The Concept of Sin

 Our Description

In ordinary conversation, including among the “educated,” the word “sin” rarely gets mentioned except when one is trying to be coy or facetious. As Thomas Mann once said, “sin” is nowadays “an amusing word used only when one is trying to get a laugh.”

But this small work will interpret sin in its true – that is, serious – meaning. What will emerge from its analysis is the discovery that the concept of sin can still serve to unlock the mystery of existence, at least for a thinking that wants to press down to the very foundations.

In this work Pieper brings Plato, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas into a living dialogue with T. S. Eliot, André Gide, even with Jean-Paul Sartre. As he shows in this powerful work, none of these writers leaves any doubt that the fact of sin is central: It is the willful denial of one’s own life-ground, a denial that alone rightly bears the name “sin.” Paradoxically, this reality is both willed and yet also pre-given, that is, both adventitious and yet somehow innate to our existence – a paradox which, next to the mystey of existence itself, is the most impenetrable mystery of all.

Shocking Claims About Sin that Reveal Subtle Truths

In A Nutshell

In The Concept of Sin, Josef Pieper argues that sin permeates man's self-knowledge and for this reason, its consideration has a place in philosophical inquiry. Pieper cites philosophers Nicholi Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, and Nietzsche, who see no place for sin in philosophical ethics as the concept necessarily recognizes a divine command, which notion pertains to faith and not to human reason. Pieper concedes this point, but manifests the irony of his opponents' argument; namely, that the assertion "philosophical ethics is entirely oriented to affairs of this world below" is on its own terms a dogmatic statement of faith ascertained, not by human reason, but by a desire to drive sin out of philosophy precisely because of its theological character as "a matter of faith." Since no one can discuss sin without presuppositions derived outside the realm of human reason, Pieper presents in The Concept of Sin a cle Full Review...

 Browse For Similar Items In

• Catholic Books > Philosophy / Theology Books > Morality
• Catholic Books >

Related Articles

1. Bless Me Father, for I Have Sinned 08/10/2009

2. The Dormition Fast in the Eastern Churches 07/31/2009

3. Fr. Vincent Capodanno - Priest of Heroic Virtue 06/01/2009

4. Feast of the Holy Trinity 02/26/2009

5. January 22 - A Day of Prayer and Penance for Life 01/14/2009

6. The Seven Capital Virtues 01/06/2009

7. The Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy 01/06/2009

8. St. Thomas Aquinas 01/06/2009

9. The Seven Capital Sins 01/06/2009

10. A Resource Guide to Books by Pope Benedict XVI 11/25/2008