Kierkegaard tells us that the Socratic tradition understood sin as ignorance. The problem that Kierkegaard finds with such a notion is its partial definition, which “leaves unclear how ignorance is to be more precisely understood, the question of its origin, etc. ” (p. 120). In Socrates’ view, if someone sins, such sinful action happens because one does it involuntarily and out of ignorance. Sinful actions are not rooted elsewhere but in knowledge itself. In this respect, Socrates’s definition of sin has a serious issue: “If sin is ignorance, then sin does not really exist for sin is precisely consciousness” (p. …
