It’s in You: Structural Sin and Personal Responsibility Revisited

The language of structural sin is most often used to describe sin that inheres in laws, institutions, or social roles—in short, in the objective social architecture of our everyday lives. This article argues that structural sin should also be understood as including a subjective dimension, describin...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Hamilton, Brian (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Sage 2021
In: Studies in Christian ethics
Year: 2021, Volume: 34, Issue: 3, Pages: 360-380
IxTheo Classification:CH Christianity and Society
NBE Anthropology
NCA Ethics
Further subjects:B Critical Realism
B structural sin
B Social structures
B moral agencyresponsibility
Online Access: Volltext (lizenzpflichtig)
Description
Summary:The language of structural sin is most often used to describe sin that inheres in laws, institutions, or social roles—in short, in the objective social architecture of our everyday lives. This article argues that structural sin should also be understood as including a subjective dimension, describing the determinate habits or dispositions instilled by sharing in the life of a particular society. Part of what is structured by structural sin, in other words, is agency itself. The reason that many theologians have resisted this idea is that it seems to undermine the conditions of moral responsibility. If our capacities for knowing and loving the good are always already concretely misshapen, can we rightly be held accountable for what we do? This article argues further that we can, drawing on the work of Judith Butler to sketch a fresh account of personal responsibility in the face of structural sin.
ISSN:0953-9468
Contains:Enthalten in: Studies in Christian ethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1177/09539468211009764