ABSTRACT
Sansom's remark on what he perceived to be a lack of a notion of sin in Japan reflects how sin was viewed in the West. Sin has traditionally been understood in the West in terms of acts, thoughts, or states, that infringe God's will for communion between Himself and mankind.llt refers to a condition where the intimate covenantal relationship between the Creator and man has been upset, or severed, as a result of man's deliberate, wrongful behaviour against God, or state of being in relation to Him, or as a result of wrongful behaviour against his fellow man, in disobedience of his expressed will, thus causing God's plan to fail and the world to become a different place from that envisaged by Him. The effect of sin is the estrangement or separation of man from God. Sin brings with it man's unhappiness and his tortured sense of guilt.
