From their book “All Things New” Fiona and Terryl Given wrote:
The Augustinian revolution of the fourth century “would leave the Church in the west dominated by sin for centuries to come.”1 Augustine thought Paul’s whole preoccupation was with sin, as recent scholars have increasingly come to recognize, Paul’s lament was a response to “his weakness. . . . Paul never felt guilt in the face of his weakness—pain yes, but not guilt.”2 Nevertheless, Christianity became refashioned around the dominant edifice of sin, and the whole framework of sin and salvation has for centuries been rooted in the paradigm of criminality. If we do not understand that, we will never come to recognize how that deeply rooted idea of criminality still colors our understanding not only of sin but also of judgment, guilt, and retribution. And that mistaken view operates in total disregard for the larger context in which sin operates—which context is the purpose behind our mortal journey.
Dame Julian of Norwich moved the discussion in this direction when she asked the question, Why is there sin? Why didn’t God create a more perfect world, and us with more perfect character? “Sin is #behovely,” the Lord told her.3 Needful. Fruitful. Productive of good. Clearly, sin cannot mean what we have taken it to mean, if Julian is correct. To call it “behovely” sounds counter to everything we have thought about sin. We have see it as an evil, vile, corrupt action following from a corrupt nature. We find a very different explanation of sin in the Book of Moses—and a confirmation of Julian’s astonishing claim that we believed it to be. Sin is indeed something that is “behovely.”
Enoch relates how the Lord himself had explained to Eve and Adam the meaning of what had transpired in the garden. He validates Eve’s insight that her decision was commendable, not damnable. In Enoch’s words, because of the couple’s decision, “we made partakers of misery and woe” (Moses 6:48). Misery and woe, but not sin and guilt. The distinction is crucial. As the Lord explains, “children . . . are whole from the foundation of the world” (verse 54). And yet, in surprising language, he then continues in what seems to be an Augustinian vein: “children are conceived in sin” and as they begin to grow up, sin conceiveth in their hearts (verse 55).This is understandably confusing. If children are “conceived in sin” but at the same time “whole”, then sin is not here referring to our personal condition of culpability. And, in fact, the Lord gives us new terms in place of sin. We are born into the world of “misery and woe.”
We are immersed in, confronted by, “the bitter, that we may know to prize the good”—that is, the sweet (verse 55). “That we may know” captures the educative, “behovely” nature of sin. “If nor for our transgression,” if not for this experience of the bitter, Eve confirms, we never should have known (experienced) good and evil, and the joy of our redemption” (Moses 5:11). ~Fiona and Terryl Givens, All Things New (Faith Matters Publishing, Meridian, ID, 2020), 104-105 (continued)
# Adjective. behovely. Of use for the benefit or gain of somebody or something; beneficial, profitable. Necessary; required. Unable to be avoided; inevitable.
