The notion of sin as missing the mark is also in Latin. "Peccatus", etymologically, also means missing the mark. This is how Aquinas too used the word. The term is transferred from an action that misses the mark to the person who misses the mark, and precisely to that interior disposition inclining the person to miss the mark. That interior disposition is sometimes called the "stain" or also called simply "sin". Technically, "stain" refers to the loss of the BEAUTY proper to the creature. I think I can show that the Greek Fathers had the same idea, even if they used a different word. For they too -- like Augustine and Aquinas-- thought in terms of an ethic that is totally foreign to us today, namely, virtue ethics. The ethics dominant in the west is not a virtue ethic, but a specific sort of legalism, an ethics of pure duty, confusingly combined with an ethic of simple pleasure calculation. Both of these ethics are alien to the Gospel, and are no good for explaining what sin and salvation are.
Yes, the stain is slight in the sense that it does not cause human nature to cease to exist. Humans are wounded and stained, but still human. The Imago Dei is blurred, distorted, and prone to miss the mark, but still the Imago Dei. Because we are so stained, humans are inclined to miss the mark -- to miss it by a very wide mark. Hence, Auschwitz. Hence, Calvary.
I too try to avoid using all talk of sin-nature, post-lapsarian man, fallen-nature etc. These terms, on my view, reveal the LOSS of any concept of human nature and are discordant with Scripture. The very vocabulary and language that is being used obscures the Gospel. I use these expressions not because they are in my vocabulary, they are not even in Aquinas' vocabulary. They are not in Catholic vocabulary. But they are Calvinist terms, developed under the influence of a human philosophy alien to the Gospel, and I use them only because my interlocutor is Calvinist.
If you want to read a valuable study of the Thomistic concept of sin, and see how close it is to your own, MarMema, I suggest Josef Pieper's book "The Concept of Sin". A whole chapter is devoted to the meaning of peccatus as missing the mark.
I too try to avoid using all talk of sin-nature, post-lapsarian man, fallen-nature etc. These terms, on my view, reveal the LOSS of any concept of human nature and are discordant with Scripture. The very vocabulary and language that is being used obscures the Gospel. I use these expressions not because they are in my vocabulary, they are not even in Aquinas' vocabulary. They are not in Catholic vocabulary. But they are Calvinist terms, developed under the influence of a human philosophy alien to the Gospel, and I use them only because my interlocutor is Calvinist.Let's lay aside all this "Calvinist", "Thomist", "Catholic" and "Aquinas" balderdash, pseduo-justin.
All very useful in its own right, as Labels are useful in identifying File Folders.... but let us dispense with it, for now.
When we talk of Human Nature, let us speak only of that which Scripture describes. I propose two specific Scriptures for examination:
- GENESIS 2:17 -- But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
- ECCLESIASTES 9:3 -- This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
When we speak of "Human Nature", we do only speak a-rightly when we describe Human Nature as Infallible Scripture has described it. And so therefore, I ask you:
- Is it True, as infallible scripture has declared, that Human Nature is become Spiritually Dead? Scripture has declared. Do you believe it?
- Is it True, as infallible scripture has declared, that Human Nature is become Full of Evil? Scripture has declared. Do you believe it?
- Is it True, as infallible scripture has declared, that Human Nature is become Spiritually Insane? Scripture has declared. Do you believe it?
We do only correctly describe HUMAN NATURE, when we describe it as Scripture has declared. You do NOTHING to benefit an Insane Man, when you pretend that he is Sane. You're only making yourself part of the problem, not part of the solution.
Scripture has declares that the Nature of Man, HUMAN NATURE, is Spiritually Dead, Full of Evil, Spiritually Insane. Do you BELIEVE what Scripture has declared?
best, OP