Is It a Sin?

Many discussions in the LDS community (and perhaps the Christian community in general), relate to the question: Is it a sin, or isn't it? Here are some examples of some such debates:

Is it a sin to drink caffeine? What about coffee if the person is not a member of the LDS church? What about eating meat in the summer?

Is it a sin to buy myself something that I don't really need once in a while, instead of using that money for more productive or charitable causes?

Is it a sin to go into debt to make what you believe to be a wise business investment?

Is it a sin to get a tattoo? How about a small one? What if you aren't a member of the church? (This is actually the question that inspired this post).

My purpose it not to debate any of these specific arguments, but rather to talk about the debate itself.

First, we should consider the question: What is sin? If you ask random people to define sin, you might get these two general responses:

1) Sin is disobeying the commandments of God.
2) Sin is doing something that God doesn't want us to do.

On first glance, these two definitions might seem like two ways to say the same thing. However, they are really very different. The scriptures tell us that there are many things God wants us to do, but which he has not specifically commanded us to do. There are also many things God does not want us to do, but which he has not specifically commanded us not to do. So we can see that there is plenty of room for debate between "disobeying the commandments" and "doing something God doesn't want us to do."

Another related issue is what we should do with "advice" or "encouragement" that we get from our spiritual leaders. Here's an interesting example from the LDS website (thanks again to the discussion from this post):

"Latter-day prophets strongly discourage the tattooing of the body. Those who disregard this counsel show a lack of respect for themselves and for God."

This is interesting since it seems to support both sides of the argument. On one hand, it uses the word "encourage," which suggests it is not a commandment, which some might use to argue that it is not sinful. However, it also says that by ignoring the advice, people show a lack of respect for God. Clearly, that is sinful, isn't it? But on the other hand, if ignoring the advice or encouragement of a prophet is a sin, then why make a distinction? Why not just command it?

Another example is the prophet's encouragement to get out of debt. This is usually communicated as advice, but if it is sinful to ignore the prophet, what's the difference?

So I've raised a lot of questions and shown how opposite views of the spectrum are reasonable. So what's my answer to this dichotomy? It's simple: We're asking the wrong question. The question should not be "Is this a sin?" It should be "What are the consequences of this action?"

All actions have consequences: good, bad, temporal, and spiritual. From this perspective, I would define "sin" as something we do (or don't do) which has negative spiritual consequences. In other words, we sin when we do something that separates us further from God and makes it more difficult to achieve his plan. The seriousness of the sin is proportional to the magnitude of the negative consequences. That definition is purposefully vague, because the word "sin" itself is a generality. Perhaps it would be more useful to talk in terms of consequences, rather than in terms of sin or righteousness.

Consider the question: Is it a sin to go into debt for non-essential reasons? Debating this question glosses over the more important question: What are the consequences? Interestingly, when the prophet gives us this advice, he doesn't say "because God said so." He says, "because here are some of the bad things that might happen..." (I'm paraphrasing here, of course. See this talk for an example).

Perhaps the prophet is more concerned about helping us make choices that will have positive consequences in this life and the next, and less concerned about what we should place the "sin" label on. Perhaps we should be too.