XV.    WHAT CONSTITUTES DISOBEDIENCE TO MORAL LAW? 

In discussing this question, I will:

1          Show what disobedience to moral law cannot consist in.

2          Show what disobedience to moral law must consist in.

3          Show that disobedience to moral law is the whole of sin.   

A     What can’t disobedience to moral law consist in? 

1     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in malevolence, or in our choice of evil or misery as an ultimate end.  The choice of an end implies choosing it for a reason, and for its own importance, or because our mind prizes it on its own account.  But God made us in such a way that we can’t regard misery as important all by itself.  Therefore, we cannot choose misery as an ultimate end, nor prize it on its own account.

2     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in the constitution of our soul or body.  The law does not command us to have a certain constitution nor does the law forbid us to have the constitution that we were born with. 

3     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in any unavoidable state, either of our mind or of our emotions; for we have seen that these unavoidable states are involuntary.  Disobedience depends on an act of our will.  

4     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in physical actions that are independent of the reasons why we performed those actions; for we have seen that our physical actions are controlled by our will, and, therefore can have no moral character in themselves. 

5     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in inaction, because total inaction is impossible for a moral agent.  We must be active.  That is, we cannot exist as moral agents without free choices.  Therefore, we must choose to either obey or disobey God’s law.  We are free to choose in either direction, but we are not free to abstain from choosing altogether.  Choose we must.  Having free will, and being aware of opposing objects of choice, makes us realize that we are under an obligation to choose one way or the other.  The law tells us how we should choose.  If we do not choose one way, it must be because we choose the other way, and not because we do not choose at all.

6     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in choosing moral evil, or sin as our ultimate end.  Sin is either an attribute of our choice, or it is the intention itself.  If sin is the intention itself, then to make sin the end of our intention, would be to make the intention or choice terminate on itself, and the sinner must choose his own choice, or intend his own intention as an end: this makes no sense.  

7     Disobedience to moral law cannot consist in self‑love.  Self‑love is simply the constitutional desire for happiness.  Self-love is an involuntary state.  As a desire, it has no more moral character than the desire for food has.  It is no more sinful to desire and to properly seek happiness than it is to desire food and to properly seek that.  

B     What disobedience to moral law must consist in.
 Disobedience to God’s law must consist in choosing self‑gratification as our ultimate goal in life.  In other words, disobedience must consist in committing our will, and through our will committing our whole being, to indulging in self‑love as our supreme and ultimate purpose in life.  This is selfishness.  In other words, it is seeking to gratify our desires for personal good in a way that is prohibited by the law of God. 
     Disobedience consists in choosing self‑gratification for its own sake, instead of choosing the highest good of God and the universe as an ultimate end.  In other words, sin or disobedience to the moral law consists in consecrating our heart and life to gratifying our constitutional and artificial desires, rather than in obeying the law.  Sin consists in being governed by our emotional impulses instead of being governed by God’s law, as it lies revealed in our reason.                                     

C    That this is the whole of sin will appear if we consider:  

1     This state of mind is the “carnal mind,” or the minding of the flesh, which the apostle affirms to be “enmity against God” (Romans 8:7)  The Bible universally represents sin as consisting in the spirit of self‑seeking.  This spirit of self‑seeking is always represented in the Bible as the opposite of the love that the law requires.  “Ephraim brings forth fruit to himself” (Hosea 9:16), is the sum of God’s charges against sinners.  

2     When we consider the attributes of selfishness, we will see that every form of sin must resolve itself into selfishness, just as we have seen that every form of virtue must resolve itself into love.  

3     From the way God created us, we must choose, as our ultimate goal in life, something that we regard as good or important all by itself.  This is the very idea of choosing something for its own sake, or for what it is all by itself.  We see that the goal we choose is intrinsically important to us, or to others in general, or to both.  

4     Therefore, moral agents are required to will the good of others either selfishly or unselfishly.  They must will either good to self or good to others in general.  We can’t choose anything else for its own sake.  Willing the good of others unselfishly is virtue.  To will it selfishly is to will it only because of its relationship to self.  This is willing selfishly.  In other words, to disobey is to will the gratification of self as a goal in opposition to willing the good of the universe as an important end all by itself.

5     But can someone will some of the good of others as a goal?  This would not be true love; for true love must consist in willing good for its own sake, and implies the willing of every good as well as the highest good of the universe.  This wouldn’t be selfish because it would not be willing the gratification of self.  However, it would be sin because it would be a partial love or choice of a partial good.  It would be loving some of my neighbors but not all of them.  Therefore, wouldn’t this be a sin, but not a selfish sin? 
     Wait a minute!  If this is true, than it is possible that a sin can be committed that is not selfish.  But is it really true, that a sin can be unselfish?  To say that I choose good for its own sake, or because it is important for others, that is, to say that I choose good in obedience to the law of God and my reason, implies that I choose all possible good, and every good according to its relative importance.  If, then, someone chooses his own good, or the good of any being in obedience to the law of reason, it must be that he chooses for the same reason, the highest possible good of all of God’s creation.   
     The partial choice of good implies choosing that good, not merely for its own sake, but on some condition that relates either to himself or to certain people.  The choice is conditioned by its relationships.  When its relationship to self conditions the choice so that it is chosen not because of its own importance but because of its relationship to self, this is selfishness.  It is the partial choice of good.  If I choose the good of others besides myself, and choose good because of its relationship to them, it must be either: 

a     Because I will their good because I fondly love them, because I want to gratify my affection for them, which is selfishness; or: 

b     Because of their relationship to me, so that good to them is in some way a good to me, which also is selfishness; or:  

c      On condition that they are worthy, which is unselfish, because, if I will good to a being on condition that he is worthy, I must value his good for his own sake, and I must will good to him because he deserves it.  But this is love and not the partial choice of good, because it is obeying the law of my reason. 

6     If I will the good of any number of beings, I must will it in obedience to either God’s law, or in obedience to my feelings.  But, if I will in obedience to God’s law, it must be because I choose the highest good of the universe.  However, if I will in obedience to my emotional impulses, it must be because I want to gratify my feelings or desires.  This is selfishness. 
     Since our will must either follow the law of our reason and God, or our will must follow the impulses of our soul, it follows that we must be either selfish or unselfish, and that there is no third way, because there is no third medium through which any object of choice can be pre­sented.  Our mind cannot think of anything as an object of choice that one of these two ends does not recommend.  Selfishness and unselfish love are the only two alternatives. 
     Please remember that sin is a unit, and must always consist in a selfish ultimate intention, and in nothing else.  A selfish intention is sin; and thus we see that every phase of sin resolves itself into selfishness.  This will become more obvious as we proceed to examine the subject of moral depravity.