On Sin 2

Crimson Rambler helped expand on the sense of what I was up to in On Sin, and it prompted the following thoughts, which I calculated as being worth a post of their own, even though they end up circling around the theme of the first post.

Since we are established by and in grace, we are also able to claim our sin as our own, even while we are confident in God that this is not the final word on who we are. So there is a sense in which, because of grace, we are freed to be blameworthy, to take responsibility for ourselves - and yet also because of grace, we are able to view ourselves as more than simply a problem to be solved or denied*, but established in and by God in the deepest love so that we may be both discontented and patient with sin: both our own and others'.


* 'Blame' can sound like scapegoating or a reduction of the mystery and extent of sin to something managed and finite: I'd want to avoid that.