Sin, in most religions, may be rooted in human "being" but shows itself in human action. This action is of a negative character and represents what the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner (1904-1984) described as an awareness that "things are not the way they ought to be" (Rahner 1961-1979, p. 164). In some faiths the stress is on the corporate character of sin: what causes it, how it is manifested, and what a community does with it. Thus when ancient Israel offended against the way "things ought to be" as prescribed by Yahweh, the people together experienced punishment by this God and recognized a need to atone for sin, to bring the lives of the community and individuals in it in line with the way "things ought to be."
The source of that sense of "ought" may relate to the ways humans in the earliest and simplest of circumstances sensed that there must be a right way, but they were not able to attain it or resisted attainment. Or the source may be in conscience. How the separate faiths account for conscience or any other inner apparatus that inspires and informs conduct tells much about what each considers to be sin and what each prescribes to be a remedy, often called atonement. Alongside a primitive sense of "ought-ness" and "conscience," a third way of discerning the source of sin is in divine revelation. Ordinarily this means that gifted and charismatic individuals, prophets within the tradition, judge people against the standard of what some holy book has described as conformity to the proper way or prescribed as atoning action.
In cultures informed by the Bible of the Jews and Christians, the definitions and experiences of sin come to focus in a witness to a living creator God who interacts with people, stipulating how they should live, and who in a sacred scripture sets forth a covenant, a divine-human pact that must be followed if God is to be pleased or given an opportunity to show mercy. Whether on a communal or an individual level and whether on gross or trivial scales, sin is seen as a free violation of what God commands and expects. In Christianity there is a similar stress on locating the errant individual in light of how he or she affirms or departs from a divine-human covenant. Christianity preaches that God is both just and merciful. Being merciful, God can recognize value in the efforts of those who try to live in accord with divine commands and can extend mercy even where there is failure.
Sin in most Christian traditions is seen against the background of what Christians call original sin, which they perceive as a reality even if they have difficulty accounting for it along with other negative features and experiences in a universe created and governed by a good God. Traditionally original sin, the factor in human experience that makes it impossible for anyone to live a perfect life, is traced to Adam and Eve, the first humans, according to the account in Genesis. Tempted by an external agent, "the serpent," they willingly responded and went against the express decree of God. When, acting upon this evil agency in and around them, their heirs, all humans, engage in actual sin—also a technical term—they are breaking the covenant. In some biblical language, sin means "missing the mark" or "transgressing God’s boundaries."
In Judaism and Christianity various paths of return to the covenant and God’s good graces are prescribed and are called atonement or reconciliation to God. The same God who set forth the mark that was missed or the boundary transgressed and who can be wrathful and will exact punishment is also witnessed to as merciful. Through atoning activities, for Christians in the agency of Jesus Christ as God’s Son who is offered up in a loving sacrifice for others, believers are set on a path that allows them to approach hitting the mark, staying in the boundaries, pleasing God, and receiving a reward, thanks to the grace of this covenanting God. One of the main differences between Roman Catholic and Protestant varieties of Christianity is the stress in the former on human participation in redeeming activities through "good works," while for Protestantism, which also expects good works, the accent is more on God’s grace.
In virtually every faith, though terms like original sin and transgressing may be absent, there is some pattern or ideal to be followed to place human individuals or the community in a positive relation to the highest power or source. This is usually "God," under a variety of names, such as for Muslims Allah. Allah has created an ordered universe, but humans who violate the laws of Allah cause disorder and are evil or act evilly. While Islam does not employ concepts such as original sin, Muslims know that they are in a universe where something is expected of them that they do not and cannot achieve on their own. Practicing rites of prayer, almsgiving, and submission to Allah represents a turning from sin and the threat of punishment and makes room for Allah the All-Merciful to show mercy.
Religious communities that either do not witness to God or gods, such as Buddhism, or where deity is represented by various supernatural beings, as in Hinduism, will not speak in terms of a covenant with a merciful God that humans choose to follow or break. Thus in Buddhism, which cannot connect human evil with a covenanting God because there is no witness to God, the concern is to deal with negative forces and actions, summarized in the term karma. Individual actions are measured in the light of whether the intention of an act was positive or negative, with the goal of dealing with suffering, which is a universal human experience, by disciplines and practices that in their intention make room for good and positive karma and actions.
In Hinduism there is also no covenant with the one God (monotheism) or original sin, yet there are also prescribed paths for conduct pleasing to the deities adored in Hinduism. In Hinduism, as well as most other faiths, there are actions equivalent to atoning ones in monotheistic faiths, actions that through conduct and proper ritual or meditation lead one to positive conduct and reward. In almost all faiths atoning activities that counter sin or bad karma have positive rewards in this life and, in many faiths, in life after death. This is so in Christian resurrection or Hindu reincarnation. In none of the faiths is the realistic note wholly lost. That is, they do not envision a complete overcoming of evil as expressed in human sin but teach ways to live and think in the face of such evil that resides in the external world and in the self.
