ABSTRACT
The first chapter in the second part of the book zooms in on the notion of sin and evil in more detail, attempting to unpack the concept but also to provide empirical evidence for its continued relevance. Despite challenges in terms of empirical proof and communication, the one conclusion that is hard to escape is that human weakness and moral evil are still prevalent in contemporary reality. This chapter argues how in part this can be traced back to the original sin still being with us, though under different names. Sin now comes relabelled inter alia through psychological and medical conditions, as a naturalised predicament. The chapter also introduces insights from the literature on the “noetic effects of sin,” which represent the debilitating and limiting impact of sin on human reason, thus also placing Brunner's anthropology in the context of a wider debate along the regulating principle of rational perception. The arguments provided here are meant to function as warnings not to dismiss the relevance of theological anthropology. Real-life social experience contains strong pointers in favour of the validity of the arguments.
