I speak truthfully when I say that I am a sinner. Yet in this confession, that I am a Sinner, what remains unsaid is nevertheless true, namely that I am not merely a sinner, but that I am guilty.
I.
The confession of sin is not merely a confession of something which has happened. Instead, it is the confession of what I have done - and done out of myself, not out of others. In saying "Mea Culpa", the words uttered tell not only the truth of it being "My Fault", but rather implies the causal reality of my Sin, namely that it is through and by me that it is done. And so, the fault ceases to merely be "fault", and acts thus simultaneously through the other meaning of that same word, namely Guilt.
II.
In being a Sinner and declaring myself as such, I hence also confirm not simply some wrong-doing or fault, some accident, but my Guilt, my Being-At-Fault for that Fault which happened. Sin cannot be, it seems to be, without the aspect of Guilt attached to it.
Speaking of Guilt, it becomes all too easy to confuse the Guilt with some attribute or affective state: That I feel Guilt, that I possess Guilt, for that I have sinned. But in truth, Guilt doesn't take present itself in this sense. The Guilt which attaches itself to Sin is not merely some private state of affairs by which I can choose to either feel remorse or not to feel it. The aspect of Guilt applies instead itself in the sense that I am Guilty of having Sinned at all - obviously, perhaps, and it does so in a very particular sense, namely that I am Guilty not only towards myself or others, but even Guilty as such.
Insofar as I am a sinner and that any person must indeed be one, I am therefore guilty. Yet much as Man must Sin, a necessity required for the normative reality of the world to come to fruition (even if many are not keen to admit it), so Man must not simply feel Guilt, but be Guilty. Speaking of our Guilt and its necessity, the language of attributive guilt thus becomes more dangerous yet. In spite of our Freedom of Being, Guilty-being attaches itself not just substantially, but in an existential sense. To be Guilty is an unavoidable part of Being as a human being.
III.
It is the existentiality of Guilt which requires us to speak of it differently. Guilt does not attach itself, it does not appear only to disappear once and reappear later. Rather, Guilt becomes a way of being, and one of those ways of being which is peculiar to Man. To speak of it in a grammatical sense, Guilty-being ceases to be a predicate and takes on instead an Adverbial structure. Much as I may run "quickly", Guilt applies itself to my very Existence, but in such a way that my Existence itself cannot even be conceived without the presence of Guilt. To Exist is to Exist Guiltily.
In living as a guilty person, I must thus relate in one way or another to my Guilt. This can be done in negligence, too. And indeed, negligence with regard to Guilt seems to be the primary way in which we deal with Guilt as moderns.
The truth is that insofar as I cannot avoid but be Guilty, my Guilty-Being itself cannot be forgiven by either myself or anyone else. Without drawing any religious conclusions, it thus appears clear why a society of atheism is keen to ignore the issue of Guilt and turn instead towards a sort of ethical relativism. To cover up Guilt is still a way of dealing with it, and the extensive nature of current culture of therapy and psychology seems only to affirm the necessity of guilt as such. Which of course only makes sense if we open our minds to the fact that guilt is not necessarily guilt towards some Other, but that our Guilt may very well direct itself towards ourselves.
It is no coincidence that Guilt etymologically has its roots in a concept relating also to Debt (with the word for Guilt and Debt being the same both in German and the Scandinavian languages). Much the same, the Lord's Prayer of the original Latin form speaks of Debita, the word from which the English "Debt" descends.
The notion of the Debt is in turn also that of an Owing, or more appropriately, a Duty. In being Guilty, there is something which I owe, and I have a duty to return that debt. Guilt, Owing, Duty and Debt are part of the core of our being as normative creatures, and cannot be separated from that very way of being - namely Existing Guiltily.
IV.
It now makes sense to properly speak of exactly that of which we are Guilty. Following that old Aristotelian notion that "If I am a man, I ought to do whatever a man ought to do" (which also so appropriately negates the Humean idea of a "naturalistic fallacy"), I have not just a duty towards others but also towards myself. It is in this sense that even he who we might in fantasy conjure up as being done no wrong towards others must still be themselves guilty lest they be perfect, for we each owe ourselves something. To respect the Dignity that comes with Humanity is not simply to respect the dignity of the Other, but also to respect the Dignity of Oneself. To do otherwise would be to stipulate that I, somehow, am a "Special Person", different in some substantial way from the rest of the world. Solipsism being false, however, this of course turns out to be wrong - and indeed, it turns out that my duty towards myself is exactly that same duty as I have towards others. To cook good food only when I have guests, eating TV-dinners the rest of the time, is not to treat myself with that same dignity with which I treat the Other. I owe myself to do better.
And so it must also be made clear how the notion of Debt differs substantially from that of a "Trespasser". In asking forgiveness for my trespassing, and in forgiving those who have trespassed me, I say something different from that of the Debt. Trespassing becomes a thing of the past, forgiveness a question of sins done. Yet this is not what we mean in being Guilty. In trespassing, I "did wrong", and this is the subject of forgiveness. In my debt, I recognise something different entirely, namely not only the wrongdoing itself as wrong, but also the normative status of the Other - I owe to the other, and I failed to live up to the duty that I had. I did not do to the Other what he deserved be done. The core of normativity is thus expressed much more clearly through the notion that we are indebted to one another than any idea of simple "trespassing", a notion only all too individualistic and private.
It is in the same vein that I ask to be forgiven for my sins, not for my Guilt itself to be forgiven. To be a sinner is related to but distinct from being Guilty. To be a sinner is to be someone who has sinned - which anyone Guilty has also done, but the Sin itself becomes an act of oneself, directing itself both into the past of sins done but also into the future as the future sins to inevitably done since I am a sinner. Guilt by contrast proves the all-encompassing network of normativity which grounds Sin in the first place. Only for that I exist guiltily am I capable of being a sinner in the meaningful sense of the term, namely as someone aware of their being a sinner who consequently also repents. While I may cease for a moment to Sin, my Guilt will never leave me.
V.
It is by the notion of a debt to oneself, of a guilt in being as I am and not as I ought to be, that the covering of Guilt by the culture of therapy and psychology comes to be seen.
For while it is true that there are some who "seek help" to deal with their own guilt towards other people (including but not limited to those with court-ordered therapy), most who seek "help" do so in looking to "treat" themselves of some malaise. All too often, especially in the more pop-psychological world, does this come to be expressed in the terms of an attempt at etiology, a genealogy of trauma and hurt.
He who "seeks professional help" does so out of the pure recognition of Guilt; that somehow, they are not as they ought to be, that something is wrong. They recognise their guilt, but seek to flee from it or cover it up by treating it etiologically, by letting it be "explained". The core premise of this culture of help-seeking being of course the illusion that Guilt can somehow be gotten rid of. That somehow, the fact that I am not living the life that I ought to live can be remedied by placing the blame elsewhere - blame here of course being the same as guilt. That somehow, I can return to a "pure" state of being so soon as my duties and guilt have been relinquished (or rather, transferred unto some Other).
But take the etiology far enough, and it becomes clear exactly what the point of the story of Adam and Eve is. In reality, we cannot make sense of any of this "intergenerational trauma" except by understanding that humanity is in itself and by nature guilty and sinful. For in trying to push my Guilt unto my father before me, why do I care to stop there, rather than remove it one step further, to his father instead? And so on and so forth. Guilt is existential and unavoidable, the idea of a pure life removed from sin a mere fantasy.
And is there not cause to think that, rather than all these maneuvers of avoidance, we perhaps ought to consider that "Call" inside of us which Guilt is? That perhaps, rather than trying to push my debts away from me, spending years upon years to do so, I might do better to simply pay them - even if I can never pay my debt in full?
VI.
The first step in genuinely "treating" Guilt is in recognising it and its inescapability. The fact remains that if Guilt is a necessary condition for my Being-at-all, the only "solution" to the problem is for it to cease to be a problem. To take my Guilt upon me, to carry it with me, to recognise that I am a sinner.
Here it is difficult not to respond with something that goes in the direction of "Faith". For indeed, faced with an ultimate and endless guilt, what does one do? One of the modes in which Guilt expresses itself most clearly is that of genuine Despair. It can feel like being a horde of elephants trampling. The chest pains, the nausea, the dread. Lacking true separation of body and mind, Guilt expresses itself not just as a normative way-of-being, but also expresses itself clearly in the Call recognised in that horrible sentence that "You must change your life". It expresses itself in the dread of knowing that what has been done cannot be undone but only forgiven, that the harm that was done was not simply harm but in itself wrong. It expresses itself manifestly in the whole body, as a Heideggerian "mood", a lens through which the rest of the world presents itself. And so the Guilt never truly disappears, but remains, so long as it is not covered up as "secondary" by our modern minds, as an ever-present duty to act rightfully towards the Other and Oneself. Aware of my guilt, I know that what I do, I do forever, and that so, in wrong-doing, I truly do not simply do something "that looks wrong", but I do something so wrong that the thought of that wrong-doing becomes itself oppressive. Genuine morality, as present in the recognition of sin and guilt, does not present you with any options. You must simply face your debt and pay it. A task, might I add, made all the easier if we do it together. For you and I are both guilty, and our debt much the same.