OrEd-T-19.3-Sin Versus Error
17. The distinction between error and 'sin', is essential, and makes salvation possible. For an error can be corrected, and the wrong made right. But if sin were possible, it would be irreversible. The belief in sin is based on the conviction that minds can attack. The mind is guilty forever, unless another mind can give it absolution. As error calls for correction, sin calls for punishment, and the belief that punishment is correction is clearly insane.
18. Sin is not an error, for sin entails an arrogance which the idea of error lacks. To sin would be to violate reality and to succeed. Sin is the proclamation that attack is real and guilt is justified. Sin assumes that the Son of God is guilty, has lost his innocence, and has made himself into something God did not create. The Will of God can be opposed and defeated, and Creation is not seen as eternal. Sin is the 'grand illusion' underlying all the ego's grandiosity. God Himself is rendered incomplete and changed by sin.
19. The Son of God can be mistaken; he can deceive himself; he can even turn the power of his mind against himself. But he cannot sin. There is nothing that he can do that would make himself guilty, nor change his reality in any way. The purpose of sin is to do just that. Yet for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole idea of sin, sin is impossible. For the wages of sin is death, but the immortal cannot die.
20. A major tenet in the ego's insane religion is that sin is not error but truth, and it is innocence that would deceive. Purity is seen as arrogance, and the acceptance of the self as sinful is perceived as holiness. This is not humility. It is rather, an attempt to wrest creation away from truth and keep creation separate. This doctrine disputes the reality of the Son of God as his Father created him, and willed that he be forever.
21. The idea of sin is sacrosanct to the ego's thought system and is approached with awe and reverence. Sin is the most 'holy' concept in the ego's thought system--lovely, powerful, true, and sin is protected with every defense the ego has. For sin is the ego's 'best' defense which all its other defenses serve. Sin is the ego's armor, protection, and the fundamental purpose of the special relationship. The ego would never let sin be reinterpreted as error.
22. The ego made its world on sin. Sin is the strange illusion which makes clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. In such a world everything is upside-down. This world's seeming solid foundation is found in this illusion of sin. For the illusion of sin has changed God's Creation to an ideal the ego wants. The ego wants a world it rules, made up of mindless bodies, that are corruptible and will decay. If this is a mistake, it can be easily undone by truth. If truth is left to judge, any mistake can be corrected. However, if the mistake is given the status of truth, there is no appeal. The 'holiness' of sin is kept in place by just this strange device. As truth, sin is inviolate, and everything is brought to sin for judgment. As a mistake, sin must be brought to truth for judgement. It is possible to have faith that a mistake can be corrected. It is impossible to have faith in sin, for sin is faithlessness.
23. The most heavily defended idea in the ego's thought system is the idea that sin is real. To the ego, sin is the natural expression of what the Son of God has made himself to be and what he is. To the ego, this is no mistake . For the Son has corrupted his Father and changed His Mind completely. We mourn, then, the death of God, Whom sin has killed! This is the ego's wish, which in its madness, it thinks it has accomplished.
24. I would rather that all this be only a mistake, entirely correctable, and so easily escaped from that its whole correction is like walking through a mist into the sun. And that is all it is. Perhaps I would be tempted to agree with the ego that it is better to be sinful than mistaken. Yet, I will think carefully before I allow myself to make this choice, and I will not approach it lightly, for it is the choice between Heaven or hell.
