Thinking about sin usually implies supposing divine or transcendental orders or, at the very least, families and other social institutions. It's always something beyond the individual himself, which situates him through his responsibilities in accepting norms, as well as through his admission of these responsibilities. One implication of this is the establishment of guilt when obligations are not met when established standards are not maintained and questioned.
Manichaean’s explanations backed by absolutism, whether religious or scientific, are based on prejudices and also reinforce them by offering alienating and compromised justifications. Countless individuals, instead of confronting social prejudices or their own non-acceptance, take the easy - and socially accepted - route of justifications forged in explanations that deny choices and responsibilities.
Guilt exposes responsibility and questions individual motivations and actions. This atmosphere that prevailed until recently has been modernly replaced by the concepts of illness, pathology, and naturalness. These are concepts that exonerate guilt, create excuses, and relieve the individual of responsibility for their actions. A long time ago, some members of gay communities cheered when it was assumed that homosexuality has a genetic origin, going so far as to say: "My fault is over; I was born this way", "I didn't choose to be homosexual, just as I didn't choose to have blue eyes".
Explanations are given for biological, genetic, or, in short, past and irremovable causes, for which individuals have no responsibility and for which they should not be criticized or blamed. They ignore prejudices and ultimately only deepen those same prejudices when they accept biological or social explanations as determinants of their motivations, thus denying themselves as individuals, and subjects responsible for their actions. They don't question their prejudices, they just justify themselves and rely on prejudiced explanations.
In these visions, sins accuse, denoting responsibility, and pathologies excuse, absolving. And so, if you are a victim of pathologies, there is nothing you can do to reverse them. This division between genetics and choice in sexual motivations, for example, victimizes or blames you if you don't accept your own motivations. On the other hand, upon accepting oneself, and assuming one's own motives, there is no sense of guilt or sin, there's no problem coming out about your homosexuality.
Similarly, in other situations, considering oneself to be taken over by blind forces, obsessing Spirit, voices that accuse and guide can also be thought of as a pathology, delusions that can be turned into justifications for inconsequential and antisocial actions, absolving oneself of blame. Feeling guilty implies feeling responsible for one's own actions, and consequently not justifying them because of a supposed illness or obsession, which in this way is a displacement of inadequacy, fear, and non-acceptance.
By taking responsibility for one’s actions, the experience of sin and guilt can be transformative in human interactions and difficulties. Whereas considering oneself a victim of pathologies or social injustices is a way of absolving oneself of the responsibility of being in the world with others. Even when you have a disability, a difficulty, or a socially discriminated characteristic, these are not the causes of your behaviour. There is always motivation and determination, which transforms what is placed before you as different and fatal.
Sin and pathology structure guilt and excuses, depersonalising or personalising individuals depending on their authenticity or inauthenticity in relation to the issues they experience. It is not because an individual needs money that he kills another, for example. This justification exposes a dehumanised character of survival as a predatory struggle. To humanise is to be structured as much by what you captivate as by what you are responsible for. In this sense, it is the process that results from living with others, without getting lost or dwelling on the pathologies, the dehumanisations caused by using problems, difficulties, and illnesses, even stigmas, as justifications that atone for evil.
The search for scapegoats is always a way of neutralizing what one considers to be sin, of excusing oneself, of making oneself a victim. We often hear, for example, that torturers feel they are victims of authoritarian regimes, and that they torture out of obedience. We also see this in children who are abused, who are victims of abusive parents, and who therefore feel justified in abusing their children, as if the sequence of horrors could be justified. They opt for justifications, avoiding transformative questioning, thus reducing their behaviour to causal determinism.
Questioning the possibilities and viability of what is considered sin creates transcendence and humanises. Settling on explanations that consider genetic and biological aspects to be responsible for behaviour complements and expands survival needs, but at the same time alienates the individual from their possibilities for transformation. There is no guilt, no forgiveness, no sin in the face of the infinite human possibilities of realizing wills, desires, and determinations. What exists is lucidity resulting from questioning, not justifications based on social situations or pathologies that excuse any act committed.