"Making up" for sins

I have come across an idea when talking to a friend; an idea that I though was my own particular creation. The idea is that upon the commission of a sin or upon failing to fulfill our Christian duty (whatever it may be) that we have some way, of our own power, to make this sin go away.

I put forward this idea using the example of fasting. Now fasting has its own large issues that could be discussed, however, let us take the Orthodox Christian example of Fasting as an obligation for us as Orthodox Christians. The scope of the obligation and the reasons behind it are not something I want to discuss now, but simply that it is a widely accepted obligation within Orthodoxy. You could replace fasting with any other particular obligation and the this essay is still valid.

If on a day that I am to fast, say a Wednesday, and I do not fast, what are my options to remedy this failure to fulfill my obligation? Do I even need a remedy?

The first answer is that yes, I need a remedy. I know in myself and through the teaching that I have received, that fasting is an important part of my spiritual health and growth. Why did I not fast? Why did I have to do something contrary to my own stated and strongly held belief? There are many reasons, and these reasons dovetail with the nature of sin. But there are reasons that I use that make me feel better: I call them rationalizations!

I commit this error because I want to do it and I have a hard time controlling the urge to want to do it. Before I commit this error, I rationalize. I rationalize because I want to placate my guilty feelings for this error. After the commission of the error there are the consequences. Sometimes the only apparent consequence is the guilt. So how do I deal with this guilt? I promise to make up for the error by doing something greater than the error I committed.

In this fasting example, I might think, "I feel bad for breaking the fast. I will make up for breaking the fast by fasting on a day that I am not required to fast." This seems somewhat reasonable. Kind of a fasting day credit exchange program. Something akin to I will give you a dollar tomorrow for a hamburger today (from the old Popeye cartoons).

What I am trying to do is bargain with God. I know I need to fast, God, but I just can't today. I will make it up to you by fasting on Thursday and even Monday just so that I can have a pizza today.

This doesn't seem so bad as I said above, and via my conversation with my friend I realized that a good number of other people use this line of reasoning and bargaining with God. At some point I came to realize that this is not a good idea at all, for a whole host of reasons.

The first question is to deal with the error in general. Why is the error an error? What purpose does it have in our lives that it is something to avoid? In this case fasting (again, a huge topic) is for us, not for God. Fasting is not easy, but it is very useful. Fasting helps our self-control, and self-control is so important for our whole life. Why did I want to break the fast? Mostly because I lacked self-control.

Well, one of the greatest aspects of Orthodox Christianity is that 1. it is a whole lifestyle and 2. few are perfect in this lifestyle, but our love for God is demonstrated by the effort to become more perfect in this lifestyle.

Trying to "make-up" for our errors is a reaction to guilt. I want to do the right thing, and end up doing not the right thing and I feel badly about it. To appease this guilt I try to make it up. We do this in all areas of our life. We do something stupid that affects our spouse, and later we feel badly about it and we try to make it up. But imagine if you didn't have to make it up. Imagine if you thought about the consequences of your actions and didn't do the thing that caused you to have to make up for something.

Making up for sins/errors does not do anything profitable for us. Making up for errors is a manipulative device with which we try to fool others and ourselves.

I have kids and I hate it when they bargain with me. "I will do this if you will give me that." I can't stand that and think it a very bad habit to have. I do not know of anyone that enjoys being bargained with. So why do we think that God would enjoy and accept it?

Making up for errors is not the same as seeking forgiveness. Forgiveness comes through earnest repentance. For example, if in the heat of an argument I say something hurtful to her. She is hurt and I feel badly afterward. By trying to make it up to her by doing the chores she would normally do and/or by buying flowers is more akin to bribing her for forgiveness. The point is that my error caused harm and no amount of making up will remove that harm. Even after she has forgiven me, that harm will still have occurred. However, we fool ourselves by thinking we can hide or eliminate the harm by making-up for it. (Of course I should do these other things if I put her and myself into this position, to try to help restore her, but it will never put us back to the place we were before the incident.)

In the case of fasting, the harm we are doing is two-fold. One is the harm we are doing to ourselves. By not practicing the art of self-control (only one aspect of fasting of course) we are harming ourselves by creating a precident behavior of giving into desire. We are harming our relationship with God because we are knowingly committing an error. These harms cannot be repaired by making up for this breach by fasting twice as hard.

Far worse, however, is that if we think that we can make up for errors committed, we are far more likely to commit the error or sin again. For me, this is the bottom line. We can talk about the harm of not fasting, we can discuss the necessity to fast, we can discuss forgiveness, but the most fallacy of the idea of making-up for errors is that instead of helping to bring us back into "line," it actually relaxes our inhibitions against committing the error in the first place.

Seeking forgiveness, and also the act of Confession within the Orthodox Church are not about making-up for the errors and sins we committed. It is about expressing remorse for the error, pledging to try to stomp out our desire to commit the error again, and bringing ourselves back into communion with God. Penance, if assigned at Confession, is not about making up for sins either. It is used as a method to help remind us of the consequences of sin and enlighten us to the possibilities of life without sin.

So for those that think that they can make up for their sins through another act, it would be better to spend the energy actively combating the error/sin rather than making up for it afterward.