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.

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 mental symptoms trying to evaluate how much of your behavior is your illness and how much is sin 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.

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.

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.

"Acquitting the guilty and condemning the innocent— the LORD detests them both."
Proverbs 17:15

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

"Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter."
Isaiah 5:20

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.

Only One Definition in the Entire Bible

What is sin? The Bible gives only one definition for sin: It is the transgression of the moral law. The moral law is the law of right and wrong.

"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law."

1 John 3:4

There are two main points summed up in the word 'transgression.' They are both found in the Bible verse in James 4:17. The first is that one must know what the right thing to do is, and intentionally choose to neglect that right thing, or do something that goes against that right thing in order to be sinning.

"If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them."

James 4:17

There must be moral knowledge of right and wrong present. So someone with dementia who assaults their nephew because they don't recognize him, and they think a strange man has broken into their home and that they are in very real danger, has not sinned by the Bible's definition of what sin is. A mistake is also not a transgression. There are a number of categories of things "gone wrong" that are not "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. There is no guilt for those who can't "see."

Another verse echoes this same concept: ""by the law is the knowledge of sin."
1 Corinthians 4:4

If a person can't understand the moral law - the difference between right and wrong - then they can't understand what sin is, and can't be guilty for doing something they don't understand.

A similar verse along the same lines states: "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

This can apply to people in psychosis who have lost their ability to understand God's moral law, and it can also apply to people groups who did not have access to the Bible who did things like engaged in polygamy genuinely not knowing it was wrong. If a person genuinely does not know part of God's law, and is ignorant of it, they are innocent of breaking that law if they do so in ignorance. They have not sinned.

Agency is also encompassed in the word 'transgression.' Notice also in James 4:17 that the person must be able to choose to do or not to do, in order to sin. "...and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them." This Bible verse describes a sin of omission, which is where you willfully neglect to do something you ought to do. Willful neglect involves agency. You could get up and do the action, but you are using your agency to neglect it. Sins of commission are sins we actively do. James 4:17 encompasses sins of commission too! The same principle that makes willful neglect of a known duty a sin, also makes the willful performance of a known immoral action a sin. Omitting important information is lying, just as much as interjecting false information purposefully is lying.

The same two principles are behind both actions of omission and of commission: that of moral knowledge and agency.

When one has 'transgressed', it means they are the active agent in the immoral action or thought. And there is not an instance in scripture where someone is declared guilty by God for some wrong action they didn’t do (or some right action they didn't willfully neglect to 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

The Bible is careful to explain that in cases of fornication - sex between a man and a woman where the woman consents to the act - she is guilty. But in the case of rape where the man forces himself on the woman, it is the same in God's eyes as murder, where the victim is 100% innocent.

Rape is a horrendous act, and when a rape occurs, ONLY the rapist is the transgressor, because he is the one who carried out the rape. So things happening to us and in us that we did not perform or do, do not fit the definition of a 'transgression', even if they are very violent or destructive in nature. One must be the active agent in the immoral action or thought for it to be a transgression.

Animals bite and kill one another, yet we do not consider this to be sin. Because animals while they are the active agent, they do not have brains that understand right and wrong and thus they only meet 1 of the principles involved for something to be a transgression, and they do not meet the second one. Hurricanes crash against villages and kill hundreds of people, but we don't call this sin...why? Because they have neither will and agency nor knowledge of right and wrong.

Destructive acts are not always sin. Sometimes these destructive acts involved mentally compromised people without moral judgment...or people with damage from strokes who may know right from wrong but have compulsions beyond their ability to control and act out aggressively...and sometimes they involve people living in ignorance, who do not have access to the scriptures and don't know things like polygamy is wrong, take multiple wives, bring on a state in their families of pain, fighting, jealousy, and do so innocently due to not having access to the Bible.

God's Wisdom Needed
When evaluating whether a behavior is sinful, or just a natural condition that is morally neutral, much wisdom is needed. Judges in court cases, even when they have the best medical teams in the world and are informed by the brightest psychiatrists, still sometimes have difficulty determining whether a person's psychosis was severe enough to render their moral judgment inoperative. So you too might struggle to discern the difference between sins you're having a hard time getting the victory over, and mental conditions that affect moral judgment or hijack agency. You will need more than human intelligence here. Prayer and seeking God for help is a must. Even using our best judgment, there may be times when we think something is a sin that really isn't, or vice versa.

For instance, there are many people with same sex attraction especially in the past who sadly believed they were corrupt and in rebellion against God because they experienced same sex attraction. Now pastors and elders are doing a much better job of explaining to people that the attraction itself is not a sin. It is only if they engage in active fantasy that they've sinned, or if they take part in a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex, which is of course a sin of much greater degree than fantasy.

I'm sure there have been conscientious Christians with same sex attraction who went to their graves in the past believing they were lost and wouldn't go to heaven due to their same sex attraction, but who never acted on it, believing the attraction itself was sinful. Such people will be surprised to be raised to eternal life when Jesus comes again.

We aren't all-knowing; we can have gaps in our knowledge. For instance, it's common for pastors to conclude someone with sexual and blasphemous thoughts is sinning in a rebellious way because the person presents them as their thoughts, not knowing to explain they are intrusive, involuntary thoughts. The pastor isn't actually wrong here. If the person were choosing all day long to think these blasphemous and sexual thoughts they definitely fit the "profile" of someone who is choosing not to walk with God. They definitely do not fit the profile of a believer, and the pastor is right to warn such a person that if they don't get the victory over these thoughts they are on a path that doesn't lead to heaven. But what he doesn't know is he has gaps in his knowledge. The person has intrusive, involuntary thoughts coming from the unconscious parts of the brain, not the conscious ones. Meaning these thoughts do not fit the Bible's definition of sin. The person has a condition, and is suffering terribly, and this is really what is going on. If the pastor could see the thoughts he would instantly change his mind about things and suggest a different approach, because they don't look or seem like conscious thoughts at all, and have a completely different pattern. But he's not inside the person's head, and the person themselves not being informed about mental health conditions, is not able to articulate what is going on.

This is just a gap in knowledge, and more knowledge would resolve it. Neither the sufferer nor the pastor has done anything wrong, they are just human and limited. And even for those who are very knowledgeable about the Bible and about health conditions, these people too are also very limited. God knows everything; we know only a small amount. We thus need God's active help - all of us - in order to make wise decisions and solve problems, and support others in doing the same.

We can also be wrong about things, as explained above about the Christians of the past with same-sex attraction who followed God to the best of their ability and died believing they will be lost. I'm sure they suffered terribly due to this fear. But they will be happy to find out they are wrong, and in the end to see the fairness and goodness of God as it pertains to this specific issue.

But the is a central truth that always holds true: If we are seeking God with our whole hearts, to follow Him, and obey Him, He will be found by us, and we will be in right standing with Him. Those who seek find, to those who knock the door is opened, and everyone who asks receives. But you do have to seek Him with your whole heart, and not just half your heart with other idols present. And God cannot be fooled. He reads the heart, and He knows when someone is endeavoring to hold onto their sin and make excuses to justify it.

I will add some of my thoughts for your consideration on some key mental symptoms that I believe aren't sin, due to the two-point criteria of either agency or moral knowledge not being present that we talked about earlier...

There is a condition some people experience where graphic violent, blasphemous, or sexual intrusive thoughts pop into their minds many times every day. Just as rape is very sexual but it's not a sin on the part of the victim, so sexual involuntary thoughts that come from one's subconscious mind are not sin. The person isn't using their agency - their conscious thoughts - to bring up these images. They are happening involuntarily.

The sexual system like any other system of the body, can malfunction and become dysregulated. This system s very connected with the neurohormones dopamine and histamine, and these same neurochemicals are also very involved in mental conditions like OCD and psychosis. So it is not uncommon for dysregulation in the sexual system to occur with mental conditions, for instance, those with mania often have hypersexuality, and those with OCD often have frequent involuntary thoughts that are very sexual in nature.

Just as involuntary sexual responses aren't sin, like a man having a wet dream for instance, so involuntary thoughts are not sin.

Violent hallucinations from schizophrenia are also not sin for the same reason. The person isn't choosing them. They are involuntary brain "chatter" created by the excitotoxicity of their schizophrenic condition.

The Common Story Arc of Anorexia
Anorexia often starts off this way...the girl is twenty pounds overweight in high school and wants to lose a little weight for health reasons. She has a normal psychology at this point. She's losing weight for the right reasons. To be healthier, to feel better in her skin, and she doesn't desire to be underweight. Right motives are present.

Some girls can lose the weight fine and then that's it. No anorexia develops. But others with the genetic markers that predispose them to anorexia, slip into the illness unknowingly as they are losing the weight. What should have just been a healthy weight loss, morphs into something completely unhealthy.

When you first get anorexia due to the cognitive distortions, you genuinely believe you're overeating and are a sinful glutton, even though it's not true. Portion sizes that used to seem normal and healthy, now look far too big, and you genuinely feel a sense of strong shame and guilt for eating them that feels righteous. It feels and seems correct. Your body looks overweight even when its not. And when you undereat you feel a sense of holiness and cleanliness that seems to add up and be right.

The reason unhealthy things seem right and holy, is because the cognitive distortions have affected the person's moral perception and right and wrong have become distorted. The reason the food portions and your body size now look and seem far too big is because of distortions in spatial processing, a symptom known as Body Dysmorphia. Logic is involved in both spatial processing and moral perception, and the logic of both are distorted due to brain inflammation and altered connectivity.

A person can descend into anorexia quickly, within a few months of beginning dieting, for those with genetic susceptibilities, and especially if the person isn't very informed about how to cut back on calories in a healthy way, and does it in a way that is too fast and jarring to the body, common mistakes uninformed teenagers can make.

Not only does anorexia affect cognition, but it also affects the motivational centers of the brain. A young girl who may have had many exciting interests and goals in life prior to the anorexia, can now derive no motivation to do anything except compulsively count calories, and fast, and obsess about weight. It's common to drop out of school, give up all hobbies and interests, and for her whole life to center around the anorexia. Her psychology changes too. Before anorexia being healthy was important to her, now what is important to her is appearing frail and being able to fit into small spaces, something that it doesn't make sense for a teenage girl to want, even elderly women don't want to be frail and try to avoid it. If people call her healthy, this means fat. And fat means being a total failure in everything in life, it's not just about weight. Her view of and definition of "healthy" has changed, as many different words and terms have too. People with this condition often refer to it in terms like "falling down the rabbit hole" referencing the distorted world Alice enters when she falls into Wonderland. They know something has changed in their perception and that they aren't seeing the world correctly anymore.

I don't believe engaging in the unhealthy practices of anorexia is a sin in the beginning stages. Due to the cognitive distortions you really think eating a normal amount is a sin and undereating is living in obedience to God. Well undereating seems like eating a right amount; you don't see it as undereating.

When It Becomes a Sin
But at some point along the way of suffering terrible anxiety every time you have to eat a meal, and fasting or exercising compulsively to burn off the calories, you come to realize this doesn't seem right, you do some research into what might be going on, and you land on eating disorders.

It's at that point, after you come to see your behaviors are part of a condition and that you're seeing the world in a distorted way and actually undereating and hurting your body as a result...it's at this point that it becomes a sin if the person decides not to fight these tendencies and to give in to them and to let the anorexia go its natural way.

It is a fight to re-learn how to live in a healthful way, and you have to go against the distorted psychology and cognitive distortions. Basically you must do what feels wrong and sinful, and not take these distressing overpowering feelings as truth, but look to God's Word as truth, in order to fight against the illness and come out the other side.

It also really helps to gradually retrain the burnt-out dopamine centers of the brain to enjoy innocent interests and hobbies again. This takes time and doesn't happen overnight.

There's also supplement treatment for anorexia. Dr. William Walsh found that anorectics tend to have low b6 and low zinc, and replacing these depleted nutrients can lower symptoms and shift the person back to health. There's also a connection with a condition called undermethylation that you can treat by taking supplements that have methylgroups in them.

The Moral Law, Unique to Human Beings, is Not the Same Thing as Natural Law

Animals are under natural law like the laws of physics. 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.

Animals are also in an indirect way under spiritual laws. When Adam sinned and God cursed the earth due to Adam's sin, the animals along with the whole created world became subject to decay and death. "The wages of sin is death" Romans 3:26 - this spiritual principle and law of the universe applied to the animals and affected the animals.

But only man is under moral law, the laws of right and wrong.

Examples of How They Are Not The Same
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. What makes it different is the internal motives, and end goals of the one doing the killing. The one killing in self-defense does not desire harm or evil to come to the other person; they harbor no ill will. Their motives are self-preservation. The one killing to murder harbors ill will, and often other selfish attitudes like envy, resentment, unjust anger, etc.

It’s only the moral law that makes the distinction between these two things. The moral law judges the intents and motives of the heart, the situation at hand too, and sees whether the killing was done in self-defense to preserve one's life, or whether the killing was done out of hatred and a desire to take the life of another.

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. The moral law is what creates and defines marriage, and establishes it as a holy institution before God, defining it as one man and one woman in covenant for life, and distinguishing it from other unholy sexual unions like fornication.

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.

But human beings, as beings made in the image of God, do participate in the moral dimension of life, and they can choose to glorify God or grieve Him by their choices. They can incur a record of guilt by their sins, or have that record erased by choosing to believe in and follow Jesus Christ.

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.

For instance, let's look at commandment 9, "Thou shalt not lie." Lying is something distinctly different from giving false information. To lie, one must know the information they are giving is false. A person could innocently give out false information, believing it to be true...like in the past when doctors truly believed blood-letting could cure people of dangerous illnesses. Now of course we know blood-letting is itself dangerous and it doesn't cure the illnesses it was believed to cure back in the 1700s. However the doctors who carried out the practice did not know it was a lie. Thus they were not lying by suggesting blood-letting as a treatment option to their patients.

Lying is not giving someone false information. It is knowingly giving false information with selfish intent. There are many different ways to lie and skew information, and unfortunately some people become very skilled at the different ways of doing this. But the goal is always the same: to advantage yourself at the expense of others.

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. Stealing for instance, must involve knowing the thing you're stealing rightfully belongs to someone else, and desiring to advantage yourself at their expense, by taking what does not belong to you and which you have not earned through honest labor.

The breaking of every single one of them implies a selfish motive. 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.

Deuteronomy 19

The book of Deuteronomy makes the distinction between killing done by accident, and murder, and it does so in a very clear way.

4 This is the rule concerning anyone who kills a person and flees there for safety—anyone who kills a neighbor unintentionally, without malice aforethought. 5 For instance, a man may go into the forest with his neighbor to cut wood, and as he swings his ax to fell a tree, the head may fly off and hit his neighbor and kill him. That man may flee to one of these cities and save his life. 6 Otherwise, the avenger of blood might pursue him in a rage, overtake him if the distance is too great, and kill him even though he is not deserving of death, since he did it to his neighbor without malice aforethought. 7 This is why I command you to set aside for yourselves three cities.

11 But if out of hate someone lies in wait, assaults and kills a neighbor, and then flees to one of these cities, 12 the killer shall be sent for by the town elders, be brought back from the city, and be handed over to the avenger of blood to die. 13 Show no pity. You must purge from Israel the guilt of shedding innocent blood, so that it may go well with you.
Deuteronomy 19:4-7, 11-12

Notice how the verse specifies that the one who has murdered was killing "out of hate". And the one who killed unintentionally is described as doing so "without malice" or without hate in his heart some translations say. Verse 6 says he is not deserving of death since he did the crime without malice. The Hebrew says "he is not deserving of death because he did not hate him in the past."

What these verses are saying is for something to be murder, there must be hatred in the heart of the person. Hateful intent.

I met someone in the psychiatric hospital when I was admitted during one of my stays who had tried to kill his father 17 times. Each time he slipped into full psychosis and truly believed his father was trying to kill him and also trying to insert thoughts into his mind and control him. He lashed out in self-defense, ended up in the psychiatric hospital, was put on medication, came out of the psychosis and apologized profusely to his father. I saw him apologizing over the phone and he was agonizing over it. He felt terrible about assaulting his father. The medication wasn't working optimally with him. It kind of pulled him out of psychosis, but never fully out. I saw him slip back into psychosis and move his arms out in front of him and hold them there for long periods of time. His eyes looked glazed over. His frontal lobe and the conscious parts of his brain weren't in control. He looked like someone in a dream state. I asked him about it later and he said his father was controlling his hand movements and he'd temporarily lost control.

My friend wasn't guilty of trying to kill his father by the Bible's definition. He was very sick with an SMI (severe mental illness) and unfortunately our policies involving psychotic patients aren't up to par. They should not have kept releasing him back to his father. He needed to reach a place of being mentally stable for 6 months or a year before releasing him back to his father. These repeated assaults were not his fault, but the fault of our medical system who was failing him and endangering his father.

The Wonder of the Human Brain and Our Duty to Preserve it In Health to the Best of Our Ability

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 right 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.

It is Possible to Do Right Actions and Not Know They are Right

Not only is it possible for someone to do wrong outward actions and not be sinning, but it's also possible for a person to do right actions and not understand that what they are doing is right. Someone in psychosis may get baptized because they believe they are the Messiah, and they are starting on their mission to save the world. 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. The person may get baptized and welcomed into the family of God, when they made the choice in ignorance, not truly giving their consent, because they were psychotic.

Blind Obedience is Not Obedience According to the Bible's Definition
I first want to give this disclaimer...there is no way that human beings can ever understand everything. Anytime we obey God there's limits to our understanding. Having said that, notice in the verse below that a basic, solid understanding of right and wrong is needed in order to obey God's laws. It is not possible to blindly obey God. Blind obedience goes against loving the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, the first Commandment. Our mind and will must be involved in our worship or it isn't true worship that we are rendering to God at all. Thus God cannot accept obedience given for delusional reasons, and if we are the caretaker of someone who is delusional, we have a duty to God to treat their brain with the best treatments we can, and take care of them to the best of our ability to bring their brain back into working order if at all possible. In a person with a history of psychotic symptoms, we shouldn't do things like baptize them without checking whether their reasons for wanting baptism make logical sense, and looking into their health history to see if they've come out of psychosis before conducting the baptism.

Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart.
Psalm 119:34

God's Word - and in particular His law - gives understanding to the simple. Thus anyone who is truly a Christian cannot be obedient in a blind way. His Word opens their understanding and gives them a solid knowledge of right and wrong, and the underlying principles behind what make certain things right and other things wrong.

Once we have this understanding we can see the beauty and love behind His commandments, and be drawn to them, and develop a healthy distaste for sin, their opposite, hating every false way.

Through thy precepts I get understanding: therefore I hate every false way."
Psalm 119:104

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth for ever.
Psalm 111:10

How is it that the commandments can give a good understanding to everyone who studies them, accepts them, and lives by them? It is because in the Ten Commandments are found the very principles of right and wrong. They tell us what love is, and what principles are involved in love. There is no other way to know right and wrong other than the commandments, and Jesus' example of living out in His life on earth those commandments.

Believing Outward Actions Alone Are the Definition of Right and Wrong Shows a Lack of Understanding of the Principles Behind God's Laws
Believing that outward actions are the definition of sin, shows the person doesn't understand what a moral law is, and they are keeping a checklist, and are in danger of doing wrong things and thinking they are right, or doing right things for the wrong reasons, because they aren't understanding what separates right from wrong. Their lack of understanding can create many problems, especially in regard to understanding mental conditions like dementia or psychosis.

They need to spend time studying the principles in the Ten Commandments, and praying to God to enlighten their understanding. He is faithful and He will do it!

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.

God's Character the Standard of the Law

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 Ten Commandments are a Bill of Rights
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. There is such a thing as animal rights, and animals have a right to be treated a certain way, according to their nature. But people must be treated according to their nature in the image of God. It is thus wrong to treat a person as you would treat an animal, or to love people equally as animals, or to give to charities that care for animals and not give to charities that care for people.

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. I've seen people refer to the story at the time of Moses of the Hebrew mid-wives who lied to Pharoah and said the reason they didn't kill the Hebrew boys he commanded them to kill was because Hebrew woman are vigorous and strong and give birth before the mid-wives arrived. This was of course untrue. The Bible says God was pleased with the mid-wives and blessed them. Some have concluded God was pleased with their lying. But no where in the scriptures does it ever say God is pleased with lying, and that He can change His law to make lying not a sin. It is always a sin! It was a small sin on their part to lie in this way, and what God was pleased with was their obedience to Him in refusing to kill the Hebrew boys, which would have been a far greater sin than lying.

This doesn't mean lying is ok though. It doesn't mean God has changed his stance on lying and made it not a sin. A small lie is a small sin, but it is still a sin. And lying about something crucial can even cause people to lose their lives and can be very destructive. Or lying as a way of life. This can completely eliminate all morals in a person and bring them down to a very low level where no one can trust in them or depend on them for anything.

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. It's the heart that matters, not whether they actually get legally married.

The subtle falsehood here is in seeing marriage as a slip of paper; it's not. It's a covenant one enters into before God. The slip of paper isn't just "paper" either, it's an official document that signifies and gives evidence of the union that has been entered into. And the fact they won't enter into this sacred union, shows their level of commitment is not at the level they claim it is.

Telling your girlfriend you promise to stay with her for life is not marriage. It needs to be done publicly before witnesses before it has standing.

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

If you're having trouble understanding why it isn't the heart alone that matters, and you're seeing the letter of the law as being insignificant, ask yourself how you'd feel if you had a spouse, and your spouse cheated on you, and when found out claimed that it was just a physical act, their heart wasn't in it. Their heart is with you.

You'd conclude their heart couldn't possibly be with you if they were willing to engage in the physical act of cheating.

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, and they usually choose one that is commonly known or popular in their era and time period (someone with psychosis might choose something completely left-field and delusional as an explanation). 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 towards God and other people, to break any commandment knowingly 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

The Ten Commandments are Ten Categories
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.

Our Conscience and How it Works
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.

Let's talk about the conscience. What is it? I believe the Bible teaches it's not one thing, but it happens when two things come together.

It happens when we become convinced through the Holy Spirit reasoning with our mind about a point of truth that that point of truth is in fact true. When that happens we have a conscience and it's at work.

"I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost,"
Romans 9:1

So to have a conscience requires two things: a mind working well enough to understand basic logic and basic right and wrong, and the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit can even work with people who do not have access to the Bible, or people who do not read the Bible and are living apart from God. He convicts everyone about truth, but He cannot work as effectively with those who do not study their Bibles. They will only have a rudimentary knowledge of truth in that case, and there will be much missing in their experience.

“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.

To Determine If You are Sinning, Measure Your Thoughts, Motives, or Actions Against the 10 Commandments

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 is Not Infallible

However, even with a working conscience, it is crucial that we understand truth is outside of us, and objective. We need to keep our focus outward, looking in God's Word for a law that comes from God's character and God's mind, not our own. Our conscience isn’t always perfect, especially in people with mental conditions because they affect moral judgment. Earlier we talked about the story arc that someone with anorexia usually goes through where at the beginning of the illness they honestly believe they are sinning by eating what most people understand to be a healthy amount of food, and that they are pleasing God and being healthy by eating what most people consider to be too little food. They harm their bodies innocently, unaware they are engaging in harm, at the beginning. Their perception is skewed, both their understanding of morality, and their visual cues of how much food they are actually eating.

When someone with anorexia searches the Bible and their heart and their conscience and their understanding of right and wrong, it always leads back to the skewed perception. They are honestly doing the wrong thing. But it's still the wrong thing, and it's still harmful.

They are surprised after doing research, when they realize they have an eating disorder, and that they've actually been harming themselves. They didn't expect that to be the case.

This is a great example of how truth is outside of us and beyond us, and our conscience is not infallible, and can be wrong about right and wrong sometimes.

The Bible puts it this way: "My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me."
1 Corinthians 4:4

I don't mean to imply people at the beginning stages of anorexia aren't innocent. I think many if not most of them are innocent. The point I'm trying to make is a person can be certain of something in their conscience, and it can still be wrong. Only God makes perfect judgements.

This is why, while living by one's conscience is important, we should always be questioning our own perceptions and conclusions, and be aware that we can be wrong, and probably have been wrong many times.

A healthy view of our fallibility is really crucial. For people with anorexia and cognitive distortions, and other mental conditions, especially ones that involve a tendency towards overconfidence in one's own judgment as anorexia and those with perfectionism tend to experience (people with narcissistic personality disorder, bipolar disorder also have this tendency too), it is extra crucial that they question their conclusions, look to the body of Christ for help, and are aware of the ways that their mental condition can skew judgment, as they read and study God's Word.

We need to be engaging in dialogue and Bible study with other members of God's family, and checking our conclusions with them, not trying to figure this out on our own. The Bible says God gave apostles, and prophets, and pastors and evangelists, for the purpose of building us up in the faith, so we would no longer be babes, tossed to and fro by the waves of false doctrine.

"So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,

until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming."
Ephesians 4:14

These verses tell us that to be safe from false doctrine and to grow up in our Christian faith involves the body of Christ. It doesn't happen with us alone in our rooms doing private Bible study only. There is a place for private study and it is vitally important, but it's not safe or healthy to not also stay connected with the family of God. We can embrace dangerous falsehoods if we aren't connected with God's church and running things by them for correction and instruction.

Our Conscience Reflects Our Knowledge
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.

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, or the Details of the Situation

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 God's moral law factors in what we know and what we don't know, and even whether we are doing something that could weaken the faith of another, factoring in their mental state also. 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.

Can a Person Sin in Their Thoughts?

After explaining that involuntary immoral thoughts aren't sin, I want to make it very clear that chosen immoral thoughts are definitely sin. The Bible does tell us we can sin in our thoughts. This is Bible truth.

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

How to "Forsake" Immoral Thoughts

What is the answer to thought sins? To forsake them. Most of us know how to do this. I will go over how it works here as a reminder. We've all done this before. Your co-worker gets a new car. You've had the same old car for 15 years. You're tempted to be jealous of her. To be mad at God. You want to ask Him why he allowed her to be blessed in this way while you struggle with a low income. The thoughts to be jealous and doubt God kind of knock outside your heart's door, wanting to be let in.

You have a choice to make. You can choose to indulge in those tempting thoughts, and fall into an angry depression where you say hurtful things to God, and then feel terrible about it later, because there's no way He deserves that. Or you could pause and pray to Him for strength. Pour out your heart. Tell Him how tempted you are to take this out on Him and how wrong that is and how you don't want to do that because He loved you enough to die for you and He's never done you any wrong. And ask for strength to treat Him with respect and love and to understand the enemy is Satan, not God.

If you choose to pause and pray for strength, God gives you strength. You might need to take a walk with Him and pray for strength - it might not come immediately - but through this process of surrendering the attitude and refusing to give it expression and resort to sinful thoughts and words, God always gives the strength to do the right thing.

You come back from that walk a different person, your attitudes having been changed. With gratitude in your heart. You just fought a battle, and you won because Christ gave you His own right desires and His own strength that doesn't come from you.

This is what resisting real temptations to think sinful thoughts looks like.

Contrast this with intrusive thoughts. They just barge in. They do not knock. You do not have that period of time where you choose whether or not to think them. Whether to lock the door of your heart tight, or open it and let them in. This is because they aren't conscious thoughts, thus they are not under your control.

The Bible says 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.

The Devil Can Insert Thoughts Into Our Minds

One time during a discussion on mental health, someone who took the position that all mental activity is done by our own minds, and Satan can't influence our thoughts asked me "How do we know for sure Satan can introduce thoughts into our minds; Does the Bible even really say that?" So I did a Bible study on this topic and dug up scriptures that reveal this truth, showed the verses to her, and she became convinced of the truth on the subject.

The Bible actually tells us directly that Satan can put thoughts into our minds. In the story of Judas it says "the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas to betray Him (Jesus.)

"During supper, the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, to betray him."

John 13:2

"Heart" in the Bible is speaking of the mind. We see this in verses like Proverbs 23:7: "For as he thinks in his heart, so is he." You can see the Bible means "mind" when it says "heart" because it refers to thoughts and thinking when referencing the heart.

Another verse that shows Satan inserts thoughts into our minds is Acts 5:3 when Ananias and Saphira pledged money to God that they then held back and lied about:

"Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land?”

Here's another verse about David that shows Satan inserting thoughts into his mind.

“Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel."

Chronicles 21:1

So putting these two things together you can see that Satan tempts us by putting sinful ideas into our minds and trying to lure us to do or think them.

However, temptation is not the same thing as sin. Simply having a thought enter your mind via Satan doesn't mean you have sinned. Remember the definition for sin is 'a transgression', and a transgression means you are the active agent, and you know the difference between right and wrong and are choosing the immoral action.

Under the Bible's definition of sin it's not you sinning when Satan inserts a temptation into your mind, it's the devil sinning. He's the one tempting you. He's the active agent and he knows it's a sin to tempt others, so he's doing it with knowledge. Thus only Satan is the sinner in this situation.

Jesus was tempted (Hebrews 2:18, Matthew 4:1), showing it's definitely not sin to be tempted!

Six Questions to Ask Yourself or Your Family Member With Mental Illness

Here are six main questions you can ask the person in question, to evaluate whether the action or thought they participated in was a sin.

1. Was the thought, action, or motive actually something that breaks God’s law? Or did the person only break a tradition, or something that was a human idea of right and wrong and isn't based in the Bible? Compare the action or thought with the 10 Commandments to be sure.

2. Did they know it was wrong?
To what extent did they know it was wrong? As with most of the other questions on this list, there is a spectrum among people. Some people in psychosis have some knowledge the action is wrong, but not complete knowledge. For instance, they may believe it is wrong to steal a painting, but they may also believe the painting is possessed by demons, and that they are saving lives by stealing it. They may decide stealing it - even though wrong - is worth saving people's lives for.

People with mental illnesses tend to have reduced or altered moral judgment that is not on-point, but part of their moral judgment are still in tact. So for something to be sin for them it has to be something they do know is wrong. If it's something that occurs in a gap in their understanding, they could be innocent of this particular wrong and have done it in ignorance. For instance, someone with autism may know hitting someone else is immoral, but they may not know that if someone hits them and they hit them back that it's immoral. They may have a gap in their moral judgment in that area.

Sometimes people with psychosis will say they knew it was wrong, but what they really mean by this is they know society thinks it's wrong, not that they know the action is inherently wrong. So it's important you ask them what it means for something to be 'wrong.' They may see 'wrong' as just an arbitrary checklist, and not understand that something is wrong only when it is wrong by its very nature, when the underlying principles behind that action are ones of harm and violation of the rights of God or human beings. "Checklist" morality is really common among people in psychosis, and various degrees of it are seen in other mental illnesses too like anorexia where eating a certain number of calories per day or weighing a certain number on a scale is believed to be moral and right. Knowledge of principles has largely been lost, and morality is reduced to concrete, arbitrary ideas when principles are not present. That is what happens when principles can no longer be understood; it's all that's left.

3. Was there a selfish motive present? Asking yourself what your motive was and identifying is really helpful to get to the bottom of the situation.
If the person truly broke a Commandment with knowledge and active agency, there will always be some kind of selfish motive present, because knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway is always motivated by selfishness.

4. Did they do it, or was it a biological process that happened in them, or was it something someone else did to them?

5. Did they have enough power and control to control their impulses or compulsions, or were they truly out-of-control at the time the action was committed?
Some mental symptoms can hi-jack agency and the person really isn't able to control themselves, like impulse control disorders for instance, such as kleptomania, but this question is a tricky one because in most cases the person does have some level of control, so great wisdom is needed to differentiate between who truly didn't have enough control to say "no" to their desires or impulses, and who did have that control.

6. Did they seek help, or do an alternative action?
Sometimes the person truly was out of control and they couldn't calm themselves down and sit down or go home...but they had the option of turning themselves in to the police instead of going forward and doing the crime. If they could have taken action to get help but didn't, they could still be guilty.

7. Are they responsible for their altered mental state?
You can also be guilty if you know you have psychosis, you have awareness of your condition and you know the risks it involves, and yet you let yourself be negligent about taking your medication. Let's say the person allows themselves to slip into withdrawal symptoms and goes off their medication. Withdrawal symptoms can involve heightened psychosis. If the person then does a crime while in that state, they have sinned because they knew the risk going off their medication causes.

Similarly to how those who drink or inebriate themselves with drugs are not innocent of crimes they may commit while drunk, because they chose to drink, the person who knows they have a psychotic illness and doesn't do everything in their power to keep themselves in the best health possible, is not innocent if their health worsens due to their neglect.

As I'm sure you've realized by now these cases can be complex! There is a whole field of forensic psychology that endeavors to determine if someone who did a crime was guilty for their crime and in their right mind, or in an altered state of mind that affected their cognition or agency to the point where they were not at fault. And it can be hard to determine this. Sometimes only the Lord knows. I have had times where I really perceived myself to be in control of my actions, but looking back I realized I was in full psychosis, and acting due to delusions. So the person themselves can even be wrong about their own agency or awareness.

The bottom line however is this: whether you are someone with autism, anorexia, depression, or someone without mental illness, if you are in your right mind enough to have some knowledge of right and wrong, God knows your unique mental state, and He has promised to walk beside you, and to give you victory over sin. You may have gaps in your knowledge, you may have handicaps, and blind spots, but with the truth you can see God will give you victory in your life. He has promised it. If you wrestle with your sin and seek Him for strength, you will prevail over it and live a holy life.

He will also give wisdom about your health condition too and help you in that area to manage it to the best of your ability. He is a very present help in time of trouble.

Morality Quiz
After I came out of psychosis at the hospital I was really shocked they never asked me any moral questions to gauge my mental state. They ask questions like "Do you see or hear things that aren't there?" to assess for psychosis, a question that when I was in psychosis I always answered with "No" because I thought the things I was seeing and hearing were God and demons, and those things are real, so they were really there.

They ask questions like "Are you having thoughts of hurting yourself or others." But there are no questions that assess whether the person has lost their understanding of right and wrong. A person can have intrusive suicidal thoughts, and be safe at the same time, because they know suicide is wrong. The under-emphasis on moral understanding is likely due to the profession coming from a humanistic perspective. Humanism is harmful for many reasons. You can see how when it shapes psychiatry it's harmful to people. Someone who still knows suicide is wrong is in a much safer place than someone who no longer knows it is wrong and thinks it is a legitimate way to escape their problems and go to heaven, no longer being able to see the immoral part of the act.

I've written up a short morality test to use to help assess yourself or a loved one.

My Morality Quiz

Is stealing wrong?

a. Yes; it’s wrong because it denies people their right to own property and to reap the rewards of their labors.
b. No. It’s just socially and culturally unacceptable, but society is drawing an arbitrary distinction and it’s not actually inherently wrong.
c. There is no such thing as objective right and wrong; they are just made-up ideas.
d. Stealing is wrong because society and people in authority say it is, not due to the inherent nature of the act.

Lying is wrong because:
a. It’s only wrong if the lie leads to some great accident or injury that physically harms people, otherwise it’s not wrong. Small lies for instance aren’t wrong.
b. It’s wrong because it denies people their right to accurate information and breaks trust between people.
c. It’s not wrong, society just arbitrarily deems it unacceptable for cultural reasons and due to familiarity and tradition.
d. Right and wrong is just an arbitrary checklist that holds no meaning or weight.

God is to be worshiped because:
a. People in church authority tell us to worship Him
b. We see in nature and in the scriptures unmistakable evidence that He exists and that He is morally flawless, and perfectly loving - so much so that He died in our place – the guiltless for the guilty – to redeem us. These are the reasons the scriptures give for why we should worship Him.
c. Because God says we should, and we don’t need to understand anything about Him beyond this in order to worship Him.

Goodness is:
a. Obeying a checklist of commands that involve our actions.
b. Doing right outward actions that align with God’s commandments, with benevolent inner motives.
c. Making sure our heart is in the right place, without regard for laws or commands; those aren’t what make actions benevolent; it’s about the spirit that moves us.

Murder is wrong because:
a. It inflicts pain on people and I don’t want to see anyone suffer.
b. It robs people of their inherent right to life. It’s also wrong to inflict pain on someone, but this is not the main reason murder is wrong or the greatest evil it does.

Have you had the following experience:
Actions and attitudes used to seem much more black and white to you, but now they seem predominantly, or entirely grey?
Yes
No

Have you had the following experience:
Your definition or understanding of morality has changed dramatically within the last year or two
Yes
No

Please describe what has changed: