I looked yesterday at LDS.org to see if there were any uses of the word sin and pay (payment, paid, etc.) in the scriptures; and there aren’t any that relate to the atonement. I think so often that we have thought about sin as a debt to Justice that we have misconstrued what the atonement is about. What sin does is destroy relationships; that is it! The atonement heals relationships, especially with those that have hurt me and eventually for those I have hurt; not to mention my relationship with God. There is no pain in the past, only my memory of having felt pain in the past or me presently feeling pain in the present. When Christ removes the pain from those I have injured, I will no longer have a sense of debt to those individuals for my mistreatment of them, since they will no longer feel the pain in their “then present” (which will likely be completed in a post mortal world).

My point in this is that I assert that there is no “stain of sin” in the traditional sense (a debt to some impersonal “Justice” leaving its mark of “unworthy” on our soul), rather only relationships that are at various levels of trust and love, for which I feel a sense of obligation. In this sense I agree with William James that there are no insignificant or private sins, in that my sins are what keep me from becoming fully engaged in the humanity/divinity of others. Habits to me represent the very deepest sense of how we see others and respond to their needs. The fruit of sin is not registered on some tally, but rather in my very habits, my entire way of being with others. I do not need to repent of my sins, rather I need to repent of sinning; I need a new set of habits which will lead me to a trustworthy character. This is why in D&C 82:7 it says, “unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return,” because it is not just being forgiven of individual sins, it is about choosing to forsake all sin and choose a way of being that views sin as abhorrent since it is self-defeating. Heaven is not just a place, but it is rather a society in which trust abounds; trust that my tender heart will be valued as highly as I value it. My character is defined by my trustworthiness with the needs and feelings of others.

The experience of sin is results in one’s knowledge/feeling of alienation from others due to betraying an internal sense of morality, which results in pain. This is why there is no sin where there is no personal sense of morality to sin against. The atonement not only removes the sin, but also mitigates the personal knowledge of wrong-doing by replacing that pain and knowledge of wrong-doing with a joy/knowledge that all will be made right for those we have hurt. The pain and the knowledge go together, but the pain seems to sap us of our energy as we are generally able to ignore the knowledge of the small wrong act s that led to the pain of dis-ease and insecurity.

Faith in Christ means faith in his ability to heal everyone. It is not necessary for him to have already healed the individual I have wronged for my pain to leave me, the fact that he will heal the individual sooner or later (or after death) is sufficient. I also am not asserting that we have to comprehend the atonement intellectually to be able to feel free of the pain of sin, the knowledge that things will be okay is a knowledge similar to one’s knowledge/feeling of the truthfulness of the gospel or the restoration. My belief is that Jesus can heal all, will heal all, and will save all as all will repent and receive the resurrection and enjoy a degree of glory.

When the veil is removed at the day of judgment and I see the relationships I have squandered and injured, my own sense of “right conduct” and justice will be my judge; BUT it is a subjective, personal sense of what I feel I should have done for others, not some impersonal “Justice.” In this sense, as Joseph Smith taught, men are their own judges. I don’t claim that final judgment is a subjective personal assessment. I claim that final judgment is a subjective experience. The nuance lies in the idea that the experience is not a mental exercise but the rather the idea that who we are and how we relate to others is part of our being. In other words, who we choose to have a relationship is self determined and also determined by those who choose to have a relationship with us. I don’t just “go” to heaven, heaven is part of who I am.

I have a friend who constantly reminds me of his grandfather’s greatest advice/warning: Your habits are your boss. I like Blake Ostler’s idea that the atonement provides the space we need to reevaluate our relationships and choose to repent. In a literal sense, the atonement provides us with the divine perspective to see outside ourselves that would not otherwise be possible considering the fact that our brains are “wired” in such a way as to keep us from seeing our self deceptions. Without the atonement, our habits would literally overpower us so that our brains could never heal from addiction.

This topic has led me to question why it is harder to repent in the next life, since why would I have a physical addiction after I die? I think that though the book “Return from Tomorrow” may say that you continue to seek your drug as a spirit, the issue is deeper than physical “need” since the addiction is a symptom of our inability to relate with others in a positive way. Without the immediacy of needing to feed and keep our bodies alive, without the pain of this life of giving and taking perceived scarce resources, would we have the desire or impetus to change in a world of abundance (Eden)? The external influences of this life provide us with people who have real needs and challenges that we can respond to, that we feel a desire to respond to, and thus we are able form a character. It is better in my opinion to focus on my ability to be trusted with what I have been given so that God will trust me with his work in the next life.

I see inheriting different kingdoms and responsibilities after resurrection being strictly determined by our abilities and our prior faithfulness with other tasks. If someone has an ability to accomplish something and God feels he can trust them, he will give them that responsibility. In this sense works play a huge role, not that we get “rewarded” and let into heaven as a result of our works; but the idea that prior faithfulness is a prerequisite to future tasks. I believe that there is no “reward” outside of purposeful work that is being described in D&C.

We were discussing this very thing yesterday over at NewCoolThang and the above is a summary of what I had to say (copied from that thread).

Example; the abused become the abuser, who is guilty? Who owes?

Jesus will comfort both…if they will come to him.

If my sin is an illegitimate attempt to meet an unmet need, is it reasonable to think of repentance as the process of finding a legitimate ways to meet that need? I think kevinf somewhere upthread described something like this. Repentance might involve more intelligent self-knowledge and less gritted teeth. And that would explain why people so often fall back into their sins, because, even with all the willpower in the world, the need is still unmet.

By extension I think we could work a little harder to be a little more christ-like in that regard.

I do think though that one of the things I love about our doctrine is that we don’t believe in some of the traditional aspects or simplifications of heaven and hell. In that sense we do look on sin more generously, because we reserve outer darkness for very few.

If we reject some level of accountability for what we’ve done in ignorance, we’re disowning a large part of our lives.