"The Punisher": Sin vs Failure in the Marvel Universe

"FAILURE"  is a word we often use as a substitute for "Sin".

Failure is of course a proper way to speak of sin. Sin itself is a failure to meet God's righteous standards. However, the 2nd season of "The Punisher" (Nexflix) illustrates why substituting "failure" in the place of "sin" is a recipe for despair . 

​ABOVE: Frank Castle, known throughout New York City as "the Punisher" after exacting revenge on those responsible for the death of his family. He is a man grappling with whether to fully embrace his new-found  vigilante vocation.

1. FAILURE versus SIN:

Frank Castle (the Punisher) is a "principled" vigilantle being hunted by two people just as morally compromised as he is.  

Frank Castle is first hunted by Billy Russo (a violent ex-military buddy). Billy's psychotherapist, Krista, describes the violent tendencies of both men as a facade that is at odds with their misunderstood inner-selves.  She believes she can save Billy Russo, because  his evil actions are not a true reflection of his authentic inner self: Russo's failures are a "failure" of authentic self-expression. 
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We are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell. And so you force yourself to do a job that is, incompatible with your feelings; Billy Russo chases power because he fears that he is worthless and unlovable. Frank Castle does terrible things, but he still wants to believe that he is good.  ​

​ABOVE: Krista, the psychotherapist of Russo.
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​Frank Castle is also pursued by ex-hitman John Pilgrim. Pilgrim had given up his hitman ways in pursuit of a life of religious devotion. However he is manipulated into performing "one last job" in order to put Castle in a coffin!  Unlike Krista,  Pilgrim knows he can not so neatly separate-out his brutal behaviour as if it were not part of his authentic self:
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You surround yourself with people that are as pathetic as you are; it is just a way to avoid staring at your own fail... your own sins in the face. But there comes a time, when you gotta smash the mirror, and look at, and decide who, what kind of man am I?  You gotta understand your own true nature. And you gotta understand... really understand what is it that you have to change. Who among us can look at ourselves without shame.​

ABOVE: Pilgrim, the reluctant hitman

Notice above, that Pilgrim is also tempted to speak of his evil in terms of "Failure". However he corrects himself mid-sentence.  It is not simply his "personal failure" that he can't stare at in the face, but his SIN.  The sense of shame that crushes Pilgrim comes not simply from a "failure" to meet his own internal expectations.  Pilgrim recognises that his shame originates in an offence against God.


2. FAILURE, SIN, and the hope of REDEMPTION:

Secular humanism assures us that the shame of our past "failures" can always be overcome, if only we can somehow recover our authentic selves.  In contrast we are told that the religious concept of "sin" is mercilessly oppressive, tyrannical, and judgemental.  We can perhaps overcome "personal failure" ourselves,  but "sin" is assumed to be a form of religious oppression we can never escape from under.

It is surprising then, when the character closest to finding redemption by the end of Season 2 is John Pilgrim: the only character willing to speak frankly in terms of "sin".  All the other characters seem more enslaved than ever to their ongoing "failures".

Unlike the "shame of sin", the shame of "personal failure" is a maze that offers no route of escape. Moral theologian Oliver O'Donovan offers penetrating insight into why...

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The following quote is from Oliver O'Donovan's "Finding and seeking",  p.21-23.

Shame is a bewildered attention to the self, astonished by the inner contradiction of failed agency. Where, it asks, is this boasted agency of mine? ...The position we assumed in the world, the plan of life we laid claim to, the very way we understood what we "meant" to them, are shown up as ineffectual. The agony of shame lies in the collapse of a self Ideal.

There is an infinite difference between shame and repentance... Shame prepares the way for repentance by setting us to the task of accounting for how and why we failed, but it cannot guide us in that task, cannot sift details, weigh considerations, frame a narrative, but only establish our existential position."

[Shame] chases us down the paths of self-questioning, but does not lead us through and out of their labyrinthine windings; it brings us round in a circle to where it first took up with us...

Yet if the Spirit is calling, shame may be the first moment of repentance... 

Only in believing can we seriously say of ourselves, "we have left undone those things which we ought to have done. And we have done those things that we ought not to have done. And there is no health in us."  Not a report of events, but a self-acknowledgement...

In that acknowledgement, drawn from us by the living presence of the God against whom we have sinned, there is a new discovery of the self.
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To speak only of "personal failure" turns us mercilessly in on ourselves, like a maze with no exit.  By contrast, in speaking also of "sin", we are prepared to turn outward towards the one who alone can forgive, with finality.
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