Are we all going to heaven? (Mortal sin is impossible to commit)

[ConstantineTG]

According to Western theology, we are destined for hell if our soul has the stain of mortal sin. Now, a mortal sin is a mortal sin only if:

-Its subject must be a grave (or serious) matter.
-It must be committed with full knowledge, both of the sin and of the gravity of the offense.
-It must be committed with deliberate and complete consent, enough for it to have been a personal decision to commit the sin.

Now the last two conditions are a bit tricky. If one fully knows the gravity of the offense, would one still commit the offence? For example, everyone knows that standing in front of a moving train will kill you. And unless you really want to kill yourself, you will not get in front of a moving train for fear of death. You will not play around with a gun, you will not stick your head inside an oven pre-heated to 400-degrees, all because you are fully aware of the gravity of the act.

So if you commit something, such as divorce, contraception, etc, then it must be because you do not fully understand the gravity of it. And truthfully many do not. Saying “the Church says so” of course is not enough of an example. Its like our parents telling us not to do something because they know its wrong from their experience, but to us who never experienced it, we do not know and still do what we are told not to.

If we truly know and believe that our souls will die, much like death in front of a train, or a gun, we surely will act with the same caution we do when we’re near the tracks and we know a train is about to pass by. Or when we see a gun.

What do you guys think?

 

[coolduude]

Yes, one would still commit the offense. People still kill themselves, don’t they?

Besides, the fact that we can’t see or feel anything when we commit a mortal sin only adds to the ease in which we commit them. When no consequences manifest themselves it makes it easier to keep doing something.

Some people do fully understand the consequences. Devout Catholics certainly do; saints did, no doubt.

If you understand the basic three principals of mortal sin, and still sin mortally, you are 100% culpable (in my understanding).

 

[Incomplete]

So if you commit something, such as divorce, contraception, etc, then it must be because you do not fully understand the gravity of it. And truthfully many do not.

Totally agreed with the part that many do not understand the gravity of these things. But I don’t agree that the only reason one does these things is because they don’t understand the gravity. There are some who would choose themselves over God.

And there is evil in the world. There are truly evil people, people who deliberately turn away from God. And God won’t force them to be with Him in heaven.

 

[NewsTheMan]

I think the difference lies in what we mean by understanding the “gravity” of the sin. We can either understand it in terms of it’s consequences (i.e. if I do this, very bad things happen) or in terms of the intrinsic badness of the action (i.e. “that it is bad” even if we don’t know why or what it’s consequences are). We could know both.

For example - contraception. We may not understand the consequences (temporal or eternal) or why it’s an offence against life… but we can still know “that it is bad”. Knowing “that it is bad” is good enough; though of course a complete understanding requires knowing why it is bad, the consequences of the sin (I don’t mean the consequences in terms of ones judgement, I mean to understand the reason why it is bad in a consequential sense) and that kind of thing.

The above doesn’t get us all the way there but it’s a start. I think the other responses are good enough. Indeed, we do commit sin despite knowing that it is death to our souls. That is why it is sinful in the first place.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Yes, one would still commit the offense. People still kill themselves, don’t they?

Besides, the fact that we can’t see or feel anything when we commit a mortal sin only adds to the ease in which we commit them. When no consequences manifest themselves it makes it easier to keep doing something.

Some people do fully understand the consequences. Devout Catholics certainly do; saints did, no doubt.

If you understand the basic three principals of mortal sin, and still sin mortally, you are 100% culpable (in my understanding).

By this reasoning, I am not sure that devout Catholics do. Because we still sin. I agree about saints, especially martyrs. They do not fear the physical death because they fully understand that their faith will bring them to life everlasting. The rest of us, I’m not so sure.

Totally agreed with the part that many do not understand the gravity of these things. But I don’t agree that the only reason one does these things is because they don’t understand the gravity. There are some who would choose themselves over God.

And there is evil in the world. There are truly evil people, people who deliberately turn away from God. And God won’t force them to be with Him in heaven.

Thats the thing, if one understands the gravity of things, they wouldn’t do it. When one jumps onto the traintracks onto an oncoming train, we say they are crazy. Then aren’t we all a little bit crazy because we sin even though sin leads to spiritual death?

I think the difference lies in what we mean by understanding the “gravity” of the sin. We can either understand it in terms of it’s consequences (i.e. if I do this, very bad things happen) or in terms of the intrinsic badness of the action (i.e. “that it is bad” even if we don’t know why or what it’s consequences are). We could know both.

For example - contraception. We may not understand the consequences (temporal or eternal) or why it’s an offence against life… but we can still know “that it is bad”. Knowing “that it is bad” is good enough; though of course a complete understanding requires knowing why it is bad, the consequences of the sin (I don’t mean the consequences in terms of ones judgement, I mean to understand the reason why it is bad in a consequential sense) and that kind of thing.

The above doesn’t get us all the way there but it’s a start. I think the other responses are good enough. Indeed, we do commit sin despite knowing that it is death to our souls. That is why it is sinful in the first place.

But how much knowledge of what’s bad is enough before we know that its really bad? That is my point. For it to be mortal sin we must have full knowledge of the gravity, as I stated in my OP. So for us to continue sinning, we must lack the full knowledge of the gravity because if we fully know and understand what hell is going to be like, I doubt any of us will sin.

 

[coolduude]

Thats the thing, if one understands the gravity of things, they wouldn’t do it. When one jumps onto the traintracks onto an oncoming train, we say they are crazy. Then aren’t we all a little bit crazy because we sin even though sin leads to spiritual death?

Simply, yes we are.

As Incomplete said, there are people who choose themselves over God. It happens to everyone every time we sin: we put our will above God’s. Why is it like that? Because that’s how we are as humans. We weren’t created that way, but we turned out that way because of the Fall. We have tendency to sin. The theological word is concupiscence. We are tempted and often times we give in, even to mortal sins. It’s not because we lack full understanding (though no doubt a lot of people do), it’s because it’s easier for us to sin than to be holy.



My two cents.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Simply, yes we are.

As Incomplete said, there are people who choose themselves over God. It happens to everyone every time we sin: we put our will above God’s. Why is it like that? Because that’s how we are as humans. We weren’t created that way, but we turned out that way because of the Fall. We have tendency to sin. The theological word is concupiscence. We are tempted and often times we give in, even to mortal sins. It’s not because we lack full understanding (though no doubt a lot of people do), it’s because it’s easier for us to sin than to be holy.



My two cents.

But those who choose themselves over God, do they fully comprehend what they are choosing? Its easy to choose self because its easy to know and understand one’s self. Its easy to say God is great, but how many people have full appreciation of the greatness of God for them not choosing God to become mortal sin because “they do not have FULL knowledge”?

 

[Heuchler]

Constantine, I think the only true sin that sends a person to Hell is when they sin because they don’t care what God thinks. When a person chooses to literally go against God just to defy him. I think the people who say even if God did exist I wouldn’t worship him are the ones who are in fact in trouble. However, God may expect us to not only choose him but to also act on that if we are to go to Heaven. So, us believers who do nothing but go to mass on sunday and refrain from sinning may also be in trouble. But I think a definite way to (probably) go to Hell is realizing that God says not to steal and for you to say in response “so”. It is when we outright deny God that we begin to truly condemn ourselves.

 

[slywakka250]

Rejoice!

heaven is man’s destiny, I truly believe, each and every ounce of being, to heaven will fly.

I don’t play this mortal sin game, it’s very disheartening and full of unnecessary guilt. I believe all evil is just a temporary phase on the way to goodness, so not to worry, all is well…

 

[ConstantineTG]

Constantine, I think the only true sin that sends a person to Hell is when they sin because they don’t care what God thinks. When a person chooses to literally go against God just to defy him. I think the people who say even if God did exist I wouldn’t worship him are the ones who are in fact in trouble. However, God may expect us to not only choose him but to also act on that if we are to go to Heaven. So, us believers who do nothing but go to mass on sunday and refrain from sinning may also be in trouble. But I think a definite way to (probably) go to Hell is realizing that God says not to steal and for you to say in response “so”. It is when we outright deny God that we begin to truly condemn ourselves.

But this goes back to my question (I hope you take into consideration we are in the Philosophy thread, so what I am doing is dissecting the Western understanding of mortal sin). When we make a choice, it is not clear enough that we make a choice based on full knowledge. For example, this home I bought 2 years ago was great. It has a view, it was brand new, and its beside a park. But little did I know back then that because of the proximity to the park, I get a lot of insects and spiders creeping into my home at this time of year as they escape the cold. So I never knew that and had I, I would have considered it in buying the home.

The same about people and their relationship with God. How many people can actually comprehend the loss of God in a way that they know what it exactly entails? And if you know how painful hell is, would you really choose anything else over God? Like a full grown adult with a stable mental state knows a gun can kill. He would never point a gun at himself because he doesn’t want to die or at the very least, get seriously injured. Its because he fully knows the consequences. Children on the other hand, do not. That is why we keep guns away from them. So aren’t we all like children when it comes to sin, whatever we choose its because we know one only better than the other, and thus there is no full knowledge of the matter and its consequences?

 

[Heuchler]

Well Constantine, I agree completely with you. Most of the time we don’t know the full story and we don’t think through why we sin. We don’t really realize what we are doing. It reminds me of Christ on the cross saying “forgive them Father, they know not what they do”

I think in response to what you are saying, that it doesn’t matter if we know the consequences such as how bad Hell is or how great is Heaven. What matters is if we know that we are sinning, that it is against what God says, and if we do this with the purpose to simply defy God.

To come back to your house analogy, it is not your fault if you didn’t know about the bugs. However, if you were to buy the house after you were told about the bugs, you would be in the wrong. It might be understandable because you didn’t think the bugs were that bad so it wouldn’t be a terrible thing. Yet, if you bought the house just to prove to people that you can live with bugs and you wanted to spite the people who say you shouldn’t live there, then you knew what you were doing and are completely responsible for your act of rebellion. You deserve to deal with the bugs in that situation because you specifically chose the bugs. I think true mortal sins are like third type. They are ones that come from actual hatred and from an evil nature of rebellion. I think God judges us more based on our nature and if we are like him and his will. If we choose to defy him specifically to defy him instead of out of our normal stupidity and selfishness in sinning. So, if we can agree that there are those who hate God and wish to defy him, or that there are people of true evil like Hitler we can agree that there is mortal sin.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Well Constantine, I agree completely with you. Most of the time we don’t know the full story and we don’t think through why we sin. We don’t really realize what we are doing. It reminds me of Christ on the cross saying “forgive them Father, they know not what they do”

I think in response to what you are saying, that it doesn’t matter if we know the consequences such as how bad Hell is or how great is Heaven. What matters is if we know that we are sinning, that it is against what God says, and if we do this with the purpose to simply defy God.

I agree that it is a sin. But the Church says only Mortal Sin leads to spiritual death, and it seems to me that its almost impossible to commit mortal sin because logic says that a person with full knowledge of such dire consequences such as hell, will never choose it freely. Atheists won’t jump in front of a moving train as much as Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Because all know fully well the consequences. Atheists cannot comprehend God, therefore how does that qualify as FULL knowledge?

So in the end, we all sin all the time, just not mortal sins because we clearly lack the full knowledge to make a clear and obvious choice.

I mean, this is just how I see the logic of what makes a sin mortal or not.

 

[Incomplete]

Rejoice!

heaven is man’s destiny, I truly believe, each and every ounce of being, to heaven will fly.

I don’t play this mortal sin game, it’s very disheartening and full of unnecessary guilt. I believe all evil is just a temporary phase on the way to goodness, so not to worry, all is well…

We’re all forced into heaven, then? There is no free will?

 

[Incomplete]

I agree that it is a sin. But the Church says only Mortal Sin leads to spiritual death, and it seems to me that its almost impossible to commit mortal sin because logic says that a person with full knowledge of such dire consequences such as hell, will never choose it freely. Atheists won’t jump in front of a moving train as much as Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Because all know fully well the consequences. Atheists cannot comprehend God, therefore how does that qualify as FULL knowledge?

So in the end, we all sin all the time, just not mortal sins because we clearly lack the full knowledge to make a clear and obvious choice.

I mean, this is just how I see the logic of what makes a sin mortal or not.

So you would agree with Sly that we all go to heaven? That there is no free will?

And you don’t believe that evil exists?

 

[Heuchler]

I agree that it is a sin. But the Church says only Mortal Sin leads to spiritual death, and it seems to me that its almost impossible to commit mortal sin because logic says that a person with full knowledge of such dire consequences such as hell, will never choose it freely. Atheists won’t jump in front of a moving train as much as Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Because all know fully well the consequences. Atheists cannot comprehend God, therefore how does that qualify as FULL knowledge?

So in the end, we all sin all the time, just not mortal sins because we clearly lack the full knowledge to make a clear and obvious choice.

I mean, this is just how I see the logic of what makes a sin mortal or not.

Well I think you explained mortal sin well in your opening post

-Its subject must be a grave (or serious) matter.
-It must be committed with full knowledge, both of the sin and of the gravity of the offense.
-It must be committed with deliberate and complete consent, enough for it to have been a personal decision to commit the sin.

And I see in there that all you have to do is something serious, let’s use murder as an example. You also have to have knowledge that murder is wrong and that it is something extremely bad. Then all you have to do is deliberately do this. In other words pre-meditated murder is a mortal sin. I think the difference in what you are saying and what I am saying is that you are taking into account knowledge of Heaven and Hell as needed for it to truly be a mortal sin. But how does knowing about the consequences affect the evil of the action? Just because I don’t know there is a punishment doesn’t change the fact that I deliberately sinned and defied God. Consequences shouldn’t have any say on how evil a matter is. But I do understand where you are coming from and I think(and hope) that the majority of people will end up in Heaven after a little bit in purgatory.

 

[Newbie2]

I would posit that we fully know, intellectually speaking, the punishments that is hell. However, sin blinds us to considering the reality of the misery that one will experience in hell.

However, perhaps this imperfect analogy might explain:

College student knows darn well that drinking to excess will make one wish one was not among the living, in terms of experiencing a severe hangover. However, it still seems to worthwhile to many college students to drink to excess.

Why?

Because it’s “worth it”. Or “it seemed to be the thing to do at the time”.

One important factor is that hell is “far away” in terms of time and space. We are willing to play now and pay later, only because we’ve not experienced anything even remotely resembling the suffering in hell.

We know about it, we intellectually assent to it, we understand it well enough to be culpable for choosing to do something that may just well put us there. While we cannot fully experience it here on Earth, we understand it well enough.

 

[Incomplete]

I agree that it is a sin. But the Church says only Mortal Sin leads to spiritual death, and it seems to me that its almost impossible to commit mortal sin because logic says that a person with full knowledge of such dire consequences such as hell, will never choose it freely. Atheists won’t jump in front of a moving train as much as Christians, Buddhists and Hindus. Because all know fully well the consequences. Atheists cannot comprehend God, therefore how does that qualify as FULL knowledge?

So in the end, we all sin all the time, just not mortal sins because we clearly lack the full knowledge to make a clear and obvious choice.

I mean, this is just how I see the logic of what makes a sin mortal or not.

You are implying there is no hell. Is this your belief?

And as others have said, you don’t have to have full knowledge of the “dire consequences” to commit a mortal sin. You need to know it is a grave offense and willingly do it. “Full knowledge” of the sin and it’s gravity doesn’t mean or imply full knowledge of the consequences. It’s full knowledge that you are committing a grave sin. In other words, you have to understand that it is of serious matter, like the poster who mentioned killing somebody.

 

[ConstantineTG]

So you would agree with Sly that we all go to heaven? That there is no free will?

And you don’t believe that evil exists?

His post was off topic. I never said that we do not sin, we do sin. I just said that by the standards of what mortal sin is, and with what the Church teaches about mortal sin, its impossible for us to commit mortal sin. And therefore we are all going to heaven because as the Church teaches, we can get to heaven with venial sins, right?

 

[ConstantineTG]

You are implying there is no hell. Is this your belief?

And as others have said, you don’t have to have full knowledge of the “dire consequences” to commit a mortal sin. You need to know it is a grave offense and willingly do it. “Full knowledge” of the sin and it’s gravity doesn’t mean or imply full knowledge of the consequences. It’s full knowledge that you are committing a grave sin. In other words, you have to understand that it is of serious matter, like the poster who mentioned killing somebody.

But the Church teaches that you do. For a sin to be mortal, you need full consent and full knowledge of the act. Full implies that you know everything about the act including its consequences are. We know what we are taught about hell, but how many of us do actually understand what hell is? We see children do what they are told not to do until they suffer the consequences, or see it in others. Because we haven’t seen hell nor have spoken to anyone who is in hell, one can argue that our comprehension of hell is incomplete. Therefore we sin because there is that lack of full understanding of the consequences.

One example is the tradition of Adam and Eve. It is said they did not sin their entire lives except for the original sin. And a big reason is they were able to tell the difference between paradise and the fallen world. To us who were not born into the fallen world, we sin more because we don’t know what we have lost.

 

[slywakka250]

His post was off topic. I never said that we do not sin, we do sin. I just said that by the standards of what mortal sin is, and with what the Church teaches about mortal sin, its impossible for us to commit mortal sin. And therefore we are all going to heaven because as the Church teaches, we can get to heaven with venial sins, right?

It would be helpful in this question to have the full story of a soul’s life, and then where that soul ends up, heaven or hell. We would need to intimately know all the person’s actions and intentions, and desires, and see what precisely it is that moves a person from heaven to hell. We get to find out ourselves when we die presumably, but we need to know now. But we don’t. because the Church doesn’t specify what actions in reality put an actual person in hell. Since we don’t know this, we are left in the dark, hence this thread, and much confusion over this awful topic.