Belief in Human Sinfulness, Belief in Experiencing Divine Forgiveness, and Psychiatric Symptoms

Many mental health and religious professionals have long argued that belief in human sinfulness is associated with poor mental health. Others argue that the deleterious mental health effects of belief in sinfulness may be buffered by a concomitant belief in divine forgiveness, which may itself have positive mental health benefits. We test these ideas using data from a national survey of US adults (N = 1629). Our results indicate a positive association between belief in human sinfulness and all eight classes of psychiatric symptoms we examine, and a negative relationship between belief in being divinely forgiven and six of the classes of psychiatric symptoms. Moreover, there are significant interaction effects between believing humans to be sinful and belief in being forgiven for seven of the eight outcomes such that the net effects of believing in sin on mental health are attenuated for those who believe they have experienced God’s forgiveness in their lives. Among those who report feeling forgiven by God “many times,” belief in human sinfulness is only associated with four of the psychiatric outcomes, and these associations are modest in size. Our findings provide partial support for the idea that belief in sinfulness is bad for mental health, but also show that religious beliefs are best understood in relation to other beliefs. Believing in human sinfulness is not necessarily harmful if it is accompanied by belief in having experienced divine forgiveness. This study contributes to a growing body of research explicating the relationships among religious beliefs and mental health.