S
setter
Guest
This is key.
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J
johnpaul2_fan
Guest
I think the key thing to look at is that God gave us free will. You have the choice to commit a grave sin, knowing that it’s wrong. God won’t force someone to go to heaven, and you’re saying no to God when you commit a grave sin and know it’s wrong.
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LilyM
Guest
We have our whole lives to ‘get our heads on straight’, so to speak - to work on our spiritual state such that we are relatively proof against unrepentant mortal sin and so we are ready at all times to meet God. And so does the person who sins mortally and doesn’t repent in the last moments of life!
And we’ve all had ample warning - read your Gospels! The many stories Christ tells such as the parable of the foolish bridesmaids (who don’t plan ahead and bring oil for their lamps and so aren’t ready when the bridegroom comes and locked out of the wedding feast). They’re ALL warnings to be constantly vigilant and on our guard about sin.
Finally - it sounds very much like you feel that the person has, by their good works, somehow ‘earned’ or ‘deserved’ heaven. Let’s be clear - not a one of us earns or deserves heaven in this way, not by any amount of good works.
It is God’s grace and Christ’s redemptive work that alone make heaven possible for us collectively. It is our individual acceptance of those gifts that make them possible for us as individuals. Unrepentant mortal sin is just that because it is a more or less complete rejection of those gifts.
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VociMike
Guest
I hate these kinds of questions. 
The problem is, they are always framed in a way to make the Church and/or God seem really rotten and cruel.
Here’s the thing. If one believes that one retains the free will to reject one’s salvation, then it must be possible to reject that salvation on the last day of one’s life. Agree or disagree?
Now, as to how probable it is, that is really the crux of the question. How probable is it that somebody who has loved God, who has received and accepted His graces for years, decades, how probable is it that this person is suddenly going to commit not just a sin, but a mortal sin, a full and complete severing of his relationship with God? And further, that God, who knows all things beforehand, would allow this man to die and go to hell, when if he had died any other time in the past 50 years he would have gone to heaven? About as likely as me becoming a prima ballerina, I’d say.
One could also ask whether a person who is a dietician and a health nut, who eats healthily and moderately his whole life, could suddenly go on a massive ice-cream binge and kill himself one day. Possible, yes. Probable?
The problem is, they are always framed in a way to make the Church and/or God seem really rotten and cruel.
Here’s the thing. If one believes that one retains the free will to reject one’s salvation, then it must be possible to reject that salvation on the last day of one’s life. Agree or disagree?
Now, as to how probable it is, that is really the crux of the question. How probable is it that somebody who has loved God, who has received and accepted His graces for years, decades, how probable is it that this person is suddenly going to commit not just a sin, but a mortal sin, a full and complete severing of his relationship with God? And further, that God, who knows all things beforehand, would allow this man to die and go to hell, when if he had died any other time in the past 50 years he would have gone to heaven? About as likely as me becoming a prima ballerina, I’d say.
One could also ask whether a person who is a dietician and a health nut, who eats healthily and moderately his whole life, could suddenly go on a massive ice-cream binge and kill himself one day. Possible, yes. Probable?
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Atemi
Guest
I was taught the very same when I was a Catholic.
Theoretically, a man can live a life filled to the brim with venial sin after venial sin, but if he did one mortal sin, then he is doomed to Hell forever unless he can confess to the priest.
I think the common claim in this thread telling Catholics that God will give them a chance to repent for any particular sin before death is actually dangerous. If Catholicism is true, that kind of thinking could actually be damnable from my perspective.
Thinking that anyone will have the time necessary to go through all the qualifications for a mortal sin is not a wise bet, IMO.
What is mortal sin to one priest or Catholic is very often different for another priest or Catholic. Figuring out if what you have done is a mortal sin when you do not even see that bus coming from the side is a longshot of hope, IMV.
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C
Coder
Guest
That isn’t what Fr. Serpa said. He made it clear that if the man repents before he dies then he can be forgiven.
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LJR
Guest
Ramalama,
I had the EXACT same response as you did when I read Fr. Serpa’s reply. I called my brother who was visiting his friend who is a very conservative priest. I’m glad you brought this up.
I had the EXACT same response as you did when I read Fr. Serpa’s reply. I called my brother who was visiting his friend who is a very conservative priest. I’m glad you brought this up.
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fullofzeal
Guest
The soul must be in a state of sanctifying grace to “enter” heaven. Mortal sin destroys sanctifying grace. Everything else is up to God, mitigating circumstances, etc. There is no repenting after death.:nope:
two types of grace, actual and sanctifying. Also we commit ourselves to hell, as we knew the rules up front.
peace
two types of grace, actual and sanctifying. Also we commit ourselves to hell, as we knew the rules up front.
peace
C
Church_Militant
Guest
…“In my view” which is all that is. And, as often is the case with the teachings of men, dead wrong.
The fact is that one is supposed to avoid all sin, but most especially those which are sins unto death… (The New Testament teaches about them…heck ask Ananias and Sapphira!)…
The concept of Mortal Sin is really simple and is not at all based on one man’s opinion.
- A grave matter.
- Known to be wrong.
- Full consent of will.
If one doesn’t value one’s soul enough that one would intentionally commit a mortal sin (and you cannot accidentally commit a mortal sin!) then that person has a very serious problem anyway.
To commit such a sin one has to literally decide that you do not care what God likes and what the consequences are and choose that path of action anyway.
The New Testament teaches there are degrees of sins (defined and venial and mortal) and those who reject that are simply ignoring what the Word of God says, no matter what they tell you otherwise.
Jesus sums it all up very clearly in Matthew 16:26 and Mark 8:36-37.
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
So true, CM.
This is what happens when people try to hold God to human standards. Because we have lost the true sense of sin, because we have been bombared with the “I’m OK–You’re OK” mentality of decades now, few of us really feel that we are even capable of the kind of ‘mortal’ sin that “other people” are often guilty of. We hear anecdotally that “Father so-and-so” says “it’s impossible to commit a mortal sin nowadays” and confession is downplayed to practically nonexistence.
When we think we’re already so good that we ‘deserve’ heaven for our ‘good’ lives, when we think that God ‘owes’ us for paying Him lipservice, when we can ignore humanity’s sufferings and the truly horrendous evil of abortions and genocides, and even bleat out such formulae as “I can’t really tell another person what is right or wrong–for them” or “there isn’t anything that I can do about it”, or when we go the opposite way and claim that either God is the author of ‘evil’, or that ‘the hierarchy’ has been ‘unfair’ to various groups and 'needs to change and share the power". . .we don’t even see ourselves as sinful! We don’t see relativism as a sin, we don’t see despair as a sin, we don’t see blasphemy as a sin, we don’t see disobedience as a sin. . .it’s pitiful.
This is what happens when people try to hold God to human standards. Because we have lost the true sense of sin, because we have been bombared with the “I’m OK–You’re OK” mentality of decades now, few of us really feel that we are even capable of the kind of ‘mortal’ sin that “other people” are often guilty of. We hear anecdotally that “Father so-and-so” says “it’s impossible to commit a mortal sin nowadays” and confession is downplayed to practically nonexistence.
When we think we’re already so good that we ‘deserve’ heaven for our ‘good’ lives, when we think that God ‘owes’ us for paying Him lipservice, when we can ignore humanity’s sufferings and the truly horrendous evil of abortions and genocides, and even bleat out such formulae as “I can’t really tell another person what is right or wrong–for them” or “there isn’t anything that I can do about it”, or when we go the opposite way and claim that either God is the author of ‘evil’, or that ‘the hierarchy’ has been ‘unfair’ to various groups and 'needs to change and share the power". . .we don’t even see ourselves as sinful! We don’t see relativism as a sin, we don’t see despair as a sin, we don’t see blasphemy as a sin, we don’t see disobedience as a sin. . .it’s pitiful.
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VociMike
Guest
The real issue here, just to be clear, is whether OSAS is true or false.
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VociMike
Guest
Another question worth asking is, exactly how many moments of sin do merit an eternity in hell? If not one, then two? Five? Ten? A hundred? A thousand? Put a number on it. It’s still a finite number of moments versus infinity in hell.
Or, what if that one moment of sin involves detonating a car bomb that kills 200 people? Is that “enough” sin to “cancel out” a lifetime of living in God’s grace?
BTW, I have serious doubts that the sin mentioned in the original post (lying to an old girlfriend about being married) is necessarily a mortal sin in the first place.
Or, what if that one moment of sin involves detonating a car bomb that kills 200 people? Is that “enough” sin to “cancel out” a lifetime of living in God’s grace?
BTW, I have serious doubts that the sin mentioned in the original post (lying to an old girlfriend about being married) is necessarily a mortal sin in the first place.
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Gray
Guest
How about his past acts of good deeds? Will that be taken into account in determining heaven OR hell? Since God is loving and forgiving… HE gives the final judgment
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LilyM
Guest
God is loving and forgiving, true, but He is also perfectly just. And if one is guilty of mortal sin then one both merits and will receive damnation. Just as in criminal law someone who is guilty of murder will at a minumum receive a jail sentence, regardless of whether their past record is squeaky clean or even brimfull of good deeds or not.
There may be such a thing as greater or lesser punishment within Hell though - Dante writes in his Divine Comedy of nine different levels of Hell. Perhaps that’s where past good deeds are taken into account.
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fix
Guest
One does not have to be thinking explicitly gee I want to reject God today to be guilty of mortal sin.
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Tantum_ergo
Guest
Absolutely, and I wish this quote could be blazoned out to humanity, because too many people think that this is the ‘only way’ to commit a mortal sin.
Placing one’s will above God’s, deliberately, fully cognizant that one is doing so, and knowing the gravity, places one in mortal sin, regardless of whether one says or thinks, “I am rejecting God”. Deciding for example to commit adultery, knowing that it is wrong, but feeling, “God will understand that I cannot help myself”, is a mortal sin, compounded on the mortal sin of presumption of God’s ‘mercy’, and the whole premise of “God will understand–or accept” puts our human perspective above that of Almighty God.
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fix
Guest
I know. We keep the law because we love God. How is it loving to break the law?
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fix
Guest
Mike, if you were to act that way and then your wife found out what reaction would she have?
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The_Catholic
Guest
When it comes down to it I believe this: everyone who desires to be with God will go to heaven. Anotherwords anyone who rejects the darkness of sin within his/her life and desires to be free from it, and clean having Christ’s blood washed over them, whether they’re alive or not, will go to heaven to be with God. Those who do not go to heaven will be those who do not really want to go to heaven.
It’s as if God is standing before us and telling us that He doesn’t want us doing this or that and He wants us to be clean. Those who truly desire or seek this will find this. Those who do not want to live by God’s law willingly will not, and they will never have a desire to niether.
Jesus did more than enough to prove who he was, but not everyone wanted to obey his teachings, or be transformed into what he was. They wanted their own lifestyle and therefore they have no desire for the truth of God in it’s fullest.
It’s hard in this life because we are sinners and we have a sinful nature as St. Paul soeaks about. We war against our own memebers, wanting to commit sin and wanting to be like Christ. But we must keep pushing forward living like Christ, and when we fall we must ask for forgiveness and keep going.
If one lived a holy life for God, but at the last five moments he/she, for some reason, turned his/her back on God because he/she no longer wanted to live that way, then they wouldn’t want to be with God in heaven anyway.
Those who truly seek the truth will find it. God bless.
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VociMike
Guest
That’s not the issue. The issue is whether a particular act is necessarily a mortal sin. I think some Catholics are far too free in pronouncing grave acts as mortal sins, even though they cannot possibly know if the other two components necessary for mortal sin were present in the act.
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