the last two stages) - intention and action. “The fear of God finds itself, the commandments are remembered, and the conscience is not silent. But all their saving suggestions are rejected with contempt. Therefore, in determination there is already a crime and a sin. Thought, feeling and desire, although they have already occupied the whole soul, still seem to occur on the surface of the soul. There is no inclination to sin yet, but only a urge to do so. The slope begins from the moment the soul begins to consider whether and how passion can be satisfied. Here the soul begins its journeysin." (St. Theophan the Recluse, What is spiritual life and how to tune in to it, Different degrees of development of passion: passionate thoughts, feelings, desires and actions. Fighting them) Looking at this sequence of stages and stages of a person’s implementation of any evil and “sin”, one can notice that conscience is the only instrument that stands for protecting the interests of the soul, like the voice of God in the heart, which is not silent, but tries to reach the mind and stop evil (sin). If conscience is developed, then any evil (sin) can be stopped at the very first stage (of the mind) or at the stage of formation of a decision. As it turns out, besides conscience, there are several other higher instruments of the mind that can stop any sin. These tools include: - humility, - highest attention, - spiritual reasoning (spiritual mind), as a contradiction to thoughts, - prayer. “He who strives internally at every moment must have the following four things: humility, extreme attention, contradiction (to thoughts) and prayer. Humility - since his opponents in battle are proud demons - in order to hold Christ's help with the hand of the heart, for the Lord hates the proud. Attention - not to allow the heart to have any thoughts, even if they seem good. Contradiction - so that, as soon as the one who comes (thought) sees, he immediately repels the evil one with anger. Prayer - so that after a contradiction you immediately cry out to Christ with groanings that cannot be uttered.” (Venerable Hesychius of Jerusalem, A Word on Sobriety) Speaking about sin as a form of spiritual “failure” or damage by a person to himself, one cannot help but say that there is not only a conscious sin, but also a sin of completely sincere delusion (from the heart), for “for out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, blasphemy. This defiles a person” (Matthew 15:19-20) Thus, the feeling of the heart can be mistaken if it is influenced by egoism (passion) in isolation from the higher mind and conscience. “Moreover, conscience does not act alone, separately, but takes other forces as intermediaries and instruments: reason, will, power of feeling. If these are upset in their ways, then one cannot expect right activity from conscience.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, Incarnate Economy, Experience of Christian Psychology, On Conscience, p. 367) Saint Theophan makes a revelation that in a disorder of conscience two types of deviations can be distinguished as types of “sins”: • - unintentional (sincere errors) • - intentional (lies for the sake of passion and vice) “There are involuntary, unintentional, so to speak, deviations of conscience from the paths of truth, as if delusions, and there are intentional distortions of it or damage to the conscience from opposing it, in favor of vices and passions.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, Incarnate Economy, Experience of Christian Psychology, On Conscience, p. 368) However, the greatest damage or distortion of conscience occurs when conscience falls under the influence of the EGO (I), led by the highest passions of the spirit - pride and vanity “The legislative conscience is subjected to even greater damage and distortion if it encounters egoism and submits to it.” (St. Theophan the Recluse, Incarnate Economy, Experience of Christian Psychology, On Conscience, p. 368) The concept of “sin” can have different meanings depending on the level of its consideration. At the bodily level (rational thinking) the concept of “sin” in all its depth and completeness practically inexpressible in terms of academic psychology and the only way of expression can be the concept of a personal immoral and immoral act or hereditary burden, as a form of “damage” to human nature (original, ancestral, personal), entailing corresponding inclinations, dependencies and consequences in the form of psychosomatic conditions, illness , and in some cases even death. At the spiritual level (religious thinking), the concept of “sin” can already be partially expressed inin terms of violation of the principles of the highest spiritual and moral law (the Gospel commandments), which distorts and damages the initially chaste human nature at all levels (spiritual, mental and physical), causing illness, suffering and death. At the spiritual level (spiritual consciousness) the concept of “sin” can be expressed most fully and accurately in terms of an incorrect understanding of the “higher commands” of the Spirit (God), which entails various forms of distortion of “grace” or the flow of higher uncreated energies in the human system (spirit-soul-body), causing the same the very consequences are self-destruction, illness, suffering and death. Is it possible to visualize sin? Sin can be conventionally represented in the form of a shadow that takes place in the human soul, which is created by passions and transgressions of the highest spiritual and moral law, creating chaos and knots of contradictions, which represent confusion of consciousness and corresponding meanings (logoi). A conventional scheme of the bodily, mental and spiritual state of the cognitive sphere from the point of view of the ordering of meanings. .How can one work with “sin” that accumulates in the soul? The presence of sin in the very nature of man, as a form of damage (original and ancestral), leads to the need for regular mental and spiritual “hygiene” or a procedure for “cleansing” the soul from the inevitable accumulating “sin” as a form of everyday voluntary life activity. If a person does not pay attention to the state of conscience and ignores the procedure for cleansing the soul, then the “sin” accumulating in the soul gradually becomes the very “deadly poison” that poisons the soul. Any sin that persists in repentance goes through the following inevitable stages in the development of sin and its consequences: 1. – mental (spiritual), on which sin has not yet taken root and has not become a habit, and therefore it is possible to realize the error (incorrect understanding of the higher law) with correction, 2. – spiritual, in which sin already becomes a habit and begins to take possession of the soul, causing pain and remorse (due to stubbornness and unwillingness to repent and change), 3. – bodily, in which sin spreads to the body and turns into a form of illness (a forced way of correcting a stubborn person), 4. - exceptional, at which the death of the sinner occurs (as a radical way to stop the sinful soul through the separation of soul and body). Is it possible to generally imagine the sequence of changes in the states of the spirit, soul and body of a person in sin? It is possible with a certain degree of convention: self-will (self) , loss of peace and joy, mental discomfort, mental pain and suffering, psychosomatosis, chronic illness, incurable disease, death... Mortal sin, as a form of spiritually and morally illegal activity, completely changes the nature and character of a person’s life, completely separating him from God. That is why the main passions in the patristic tradition are also called mortal sins (pride, despondency, anger, envy, greed, fornication, gluttony). But any sin, even mortal, does not act instantly. Every person always has time to change (repent) and death occurs only when there are no other ways to change a stubborn soul. “A mortal sin is one that robs a person of his moral Christian life. If we know what moral life is, then defining mortal sin is not difficult. Christian life is zeal and strength to remain in communion with God by fulfilling His holy law. Therefore, every sin that extinguishes jealousy, takes away strength and weakens, distances one from God and deprives Him of grace, so that after it a person cannot look at God, but feels himself separated from Him; every such sin is a mortal sin. ...Such a sin deprives a person of the grace received in baptism, takes away the Kingdom of Heaven and delivers it to judgment. And all this is confirmed in the hour of sin, although not)