Vices and virtues versus sin

When we speak of Sin we must insist on the truth that sin is not merely “something in man”, but that it is the very existence of man apart from God—that it means being opposed to God, living in the wrong, perverted relation to God. Sin ought not to be confused with vice; it is possible to be a virtuous or a vicious sinner. Sin belongs to a quite different category from that of vice and virtue. Vice and virtue belong to the empirical sphere, to that of the “qualities”. But sin, — like faith, lies beyond the empirical sphere, in the sphere of man’s relation to God. Indeed they are his relation to God; the one is negative and the other positive. The idea of inherited sin is therefore a most inadequate expression of this existence. Over and over again it leads to the mistaken view of Sin as something which can be described in naturalistic, deterministic terms, and therefore as something which cannot be avoided.—Emil Brunner, The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption, 106 (emphasis original)