Sinners in Heaven

Can a sinner enter through the gates of Heaven? The common answer is no, that you must give up your sins to enter Heaven. Christians are taught that your sins are washed away by repenting and that we should refrain from sinning so that we may one day enter Heaven or face the alternative of eternal punishment. If a man believes his sin will lead him to eternal damnation and barring from eternal happiness, then why would he willingly commit an action leading him to great suffering? There must be some good coming from his action and he must either believe that he did not sin or perhaps that the sin will not damage his entry to Heaven. In the case of the latter, I believe it completely possible to knowingly and willingly sin.

Sin can be described as missing the mark; no one purposely misses a target. Although perhaps someone can purposely miss the mark so that he can aim and hit his own decided mark. He full well knows that he is meant to hit the mark given to him by his religion, but perhaps hitting his own target would gain him some sort of good while still allowing him to aim again and hit his given mark. The Bible tells us multiple times that we can repent of our sins and have them washed away and since having our sins washed away indicates we can enter Heaven, then it maintains the possibility to commit a sin while still maintaining a good outcome in the end. Socrates once said “No man willingly commits evil,” but perhaps it is truer to say no man commits evil so long as he knows that it will not end in evil. As a believing Christian, I have knowingly and willingly committed what I would call sin. I premeditated the act I was going to commit and weighed the consequences. One being that it could hurt my chances of entering a pleasant afterlife, the other being it could take away pain for myself and those close to me. I committed what could be called an evil act; I knew I was “missing the mark” and transgressing against God but yet I still committed the sin. However, if there was no chance of forgiveness then would I have still knowingly sinned? Obviously not; at