How God Sees Sin
How God Sees Sin
to the Seventh Revelation which is her chapter 15. Julian found it astonishing that God‐as‐Trinity should fill her with joy (chapter 4). It was a marvel that God should be so "homely" with a sinful creature – that is, familiar or intimate. Julian assumed that this was a comfort offered to her before being "tempted by devils."
Experiences in this life of "supreme spiritual delight," which offer "everlasting surety, powerfully secured without any painful fear," are necessarily momentary. Soon "I was changed, and abandoned to myself, oppressed and weary of my life." Guilt and pain are an inherent part of our contingent existence. Chapter 38 of Julian's Long Text suggests that "there is indeed a corresponding pain for every sin" although Julian goes on to suggest that this will be matched by joys in heaven that reward our victories over sin. In the isolation caused by our failings (chapter 40), "when we see ourselves so foul, then we believe that God may be angry with us because of our sins." However, then God shows the divine presence to the soul, "welcoming it as a friend, as if it had been in pain and in prison" and referring to the soul as "My dear darling."
Julian occasionally refers to the spiritual practice of auricular confession to a priest. However, this is not expressed essentially in terms of guilt, judgment, and the giving of a penance to the penitent by way of punishment.
Rather Julian describes confession in terms of healing and liberation from the pain of guilt. In chapter 39 sin is characterized as "the sharpest scourge with which any chosen soul can be struck." This can "break" a person.
However, contrition may take hold of a person "by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit" and lead to the healing of wounds, the revival of the soul and the restoration of life. God "leads him to confession, willing to reveal his sins, nakedly and truthfully, with great sorrow and great shame that he has so befouled God's fair image." By "God's fair image" Julian means that the person has damaged himself (an image of God) rather than simply demeaned
God. The person then "accepts the penance for every sin imposed by his confessor, for this is established in Holy Church by the teaching of the Holy
Spirit." There is another reference to confession in chapter 66 when Julian describes a visit by "a man of religion" during her mortal illness. She is then, in her own words, "imprudent" when she describes something of her visionary experiences of the figure of the bleeding Christ. The visiting cleric clearly took her seriously and Julian felt ashamed. She then refers to wanting to make her confession "but I could not tell it to any priest."
How God Sees Sin Most importantly of all, Julian is faced with the question of how God actually sees sin. In summary, the theme of chapter 51, the vitally important parable of a Lord and a Servant, is to suggest that God does not "see"
Sin and Salvation
sin in the way that human beings do. God only sees the bliss that will ultimately be ours. In God's "sight" eternal bliss is the ultimate truth for humankind. Thus, Julian in being offered a temporary and partial "sight" of reality from God's point of view also cannot "see" sin. As opposed to much medieval theology, Julian has a significant problem with the notion of God's anger, God's desire to punish sin, God desiring retribution, or God needing restitution. Julian does not deny sinfulness but refuses to attribute any anger to God.
As we have seen in Chapter 3, the parable of a Lord and a Servant clarifies a number of things. First, there is a teleological connection between Adam (who is understood by Julian to represent all of humanity) and Christ. That is to say, "in God's sight" the Fall of humanity and the redemption brought about by Christ through the Incarnation and Passion are a single "moment." Second, sin is certainly a deviation from our original creation. However, it involves a separation from a loving
God rather than a conflict with a God who desires to punish us. Thus, Julian is led to see that the story of the Fall is not so much a wilful act of rebellion against God as a blindness and a sense of separation from God based on misadventure. The servant is said to be "injured in his powers"; that is, he is prevented from knowing that his "Godly will" that irrevocably unites him permanently to God is still preserved intact.
The parable also focuses on God's promise of restoration rather than on punishment. The image of the servant trying to do the Lord's will but falling into a ditch and remaining trapped there points to "sin" as self‐ imprisonment rather than malice. Sin is its own punishment. Therefore sin is weakness rather than a cause of guilt. Our existential sin is a result of ignorance rather than the inevitable consequence of an inherently depraved nature. Even our conception of God as angry judge is a form of blindness. As a result, God looks on sinners, of which the servant is an image, with pity not with blame and as a healer rather than as a judge.
In chapter 78, Julian indicates that God wishes us to know four vital things about sin and about God's reaction to it. The foundation is that God only shows us our sin "by the light of his mercy" rather than in all its horribleness. First, God is the foundation from whom we have our on‐ going life and being. Second, God protects us strongly and mercifully while we are in our sin. Third, God protects us courteously and helps us to know that we are going astray. Finally, God steadfastly waits for us and "does not change his demeanour." In the Middle English this is "changeth no chere." This refers back to chapter 51 where God's "chere" or demeanour refers to "rewth and pitte", that is, to compassion and pity. With this knowledge of four vital things "we may see our sin, profitably, without despair."