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

[ConstantineTG]

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

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.

The knowledge of the consequences do affect our decisions on the action. Do people not jump onto oncoming trains because its against the law? Or because its a sin? I think the primary reason is because they know that it will hurt and kill them. And knowledge that certain death or a lifetime of physical pain and suffering is enough to prevent a lot of people from doing it. If you compare it to sin and hell, how many of us do actually know well enough of hell to know the difference. One good example, pre-marital sex between two consenting adults. One reason people today accept it is because they think no one is hurt. You like it, the other person likes it, its done at the privacy of your wherever. But do these people really know the consequences? Even with leaving hell out of the question. What about the emotional effect on the people? What about STDs? Even if we hear it from others, you can only conclusively say one understands the seriousness of the matter when one reacts to it in a way that one wants to avoid it.

The caveat here really is the word “full” in what describes mortal sin. Because how full is full? And in most, if not all cases, you can argue its not full enough.

 

[ConstantineTG]

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.

You don’t have to look at one’s entire life. Just think of one act. This thread is not about judging people’s lives. Look at one act in your own life that you may have considered a mortal sin, and see if you did at that point really understand FULLY your actions including its consequences.

 

[Incomplete]

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?

My apologies. I just meant the part about no free will. If we are all going to heaven, we have no free will.

Understand that there are some who have no desire to be with God for eternity. But if we all go to heaven, they have no choice.

 

[Equites_Christi]

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.

Yeah…but, people have stood in front of moving trains, and played around with guns, and stuck their heads in ovens, while knowing what they were doing. Fully.

We know the consequences of our actions because we are clearly told so by the Church, and therefore it is possible for us to commit mortal sin. The “I have to see for myself” mentality reveals a great lack of trust, and the only way you could possibly see is once it’s too late anyways.

 

[Incomplete]

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.

You’re reading into the word “full” and applying it to a term that was never used. To quote you from earlier, this is what is needed for mortal sin:

-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.

I don’t see in that where it says full knowledge of consequences. It says full knowledge of the sin (to know that it is a sin) and of the gravity of the offense (that it is something that gravely offends God, like murder.) There is nothing said about consequences in that.

Full knowledge of the sin doesn’t mean full knowledge of consequence.

I would be very careful of trying to convince people that nobody goes to hell. Think of the consequences if you are wrong and if somebody is persuaded by you to live whatever kind of life they want.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Yeah…but, people have stood in front of moving trains, and played around with guns, and stuck their heads in ovens, while knowing what they were doing. Fully.

Are you sure? Like I said in that post, don’t we call them “crazy” for doing so. If one is crazy, then one’s mental faculties have been compromised and therefore, its not a full consent to do the act.

We know the consequences of our actions because we are clearly told so by the Church, and therefore it is possible for us to commit mortal sin. The “I have to see for myself” mentality reveals a great lack of trust, and the only way you could possibly see is once it’s too late anyways.

And my philosophical argument to this is, if we do know fully that is wrong, the we will not do it. The fact that we do points to the fact that there is still some lacking in our understanding. So because there is something lacking, its not “full”, therefore it cannot be a mortal sin but just a venial sin.

 

[ConstantineTG]

You’re reading into the word “full” and applying it to a term that was never used. To quote you from earlier, this is what is needed for mortal sin:

I don’t see in that where it says full knowledge of consequences. It says full knowledge of the sin (to know that it is a sin) and of the gravity of the offense (that it is something that gravely offends God, like murder.) There is nothing said about consequences in that.

Full knowledge of the sin doesn’t mean full knowledge of consequence.

I would be very careful of trying to convince people that nobody goes to hell. Think of the consequences if you are wrong and if somebody is persuaded by you to live whatever kind of life they want.

But if you do not know the consequence, then how is that FULL knowledge? If you just know its bad because you are told so, then that isn’t full knowledge is it? If you are to give consent into something then you should know everything about what you are consenting to. Like my analogy with the insects in my home. Had I known that little detail, I would have considered buying the home differently. Same with us, had we known how terrible hell is, we would have considered sinning in the first place.

 

[Equites_Christi]

And my philosophical argument to this is, if we do know fully that is wrong, the we will not do it.

Well, if anyone who does something wrong while fully realizing it is, to you, categorically insane, then no, it is not possible for us to commit mortal sin.

Basically you have constructed your views so that by definition one cannot sin mortally. And until you realize that this is possible (I sincerely hope that you aren’t waiting to have it proven to you personally) then you will stand apart from the Church.

 

[Incomplete]

But if you do not know the consequence, then how is that FULL knowledge? If you just know its bad because you are told so, then that isn’t full knowledge is it? If you are to give consent into something then you should know everything about what you are consenting to. Like my analogy with the insects in my home. Had I known that little detail, I would have considered buying the home differently. Same with us, had we known how terrible hell is, we would have considered sinning in the first place.

Full knowledge that it is a sin, and a grave sin at that. Nowhere does it say full knowledge of the consequences. It doesn’t say that to commit a mortal sin you have to have full knowledge. Period. It says what it says, full knowledge of sin and the gravity of the sin. You’re trying to make it say something it doesn’t.

You know that murder is a pretty bad thing. If you’re an atheist, you aren’t worried about hell if you murder someone. You’re only worried about being caught. If you’ve never been to jail when you commit the murder, you can’t know just how bad jail can be. But you still know that what you did is pretty bad, and if you get caught, you still suffer the consequences.

You are taking the word “Full” and making it mean to know every little piece of everything, things you couldn’t possibly know. But the point of mortal sin has nothing to do with consequences. The point of mortal sin is that you are turning your back completely on God, while knowing you are doing so.

Now, you do have a point about just being told something is bad. That doesn’t always mean you understand that it is, indeed, bad. But people do things knowing it’s a grave offense against God because they choose themselves.

The point of not sinning is because you love God and desire to do His will. And you trust that He knows what’s best for us. It’s not about “don’t sin because you might go to hell.” That’s why the Church doesn’t say you have to have full knowledge of the consequence, just full knowledge that you are doing something that is seriously morally wrong, something of grave matter, and you freely choose to do it.

 

[Ghosty]

I do think the problem here is that “full” is being taken to mean something that it can’t possibly mean given the context. Obviously the Church teaches that people do, in fact, commit mortal sin with some regularity, hence the Sacrament of Confession. Therefore “full” can’t mean “full comprehension of every consequence”.

With that in mind we can reasonably understand what “full” means in context. It can only mean that we know that something is a sin, and that it is a mortal sin. If we don’t know that something is a sin, or we don’t know that it’s a grave matter, we don’t have “full knowledge” and therefore can’t sin mortally. If we only have a hazy thought that something might be a sin, we don’t sin mortally, and if we’re hazy about the gravity then we can’t sin mortally. It must mean that we are fully aware that the action is a mortal sin, not that we have full knowledge of the consequences (which isn’t even mentioned in the guideline at any rate).

Full knowledge of the consequences, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that we have to know that we lose the indwelling of God, and we would have to have full knowledge of what the indwelling of God means, and that is utterly impossible for any creature to “fully know” since God is ultimately incomprehensible. Since we know that the Church teaches that we can commit mortal sin (no matter how common or rare) we can know for certain that this interpretation of “full knowledge” is incorrect. That should be enough to put to rest the pursuit of “full knowledge of consequences”.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Heuchler]

The knowledge of the consequences do affect our decisions on the action. Do people not jump onto oncoming trains because its against the law? Or because its a sin? I think the primary reason is because they know that it will hurt and kill them. And knowledge that certain death or a lifetime of physical pain and suffering is enough to prevent a lot of people from doing it. If you compare it to sin and hell, how many of us do actually know well enough of hell to know the difference. One good example, pre-marital sex between two consenting adults. One reason people today accept it is because they think no one is hurt. You like it, the other person likes it, its done at the privacy of your wherever. But do these people really know the consequences? Even with leaving hell out of the question. What about the emotional effect on the people? What about STDs? Even if we hear it from others, you can only conclusively say one understands the seriousness of the matter when one reacts to it in a way that one wants to avoid it.

The caveat here really is the word “full” in what describes mortal sin. Because how full is full? And in most, if not all cases, you can argue its not full enough.

Well if we use your example of pre-marital sex, because these kids don’t know they can get STDs by having sex, they shouldn’t get STDs, compared to you shouldn’t go to Hell for sinning because you didn’t know there was a Hell. You are also using the example of suicide which in my opinoion isn’t a good analogy for this. The example of suicide in this scenario implies that because a person doesn’t know that jumping into a train will kill him, he won’t die.

Christ Himself taught there was a Hell, and we know there are mortal sins because Demons exist which means they must have commited a mortal sin to get into Hell.

And i would once again like to refer you to the criteria for a mortal sin from 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.

I would like to concentrate on the second which says “full knowledge of both the sin and the gravity of the offense” All you have to do is know that what you are doing is a sin and that it is a very serious offense. There is nothing to indicate you have to know the gravity of the consequences.

 

[AlbertAhlf]

I would say that we are able to know what hell is like by reading testimonies of saints who had visions of hell or who visited hell. A book called “23 minutes in hell” does a good job at portraying the terrors of hell. Fear of hell is necessary because it brings us even closer to God and makes us realize even how much more we need God. Reading this testimonies can be God’s way of telling us and showing us, “Ok, here is hell, this is what it’s like and this is what it looks like”. I myself have become much stronger in faith and contientious about sin after reading these testimonies. The book “23 minutes in hell” actually got me back on track with my faith. And I praise God for that! God’s grace is great!

 

[ConstantineTG]

I do think the problem here is that “full” is being taken to mean something that it can’t possibly mean given the context. Obviously the Church teaches that people do, in fact, commit mortal sin with some regularity, hence the Sacrament of Confession. Therefore “full” can’t mean “full comprehension of every consequence”.

With that in mind we can reasonably understand what “full” means in context. It can only mean that we know that something is a sin, and that it is a mortal sin. If we don’t know that something is a sin, or we don’t know that it’s a grave matter, we don’t have “full knowledge” and therefore can’t sin mortally. If we only have a hazy thought that something might be a sin, we don’t sin mortally, and if we’re hazy about the gravity then we can’t sin mortally. It must mean that we are fully aware that the action is a mortal sin, not that we have full knowledge of the consequences (which isn’t even mentioned in the guideline at any rate).

Full knowledge of the consequences, taken to its logical conclusion, would mean that we have to know that we lose the indwelling of God, and we would have to have full knowledge of what the indwelling of God means, and that is utterly impossible for any creature to “fully know” since God is ultimately incomprehensible. Since we know that the Church teaches that we can commit mortal sin (no matter how common or rare) we can know for certain that this interpretation of “full knowledge” is incorrect. That should be enough to put to rest the pursuit of “full knowledge of consequences”.

Peace and God bless!

But in a philosophical sense, how can one claim that its full unless they know everything about the act? With the analogy with the gun, one is fully aware of the consequence of firing a gun at oneself or others. That is why a lot of people are scared of guns, even to touch them, much less wield them. Its because we know fully that guns can kill. Why do we not have the same attitude towards, say premarital sex? Is it because that we lack the full knowledge that it leads to spiritual death? Perhaps so. If we know how terrible the consequence of sin is, the same way we know the terrible consequence of a gun is, then we’d be reluctant to sin at all.

By the way, as a practicing Melkite, you do know that Byzantine Catholics acknowledge that there are involuntary sins, right?

 

[ConstantineTG]

Well if we use your example of pre-marital sex, because these kids don’t know they can get STDs by having sex, they shouldn’t get STDs, compared to you shouldn’t go to Hell for sinning because you didn’t know there was a Hell. You are also using the example of suicide which in my opinoion isn’t a good analogy for this. The example of suicide in this scenario implies that because a person doesn’t know that jumping into a train will kill him, he won’t die.

Christ Himself taught there was a Hell, and we know there are mortal sins because Demons exist which means they must have commited a mortal sin to get into Hell.

And i would once again like to refer you to the criteria for a mortal sin from your opening post. I would like to concentrate on the second which says “full knowledge of both the sin and the gravity of the offense” All you have to do is know that what you are doing is a sin and that it is a very serious offense. There is nothing to indicate you have to know the gravity of the consequences.

I’m not denying there is a hell. And from my current understanding of theology is that yes, you can end up in hell. I’m just challenging the Western thought here that contends that one has to commit mortal sin to go to hell. And how mortal sin is defined, then it seems nearly impossible, in fact it has to be a completely deliberate act for one to go to hell.

You are right about your analogy on STD though and I agree. But from how mortal sin is defined, one cannot get it unless one is aware that the sin is mortal. So its sort of like Wile E Coyote, that he doesn’t fall down until he realizes he’s not standing on solid ground anymore. Because it says that you must be aware its a serious matter and willfully commit it despite of that knowledge. For example, abortion. How many do actually know how terrible it is? Many get their information from the secular media which promotes it as if it were a choice, not a terrible crime against humanity. So in this case its not a mortal sin because they were led to believe its okay to do so. Right?

 

[Incomplete]

But in a philosophical sense, how can one claim that its full unless they know everything about the act?

The people who wrote that statement didn’t say it was full knowledge of the consequences. They said what they intended, which is full knowledge of the sin and the gravity of the sin. In other words, you need to know that you are sinning and that it’s a grave sin. That’s all they said.

If you shoot someone you have full knowledge that it’s a crime, and a serious crime at that. It’s the same thing.

An important thing in understanding what you read is to know the intent of the writer. Don’t forget that the Church teaches that hell exists and that mortal sin exists; they would not have written this statement to negate that teaching. That is one way you can be certain what the intent is. It all works together in context.

 

[Ghosty]

But in a philosophical sense, how can one claim that its full unless they know everything about the act? With the analogy with the gun, one is fully aware of the consequence of firing a gun at oneself or others. That is why a lot of people are scared of guns, even to touch them, much less wield them. Its because we know fully that guns can kill. Why do we not have the same attitude towards, say premarital sex? Is it because that we lack the full knowledge that it leads to spiritual death? Perhaps so. If we know how terrible the consequence of sin is, the same way we know the terrible consequence of a gun is, then we’d be reluctant to sin at all.

By the way, as a practicing Melkite, you do know that Byzantine Catholics acknowledge that there are involuntary sins, right?

There is no general “philosophical sense” for the word “full”, unlike for the words “substance” and “person”, and even those terms depend on the specific philosophical approach being used. There is only contextual meaning, and in this case the context is pretty clear; had consequences been intended they would have been mentioned, and besides “full knowledge of consequences” is a contradiction in terms in this case as I stated above. I really do think you are reading too much into the word “full”.

As for involuntary sin, my understanding is that it simply refers to actions that fall short of our Divine calling, but which aren’t willful acts of disobedience against God. For example, not paying attention as we’re walking down the street, and thus ignoring a beggar who could use our help, would be an involuntary sin because it falls short of our true calling as Saints (we should always be aware of the needs of others and assist them), but it is not a sin in the sense that Western theology typically uses the word (in the West this would simply be categorized under the umbrella of concupiscence). In Byzantine theology, everything that falls short of Saintly behavior is a “sin” in a certain sense, but this approach is not at all helpful for the scrupulous.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Heuchler]

I’m not denying there is a hell. And from my current understanding of theology is that yes, you can end up in hell. I’m just challenging the Western thought here that contends that one has to commit mortal sin to go to hell. And how mortal sin is defined, then it seems nearly impossible, in fact it has to be a completely deliberate act for one to go to hell.

You are right about your analogy on STD though and I agree. But from how mortal sin is defined, one cannot get it unless one is aware that the sin is mortal. So its sort of like Wile E Coyote, that he doesn’t fall down until he realizes he’s not standing on solid ground anymore. Because it says that you must be aware its a serious matter and willfully commit it despite of that knowledge. For example, abortion. How many do actually know how terrible it is? Many get their information from the secular media which promotes it as if it were a choice, not a terrible crime against humanity. So in this case its not a mortal sin because they were led to believe its okay to do so. Right?

You are right that there are many cases where people don’t understand that they are really sinning and I think in cases like that God will know and judge accordingly. In many cases such as abortion I do think the people are indoctrinated into that mindset and while God may not condemn them for their choices, I do think there is at least purgatory waiting for their actions. But I don’t like thinking about who’s condemned or not and what sins are mortal, I’d just rather be happy and live a life of love

 

[ConstantineTG]

There is no general “philosophical sense” for the word “full”, unlike for the words “substance” and “person”, and even those terms depend on the specific philosophical approach being used. There is only contextual meaning, and in this case the context is pretty clear; had consequences been intended they would have been mentioned, and besides “full knowledge of consequences” is a contradiction in terms in this case as I stated above. I really do think you are reading too much into the word “full”.

As for involuntary sin, my understanding is that it simply refers to actions that fall short of our Divine calling, but which aren’t willful acts of disobedience against God. For example, not paying attention as we’re walking down the street, and thus ignoring a beggar who could use our help, would be an involuntary sin because it falls short of our true calling as Saints (we should always be aware of the needs of others and assist them), but it is not a sin in the sense that Western theology typically uses the word (in the West this would simply be categorized under the umbrella of concupiscence). In Byzantine theology, everything that falls short of Saintly behavior is a “sin” in a certain sense, but this approach is not at all helpful for the scrupulous.

Peace and God bless!

Am I reading too much on it? The Western Church teaches it. So I guess we need to settle that question first So what does it mean by full knowledge? Is it enough that someone told you that something is wrong and grave? What if you do not understand what you are being told? Isn’t that still lack of knowledge?

 

[ConstantineTG]

You are right that there are many cases where people don’t understand that they are really sinning and I think in cases like that God will know and judge accordingly. In many cases such as abortion I do think the people are indoctrinated into that mindset and while God may not condemn them for their choices, I do think there is at least purgatory waiting for their actions. But I don’t like thinking about who’s condemned or not and what sins are mortal, I’d just rather be happy and live a life of love

Thats right. I mean, many people are so concerned about if their sins cross the “mortal” threshold. If you sin, confess. If its not mortal, so what. Its not like its bad to confess non-mortal sins.

 

[Heuchler]

Thats right. I mean, many people are so concerned about if their sins cross the “mortal” threshold. If you sin, confess. If its not mortal, so what. Its not like its bad to confess non-mortal sins.

Exactly. I think we worry too much about sins, because of the Church’s teachings on mortal sin. But, Christ emphasized more on Love. Christ once said a parable about how the people who went to Heaven were those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked etc. and that those who went to Hell were those who were selfish and did not. Christ tells us to pick up our cross and to follow him. He doesn’t want us to worry so much about our sins. Christ longs for us to live a life of love instead of worrying about mortal sins.