What is Sin, and Why Does an Accurate Definition Matter in Understanding Mental Health Conditions?

Someone with anorexia may feel intense guilt if she eats lunch and conclude she’s sinned. Someone with blunted emotion may feel little or no guilt if they bully a classmate and may conclude what they did wasn’t wrong. Someone with cognitive distortions may really think they’ve lied when they told someone inaccurate information, even though they didn’t know it was inaccurate at the time they told them. I once spoke with someone who would repent to God in prayer if she unexpectedly walked by a group of people who were cussing in conversation, because she believed she’d somehow sinned just by overhearing the cussing. I used to plug my ears on the late bus heading home from school, because the bus driver would play music that glorified sex before marriage, and I believed it was a sin to listen to it, even though there was no way to get away from it and I wasn’t the one choosing to turn on that station.

A woman in psychosis may have cheated on her husband because she really believed she was married to the neighbor and he was her husband, and her current husband was just a friend. She comes out of psychosis at the psychiatric hospital after being put on medication, and is able to now tell the truth, that she is in fact married to her husband. She’s not sure how to make sense of all of this. Did she sin and commit adultery? She had never wanted to cheat. She didn’t even know she was cheating. But her actions really hurt her husband badly. He’s also trying to make sense of all of this. Can he trust his wife and should he stay married to her? Or is she untrustworthy and her actions are grounds for divorce?

How do each of these people determine if what they are doing is actually wrong, or these are just feelings or distorted perceptions they’re experiencing?

God’s Moral Law the Crux of Everything

What is sin according to the Bible? Sin is how the fall happened, it’s the moral evil that entered the cosmos through Lucifer, and then later through Adam who brought it to this world, resulting in natural evil such as cancer and disease. It’s why Christ had to come and die to redeem us – it’s the crux of everything, or rather God’s law is, and breaking His law is the cause of disorder and destruction. What is it?

The Bible’s definition of sin never changes. It’s a core eternal truth. And the definition of righteousness or goodness (sin’s opposite) never changes either and is also an eternal core Bible truth. Whether you’re someone with depression who is trying to evaluate whether your depression is purely biochemical or whether it’s a sinful attitude of doubting God and choosing to see the glass as half empty on your part, or whether you’re a perfectly healthy person without any mental symptoms, endeavoring to evaluate your thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors to see which are sinful and need to be surrendered to God, the definition of sin never changes. It’s the same for everyone, and God is just and fair, and doesn’t altar His law, or make exceptions, and doesn’t pick favorites.

Once we know the Bible’s definition of sin, then we can plug in our unique situation and state of cognition into the equation, and see if what we’re experiencing is actually sinful in God’s eyes. The person with intrusive sexual thoughts can figure out if those thoughts are sin. The person with intense guilt from eating, can figure out if it’s actually a sin to eat lunch or if their mind and emotions are just playing tricks on them.

Because there’s an objective standard of right and wrong, we can compare ourselves and measure ourselves by that standard to see if we’re committing sin or if our mind and emotions are just out of sync.

We Left Out Some Important Points

We’ve already talked about some aspects of what makes something sinful in the previous chapter, but in an effort to not overwhelm the reader, I chose not to cover all the aspects of what makes something a sin all at once. In this chapter I’d like to go over some of the things we learned in the previous few chapters, and bring out several aspects that we have not covered yet.

Biblical Philosophy of Sin

What we really need is the correct Biblical philosophy of sin. It’s important that we get this right and clear up any misconceptions that we might have that aren’t Biblical.

Before going into sin though – the moral dimension – I want to first explain the connection between scientific laws and moral laws.

I’m doing this for several reasons. One big reason is that it’s important that we understand that not everything is a moral issue, and that we clearly separate the moral from the natural. If we call something a sin problem that really isn’t a sin issue at all, we end up assigning blame to people who are innocent, which is itself a wrong that God in His perfect righteousness hates. Not only this but we will end up trying to overcome something that can’t be overcome and needs to be dealt with on the natural level, as a health issue. We can spend many months or years trying to overcome something that really just needs supplements and natural healing to correct.

But God would of course also be against us calling our sin something neutral and acceptable if it is actually sin though. We should never do this. To do this is to harden one’s heart against God if it is willfully and knowingly done.

Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent— the LORD detests them both.

Proverbs 17:15

So we need to draw a line of clear demarcation between the kinds of things that are sins and the kinds of things aren’t sins, using the Bible definition of each. And see the connection between the moral dimension and the natural dimension.

Another big reason I want to go over a basic layout of the difference between and the connection between the physical world and the moral law, is because if you’re someone experiencing cognitive distortions from something like depression or delusions from psychosis, you’ll want to make sure you have a correct basic understanding of reality, and you’ll need to train your brain to see things the way the Bible depicts them. This will help you to come out of the distorted view of reality.

Even for those without a mental illness it’s important we take time to study what the Bible says about reality and train our brain to see things as they actually are.

Let’s talk about the natural world…

The Natural World

The natural world is not as natural as it first appears. It is actually governed by spiritual laws. These spiritual laws are not scientific laws. Scientific laws are created things. These spiritual laws are eternal principles, not science, the principles found in God’s own character and they transcend the scientific created world, and govern it, serving as the blueprint from which the natural, scientific world derives its qualities and attributes.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”

Romans 1:20

What Paul is saying here in Romans 1:20 is very key to understanding the relationship of the natural world and the spiritual world. He tells us that the natural world shows us spiritual concepts about God.

But if it’s natural and not spiritual, how can it do that? Proverbs tells us how that’s possible.

“By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place;

by his knowledge the watery depths were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew.”

Proverbs 3:19-20

There’s a difference between wisdom and knowledge. In Proverbs Jesus is the personification of wisdom, thus when the Bible speaks of the foundation of the natural world being laid with wisdom, this is a reference to how the principles within God’s own character, and the attributed of His nature are the blueprint behind the created world. This verse isn’t speaking of scientific knowledge here. It’s alluding to the Bible wisdom on which the whole world’s design is based. The transcendent principles that govern the natural world.

The natural world has properties that are derived from and modeled after God Himself.

As referenced all through this book, understanding is basically synonymous with logic. The laws of logic are how we understand anything. The natural world follows the laws of logic, and thus it is congruent, and testifies to God’s congruent nature.

So when Proverbs tells us the Lord set the heavens in place with understanding, this shows us that the laws of logic transcend the natural world. They are not science; they are the blueprint that serves as the basis for all scientific law and governs it.

It could be possible for another universe to have different scientific laws. This is something God could do. But logic and truth would always serve as the basis and blueprint for these new scientific laws. There will never be a universe that isn’t formed with understanding and that doesn’t reflect God’s attributes.

Notice in the following passage how the same principles are involved in both the natural world and the spiritual world. When God waters the natural world and when He teaches us His Word through His Spirit and changes our characters from within, the same principles of how growth happens apply to both.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:10-11

“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:”

Deuteronomy 32:2

Fascinatingly, both material things like seeds sprouting into plants, and immaterial things like our number of good deeds done, can grow.

Similarly, a material thing like a mountain and an immaterial thing like God’s character can have grandeur.

The fact that both material things and immaterial things can have processes of growth and share attributes of grandeur, reveals to us that truth mentioned above that God’s invisible qualities are seen in the creation.

It’s God’s invisible attributes that serve as the blueprint and basis for the created world, and that’s why invisible, immaterial things and material things can share the same processes and attributes. Their processes and attributes are coming from the same Source – God Himself who is Himself immaterial and transcendent.

In the above verse God spells out for us that the same principles govern both. He grows our character and our spiritual knowledge via the same principle that He does with how He waters the grass. It is the same God growing both.

With a tender young plant He starts out with a gentle drop of rain (called the “small rain” in the verse), because the plant is not strong enough to handle more. Then as the plant grows He sends stronger rain (showers) to grow it up to full maturity. Likewise with a new Christian God starts with basic, simple doctrine, and teaches them gently, then after they have been a Christian a long time and grown up some in the faith, He gives them more complex doctrine and grows them up in their understanding and in their character by these truths.

The fact that the natural world operates via these same underlying principles of growth – both in the natural world and in the spiritual world – shows that the principles involved in how growth happens are transcendent and eternal.

So even in another world with different scientific laws, the science there would always grow and expand in this same way, and abide by these same underlying principles.

Another example of this is the familiar verse:

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Galatians 6:7

In the natural world if we work hard to grow plants and plant a lot of seed we can have a big harvest, and in the spiritual world if we put time and energy into Bible study, seeking God and endeavoring to win people to Christ, we will reap a heart like His, we will have much knowledge of the scriptures, and bring many souls to Him.

Miracles and Science

We know that the principles that govern the scientific world are not themselves science. And one thing that makes that abundantly clear is miracles. Miracles like science, reveal the qualities and attributes of God. The wonder-provoking concepts in astrophysics give us the same feeling of awe towards God that Jesus healing the blind man gave.

They are both carried out with the same divine power, and with the same spirit of love behind them. But one occurs within scientific law and the other outside scientific law.

What God Told Job

When God spoke to Job He gave as a sign of His authority and as the reason for why Job could trust Him the fact that He made the heavens and the earth, and God went through and named many of the wonders of the world, and the scientific laws themselves to draw Job’s attention to God’s perfect judgment.

God references how He divided the waters from the land, how He laid the earth’s foundations, again in wisdom.

How is it that God could use the natural world to instill in Job a sense of God’s perfection and love?

It’s because these transcendent spiritual principles govern the natural world. The natural world isn’t just natural; it operates via spiritual principles, and testifies of spiritual truth.

These principles are at the heart of God’s character. This is why the Psalmist David could say that the heavens – the created work of God’s hands – shows His glory. “Glory” in the Bible means character. It is through these spiritual principles that underly all of the scientific processes in our world, that God’s character is shown.

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”

Psalm 19:1-4

It’s common for atheists to say that they are spiritual but they don’t believe in God or a higher power. When asked what they mean by spiritual they will say that when they look out and see the stars or the other wonders in the scientific world that they are struck by awe that is very spiritual and feels like the spiritual experience which Christians refer to.

They have this experience because the natural world reveals spiritual principles in its operations. The natural world shows the glory – the character of God – as well as His divine nature. It doesn’t show His power only, but also His character.

Although it needs to be said that while nature shows God’s character it does so in an imperfect way after sin and decay entered this world. And it also needs to be said that while nature reveals us things about God, nature is not God. He is a separate Being from His creation.

Where does Solomon tell us to go to learn wisdom? To the ant. To the animals.

Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!

It has no commander, no overseer or ruler,

yet it stores its provisions in summer and gathers its food at harvest.

Proverbs 6:6-8

“The locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks.”

Proverbs 30:27

Job similarly instructs us to “ask” the animals because they will teach us about God. The asking done here is a poetic way of saying we should study and observe the animals.

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you,

or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;

or speak to the earth, and it will teach you,

or let the fish in the sea inform you.

Which of all these does not know

that the hand of the Lord has done this?

Job 12

What this means is that the verse in Psalms 19:2 is very true. Day-by-day the things of nature pour forth speech and reveal knowledge. The whole created world is living object lessons that teach spiritual lessons about God and draw our hearts after Him. As we interact with this world – whatever occupation we may have – we see the transcendent spiritual truths in operation. For instance, if we work in a science lab we see not only the scientific laws and utilize the scientific process, but we also come in contact with the transcendent spiritual principles that underly and govern all of the scientific laws. Even if we work as a writer or a researcher we find that in the natural world we reap what we sow. When we put time and energy into learning, we become more knowledgeable. This isn’t just a natural process at work; there’s transcendent spiritual principles that cause the natural world to work that way.

So every single day – many times throughout the day – we are each being taught and appealed to through the object lessons in nature to seek out God and the attributes of His nature and character are being revealed to us.

We may not realize this is happening – and even if we know it is happening we do not know all the different ways it’s happening every day and what all these scientific processes are alluding to in the character and nature of God. There’s too many to piece it all together. But I believe that when we see God face-to-face we will finally see the Person and the attributes of His Person directly that all these natural wonders pointed to and were revealing to us all through each day that we lived and walked in this world.

Spiritual Laws and the Fall

Spiritual laws are the reason why when Adam sinned – a moral wrong – the physical world experienced a change and began to decay and die – a natural effect.

The fact that a moral evil – sin – caused change to the physical laws in the world, and brought in decay, and suffering, and death, reveals clearly that the spiritual governs the physical, and it doesn’t work the other way around.

It’s important to note that Adam’s sin didn’t just cause decay and death in the creation, it also caused predatory behavior among the animals. The animals now mirrored Adam’s own evil nature that he acquired from rebelling against God and joining Satan’s ranks.

As ruler of the world, when Adam fell and gave the kingdom over to Satan and became a slave of Satan, the world fell into Satan’s hands too.

And because the blueprint for the created world, the principles that transcended and governed the physical world revealed God’s glory – His character of goodness and fairness – and the world reflected this goodness, at the fall the world then reflected Satan’s selfishness.

Animals now had predatory natures which mirrored the evil in Satan’s character.

Animals are of course not themselves evil, the natural world before sin while it reflected God, it was not capable of actual moral goodness. An animal or a plant can’t do good deeds as they aren’t moral agents. They merely reflect and mirror their ruler.

When God created each new thing in the world, He declared it “Good.” This meant its design was good. That it was perfectly made; that there was a higher wisdom in its design. God did not mean that trees or seeds or squirrels were moral agents who could do righteous actions and think holy thoughts.

Man alone among all of God’s creation in this world was a moral agent who could not only reflect God’s glory and testify of Him in a passive way, but actively choose to love Him and glorify Him by the good deeds done and the holy thoughts that he chose to think.

Spiritual Laws Behind Conversion

The spiritual laws that govern our world are also why Jesus had to come to die in order to redeem us and we couldn’t be forgiven without His sacrifice. These laws are also behind the rules of how a person is regenerated by the Holy Spirit and a new heart is created within them. A person can’t for instance, better themselves without repentance. When humanists work hard on themselves to make themselves into better people – be lie less and to be more honest, or instance – the most they can hope to do is behavioral modification.

They can change outward actions only, develop habits perhaps, but they are powerless to change their character as it takes divine power to do that. God alone can recreate a heart.

The Bible describes a law of sin and death and a law of the spirit of life.

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Romans 8:2

Those who are not in Christ are slaves to sin and cannot do good actions of love. There is a spiritual law at work here, where they cannot love. They are actually incapable of it, and it’s an impossibility for them while in a lost state.

Paul speaking of this spiritual law says this:

“I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”

Romans 7:23

But those who have been forgiven by Christ are set free from sin. Sin no longer has dominion over them, and they are able to love God and their fellow man.

The answer to Paul’s question “Oh wretched man that I am, Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (verse 24) is “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (verse 25)

Sin does not have dominion over those who are in Christ Jesus. They can choose to think thoughts that are truly loving and carry out actions that are truly benevolent. Because a new law is now at work through the Spirit who creates in them a new heart.

So this premise that those outside of Christ cannot love, and those in Christ can love and change for the better to be more and more loving, is a spiritual law at work.

Spiritual Laws Do Not Work Independently of God, Neither Do They Control God; God Presides Over Them and They Are The Principles In His Own Character, the Principles Of Love and Fairness By Which He Makes Decisions and Governs the Universe

Spiritual laws are always the foundation that governs the physical world. They do not operate independently from God as some spiritual force depicted in Star Wars and pantheistic religions. God is the Governor of His creation, the Person Lawgiver who is the Source of these laws and personally enacts them.

An error that something known as the Word of Faith movement makes is it teaches that God is bound by His spiritual laws, and basically operates as a subject under them in a way that mimics a scientific process like gravity, so that when we claim something by faith then God must give us the thing we ask for.

This tempts people to pray for their wishes and wants, rather than seeking God’s will, and makes God out to be a genie who is under some kind of spiritual law that causes him to fulfil one’s wishes, a slave of these laws, and just as how a moon cannot resist the power of gravity that makes it orbit the Earth, God cannot resist the spiritual power that forces Him to respond to our faith with a “yes.”

The Bible describes God as being active through His Word, watching over it to perform it.

“And the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied.

You have observed correctly,” said the LORD, “for I am watching over My word to accomplish it.”

Jeremiah 1:11-12 BSB

I checked the original Hebrew and it says in the Hebrew that God is performing His Word.

This shows active agency. Rather than there being spiritual laws that bind God to perform certain actions; it’s the other way around. God performs these actions of His own divine will and volition.

God is not a slave; He is the Supreme authority. He is the Law-Giver; He is not a subject under His laws. What this means is His promises given in His Word are His supreme will for us, and represents His desires and goals. He would not promise something He didn’t want and that didn’t represent His perfect will. And He accomplishes His promises by His own active agency and divine power. The Bible says the Son “Upholds all things by the Word of His power.” (Hebrews 1:3). What this means is God accomplishes in the natural world by His power what He promises in His Word, and that He brings about what He speaks, such as when He created light with a Word. This shows active, personal agency, not a spiritual law that forces and compels Him to act.

God acts not by coercion or force, and not under the authority of these laws, but presiding over them as their King and Source.

This why when Adam sinned, God officiated as the Supreme Authority, and meted out the sentence of curses upon the world. The world didn’t just start displaying signs of decay and death through some spiritual law independent of God. God sentenced it and carried out its sentence with His divine power.

God actively and personally cursed the Earth by His divine authority, as a sentence for Adam’s sin.

Notice in Romans 8:20 how this verse is specific about telling us that God subjected the creation to futility. The curse was given directly by Him – there was a “One” who personally carried it out and subjected it to futility.

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it in hope.”

Romans 8:20

God can say no to the whims and wishes of men. Our faith only has power with Him in a subordinate way where we are subject to His higher will and higher authority. If we pray for something He has promised, we are coming into alignment with His higher will and purpose.

God is the Governer over all of creation. If you think of the creation, and what aspects and attributes a Governer of such a universe a Being must have and must be in order to manage it and preside over it, you arrive at many of the attributes that God possesses.

For instance, such a Being would have to be immaterial and a spirit and beyond the physical in order to create the physical. If God were made of created matter then He wouldn’t be over this creation but rather a part of it.

And this Being must be omnipresent in order to give life to all beings across the universe and hold up and keep in working operation every aspect of nature, from the planets and their long orbits, to the laws of physics that govern matter.

God isn’t subject to physical law – He created it. And He’s not under spiritual laws either – They are a reflection of His nature and His will. They are the enacting of His divine power in spiritual ways, His personal working, and the principles by which He makes His decisions and that reveal His values and character.

It was the Word and authority of God that brought the world into existence. He commanded “Let there be light” and light was created out of nothing.

But the natural laws are not exactly the same thing as the moral law. Animals are under natural law, and in a sense they are kind of under spiritual laws too, because the whole created world is under spiritual laws. When Adam sinned animals, along with the whole created world, began to decay and die.

The animals were created by a Word from God calling them into existence. The spiritual laws that rule and govern the creation apply to them too.

Moral Law is Not the Same Thing as Natural Law

But only people of all God’s creation are under moral law.

Only people can understand right and wrong, and choose to sin or choose to obey God (through Christ).

When I speak of natural laws, I’m referring to the laws of physics and other scientific laws.

An example of how natural laws are not the same thing as moral law is the case of self-defense vs. murder. In the natural world there is just killing; there is no distinction between self-defense and murder. Naturally, scientifically it’s the same action either way.

It’s only the moral law that makes the distinction between these two things.

Another example is fornication and married sex. In the natural world they are the same act. The only thing that distinguishes between one being impure and unholy and the other being a pure and holy expression of love and sexual union, is the moral law.

There is a moral dimension to reality. It’s very real that murder is wrong and self-defense is right. But this isn’t a scientific truth; it’s a moral truth.

And animals, not being made in God’s image in their nature and not possessing moral understanding or agency, cannot commit murder or fornication.

A lion cannot decide that killing another lion to protect itself is self-defense and is morally right, but killing a gazelle to prey upon it and eat it is an unjust killing and is murderous.

Neither does a lion have intent and motive. It’s an instinctual being. It kills because it is hungry. Or because it feels aggressive. It responds to purely biochemical processes and drives; it doesn’t have the higher dimension of having benevolent motives.

The animals do not participate in the moral dimension of life.

Is Right and Wrong a List?

Unfortunately when many people think of sin they think of it being actions only. They see a list in their mind of actions that should be done and another list of actions that should never be done.

This is of course true, there is a list of actions God says we shouldn’t do, and another list of obligations God requires of us.

But this isn’t the definition of sin. If this were the definition of sin, then lions killing gazelles would be sin, and there would be no distinction between the killing lions do and the killing human beings do. If sin were actions only, this paints a naturalistic world where there is no real moral dimension at all. It would mirror a naturalist evolutionary view where the world operates via natural laws only and there’s no moral reality.

“Thou Shalt” and “Thou Shalt Nots”

On the surface the Commandments may seem to only be about actions. But taking a closer look at the “Thou shalts” and the “Thou shalt nots” we see that actually they do not cover just the actions at all.

As mentioned above adultery is distinctly different from fornication. In the natural world – in the physical actions alone – they are the same act. What makes them different is the moral dimension.

All of the Commandments also imply motive. Every single one of them. And the 10th Commandment – that of coveting – is a whole commandment that only involves the thoughts and intents of the heart. There are no outward actions involved with coveting.

So you can see already from the very definition of the Commandments themselves, outward actions alone do not define right and wrong.

We can see also how by definition the Commandments involve the inner motives of the heart, and thus cannot apply to animals.

Jesus in explaining the law to people, brought out how sin is in the desires and motives. It’s in the intent and heart of the person.

“what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.”

Matthew 15:18

Sin is in the heart and intent. It’s not outward actions devoid of intent and motive.

The Wonder of the Human Brain

The human brain is a wonder of creation. All of these foundational truths – scientific truth, spiritual truth, and moral truth – are understood by the human mind. Our brain, unlike the brain of animals, was created to commune with God and to glorify Him by our love and moral choices.

While this is a wonderful thing, it’s also a serious problem if our brain malfunctions, because then our understanding of moral truth can be skewed or even absent altogether. Because we are physical beings, our moral understanding is dependent on our physical brain, thus it is a sacred duty to preserve the brain in the best health possible.

Health becomes a matter of weighty responsibility as well as a great joy. In caring for and studying our physical organism – especially our brain – we see the genius work of God and come to understand Him in a way the study of no other created thing can do. We learn about the nature of man, the nature of God whom man’s image reflects.

Is it Possible to Do Wrong Outward Actions and Yet Not Be Sinning?

It’s possible for a person in psychosis to do right actions and yet not understand that what they are doing is right. To not understand the underlying principles of what makes an action good and right, and to just go along with what the people around them are telling them to do, or due to a delusion. A person might choose to get baptized during psychosis, because they believe they are Jesus and need to fulfil their mission as the Messiah. And their caretakers may not pick up on this or inquire more deeply to see whether moral understanding is present if they think of right and wrong as actions only.

Believing that outward actions are the definition of sin creates many problems, especially in regard to understanding mental conditions like dementia or psychosis. When a mother has a son who steals a painting from a gallery during psychosis, if she believes sin is the actions alone, she will conclude he has sinned against God, and attribute guilt to him. Without looking into why he stole the painting.

If asked, she may find that he says something like “The painting is possessed by a demon that has been killing people in the town, and the only way to save the town was to destroy the painting.” He may have acted under a delusion caused by his psychotic condition.

Sin and wrong actions aren’t synonymous. While sin always involves either wrong actions or thoughts, there’s more to sin than wrong actions.

If a dog bites your neighbor, we don’t conclude the dog has sinned. The dog is under natural law only, not moral law. The dog didn’t know it was immoral to bite your neighbor. The dog is not a moral agent that can make moral choices. That dimension of understanding is impossible for a dog to grasp.

How the Bible Defines Sin

Sin is anything that goes against God’s perfectly loving character. The Bible tells us “God is love” John 4:8, then it says “The commandments, do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not covet and any other commandment, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Love does no wrong to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:9-10

God is love and his law is love. Sin is the transgression of the law (1 John 3:4); love is the fulfillment of the law. Sin then is the opposite of love.

Anything that is not Christlike, not loving, not moral and good, is sin.

The 10 commandments contain the inherent rights of God and man. God, being the true God, the Creator who brought all things into being, and who died for man to redeem him to Himself, has a right to our worship for being the Creator, for being a perfect Standard; for having a character of perfect self-sacrificial love for His children, for giving His own life to pay our debt. To worship anyone or anything else denies God the love and worship that is his by right.

People have a right to being treated with dignity because they are beings made in God’s image. It would be wrong to treat a person the way you would treat a dog; it would deny a person their inherent right to dignity. People have a right to sow and to reap what they sow. To engage in work and reap the results of that work, whether it be monetary or otherwise – and not have their work stolen from them by someone who did not do the work and who has no right to the results of their labor. To steal from them is inherently immoral as it denies the rights of an individual.

People have to life – to not be murdered. This is one of the most basic rights. Not only does a murderer violate a person’s right to life when they kill them, but it steals from God who is the Giver of all Life and the Creator of that person.

Fornication is wrong because it takes from someone privileges reserved for marriage without fulfilling the responsibilities of being that person’s husband or wife. It merges two people into one flesh in a union that is designed for marriage alone. It is not merely a physical act but a spiritual union is created when two people have sex.

So you can see how the breaking of the 1st, 8th, 6th, and 7th commandments is a violation of inherent rights of God and man. And the other commandments similarly are inherent rights of God and man, but I won’t go into all of them here.

What this means is that right and wrong exist as principles inherent within the very fabric of moral reality, coming from the character of God Himself.

Does Only the Spirit of the Law Matter and Not the Letter of the Law?

Some have made the argument that it’s only the heart that matters (what they mean by this is the motive of the person) and whether they keep the letter of the law – whether they do the exact actions depicted in the 10 commandments – isn’t important. It’s common for people to say “Yes, maybe I told a lie, but God knows my heart; He knows I did it for a good reason”, and to believe that it wasn’t really sin for them because their heart was in the right place, or because God understands their predicament and unique situation. Perhaps they were in a really bad situation that was causing them a lot of pain. Lying would get them out of the bad situation. God doesn’t want them to be in pain, thus they conclude that God will make allowance for their lie, and He won’t count it is sin.

Some lovers have argued that they don’t need to be married to sleep together, and that living together for life unmarried is the same thing as getting married, that marriage is just a piece of paper. While this argument may seem to have weight to some people, some men have cheated on their wives and then claimed it didn’t matter or mean anything because their heart wasn’t in it. It was just a physical act, but their affection and their heart was with their wife.

This argument that our actions don’t matter if our heart isn’t in it has been applied to many different sins.

It’s really obvious in this second example that one cannot have love and knowingly break a commandment.

The people making this argument that their heart wasn’t in it, so it’s not sin, aren’t people in psychosis. They reveal they have a knowledge of right and wrong, because they know some kind of justification or argument for their actions is needed, because what they did was wrong. Someone in psychosis would argue something like that it wasn’t wrong to cheat on their spouse (and honestly believe it wasn’t wrong), or that they weren’t cheating by having sex with another woman, and that cheating is something else, usually a nonsensical idea.

This particular argument that it’s not sin for a person to cheat because their heart wasn’t in it, is a very typical argument seen in people who know right from wrong as a way to justify their actions. It shows a clear, logical, traceable motive, something you won’t see in people in full psychosis.

Selfish Motive Always Present When We Sin

Because each commandment has the same underlying principle of love, to break any commandment means the person has to embrace an attitude of selfishness in order to do so. The person committing sin promotes and advantages self at the expense of others, by violating their rights.

Thus motive is always present when we sin. The man who cheated on his wife, and claimed there was no selfish motive, is lying to himself. He may have become calloused, doesn’t feel like he’s done anything that wrong, and doesn’t know his own heart to see clearly the selfish motives there. His motive is clear to his wife though. He is willing to put his selfish desire for variety and pleasure, above his respect and love for his wife. He’s willing to harm her to take something that isn’t his by right. The motive is clear.

If someone steals $200 from you in a very respectful manner and with a kind expression on their face, it’s still stealing. It still wrongs you. Likewise the man who cheats on his wife, claiming to not have any feelings for the person he committed adultery with, he still becomes one flesh with the other woman, severs his union with his wife, and brings great pain and a sense of loss to his wife.

There is objective right and there is objective wrong. They are not subjective ideas and preferences in the minds of individual people – they exist outside of us. Stealing is objectively wrong. Adultery is objectively wrong. These things cause harm to other people and violate their inherent rights.

Those Who Worship In Spirit and In Truth Are True Worshippers

Jesus said that the Father seeks those who worship in Spirit and in truth. What He’s referring to are people who know Bible truth and believe it, and allow it to change their character so they have a heart that is in conformity to that truth.

The Father isn’t looking for people who know stealing is wrong intellectually, but don’t conform to this truth, and don’t have His Holy Spirit living within them to actuate them to holy desires, motives, and actions, and steal regularly and have a selfish character.

But neither is the Father looking for people who claim to have a heart of love without truth, without the commandments, like the man who claims he didn’t really cheat on his wife because his heart wasn’t in the act. Or the couple who claim they really love one another, even though they refuse to get married.

God wants people who love His Bible truths – the commandments being one of the central truths in the Bible, the very principles behind His own character – and who live them out because they are filled with His Spirit.

Letter and Spirit both matter. What you do or think, and the spirit you do it in both matter to God. And it’s impossible for someone who knows stealing is wrong, to break the letter of the law and steal, and yet keep the spirit of the law while doing so.

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

John 4:24

Jesus explains that the 10 commandments are really 10 categories that encompass far more than just the literal breaking of the written law. For instance, hate is murder, and lust is adultery. (Matthew 5:21-22, 27-28)

The moral law – the 10 commandments – involves all of our thoughts, motives, desires, choices, and actions. This law judges and evaluates every thought and desire, and God categorizes each as either holy or unholy, moral or immoral, good or evil.

Let’s say we make plans to buy our mom a card for mother’s day. That’s a good and right desire that keeps the 5th commandment about the importance of honoring our parents.

Or let’s say we think a mean thought about a school bully and want them to get a bad grade on a test. That’s a thought that breaks the 6th commandment about hate and murder.

So this moral law is very relevant to our lives. By it we have a knowledge of sin (Romans 3:20), and can know when a thought or desire or action is one that God approves of, and is right for a Christian to have, or whether it’s immoral and wrong for a Christian to have.

The Bible says the Word of God, which contains His 10 Commandment law, is – through the power of the Holy Spirit – “alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

Hebrews 4:12

Thus we can use the Word of God to know right from wrong, and depending on God for help, His Spirit whose role it is to teach us all the Words of Christ, will teach us when a thought or attitude, or desire is a moral one or an immoral one.

God has given us a conscience, through the Holy Spirit convicting our hearts.

“They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)”

Romans 2:15

Because we have this conscience made possible by God’s Spirit interacting with our mind and consciousness, we can judge our thoughts and motives and actions to know if they are moral or immoral. We have a compass.

“…by the law is the knowledge of sin”

Romans 3:20

“…where there is no law, there is no transgression.”

Romans 4:15

“…I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.”

Romans 7:7

The Bible tells us that everyone has a general knowledge of right and wrong – even those who have never had access to the Bible to know the 10 Commandments or to hear the gospel. These people have a conscience in a primitive, general sense, and can be saved by responding to the Holy Spirit’s convicting voice.

(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law.

They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them.)

Romans 2:14-15

Thus even pagans in ancient China had access to salvation, and some of them will be in heaven.

But those of us who know the 10 Commandments have a fuller knowledge of right and wrong, and our conscience is thus more accurate, and the Holy Spirit can more accurately convict us of sin, and help us gauge whether our thoughts, actions, and attitudes are moral or immoral.

The same way that a baby Christian may know certain things are wrong, and not know other things are wrong, because they don’t yet have a solid enough knowledge of the scriptures, or the same way that people growing up in pagan societies such as ancient China can be saved if they follow all the truth they do know, even while ignorantly engaging in error, because what they don’t know isn’t sin for them, only going against what they do know would be sin, the psychotic person who loses their judgment and doesn’t know right from wrong, cannot be said to be sinning either when they do something the Bible says is wrong, if they’ve lost the capacity to understand God’s moral law.

“Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”

James 4:17

To know whether a thought or attitude you’re having is in fact a sin or not, measure it against the 10 commandments.

First Commandment: Would this attitude or action place yourself, another person, or another thing before God? For instance, let’s say you really want to play hockey, but it will be time-consuming. You’ll end up spending all your energy and attention and time getting in shape and practicing hockey so you can win games. You come to the conclusion that you should only be putting that much attention, time, effort, and planning into God’s work, and recognize that playing on a hockey league would be having an idol.

You decide to skate for recreational purposes and for health reasons, on your own time, and not join a league.

2nd Commandment: Would this thought or action involve bowing down or serving someone who claims to stand in God’s place? For instance, bowing before a statue of Jesus, or confessing sins to a priest.

3rd Commandment: Would this thought or action involve doing or thinking something that would be disrespectful to God, portray Him falsely in a bad light, or result in living a hypocritical light?

4 Commandment: Would this thought or action go against God’s Sabbath and the purpose of His Sabbath? For instance, working on Sabbath or thinking thoughts about work on the Sabbath.

5 Commandment: Would this thought or action disrespect my parents and their authority? Would it fail to give them the love and attention that is theirs by right because they are my parents? Authority figures are also involved in this commandment.

Commandment 6: Would this thought or action harm someone either physically, spiritually, or mentally?

Commandment 7: Would this thought or action involve giving sexual attention to someone who is not my spouse?

Commandment 8: Would this thought or action involve taking from someone something that is theirs by right, or failing to give them something that I owe them?

Commandment 9: Would this thought or action involve distorting information, either by exaggeration, or omitting something that is central and important, or failing to give the truth in some other way?

Commandment 10: Would this thought and desire involve wanting or fantasizing about something that belongs to someone else and isn’t mine by right?

Our Conscience Not Infallible

However our conscience isn’t always perfect. If we have incomplete knowledge of right and wrong, our conscience will reflect our knowledge and understanding. It’s possible for a more mature Christian to have a better grasp of right and wrong than a baby Christian, for instance, and learning and growing in the Word of God is crucial for the Christian. And while our conscience is subject to error because we are fallible human beings who do not always have a perfect knowledge of God’s Word (and some people do not have access to the Bible), and only God’s judgment is infallible and perfect (1 Corinthians 4:4), God does give us guidance and knowledge to live a godly life in this world. To follow Him and obey Him and to be a faithful Christian. He gives us enough knowledge of moral truth to do that.

With the knowledge He gives us from His Word and the help of His Spirit teaching us His Word and giving us a conscience that aligns with His law…we can then surrender wrong attitudes, desires, thoughts to God, and repent of wrong actions and choices, and our High Priest will forgive us and change those immoral things about us.

While God’s moral law is an objective standard of right actions and thoughts, for a person to be said to be sinning, there are a couple other dimensions to this that the Bible specifies.

It’s a Sin to Suspect Something is Wrong, But Not Know for Sure, and Go Forward and Do it Anyway, Without Checking God’s Word

In Romans 14, Paul speaks of how we should not eat or drink something that could cause a brother to stumble. This can be something that is ok and not a violation of a commandment, but because it would cause confusion and doubt to the new believer and your brother in Christ, it becomes wrong to engage in it around that person. He explains that whatever we do that is not of faith is sin.

21 It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor any thing whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak.

22 Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.

23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Whatsoever Is Not Of Faith Is Sin

What does this mean that whatsoever is not of faith is sin? Even though objective right and wrong exists and everything is either right or wrong (there are a lot of things that are right so we have a lot of moral options as we engage in life in this world), as human beings we don’t always have perfect knowledge of the scriptures or of right and wrong, and we may not completely understand what is right or wrong. This doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, only that we understand it imperfectly. We may for instance disagree with a brother about what is right and wrong. This scripture tells us that if there is any doubt that an action is wrong, doing it would be a sin. It’s also a sin to do something completely innocent around a brother who himself has doubts as this could cause him to engage in it before he has adequate Bible knowledge on the subject and could cause him to be tempted to go against his conscience and do something he has doubts about.

This adds another dimension to sin. It’s not merely the actions that are sinful, but also if one in their limited human knowledge isn’t sure but suspects something is sinful, then they sin by engaging in it. Tempting or encouraging someone to engage in something they have doubts about is also sin. We are each stewards of ourselves under God and we have a one-on-one relationship with Him, and an individual conscience. Therefore no person should ever assume the role of conscience for another person. To do this is to make oneself a god and to violate the human rights of another person, treating them as less than human.

It’s also true that if someone does not have enough knowledge to know something is sinful, or they are lied to, that it’s not a sin for someone to do something they really don’t think is a sin.

Mothers for instance from other time periods were told by doctors of their day that medical practices were safe that we now know to be very unsafe, such as taking mercury for colds and flues. These mothers weren’t sinning who gave their children these treatments because they didn’t know they were harmful and thought they were giving their children the best that medicine had to offer.

Now, for a mother to know mercury is a poison and hire a physician to give it to her child – would be a sin, because she knows it’s harmful and she’s giving it anyway.

It would also be a sin for a mother to worship the doctor and blindly do whatever he suggests, without doing her own research and praying to God for wisdom. Her child has been entrusted to her by God and she’s responsible for its well-being, not the doctor. Doctors are helpers not dictators. Therefore she goes against her responsibility of stewardship if she blindly listens to a doctor and obeys him like a robot.

There have doubtless then been many cases through history of people not sinning and yet causing harm without realizing it. Human knowledge is limited and we’re not omniscient. It’s also possible to do an inherently good thing with a selfish motive and sin. Giving money to help the poor so that people will praise you and like you, for instance, rather than doing it to actually alleviate suffering and caring about the sufferers. Paul talks about this when he says “if I give my body to be burned but have not love, what does it profit me?” showing that one can do inherently good acts from a selfish motive and it’s therefore not love.

So to not be sinning it’s not enough that we do inherently good things. Knowledge is also part of this, and motive is as well.

James 4:17 speaks again about this other dimension: “He who knows the good he ought to do and does it not, to him it is sin.”

The person must have knowledge that an action is wrong, or they aren’t sinning by doing that action. They also must have the ability to know and to reason, so someone who has lost the ability to reason due to a stroke or due to severe mental illness cannot choose to sin.

Jesus speaks about this concept:

“If you were blind,” Jesus replied, “you would not be guilty of sin. But since you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”

John 9:41

One must be able to “see” to do the right thing, in order for it to be a sin for them to fail to do the right thing.

Notice also in James 4:17 that the person must be able to choose to do or not to do, in order to sin.

There is not an instance in scripture where someone is declared guilty by God for something they didn’t do.

Fornication for instance is a sin, and rape is a sin, but being raped is not a sin. In the case of being raped fornication is happening and it is very sexual and it can certainly feel “wrong”, but the victim is innocent. It is only the rapist who is guilty.

25 But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her, and lie with her: then the man only that lay with her shall die.

26 But unto the damsel thou shalt do nothing; there is in the damsel no sin worthy of death: for as when a man riseth against his neighbour, and slayeth him, even so is this matter:

27 For he found her in the field, and the betrothed damsel cried, and there was none to save her.

Deuteronomy 22

Like murder which is certainly not the fault of the one who is murdered, so rape is not the fault of the one who is raped, and the guilt and sin lies only with the rapist. So you can see how something sexual and even violent and impure doesn’t make it a sin. It’s only if the person does that thing. If that thing is done TO that person against their will, as in the case of rape, the victim is innocent.

There are many different ways the sexual system in the body can malfunction – both in the body and in the brain – which are not sin, and yet still are very sexual, such as sexual intrusive thoughts.

The Bible definitely tells us that a person can sin in their thoughts.

Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.

Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

Isaiah 55:6-7

We can sin even in our attitudes and intents of our heart, our motives.

Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you for the intent of your heart.

Acts 8:22

21 Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment:

22 But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

27 Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery:

28 But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.

Matthew 5:

Someone who desires to murder another – even if they never act on it – is sinning in the intents of their heart.

Anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life residing in him.

1 John 3:15

So, it is not just our outward actions that we can sin with, but also our attitudes and intents and motives in our heart. Our thoughts.

However, even in our thoughts they must be chosen in order for them to be sin. There is not a place in scripture where someone is pronounced guilty by God for something they did not choose to think or to do.

Explain how we are born with a fallen nature and so we inevitably will sin, yet sin is active.

As in the rape example, things done to you aren’t sin on your part. Biological processes happening to you also aren’t sin.

This is the Bible criteria for sin. If you know it’s wrong, and you’re choosing to do it, it’s sin. Knowing it’s wrong, doesn’t mean that you recognize that the action or thought is on a checklist of things people consider wrong. It doesn’t mean that you’re aware society doesn’t approve of a certain action, or that you’ll go to jail if you do that action. I remember being in psychosis and thinking that lying was on this arbitrary checklist determined by society for no reason. They just decided not to condone it. No, to know something is wrong means you understand the underlying selfish principle of the action or thought. You can see that stealing from someone takes something that is theirs by right because they worked for it. You didn’t work for it; it’s not yours by right, and you’re wronging them by taking it from them when you never earned it or have any right to it.

When someone knows something is wrong and can see the underlying selfish principles inherent in that action, for them to go forward and do that action or think that wrong thought always involves a selfish motive.

If you don’t know it’s wrong and don’t suspect it’s wrong and you choose to do it it’s not sin. If you aren’t doing it and it’s something that’s happening to you, then it’s not sin.

This means there’s lots of things that can go on in your brain and body that aren’t sin. Biological sexual feelings and urges, that feel very sexual, aren’t lust and aren’t sin, for instance. If they were then every kid going through puberty would be sinning merely by developing as a sexual being and having sexual urges and feelings. This of course is not the case. God would never design us with a biological process that would cause us to sin by its very nature.

However, lust is a sin. So while it’s actually not a sin for a man to become sexually aroused if a woman in scantily clad attire walks past him, because getting physically aroused is an involuntary process of his body that occurs when he sees a woman with a lot of skin showing, and this is how God created and designed men, it is a sin if he then engages in active fantasy in his mind about the woman, imaging himself having sex with her. Both of these experiences may feel just as sexual as each other. Getting aroused is a sexual experience, and yet if he’s being aroused by something involuntary and not something voluntary, then it’s not a sin.

Similarly pastors don’t tell someone with a gay attraction that they are sinning by simply being tempted by that desire. It’s only if they think gay thoughts or act on those thoughts that they have sinned. It’s also not a sin to be tempted to be violent or to be jealous. It’s only a sin if you deliberately think a jealous or violent thought.

Very sexual or violent dreams can’t be a sin because the frontal lobe – the part of the brain involved in choice – is dialed down when we sleep. The emotional centers of the brain are kicked into high gear and this is why dreams are very emotional. And because the frontal lobe is dialed down the person will dream random, nonsensical, things without a moral filter. You may dream about having sex with someone you’re not even attracted to in real life, or someone violently attacking you, or other immoral themes, that are connected with emotions you felt that day or week in your real life, and magnified and exaggerated. The emotional parts of the brain do not filter and evaluate ideas based on their morality; they are incapable of doing that. It’s not a sin to have unconscious thoughts race through your mind.

It’s not a sin for someone in psychosis to hear voices that cuss at them or shout mean things. These voices are not under their control and they happen due to stimulatory neurotransmitters and inflammation causing overactivation of the auditory centers of the brain. The thoughts are part of the unconscious processes of the brain and aren’t controlled by the frontal lobe, thus they will be about both moral and immoral things and there will be no filter. It’s only the frontal lobe that distinguishes between moral and immoral things. The other parts of the brain do not discriminate. Thus if you were to overhear someone cussing, it gets stored as a memory and processed by the unconscious parts of the brain without discrimination. These parts of the brain do not tell you cussing is wrong. They just process memories, store information, and these memories and information can be activated when there’s inflammation present, as is the case in people in psychosis.

Sin is always deliberate and chosen, even in cases where it’s a sin of omission (meaning something that you should have done that you neglected), it’s deliberately neglected.

Sin Not Exactly the Same Thing as Character

Review Chapter 2 for this information.

Now that we know what sin is, we can take this knowledge of what sin is, and apply it to various mental states that individuals are in. People we are counseling with and helping, or to ourselves if our judgment is good enough to self-evaluate. This must be done on a case-by-case basis.

The six main questions to ask are:

Was the thought, action, or motive actually something that breaks God’s law? Compare it with the 10 Commandments to be sure.

Did they know it was wrong?

Was there a motive (there will always be a motive if they knew it was wrong and could see the way in which it violated the inherent rights of people or God, so #3 always follows if #2 is answered in the affirmative)

Did they do it or was it done to them?

Was it an involuntary, biological process, or a chosen thought or action?

Did they have the ability to control their impulses or compulsions, or were they out-of-control at the time the action was committed?

Forensic psychiatrists do this line of work, and their writings can be very helpful. If an older man does a violent crime, for instance, assault, they have to evaluate him and determine whether he has dementia, and if he has dementia, they must also evaluate what stage it’s in. Has it advanced to the point where he completely lost agency, and it was impossible for him to control his violent outburst? Or, was he in the beginning stages of dementia, and still had the ability to control himself, and just chose not to, and gave way to his anger during a heated argument?

Similarly in a young person with psychosis who say committed a murder, it has to be determined if their psychosis was severe enough that they were in complete delusion and thus not guilty by reason of insanity, or whether their psychosis was mild enough that they knew what they were doing at the time the crime was committed.

Let’s take a girl with anorexia who passes away due to starvation. Anorexia can cause cognitive distortions, and can re-wire the brain’s motivational centers and reward centers so the person doesn’t get any enjoyment from anything in life except starving themselves, and they get reward from that, but there’s also a lot of false feelings of guilt and shame and fear that they feel daily, especially centered around food. Because even anorectics eat, they just eat less than the rest of us.

So there’s certainly compelling emotions of both reward and fear giving her motivation to starve, and there’s also confusing cognitive distortions where she may actually believe if she eats she’s sinned, and that not eating is being virtuous and living a godly life.

It has to be evaluated how severe the cognitive distortions were and also how severe the compulsions were for her to starve herself. Perhaps the compulsions were so strong to starve, that she entered into a state where she wasn’t actively in control. Or perhaps it’s discovered that she had more than just cognitive distortions and had full-on delusions that if she ate she wouldn’t go to heaven because she’d be committing the unpardonable sin.

It’s not uncommon for someone to have both psychosis and anorexia. So if the girl with anorexia was starving herself due to a psychotic delusion, it may not have actually been a sin for her to starve herself to death. If she had been a Christian walking with God in obedience before developing the delusion she may go to heaven.

Others with anorexia may have cognitive distortions and not full delusions, and if they starve themselves to death it would be sin for them and they would not go to heaven.

It doesn’t matter the mental condition, or the situation, sin is always defined the same way in the scriptures. So whether the person has dementia or psychosis, the same criteria will determine whether an assault a person did is sin for them or they are innocent.

Only God fully knows the heart of a person and their mental state at the time the wrong thought or action was done, but there are questions we can ask the person to help get closer to the truth, and make a good assessment.

Ask The Person to Define the Gospel, and See if They Give a Logical Answer or a Nonsensical One

One of the key things you’ll want to ask the person is what is the gospel? If they have heard of it, but can’t accurately define sin, the nature of man, the need for a Savior, and the way in which sins are atoned for by His blood, this can be a really good way to figure out if they’ve lost their moral perception.

My aunt, for instance, who had schizophrenia, went to the zoo and preached to the animals because the Bible says to “preach the gospel to every creature”. She tried to teach pets to pray. It was clear she didn’t know what sin and wrongdoing were, because she couldn’t see clearly that animals do not sin, and thus have no need of a Savior, and human beings alone can sin because we’re moral agents made in God’s image. We need to be washed clean by Christ’s blood because we are capable of making moral choices, and we’ve all made sinful ones and incurred very real guilt.

My aunt never committed a violent crime or anything like that, and she was always very good-natured and kind, but she did break laws involving trespassing, and she would leave food and drinks for people she believed were trapped in storage bins.

She wanted to help these people whom she believed were suffering, and she couldn’t understand the Bible concept of respecting the law and the governing authorities, and doing things in a way that is alignment with the law. She wasn’t connected with reality, including the moral law.

I was similar when I went into full psychosis. I remember caring whether people felt pain and suffered, and wanted to take people’s pain away, but I lost the ability to understand the inherent rights people possessed, and how lying was wrong. So I would lie to people, and at one point I stole money from my dad and didn’t think it was wrong. But I would also go online and try to encourage people with mental illnesses and lots of depression not to commit suicide.

My knowledge of right and wrong was becoming more primitive, more like a golden retriever than a person. I wanted to protect people and reduce their suffering, but I didn’t understand the importance of being honest and upfront with them and not lying to them or stealing from them.

A Common Perplexing Problem

There’s an interesting problem that can arise in people with mental illness. Sometimes we’re surrendering our character and sinful attitudes to God, but we can’t stop doing a certain sin because it’s actually not a character problem, it’s a problem of neuro-inflammation. For instance, a person may have Tourette’s syndrome, and blurt out curse words, but be a Bible-believing Christian. They may endeavor to surrender their cursing to God, and see no results or improvement. Normally a person with a cursing problem stops when they surrender their vulgarity to God. They may struggle with it for a while, and the struggle may be intense, but they overcome, they get the victory over a period of weeks or months, in a reasonable amount of time, in accordance with God’s power working in them to will and to do of His good pleasure. Beholding God’s holiness as they read the Word of God stirs up in them a desire to be holy like God is holy, and to worship Him in reverence and awe. They feel rebuked by their crass, vulgar language, and see their sin for what it is. Then, taking hold of His help, they don’t continue to curse for years after becoming a Christian, they don’t settle into a life of cursing and vulgarity.

But the Christian with Tourette’s shows a different pattern. They don’t actually curse to be crass or to demean someone. Their motive isn’t selfish. They curse randomly or when under stress. They feel bad about it, and surrender it year-after-year to God but never stop. It’s now been 10 years and they haven’t stopped. Or a person may have a compulsive hair-pulling problem, and surrender it constantly to God, yet see no improvement; no self-control gained over years and years of praying. In fact, under stress the problem worsens. But then the person is treated with medication, and suddenly the hair-pulling stops and they didn’t even have to try to stop. They didn’t even have to exert effort. Or perhaps they exert a normal amount of effort expected to kick such a habit, and with the help of the medication, they are able to stop.

This can be confusing to many. But it really is true – especially with SMIs (severe mental illnesses) that some problems we have are just brain problems. A more obvious example of this is a man who was an upstanding Christian his whole life, and then begins compulsively sexually assaulting nurses at the rest home, because he’s fallen into late stage dementia and his brain is atrophying and malfunctioning. Cases like this make this fact more clear, that some problems are just brain problems.And sometimes people with these compulsions or rages can think they are lost and will go to hell because they aren’t seeing improvements in these “sins”. When it really is just a case of needing to reduce inflammation in the brain, and then they regain control. It’s actually not a character problem.

I think it’s important to understand that we are finite beings who sin. We are not infinite beings, outside of all physicality and time and space who sin. Ellen White tells us God actually cannot sin, because He’s infinite and cannot be tempted. His infinite nature makes this impossible.Christ actually had to become a man in order to be tempted and be capable of sin, and then He had to choose not to sin and to overcome sin on our behalf, so He could pass on His victory to us and give us the moral strength to resist sin.

The Bible also tells us that Christ will always give us the victory over sin. It’s true that we may have to really battle to surrender self, and it’s a daily battle, but Christ has pledged for the one who wrestles with Him as Jacob did they will have the victory over their sins and they will make continual progress upward along the path that leads to heaven and shines brighter and brighter until it reaches the full shine of the noonday sun. This is the path of the Christian and this is what a converted Christian’s life will look like.

But Jesus has not promised to always heal our brain. It’s possible to be a Christian and have Tourette’s or OCD. It’s possible to be a Christian and have dementia and all the complications and symptoms that brings. We have not been promised perfect health or a healing of our mental illness, though in many cases God does choose to improve or heal us, there are some He chooses not to.

And if we get things confused and think our OCD is sin, we can mistakenly think Jesus isn’t giving us the victory over sin and we aren’t right with Him, when really we are. And so if there’s a way we can come to see the truth, we can be spared a lot of psychological pain in fearing we’re lost.

The key I think is that God is always faithful to do what He promised to do. But sometimes we think He promised things He never promised and we confuse His promises, and that can lead to false conclusions.

One thing that really helps is look at your life as a whole. Let’s say you have a compulsion you can’t stop like hair pulling. Look at the rest of your life. Are you getting the victory in other areas? Is your love and gratitude towards God growing? Do you find you’re becoming more humble, more effective at serving and helping others because of your increased humility and increased ability to give people what they really need and not the things you’d like to do or give? Look at all these kinds of things, and if you do have self-control and love in many other areas, there’s a big possibility your compulsive cursing is due to neuro-inflammation and not character. And it needs to be treated for what it is before you’ll be able to stop.

But sometimes people in these states of compulsivity are very out-of-control in an all-around kind of way. They are explosive, they can’t focus to do work or school, they are jumping off the walls or easily stressed. They may hallucinate or have personality changes. They may not have access to their emotions or be able to understand their own motives or desires. They may feel mentally scattered or lose memories. This means they probably have severe inflammation through their whole body and they need treatment before you can even see what kind of a person they choose to be with their will. Their whole system is hi-jacked and overridden by the inflammation.

You can look to who they were before they became this inflamed to get a better picture of who this person is, and after they are effectively treated you will also see the real them emerge too.

The Bible tells us we have a high priest who was made in ever way like we are. In His humanity Jesus experience physical infirmity, including things like cognitive impairment after a long night praying and no sleep, brain fog, mental exhaustion. He understands mental malfunction…He understands the limits of our finite nature because He was born in a human body and experienced what it was like to be human. He suffered, was thirsty, experienced mental anguish. And the Infinite One who took on flesh can help us with all of our physical malfunctions, and our need for wisdom as we confront health issues.

We are finite beings, so this means we’re subject to and limited by our finite physical nature. If our body malfunctions, we can’t override that malfunction. A good example of this is a paralyzed leg. While God has given human beings the ability to walk, and we normally have that ability, there are conditions that can take that ability away from us. Paralysis in a leg can make it impossible for us to walk. This reveals our finite nature.In the same way, brain malfunctions can limit our agency too. Excess inflammation in certain regions of the brain can hi-jack our normal functioning and hi-jack our agency and lead to compulsive acts that are actually outside of our control. Damage from stroke or dementia can do this too.

God holds us responsible for the things within our control, not the things outside of our control, and as long as we are fighting a serious battle on our knees to surrender our heart and actions and life to God, He has promised us by His very blood that we will come out the victor.

However, while you may not be held responsible for having a compulsive behavior that hi-jacks your agency that you actually can’t control, you definitely will be held responsible for not seeking out supplements and medical treatment to lower the inflammation in your brain and regain control, if you have access and know about treatments that can help.

So while the battle may not be one of mental surrender at that point, because you’ve done your part to surrender to God and this is an inflammation issue – the battle becomes one of will you obey God in the area of health and do treatments that could help you, or will you just accept the compulsions (which in some people can be dangerous) and be unfaithful to your Christian trust in the area of health.

God definitely holds us responsible when we have access to treatments that can help us and we don’t pursue them, especially when these compulsions can make us a danger to ourselves and others, and health is a sacred duty, since Christ died for our bodies and we belong to God.

Power Always Promised to Overcome Sins

God always gives us the power to, over time, overcome the sin in our lives. If you’ve been struggling with a certain sin for decades and you’ve wrestled with God in prayer and you’ve been persistent, and still can’t overcome, and you have a mental illness, there’s a big chance that your problem is a purely mental one and not a spiritual or moral issue.

However, I want to exercise caution here because some sins do take a lot of effort to overcome, and it can be a huge battle to get the victory, and it is true that if you haven’t done your part and really given your all to side yourself with Christ and overcome in His strength, that there are sins you won’t get the victory over until you commit to the warfare and fight hard for.

But let’s say you’re one of these very committed people. Maybe you even take things to extremes. You err on the side of going too far, rather than not far enough. And yet you still can’t overcome sin. Then for such a person there’s likely a purely mental reason behind your inability to get control over this sin.

This question, like many of the questions in this book, comes down to the nature of man again.

Upon examining the question of just what role our physical structure plays in and how it relates to our sanctification I discovered the crux of the matter. And I’ve gone over this in previous chapters but I will mention it again.

This is the question of how much of our walk with God is purely mental and how much is moral? What is the role of purely mental functioning in our spiritual experience, and how does being finite in a fallen world play out in practical living today?

The bottom line is, that if one believes they can always discern right from wrong accurately, with any condition or situation in life that affects mental functioning, this person is really believing people are not finite beings.

If you believe the Bible teaches we are finite, then it follows that you’ll believe that our physical brain has limitations and is subject to illness and decay and malfunction.

It really just comes back to the question “Are human beings finite, possessing finite material brains, or are is their brain infinite and immaterial, able to always function correctly even when the physical structure is damaged?”

There’s some definite ways that our finite nature complicates our experience in this fallen world, especially in these last days when people’s brain function is weak and mental illnesses are at an all-time high.

Look, it’s true that a non-converted person can sometimes stop smoking, or do other behavioral modifications without Christ. The person can adopt a kind-hearted demeanor, who was once angry and hostile in demeanor, without actually changing in heart. How is this even possible? Conditioning and habit-forming is a real thing. This is all brain stuff without actual character change.

We’ve determined that our character is a part of our brain – it’s the higher functions that can understand right from wrong. This part can be damaged by man, for instance, when lobotomies were given to the mentally ill in the past, but it cannot be made holy by man. It takes God’s creative power to change character to be holy and oriented towards right-doing. No amount of science could ever do that.

It also takes God’s spirit living within the person. At conversion when we are changed in heart, it’s not merely a change of our character that happens, but the actual indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit living within us that enables us to do right and have holy motives. It’s not just us; it is God working in us – from within us – to do of His good will and pleasure.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is not something the unconverted person has.

A person who is not converted, can actually change outward behavior if they white-knuckle themselves into behaving properly. But they aren’t filled with God’s Spirit actuating them and giving them holy motives. It is just an act; no real change has taken place.

Brain ability can work without character change, and the opposite is also true – one can have impaired or confused brain function – while still having enough brain function to know right from wrong and to choose God, and have a heart to know God – and be tripped up by purely mental problems that cause a lot of suffering and confusion, simultaneously.

It started to become clear to me that there are a lot of ways a person can malfunction mentally and have their mental functioning affect their behavior, and cause them to perform actions that we normally associate with being sinful, that really aren’t sin for them because they don’t have awareness, or they lack impulse control due to severe brain inflammation.

For instance, someone with dissociation symptoms who loses the ability to understand and rightly discern time, may not be able to plan, and may be chronically late to appointments, and it may not be a character issue at all.

Normally, in a healthy person, it’s a sin to commit to meeting someone at a set time, and to allow yourself to be late. It shows lack of respect to that person, it shows you don’t take your word seriously and that white lies are ok with you.

But if the person has a mental condition – such as dissociation or early stage dementia – that makes them unable to understand time or causes them to forget about the time of the meeting, then it’s not sin for them to be late.

Someone with autism may act cold and disconnected or even scowl all the time and not realize they are doing it. This would be a sin for someone who understands social cues, as it conveys disdain and lack of love, but it’s not a sin for someone who lacks social cognition.

Someone with Terrett’s syndrome may shout vulgar things, even though they know it’s wrong and don’t want to be doing it, and be unable to control their compulsions until they get on medication or supplements.

Someone with mild psychosis might know adultery and stealing are wrong, but they may not know cussing is wrong and may have blind spots in their moral perception.

Someone with mild psychosis or dissociative symptoms, or in the early stages of dementia might flirt with someone they aren’t married to and not realize they are flirting. They may think they are just being nice and those fine lines between nice and flirting they have lost the ability to discern.

And on and on and on.

Really this question brings up an important subject of just what happened to the world when Adam sinned. When Adam sinned, he introduced the capacity in this world for every type of malfunction and dysfunction and disease and decay in the natural world as well as dysfunction and perversion in the morals of man. While initially the people living on earth lived to 900 years and must have been very strong and physically and mentally healthy, when Adam ate from that fruit, the capacity for every type of malfunction was now possible in this world, and it’s just taken time for all the different manifestations of this to come about.

It’s no wonder then that we see malfunction of every type, from mild to severe.

The bottom line is this world doesn’t really work. It only worked when it was held-up in direct connection with the Creator and Designer who is omniscient and almighty. Now that there’s a degree of separation between this world and God, God can’t step in and hold everything together perfectly and stop all these dysfunctions. He will do so at the end of sin and evil and suffering though when He creates a new heavens and a new earth. But for now there’s moral and natural evil of all kinds and types.

But until then the universe needs to see all the different ways a world ruled by Satan and his immoral principles malfunctions. They need to see what evil does and what it entails in every part of the scientific world. It needs to unfold and God needs to finally win the war against Satan so He can end all of this for all time.

So, while we need to do everything we can to have the healthiest brains possible – and they have a moral duty to do what lies in their power to make their brain as healthy as possible – for many people they may still experience dysfunction and have this treasure in earthen vessels of autism and depression and various mental health conditions. This is going to be the case with many of us in these last days.

The truth is, when the brain is working correctly we have power to respond to God and resist sin, but there are mental conditions that can hi-jack this natural process even in people who are conscientious and have dedicated their lives to obeying and following God. We need to do everything we can to have the healthiest brain we possibly can, because even our moral capacity and ability to plan and execute (including planning and executing resisting sin and how to avoid temptations) are brain functions. We are like living machines, and if the machinery goes hay-wire we lose capacity and control. This is not to say this loss of control causes us to sin, but it will cause other problems, such as behaviors that would be sin for us if we did possess control, that are detrimental to society and need to be taken seriously.

It’s also a sin not to do everything in our power to have healthy brains. There is a moral duty in the Word of God – for those who can understand it – to live and eat healthfully.

I think there’s a lot of conscientious Christians out there who are thinking they haven’t been able to overcome sin due to compulsions and things like this, and what they are dealing with isn’t actually sin, it’s a lack of capacity or agency due to inflammation hi-jacking the brain. And the answer is to get inflammation down – the answer is brain health and brain treatments – not more prayer in this case (prayer is always important but if they are already praying sincerely multiple times per day and seeking God they have that covered and this is no longer an issue of prayer). They may also need to be hospitalized for a time if the compulsions are dangerous to themselves or others.

This is not to excuse those who are having a hard time stopping an addiction or a sin and possess agency to stop. God cannot be fooled. God knows when we really can control something and when our brain is hi-jacked by mental illness and we’ve actually lost control. He knows this better than we do. Sometimes we think we can stop something but it’s actually an irresistible compulsion and we actually can’t stop until we get brain treatment and God knows this and we do not. If someone who really does have control and it’s just hard to do the right thing uses mental illness as an excuse, they will not fool God and God will hold them accountable.

It’s true that having a mental illness doesn’t automatically mean that a certain behavior is out of one’s control. Mental illness can hi-jack one region of the brain, causing certain behaviors to be outside of one’s control, while other behaviors are still within one’s control, and to figure out which is which needs to be done on a case-by-case basis.

For instance, someone may have compulsions to stab themselves with a kitchen knife and be unable to control this behavior, but not have compulsive suicidal urges involving other methods that cause death. They may be able to control themselves and not have compulsions to jump off a high building or jump out of a car, but be unable to control the compulsion to stab themselves with knives. So keeping them out of the kitchen and hospitalizing them for treatment may save their life.