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No Act Is Inherintly A Sin?

While studying the "Basic", I decided to re-examine "Sin". In an effort to define "sin" I found information that caused me to change my mind on what a sin is. I have never read this point of view, so I would be surprised if there is much written on it. But I was hoping that some of you would take interest in this topic to have a discussion as I have found that such discussions are useful in gaining a better understanding of the topic. So I will present my current belief and hope it starts discussion for, against and indifferent.

I have changed my definitions of sin from things we do or acts to reasons we do things or intents. Two main reasons for this are:
1. A person can do something we consider inherently good like praying and it can be counted as evil. 2 examples of how praying can be considered evil are when we pray without real intent and when we pray repetitiously, (which may be another way of saying the same thing).

Also, if there was an act that was inherently a sin, then if a child did that act, they would have sinned. But children cannot sin, no matter what acts they do. So the sin and accountability must be in the intent and not the actions. That would seem to correspond to what Christ said about looking on a woman to lust after her is committing the sin regardless of the act.

Why does this make a difference? It seems to raise our standard and focus from "doing good" to "being good". Meaning that going to church when we don't want to is not "good" until the point in which we enjoy the meeting, our heart is changed and we are glad we went. (Repentance being then a change in heart, motive or intent and not a forced change in actions against our heart.)

This also would effect the "works" we judge by, not being the works as in actions, but the works as in intents/motives behind the actions.

But this has relevance to the wheat and tares or the Goats and sheep as both are doing the same acts, praying, going to church, paying tithing, etc. By looks and appearances, they appear good because of their works. But in the end, it is not the living the actions or obedience to the law that gets us to heaven, but the change in our hearts to love for God and man.

I have heard many focus on obedience to laws as the way to make it to heaven. This definition would change our focus from obeying laws perfectly in an effort to somehow "earn our way to heaven" or "become worthy/righteous" to doing good according to the Love for God and Man held within our heart even at the occasional cost of breaking a law. It would mean that neither actions nor ordinances make us righteous or qualify us for any degree of glory. And that some who do obey the laws and receive the ordainances will not actually receive the blessing if their heart is not pure/worthy. For example endowment or temple sealing.

The rabbit hole goes deep by changing the definition of sin. What are your thoughts?


Edited: Amonhi on 19th Jul, 2008 - 6:02pm

Sin Inherintly Act No

True as this may be, There is no way of determining if another person who is doing the so-called "works" of the gospel are true in their intent or not. We cannot determine if someone is doing something good, but their intentions are a very private thing which we are unable to judge with our imperfect knowledge. We cannot determine if someone is bound in the grasp of Satan, never to return, or if they have their calling and election made sure. We simply cannot know.

As to prayer as being a sin, like anything, true actions in the church can sometimes be counterproductive if our hearts are not brought into submission to the Lord. This to me does not mean that if we do not have a desire to pray that we must say "I will not pray until my intent is right". Prayer is a tool to bring our heart into submission to the Lord.
The scripture actually states "it profiteth him nothing" and "it is not counted to him for righteousness" neither which state that praying without intent is inherently evil. It just does not do us any good, until we learn to have the intent of heart that the Lord desires for us to have.

Consider something said by Brigham Young.

Sometimes we do the right thing, not having the right intent at the beggining. But after we do the "actions" the Lord may soften our hearts where he may bring them into alignment with his will. If our intentions are not right and we do not attempt to do something about it, namely "read the scriptures,pray, do good deeds" which are all considered works, we will never have the intent and desire to draw closer to the Lord.

Edited: dbackers on 19th Jul, 2008 - 9:29pm

No Act Is Inherintly A Sin? Studies Doctrine Mormon

ok, So just to clarify, No one has challenged these ideas, but no one has really agreed with them either:
1. No acts/actions are inherently evil or sinful.
2. No acts/actions are inherently good or Godly.
3. Righteousness is not about doing certain good acts.
4. Wickedness is not about doing certain evil acts.
5. We cannot become perfect/righteous by focusing changing our actions.
6. We can become perfect/righteous by focusing on changing our intentions/motivations.
7. Acts do not bring perfection no matter the reason we do them. (Not the act, but the motivation for doing the act. sincere vs. insincere, love vs. obedience)
8. If our hearts/motivations/intents are changed to do good because we are good then we have become perfect? (Not sure on this one, help me out...)
9. Actions taken because of our own positive internal motivation express the degree of perfection we have already obtained.
10. Actions taken against our internal desires/motivations show us where we need to improve, either by changing our hearts or by changing our actions so that they agree. (Internal conflict going on here.)

This brings up a new question. Is it better to live according to your own heart and convictions or according to the convictions of others? What if those "others" would judge you negatively for not following their plan for you? For example, would it be better to go to church hating it more every week because you feel 1. obligated or expected to go, 2. like you will be judged by others for not going, or would it be better to say, "I am not going to church because I don't want to and the entire world can pound sand for all I care."

How does God judge that? Moro. seems to say that if we go when we don't want to, it is counted as evil anyway. So we go and are miserable and it profits us nothing or we do something we like and we enjoy ourselves. (I think this would apply for other things too like tithing/fast offerings, giving gifts/cards, maybe fighting, etc... ) How does it really work? What do we do when our internal desires conflict with outside pressures and expectations?

Sin Inherintly Act No

Wow, this is a lot to bite in to, but I'll make an attempt!

This is definitely a tricky one, but I would say "false" to this. I agree that some actions that are usually sinful aren't inherently sinful. The best example I can give for this is killing someone. To Nephi it was counted as righteousness. In most circumstances it is not. The scriptures are full of justified, even commanded killing, especially the Old Testament, so it can't be said that the act in and of itself is sinful. However, I think there are actions that are always evil and never justified--in other words, that there are never righteous motivations of heart that lead to the action. Mental or physical abuse is one example. I cannot fathom any situation or state of mind and heart in which abuse would ever be considered good or justified. So this one example alone leads me to assume that there are some actions that are inherently sinful.

Again, I disagree. I see what you're saying about the possibility of acts we consider good being performed unrighteously, such as prayer in some cases(the Zoramites are a good example). However, I think there are acts that are inherently good. In contrast to the abuse example, simple kindnesses and uplifting actions toward others wouldn't be counted for evil, in my opinion. But I do agree that what it really comes down to is the heart, the spirit of the action. I just believe that an "evil" or indifferent state of heart or being would never generate certain loving actions.

I agree with these points. Ultimately, righteousness and wickedness are determined by our hearts. Like you said, we can go through the motions of good acts and not be righteous. And wickedness isn't determined so much by the evil acts performed as much as the evil heart that results in the evil actions. But this can get complicated when we use the terms righteous and wicked to refer to a person's state of being rather than to the actions themselves. We make these judgements based on our observation of a person's actions, but we don't know the heart. And, realistically, everyone is guilty of some form of wickedness because we all sin. So how many wicked acts does it take for a person to be considered wicked? And how many righteous acts does it take for a person to be considered righteous? Is there some balancing act of eternal judgement? If so, we definitely have no comprehension of it, so it is easier for us to focus on the righteousness and wickedness of actions rather than of heart. Even in the process of analyzing our own hearts and judging our own righteousness or wickedness, we are imperfect, unobjective observers. I believe we are capable of a great deal of emotional and spiritual self-deception, but our actions are what they are.

I understand the point you are trying to make about actions ultimately needing to be performed with the right heart to result in a state of perfection and righteousness, but I think you are missing the progression part of the equation. How do we get to that point except by the actions that provide the opportunity for the Spirit to gradually perfect our hearts.

Our hearts don't change by "focusing" on our intentions. Our hearts change when we choose to perform actions (regardless of initial motivation) that are specifically designed to humble us and allow the Spirit access to our hearts. We may not pray or fast or go to church or perform an act of service out of perfect or "righteous" intent. We may simply be going through the motions out of fear, obligation, or simple obedience. HOWEVER, as we choose to do those things at all, for whatever reason, our hearts are provided greater exposure, in a sense, to the influence of the Spirit. And perhaps obedience to the letter of the law will provide a foundation for conversion to the spirit of the law, as the Lord intended with the children of Israel.

Well, I think when all of our actions are in perfect harmony with the will of the Lord and the promptings of the Spirit we can only be operating with a perfect heart. However, I don't think that always coincides with our own internal motivations, regardless of how "positive" we judge them to be. As I was saying above about the fallible nature of self-analyzation, if we focus on our internal motivations rather than on the will of the Lord as revealed by His servants and, ultimately, the Spirit, we are bound to fool ourselves about our need for improvement in some areas. The idea isn't to bring our actions in line with our internal desires. The idea is to bring our actions in line with the will of the Lord. And sometimes (most times?) our internal desires do conflict with His will and "righteous" action is internally painful if we are struggling with an unrighteous heart. Those are moments when we are told to simply obey and have faith that the testimony (or change of heart) will come eventually.

And I think that's as much as I can chew for tonight! Great topic!

Sin Inherintly Act No

1. No acts/actions are inherently evil or sinful.

Good point, I had to consider this and I cannot think of an example in which I could abuse someone and call it good. But the key in my thought process is the "I". It is interesting that the same rules do not apply to everyone equally. In the case of children for example, or retarded people abuse would not be considered a sin. And so the action itself is not a sin. If an action were a sin, then a child could do it and would have sinned. Is there any action that is SO evil in nature that a child (under 8) or mentally handicapped adult might do it and in the process of doing it, SIN? (I do believe we are all mentally handicapped in some way and in some things. If not, we would be completely accountable for things we did with out understanding. Christ said, "Forgive them for they know not what they do" speaking not about physical children but adults that perhaps were spiritual children.)

So to determine an Action that is inherently sinful without considering intent, motive, knowledge, personal progression, etc. we must find an act that a child could do that would be a sin. Do we agree? Can we name one?

2. No acts/actions are inherently good or Godly.

I do agree. And as you said, expressing kindness could not be evil. But one must have kindness first before it can be expressed. If a person did something like give a gift or expressed forms of what we call Love, (like kiss, hold, touch), with alternate motives, then the expression was a lie. Acting out of expectation or obligation for example. I feel obligated to do my home teaching, but I hate it or expected to make a cute center piece to go along with my relief society lesson. (, you get the point.) As a parent, I see children forced to 'share your toys" when they don't really want to. This actually happens all the time in various ways in our society. Perhaps some people say, "The only reason I don't kill you because of the law." Right they are that the consequences have prevented them, but when they are judged are they going to be judge for murder because it was in their heart? They did the good action, but have they really done good? Or maybe I should say, They did the good action but ARE they really good?

Excellent! Great point/questions! As there are not just righteous and wicked, but levels we wonder what level we achieve. And are those levels based on the number of good actions we have done or which actions we have done? Or on our intent and motives and hearts? This would then bring us to the question of "What is the minimum criteria to enter each Kingdom of Glory". Is it a minimum action or a minimum heart/goodness requirement? Is there a discussion for that already?

Does perfection have to be gradual? I don't think so. As Neal A Maxwell, "What we are speaking about is so much more than merely deflecting temptations for which we somehow do not feel responsible. Remember, brothers and sisters, it is our own desires which determine the sizing and the attractiveness of various temptations. We set our own thermostats as to temptations." - According to the Desire of our Hearts - October Conference 1996
Also, There have been many people like Alma the Younger, Lamoni and the Anti-Nephi-Lehis who experienced the change in heart nearly instantly. I believe we hold on to our favorite sins, including the internal ones of desire and intention. These can be changed in an instant as in the twinkling of an eye.

Very good point, people being on different levels would need different laws. So, for example I would tell my child not to play with matches, but not my father. (Unless he was prone to burning himself.) Perhaps doing the actions regardless is good for people who do not know why or have the love needed to not kill others without the law and punishment. Hopefully they will eventually get to the point where they do not have to try to not kill others and like Nephi it is difficult to kill, even when it is right.

Interesting, I think that because we are following the plan of happiness, if we follow our joy and happiness we would be certain we are on the right path. Not the pretended happiness that comes from what others tell you brings joy like drinking, drugs, sex. But the feeling of light coming from your heart/chest. That feeling we get when we really serve others, because we want to. The feeling you can't get when you are doing good things out of obligation. (Until you change you motivation, which like you said, you have more opportunity and desire to change while doing it.) I think our internal motivations will guide us perfectly. But we must choose the feeling we want, the dark, cold, tight, constricted feeling or the light/bright, warm, progressive, uplifting and enlightening feeling. They lead different directions on the same path. Of course that is not really the motivation, but the compass telling us where our motivation is taking us.

Rather off topic, but... I guess what I am saying is that I have known too many people who think they are following he "Plan of Happiness" and yet they are miserable. They say, I suffer in this life and will receive my reward in the life to come. I think "men are that they might have joy" now and later. Joy even in terrible circumstances, where Joy is the overall theme of their life. But this would take us to a discussion about how to recognize the happiness associated with the Plan of Happiness.

That could be disastrous! Like a teen having sex with everyone. Or being enraged and killing someone. I do however find it useful to consciously acknowledge these feelings and consider the results, then tell myself that I can choose what I want. But I always run the risk of "choosing" bad results. My hope is that by doing this I will either change my internal desire or speed up my progression by learning from my own experience to distinguish between good and evil. Perhaps not the best approach. :-)

What do you think about bringing our desires in line with the Lord's desires and letting our actions follow the natural course. For example, if all the laws and commandments rest on love for God and love for each other, then if I focus on being having love for God and mankind, would I not by default live the spirit which all the laws are trying to teach? So I could feel overwhelmed by living the millions of laws and possible actions which could be sins, (and still not have the right heart), or I could learn how to really love and fulfill the purpose of the law so that it is no longer needed. And when the law is removed, I can not sin because we cannot sin unless there is a law, so we become perfect. Love being the key. Perhaps this is why "God is Love".

No Act Is Inherintly A Sin?

I have to disagree to a certain extent with the premise of this idea "No act is inherently a sin".

I believe we are looking at this in the wrong way. You are saying "killing in every instance is not a sin" and "Prayer in every instance is not good". These are very broad statements that are not very useful in my opinion. God takes everything into account including the intent, the situation, the motives, as well as the particular deed itself. By focusing only on the intent rather then the action we deny the Laws of God which are in fact a necessary part of our existence.

A particular persons actions are a sin because his motives are impure. A person's good works could be considered pure because his motives are pure. We agree on these points.

But intents and action cannot be separated. Intent,circumstances, and actions all work together to make a particular deed a sin or not. I look at it this way.

A particular action will always be a sin, if we take into account all the factors to the smallest detail including thought, action, circumstances . All things being equal, that particular action is inherently a sin because of all the factors that are involved in the situation. An action is a sin because A,B,C,D,E etc. happened. If A,B,C,D,E etc. happened to another person it would still be a sin. It would deny the Justice of God if two people in exactly the same situation, with identical motives and actions were judged differently. That seems untenable, and it seems to be what your premise is.

God does not say killing is a sin. He says Murder is a sin, and Murder is strictly about intent, circumstance, motives and actions (all inseparable connected). Murder (the action) will always be murder because God's laws do not change. But in certain circumstances killing is necessary. Killing is not necessarily Murder.

Adultery (the act) will always be a sin, because Adultery implies a breaking of a covenant. But having more then one wife, in certain times and places was not a sin because it is not considered adultery (Again, an act). But that does not deny the fact that Adultery will always inherently be a sin.

Sin is just a label put on actions coupled with many other factors that are in opposition to God. That still does not deny the fact that a particular action in a particular circumstance, with particular mindset will always inherently be a sin.


So I think we agree in many principles, but disagree on degree.

No Act Inherintly Sin

This topic is becoming more and more interesting to me. I liked your response, thank you. I almost agreed with you, but I thought about it and had to ask this question:

1. What is always present in a sin?

You listed 3 possible pieces. Intent, action, circumstance. I will add knowledge. Can you think of anything else?

Let's look at each of these points and see if we can find an example in which each point can be both innocent and a sin....

Action:
We have already considered and found that actions can go either way. Also, action may or may not have been taken, so the sin happens before the action if there is any action at all, and would follow the proverb, "As a man thinketh, so is he". So, the sin happens before the action and the action is only the manifestation of an unrepentant sin.

Circumstance:
I can place two people in the same circumstance and one could be sinning and the other not. For example, Two people looking at a stripper or a whore on the street. (Maybe strippers aren't on the street, I had a relative that was a stripper, sometimes it was hard to not think about that when talking to her.) Two people having sex outside marriage. let's say, one wants it and the other is being raped.

Knowledge:
This one is trickier. We could say if you have knowledge and you DO something then you sinned, and we can say, if you don't have knowledge and you do something, your innocent. This is where I usually stop, because it makes sense, right. So, I considered further and realized that a personal who has the knowledge required to sin could do something we would consider a sin, and still not be a sin. I found two examples.

1. Knowledge against an action, but a commandment by God. Nephi killing Laban as an example is perfect, but there are others, like polygamy.
2. Knowledge against an action, but accidentally doing it. For example, accidentally hitting a biker with you car and killing them, or accidentally walking out of a store caring something you didn't buy not realizing you just stole something.

This leads me to believe that even with knowledge our intent determines whether we are sinning or not. Now look at this. I asked the following question:

"Can we sin without knowledge?"

I think is is safe to say that we all agree that we cannot sin without a knowledge of the law. However, I may have just changed my mind after considering intent.

Intent:
I now believe that if I have ill intent (hate) toward another person, regardless of my knowledge of actions I could do or not do, I am sinning. (Perhaps this would be considered a knowledge of good and evil or love and hate. Do I need a law telling me that good intentions are of God and bad intentions are sins?) If I give a person a gift, and have hate or malice toward that person, I have done evil or sinned. (Moro. 7) In this case, the only knowledge I would need to have is that love is Good and of God and hate is evil and of the devil. Which would still allow the retard and young children to remain innocent as they do not understand or recognize the difference between these two intents or know that one is good and the other is bad.

So can a person hold onto a thought rooted in negative intent and not sin? I don't think so, even if they do not act upon that negative though and so feel they are a good person because "I didn't hit him but should have". The kept the physical law, but the sin comes before the physical expression of the sin. And God does not want us to sin, have evil in our hearts.

For example, I may not have been told that doing a particular thing is wrong, and yet if I do it with ill intent I have sinned. Examples would be hard to find because we have laws covering sooo many actions that it is hard to find an action motivated by ill intent that we have a law against doing and have already been told is wrong. However, I believe that Mormon was saying that by looking at our intent, we can know immediately whether we are doing good or evil regardless of a law written or not. We do not need to be commanded in all things. If we know the principle, we can govern ourselves.

But, perhaps listing them is a poor way to deal with the problem, focusing on the root which I believe is our intent, and monitoring our intent may make us perfect and avoid further sin, even in this life.

Notice the way to judge is "Plain" and we can know with "a perfect knowledge". Looking at actions does not give us perfect knowledge, neither does looking at what a person knows or does not know, because we can't tell. But if I were to ask, "why did you do this?" I would know with a perfect knowledge whether or not a person sinned. For example,

Why did you do this?
Answer - Because they hit me first. = Sin because the intent was to harm.
Answer - I had to or they would have hurt me and my family. = Not sin, because the intent was not to harm.
Answer - I didn't know it would... = No sin because the intent was not negative based, but was innocence based.
Answer - I didn't mean to, but she disserved it. = Sin, because although it was an accident, the intention was still evil.
Answer - She had it coming = sin.... This is easy, right?

I do think that it is hard to hide our true intent. But I would think it could be done for a short time. Perhaps asking "Why" and "how do you feel about" and "what can we do about it" questions will reveal a persons intent. For example a person with good intent will try to correct the problems they have caused without being manipulated or pressed to do so. A person who has ill feelings is not likely to come forward with a helping hand when evil has been done.

The trick is even our speech would give us away, without actions. If we talked negative about or against someone, not in a factual way, but with disgust, we would be sinning in our heart. And before we even say the words, we feel the evil feeling toward the person. That happens before any actions. So the sin happens or doesn't happen before the action.

That is not my premise. You added having the exact same motivation. I am saying that the motivation alone determines whether or not it is a sin. I am suggesting that we raise the bar as Christ said to the point of stopping negative actions at the root cause, which is our heart or inward vessel. Our intent/motivation/desire.

Exactly and the difference always starts with the intent. The reason you did it. And whether you wanted to kill because of anger or hate or any ill feeling. The fruits of the spirit are love, piece, joy, longsuffering etc. all good feelings with motivate good intent.

Rather off topic, but... QUOTE Adultery (the act) will always be a sin, because Adultery implies a breaking of a covenant. This has been rolling through my mind lately. I wonder did God marry Mary before they agreed to produce a child from him? Were any vows or promises broken? Is the sex the sin, or having a child out of wedlock?

This has been rolling through my mind lately. I wonder did God marry Mary before they agreed to produce a child from him? Were any vows or promises broken? Is the sex the sin, or having a child out of wedlock?

It sounds like we do agree in large part. I do think that the circumstance and action do not amount to a hill of beans when compared with mindset or intention. Two people are enlisted in the Army and shoot down enemies. One does it with sick enjoyment, (Possibly even making the "enemy" suffer as much as possible before inflicting death), the other does it regretfully, (causing the person to make it as painless as possible for the "enemy"). One is more like God and the other is more like the devil. The circumstances and the actions are exactly the same, only the intent is different. I think intent IS the deciding factor. The point on which Judgment will ultimately be based. Our intent does not take into consideration the action or the circumstances, but determines whether we will do good or evil, in that instance or regarding that subject. And our intent changes as quickly as the topic does, so we are not always good/righteous nor evil/wicked.

So in conclusion of this post, we cannot rely on circumstances, actions or any other thing to be accurate in determining whether we have sinned or not. But we can easily rely on our intent to determine whether we have sinned, every time. It is consistent, every time. So then, is sin determined by our intent?

Enough rambling, your thoughts please...

Message Edited... LDS_forever: I fixed your quote tags.

No Act Inherintly Sin Mormon Doctrine Studies

Even without malice intent or even knowledge someone committing adultery or any sin is still committing a sin. Ignorant sin is still a sin, it just may be covered by atonement. No unclean thing can enter the Kingdom of God even if that unclean thing sinned ignorantly. So bad intent and knowledge is not necessary for something to be a sin. In fact many so-called sinners have justified their bad behavior to the point where it is completely moral and justifiable in their own mind.

The following shows that one may sin without knowledge,but it also shows the mercy of God in redeeming these particular sinners.
Mosiah 3:11

So this implies that one may sin without intent or malice and still be committing a sin in the eyes of the Lord.

But your main premise is that an act is not inherently a sin. This comes down to the words we use to actually label a particular act. Consider the Following:

Murder is an act that is always Inherently a sin
Killing is not always inherently a sin.

Adultery is an act that is always Inherently a sin.
Sexual relations is not always inherently a sin.

Sexual assault is always inherently a sin.
Being sexually assaulted is not.

In these instances different words are used to describe similar activities. There are many acts which are always inherently sins, and many acts that can be a sin in some circumstances, but are also acts that are necessary in other.


This is not a simple question that you have raised, but to state that all acts are not inherently sins denies the fact that there are certain immutable laws that are on this Earth that do have consequences( even if the consequences were paid by the Savior, through the Atonement in the case of ignorant sin), that are always and will always, in our mortal existence, be a sin.