Hamartiology
The Story of Sin
Genesis 3 - Leviticus 24
Under what conditions might we misperceive God as punishing?
How does fear of punishment increase stress and decrease trust?
What pattern in scripture represents God’s response to sin?
The prophet Moses; original icon by Betsy Porter, used with artist permission
What do we imagine…
the early humans feared? As the story in Genesis goes, after the original couple listened to the lie of the serpent, they felt afraid and hid themselves from God.
“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden
at the time of the evening breeze,
and the man and his wife hid themselves
from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
But the Lord God called to the man,
and said to him, ‘Where are you?’
He said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden,
and I was afraid, because I was naked;
and I hid myself.’” (Gen 3)
In the scene prior, the serpent had lied to the couple—and distorted their perception of reality—by suggesting that God was lying. The serpent had introduced the possibility of a lie, something the couple may not have known was possible before. And by hinting “you don’t have everything you need,” the serpent was also hinting: “you can’t trust God.”
If we understand trust to regulate our nervous system, dialing stress down to a “just right” level, then the serpent is attacking that trust at its core. The serpent is using willful deception to inflict a crisis of trust. We can imagine from there, the couple’s stress level rising, further distorting their ability to perceive God and themselves accurately.
I’ll suggest we define punishment as this: “inflicting stress to the point of a brainstem alarm.”
And the couple was afraid, so they hid. They expected punishment—the inflicting of stress and pain to the point of a threat reaction—from God.
The Hebrew paqad translated “punish” also carries a sense of “attending to,” “visiting,” or “taking notice of…” (Gen 21:1; Exod 3:16; Exod 4:31).
And in this story, we find God visits them.
God comes near… asks them a question… listens.
God is nonviolent toward them… increases their safety… God restores their trust.
In this story, God visits the couple and proceeds to describe the consequences to be expected following a crisis of trust. Neural pathways for mistrust have now been established.
Therefore, in labor—whether in childbirth or in the world—when trust is low, our stress will rise to intolerable levels.
We may misperceive this as punishment from God, but might those be echoes of the original deception—the distortion, the lie—the misperception which God is coming near to correct?
We hear echoes of this same misperception following Cain’s crisis of trust and violent killing of his brother, Abel:
“‘My punishment is greater than I can bear… anyone who meets me may kill me.’
Then the Lord said to him, ‘Not so!’”: (Gen 4)
Cain is afraid, expecting punishment. But God defies those expectations, and God protects Cain instead, increasing his safety.
Again, it seems God is mixing up the “just right” ingredients for healing, growth, and learning.
We might consider this to be the fractal pattern of human history in scripture: we fall or are deceived into a crisis of trust… God comes near, attends to our stress, visits us nonviolently, takes notice of our need for safety, and restores our trust.
∞
We worried God might punish us
for consuming something we didn’t need.
Instead, God came near,
decreasing our stress, increasing our safety.
Our trust was restored,
but then our stress rose again.
We began to victimize one another
and worried again
that God might punish us.
Our stress rose further,
and we were deceived into thinking
it must always be so.
Listening with you,
Questions for reflection:
When have you feared punishment and been protected instead?
How you do understand the difference between punishment versus effective correction?
What might be the relationship between fear of punishment, stress, and sin?
Further reading:
Genesis 3:7 – 18:33; Exodus 12:41 – 20:20
Sermons & homilies: What Does It Mean to be Holy?
The Brain & the Spirit, Chapter 3, A Cup of Stress, A Cup of Safety, “Misperceiving God,” pp. 53–64; “God and the Law,” pp. 64–66; “The Triangle of Punishment,” pp. 67–71; “The Story of Sin,” p. 71
