The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans

Matthew Croasmun

Jun 2017 · Oxford University Press

About this ebook

We can have a sense that when we try to do right by one another, we aren't merely striving against ourselves. The feeling is that we are struggling against something--someone-else. As if there's a force-a person- that wishes us ill. In his letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul describes just such a person: Sin, a cosmic tyrant who constrains our moral freedom, confuses our moral judgment, and condemns us to slavery and to death. Commentators have long argued about whether Paul literally means to say Sin is a person or is simply indulging in literary personification, but regardless of Paul's intentions, for modern readers it would seem clear enough: there is no such thing as a cosmic tyrant. Surely it is more reasonable to suppose "Sin" is merely a colorful way of describing individual misdeeds or, at most, a way of evoking the intractability of our social ills. In The Emergence of Sin, Matthew Croasmun suggests we take another look. The vision of Sin he offers is at once scientific and theological, social and individual, corporeal and mythological. He argues both that the cosmic power Sin is nothing more than an emergent feature of a vast human network of transgression and that this power is nevertheless real, personal, and one whom we had better be ready to resist. Ultimately, what is on offer here is an account of the world re-mythologized at the hands of chemists, evolutionary biologists, sociologists, and entomologists. In this world, Paul's text is not a relic of a forgotten mythical past, but a field manual for modern living.

Ratings and reviews

Absolutely brilliant thesis. This book fits well with what Francis Spufford called the "human propensity to f things up" (hptftu). The cosmic tyrant, which is a similar idea to what Walter Wink called The Powers, oppresses us all and pushes us into living effed-up lives and doing the things we hate, while not doing the things we want to do. ¶I see this playing out in broken relationships, family violence, abuse of women and children, abuse of chronically ill and disabled, as well as in some of the ways disability itself can mess up our lives. For example, deficiencies of dopamine and oxytocin in disorders such as ADHD and autism can really influence behavior and relationships in ways that prevent us from being the person we would choose to be. I also see the cosmic tyrant playing out in environmental degradation and all the ways we destroy ourselves and each other. ¶This book is highly recommended to anyone who wants to understand the human condition, and how we got to where we are.

About the author

Matthew Croasmun is Associate Research Scholar and Director of the Life Worth Living Program at the Yale Center for Faith & Culture and Lecturer of Divinity and Humanities at Yale University. He completed his Ph.D. in Religious Studies (New Testament) at Yale in 2014 and was a recipient of the 2015 Manfred Lautenschläger Award for Theological Promise for his dissertation, "The Body of Sin: An Emergent Account of Sin as a Cosmic Power in Romans 5-8."