Hey guys,in the hope that we all agree on the meaning of the word "sin"-mainly committing something prohibited by God-.What would you call an action encouraged,advised by God?

nudfe

virtue?

from the Church's POV, absolutely - capital sins (bon voyage, CK ;) and cardinal virtues.

from the Church's POV...

...apart from Manila

The Cardinal Virtues: prudence, temperance, courage, justice. Hi Sparteye

wow intones the Cardinal Virtues: prudence, temperance, courage, justice.

yes; I was always... fascinated by how many more... opportunities there were for Sin.
8-)

...and how much less DULL

The sun MUST be over the yardarm somewhere .... who's pouring?

In addition to the virtues noted above, also considering that a sin may be a concrete action, an appropriate antonym would be "good work" or something to that effect. The opposite of maleficence is beneficence, in other words.

P.S. Our esteemed spellchecker suggests "maleness" for maleficence. Was it written by some militant bulldyke or a far-out women's libber?

re:yes; I was always... fascinated by how many more... opportunities there were for Sin.
oh yes tsuwm-- as a teen ager i learned (when the nuns weren't looking!) that:
"Good girls go heaven-- bad girls get to go every where else!" and like St Augustine-- i was perfectly willing to be good --later!

There is also the (yidish? or hebrew?)mitzvah (as a bar mitzvah)-- a good deed or act-- I don't know a single english word-- and mitzvah sounds more everyday than a cardinal virtue-- and could include something as simple as giving your (hard earned) seat on the subway to an elderly person-- or a pregnant lady.. small acts of kindness..

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There is also the (yidish? or hebrew?)mitzvah (as a bar mitzvah)-- a good deed or act-- I don't know a single english word-- and mitzvah sounds more everyday than a cardinal virtue-- and could include something as simple as giving your (hard earned) seat on the subway to an elderly person-- or a pregnant lady.. small acts of kindness..

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Sounds like chivalry, courtesy, gentility, manners. Just plain "the kind of thing you'd do if your mama raised you right."

bridget96 said: virtue?


Well, you can commit a sin...but can you "commit a virtue"???

Good point, WO'N. What does it say about our unwillingness to admit to our faults that we consider virtues something we *have and sins something we just *do.

Surely says more about the Christian tradition of original sin as the basic state, so have to make conscious effort towards virtue. I always thought that was a perverse and unuseful outlook, though.

Hmmm, Flatlander....then, perhaps, virtue could be the antonym for ORIGINAL sin?

Well, you can commit a sin...but can you "commit a virtue"???
Whitman...exactly.... A sin is an act of intent or omission, while a virtue is attributed to a "Good Deed".
This topic has made me think quite a lot (and reminisce) about that "old time religion", that RC upbringing that renders one guilt-ridden. The concept of sin is just our inherent nature to lean towards evil...when we quell or resist that urge our virtue shows - there should be a word for this!!!
And I Heartily agree with the "mitzvah" concept since Judaism is based on "good deeds" - the positive is reinforced more than the "Thou shalt not...."

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Judaism is based on "good deeds" - the positive is reinforced more than the "Thou shalt not...."

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I agree mitzvah would be an apt sinantonym, if only it were an English word. But as I recall (and I concede my Talmudic lore is a little rusty), there are 365 negative (ie of the 'thou shalt not...' variety) commandments in the good OT, but only 248 positive ones. So statistically, Gatsby, I think you're on theologically shaky ground.

(Cardinal Sin--geez, mav! )

Okay-- I am with Bob, on pointing out that we need to differentiate between the uses of the word sin. No, you can't commit a virtue. But we can say that being virtuous is the opposite of being sinful.

I do hesitate to aver that we can commit a virtuous act, though technically it is correct, commit meaning to do,
perform , or perpetrate. We commonly hear 'perform' or 'does' good deeds. It does seem that commit has taken on more of the negative connotation.

My brand-new Roget's thesaurus (hardback, even, and I never buy hardbacks if I can help it--they take up too much shelf space) gives these as antonyms for sin (n.): good deed, virtue, kindness. It gives a couple of interesting
"sin"onyms, as well: "The breaking of one's own integrity"-D. H. Lawrence; and, "A departure from God"--Martin Luther.

Hmm--just looked up virtue. One of the alternates listed is Christian values. No other religions are mentioned.
Wonder if that means they think only Christians value virtue?
Interesting, esp. when compared with Mr. Lawrence's statement.

As a die-Hardy fan of Mr. DHL I succumb that his theory falls not far from the sinful crowd,,,(2many mixed metaphors)

No, you can't commit a virtue.

But, but, Jackie, when I was committed, they said it was by virtue of my being sinful!

Is not sin, X-tian theology-wise, a falling short of perfection? If so, then perfection is the antonym, as represented by "sinful" Earth (which, BTW, the perfect, infallible god created) and perfect heaven. Enter that French lunatic Jean Calvin, who said that everyone is condemned, and only god could pick and choose whom HE (never She, damn it!) wished to bless, the outward manifestation of which would be the possession of material wealth, as witness Abraham, Lot, et al. Thus entered into Western thought the idea that rich people would inherit heaven, and the rest of us would go to hell, so you'd better violate the OT and NT admonition that god would destroy those who destroy the Earth. Gosh, no wonder my Christian wife divorced me!

Subject: Re: Antonym for "sin"

A quote I always liked, although I can't remember if it was Shaw or Wilde, is, "The only thing I can't resist is temptation."

On to the matter at hand...
I don't know that there is an antonym for sin any more than there is an antonym for crime. (A sin is a crime against one's god, goddess, or gods as the case may be. Or if one is an atheist, against one's core beliefs.) One can commit the crime of armed robbery (a specific event) but how many times does one not commit armed robbery?

As to why there seems to be an emphasis on the things not to do rather than on the good deeds (Mitzvahs (sp?)). It probably evolved from the idea that sins are the breaking of God's laws and laws are almost universally proscriptive in nature. For example, when dealing with my children, there are relatively few things I must tell them not to do in comparison to what they can do. Everyday, they come up with new things to do that I would never think of, yet still, the list of prohibited actions stays relatively short (my perspective of the LIST, not theirs).

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Mitzvahs (sp?)

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It would be 'mitzvot' actually, 'mitzvah' being a feminine word, as indicated by its '-ah' suffix. This is theologically somewhat surprising, given that it was Eve who originally sinned. I wonder what gender the Hebrew word for 'sin' is.

given that it was Eve who originally sinned.

Oh, really?
Depends on the point of view, I guess.
She only picked the fruit, he was the one who bit!

Now, you gonna' bite?

Don't let me scare you, I'm really a pussycat! And a big WELCOME to the Board

P.S. for RouseP : It was Oscar Wilde ... and I thought it was "I can resist anything but temptation."
And, "The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it." (I think?)

The Oscar Wilde quotation I like best is the one about Niagara Falls being the first but not the greatest disappointment in American married life. Of course when he wrote this, Niagara Fall was a very popular place to begin honeymoons. And of course his views were undoubtedly colored by fact that he was gay. (Hate that word.)

And of course his views were undoubtedly colored by fact that he was gay. (Hate that word.)

Well then, say homosexual! That leads my damaged mind to wonder if we might ask, "Was Oscar Wilde?" Indeed he was. And we might ask, "What would Dan Rather, and than what is Morley Safer?" This almost fits in with the redundant names thread, but not quite.

Now, more to the point: "Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others." Our Wilde man, Oscar

I always thought the closing quatrain from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence" is the best "take" on this dilemma as discussed:

"God appears, and God is Light,
To those poor souls who dwell in Night;
But does a Human Form display
To those who dwell in realms of Day."

Committing a virtue
The problem with this concept is the peculiar use of 'commit' with 'sin'. It's also used with 'crime' and particular words for crimes, like 'murder', but not with positive concepts or acts. But you can substitute a word, like 'perform' for use with positives.

This raises the question whether sin, or sins, have an independent existance of their own, or if they are only a perversion of virtue, or good. C.S. Lewis took the position somewhere in his writings (I forget where) that this was, in fact the case; that good exists on its own, but evil does not -- it is merely an antonym, as it were, of good.

"The only way to resist temptation is to yield to it."

"The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it." Oscar Wilde.

Rod

"I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations with myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying" - O.Wilde

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C.S. Lewis took the position somewhere in his writings (I forget where) that this was, in fact the case; that good exists on its own, but evil does not -- it is merely an antonym, as it were, of good.

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Not original to C. S. Lewis. Augustine also took this view in his Confessions, that sin was a turning away from God and an absence of virtue rather than something that exists in its own right.

Bingley

This is one of my favourite quotes:

"A woman of taste, Eve chose to pick wisdom, and with her courage for the unknown translated eternity into time, her word into memory, and her entire self into the eternally ticking earth"
Willis Barnstone, The Poetics of Translation, 1993 (p. 82)

As wow remarks, it all depends on the point of view...

Marianna

There was an article in Saturday's Melbourne Age, reprinted from The Atlantic Monthly [no issue specified], in which Simon Winchester (author of 'The surgeon of Crowthorne') asks "how did Roget's Thesaurus become synonymous with the intellectually second-rate?" A fascinating read.

A report in today's Melbourne Age informs us that

" … the Lewis estate and its publishers [HarperCollins] have started shaping a marketing makeover of Aslan and assorted Narnian habitues to expand readership and extend the brand. They have struck deals to licence plush Narnian toys … [and] to create new Narnia novels by unidentified authors … Most striking of all, they have developed a discreet strategy to avoid direct links to the Christian imagery and theology that suffused the Narnia novels and inspired Lewis."

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"how did Roget's Thesaurus become synonymous with the intellectually second-rate?"

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Whoever said it had?

Bingley

Yes, I've heard about this C. S. Lewis extension from other sources. This is my childhood they're mucking about with. If they want to add to the series, well fine. People have been adding to the Sherlock Holmes corpus for a long time now, but they haven't been able to surpass or come anywhere near the original. But Lewis's Christianity was an essential part of the series. Why change it? Are there really that many people out there who will read the books if the Christian elements are taken out but otherwise wouldn't?

Bingley

Lewis's Christianity was an essential part of the series.

I agree, Bingley. It was a board member who suggested that I read the Narnia series, so my first introduction to them was just about a year ago. I thoroughly enjoyed them, I might add. I don't recall that the name of Christ was belabored; but the values run through the very core of the books: they are, by and large, what make the characters do what they do.

I only noticed the Christian parts when it was obvious, like when Aslan was killed on the table, and otherwise I didn't care. These guys shouldn't be changing it. When I think about it, the plots would need major revising.It seems communistic.

jimthedog

Hi Bingley:

Winchester argues that "Roget's Thesaurus no longer merits the unvarnished adoration it has received. It should be condemned as a crucial part of the engine that has transported us to our current state of linguistic and intellectual mediocrity."

It's an interesting argument -- anyone seen the original article in The Atlantic Monthly?

paulb, there you are, trying to stir up trouble again,
aren't you? Ugh.

"A woman of taste, Eve chose to pick wisdom, and with her courage for the unknown translated eternity into time, her word
into memory, and her entire self into the eternally ticking earth"

Very good quotation, Marianna! Now, would you care to comment on the old Hebrew legend of Lilith?

There's the story about the creation wherein once Adam realised that he had no partner, he asked god if he might have one. God replied that he could have someone who would be at his side constantly, answering to his every whim, providing for his every desire. "What will such a creature cost me, " Adam asked. "An arm and a leg," the creator replied. Then Adam asked, "What can I get for a rib?" and the rest is history.

paulb asks: anyone seen the original article in The Atlantic Monthly?

Yep, here you go:

http://wordsmith.org/board/showthreaded.pl?Cat=&Board=words&Number=25142

and online:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2001/05/winchester-p1.htm

Thanks for the links, AnnaStrophic, I'd completely forgotten the previous thread.

That's not too surprising. Nobody else understood what he was saying either.

[tongue-very-much-in-cheek-emoticon]