‘Sinless’ is the most accurate antonym but I’d go with ‘righteous’. I has a holier ring to it. [-o<
Then, to a lesser extent, words like ‘obedient’, ‘innocent’ or ‘pure’ may be OK depending on the context.
good deed
Good work
A kindness
a boon
virtuous act
Though all of these are focused on the act. The word sin carries a connotation of stain. A being, not just a doing. For that aspect ‘virtue’.
The opposite of being in sin is being whole (holy). Sin comes from fragmentation of the psyche. It is a dis-ease.
“Sin” means “misjudgement”, literally from the old English archery term for “missing the mark”. The opposite of course would be simply “perfect judgement” or “on target”/“bulls eye”.
The seed of sin is presumption, the opposite of which is the seed of wisdom, contemplation …
… or to “Clarify, Verify, Instill,….”
The trouble with the words is that ‘to sin’ is a verb not a quality. It requires an action, an intention or at the very least, a specific thought.
Adjectives usually have opposites; verbs rarely do. You perform a certain action or any number of alternative actions, or do nothing at all. You behave one way or any of a thousand other ways.
To behave in a way that is condemned by the moral authority is to sin, which everyone is expected to do from time to time, and they’re routinely punished. To behave every other way is considered unremarkable, unless you perform a miracle, which almost no-one is expected to do.
Murder doesn’t have an opposite, either - the alternative is to refrain from killing people for personal reasons, which is expected of every normal citizen; unrewarded and unremarked.
Or to save a life, or rescue (from life threatening situations) I think there are opposites for many verbs. Some may not be simple one word replacements, but many are.
You can oppose other actions to them, but they’re never grammatical opposite in the sense of small and large, black and white.
To commit a murder, you need intention and resolve, then you can engineer the means and opportunity. To save a life, you need someone chancing to be in danger at a time when you happen to be present, to know the correct action to take and be able to perform that action. Lots of happenstance beyond your control. Because of that, they’re not equal. Some persons, like a paramedic or coast guard diver, might be in a position to save lives almost daily: it’s their job. They may be admired for it, but nowhere near the disapprobation they would receive for committing even one murder.
Sinless?
Can’t be, it makes too much sense and way to simple to suit tech brains.
I understand your point better now. You mean a kind of perfect opposition.
But then we even have a problem with black and white, your example. Black is not a color and white is.
Quite so. Maybe we shouldn’t put so much store in opposites?
But if someone does, I demand balance! At least in scale, if not specie.
piety
And this is why the concept has always bothered me - because men think they can judge as well as gods, to judge as gods, what is morally bad. Men may as well be their own gods, since the people who judge what sin is or isn’t - who end up delivering the retribution and punishment that matter in life - are always men.
Actually, I somehow failed to include most of my argument. That black is not a color might support your case that it is an opposite. But then, I went on, given your issues with save and rescue as opposites to murder, it seemed like all facets of the verb must be opposited. So Black Hole would be better than black since it is also not simply an abstraction but a thing ‘out there’. Not a merely a quality but a thing. So Black Hole would be even more opposite. It’s black, but also a noun. But then - and I couldn’t come up with the next step, but that was where I was going, paralleling your breakdown of how murder’s suggested opposites were only partially opposite.
But yes, once you think of opposite as pure, there are problems. I see it as more of an adhoc term and a loose one.
Well said!
Really, language is never that perfectly balanced, because we simply do not live - and therefore, do not need to think - in opposites. They’re nothing more than convenient juxtaposition for the sake of illustration or argument.
And that’s the answer, isn’t it? The opposite of sin is purity.
If you consider pairs of opposites as going left and right, or up and down, or north and south from a median line, then Sin can’t have a true opposite. Spiritual purity is the ceiling from which any deviation can only ever be downward; there is no going above it (until, supposedly, after death, when an exceptionally good person may be beatified… *uh…).
A sin is any act (you may include intention or desire - but not stray, unbidden thoughts) that besmirches the soul. It’s not necessarily committed against a supernatural entity, but rather, against the moral integrity of the sinner himself. (Herself, too, of course, but women are created so easily temptable, so prone to sin, that their purity must be protected with iron underwear and canvas sacks over their heads. Nobody knows what dark thoughts lurk in those concealed heads. Well, nobody with the possible exception of Arbiter of Change.)
A sin contemplated endangers the potential sinner’s relationship with the spiritual aspect of both himself and the world; a sin committed damages that relationship.
Most sins are also crimes, but not all; most crimes are also sins, but not all. This is because the leaders of organized societies disagree on what the optimal relationship is of man to man; man to the ruling class; man to spirit world, and how much discrepancy between optimal and actual the society can tolerate.
*Aha! The theological opposite of a sin is a beatitude. (except there are 8 of them to only seven sins, but I guess their deadliness makes up the weight.)
There still isn’t one for the verb, to sin.
Could there actually be an “exact” opposite when you consider all the different meanings which words have and all the different perspectives of morality.
I don’t see “virtue” as being the opposite since one sign of virtue could be discipline, another could be the knowledge of when to speak and when not to speak, as in wisdom…which don’t really have much to do with morality. Another might be a good work ethic. That’s all virtue to me.
I know it’s not the opposite but for me as close as I can come is “awareness” as in the awareness of what it takes to do no harm.
So sin (which in Latin means without) - it’s opposite would be more along the lines of awareness.
Convoluted i know.
It’s an interesting subject, Sanjay
The English word “sin” has nothing to do with the Latin word “sin”. In Latin, the English “sin” means “peccatum”, which means also “error” in English. So I think that James’ definition “error in judgement” comes closest to it, and the opposite would be “right judgement”, or an action which follows a right judgement.
I don’t suppose that you would be surprised at how words evolve.
There are a great many English words that are derived from Latin and Spanish.
I was speaking of the Latin root sin not the word in itself.
I think you are confusing something. The English word “sin” didn’t evolve from the Latin “sine”.
That’s an interesting point, Sanjay. The only phrase that comes to mind is “act of kindness”, or maybe “good deed,” but those are not singular words.
It makes me wonder why Christianity and the medieval world, despite the doctrinal focus on the “good”, was by far more focused on evil. Words are crafted and injected into language because of a need for their use. Why did we feel the need for a word like “sin” and not for a word that connoted the opposite?
Punitive religious doctrine does not start from a level playing field, wheron each act would be evaluated on its own merits or detriments.
It is based, rather, on the innate, fundamental badness of the human being.
Man is born into sin -
- that’s the low point from which he must, all his life, struggle upward, have faith, do good works, pay obeisances and tithes, in the hope of expiating original sin before he dies.