A
Abrosz
Guest
And after that age, whatever she does, she will become a sinner.
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M
Montrose
Guest
Theoretically a person could go their entire life without committing any kind of sin, albeit highly improbable so instead of saying “will” I would say “will likely”.
A
Abrosz
Guest
That is a huge difference. But the slogan is “Everybody is a sinner” and sometimes added: “even the saints”, not “it is possible that everyone commits a sin”
M
Montrose
Guest
Who cares about a slogan?
F
fhansen
Guest
Think of it this way: in a truly innocent, perfect world, there would be no hint, even, of the slightest feigned smile or the smallest white lie. People could be naked, as God made them, and not even know it; the word “naked” might not exist, having no need or purpose, along with the word “shame”. The concept of murder would be totally foreign, anomalous, incomparably repulsive.I have seen this sentiment many many times: “We are ALL sinners”. How can that be? Even a freshly conceived zygote is a “sinner”? Oh, well, maybe it is “tainted” by the original sin. But then the birth comes, and with it the act of baptism , which washes away the stain of the original sin… But, one split of a second later, the newborn becomes a “sinner” again? How? Without acting at all, and being of the age “ below the age of reason ”? What kind of “sin” has the newborn committed? Maybe not a mortal sin, but a venial sin? Is the first breath already a “sinful” act, which is not washed away by baptism?
Something does not compute here.Maybe a qualified member of the clergy can explain?
All people would naturally possess self-control over their various appetites. Order would reign and the basis of that order would be man’s willing communion with and subjugation to God. Everyone would know God, directly, intimately. But that’s not how we’re born in this world. Instead, we’re born dead, so to speak, cut off from any immediate knowledge of God and this disordered separation is the essence of the state known as Original Sin. It’s a “disadvantaged” (properly understood) state of being which inevitably expresses itself in sin by all humans as we’re able.
Baptism places us back in the position where Adam began in terms of his justice or righteousness. But we’re no more forced to remain there than he was in Eden; it’s a kind of neutral state until we opt to begin moving nearer to God yet, rather than away from Him which was Adam’s choice. We can fall again even if we had undergone a profound conversion and received Baptism as an adult. It’s a matter of the human will, aided by grace while informed by wisdom gained.
We’re here to gain wisdom, the wisdom that Adam lacked, the wisdom that comes the hard way by living like prodigals in a foreign land, exiled from our home and Father, living in a pigsty here, relatively speaking, where, along with the good inherent in creation we literally know or experience evil daily in one way or another, either by witnessing and perhaps participating in some manner of harming our neighbor or by being the victim of such actions or by just living in a body that experiences pain and illness and corruption from time to time-or continuously depending on your age or fate; ultimately death is always looming and tugging us downward.
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F
fhansen
Guest
continued:
We live in a world where man’s will reigns for all practical purposes, for better or worse, where freedom to do what we want or think is right at the time is pretty much restrained only by our wills or the wills of others along with physical limitations. Here we can see how well we like an effectively godless world, where the Master’s gone away. We can develop a hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice and truth here, we can become jaded by the world’s offerings, and its falsehoods and hypocrisies. We can begin to see our need for something Higher, for God IOW, so that, when we meet Him in some way or another we will recognize and embrace our true Father, the source of all goodness; we will want to come home.
Meanwhile we can experiment here, ourselves, with the family tradition of preferring ourselves to God as the catechism teaches that Adam did, this preference constituting the essence of pride, a difficult vice to shed ourselves of and one which is the root of our distance from God and the ugliness that humans commit against each other.
Man was made for communion with God. And until man is fully bound to God, until we fully love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, we’re pretty much bound to sin in some way or another. And even then this state of binding will likely not be fully complete until the next life, when our knowledge of God will be completed and consummated with the Beatific Vision. From the catechism:
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
And the Church teaches the following, via the Council of Trent session 6. Note that venial sins are to be expected in this life:
Canon 23.
If anyone says that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or on the contrary, that he can during his whole life avoid all sins, even those that are venial, except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema.
We live in a world where man’s will reigns for all practical purposes, for better or worse, where freedom to do what we want or think is right at the time is pretty much restrained only by our wills or the wills of others along with physical limitations. Here we can see how well we like an effectively godless world, where the Master’s gone away. We can develop a hunger and thirst for righteousness and justice and truth here, we can become jaded by the world’s offerings, and its falsehoods and hypocrisies. We can begin to see our need for something Higher, for God IOW, so that, when we meet Him in some way or another we will recognize and embrace our true Father, the source of all goodness; we will want to come home.
Meanwhile we can experiment here, ourselves, with the family tradition of preferring ourselves to God as the catechism teaches that Adam did, this preference constituting the essence of pride, a difficult vice to shed ourselves of and one which is the root of our distance from God and the ugliness that humans commit against each other.
Man was made for communion with God. And until man is fully bound to God, until we fully love Him with our whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, we’re pretty much bound to sin in some way or another. And even then this state of binding will likely not be fully complete until the next life, when our knowledge of God will be completed and consummated with the Beatific Vision. From the catechism:
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.
1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
And the Church teaches the following, via the Council of Trent session 6. Note that venial sins are to be expected in this life:
Canon 23.
If anyone says that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace, and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or on the contrary, that he can during his whole life avoid all sins, even those that are venial, except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema.
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P
pohandes
Guest
Nobody about answer me?
F
fhansen
Guest
We can all do better, so we’re exhorted to shun evil and strive for the good. But God never created man to sin, so it’s possible to avoid sin theoretically at least. But man’s most basic problem is his distancing from God, who, alone, can make man right, who, alone can ‘place His law in our minds and write it on our hearts’ (Jer 31:33). “Apart from Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). The council of Trent weighs in on this on a related matter:
Canon 18.
If anyone says that the commandments of God are, even for one that is justified and constituted in grace, impossible to observe, let him be anathema.
P
pohandes
Guest
Thank you very much, You. Really helped me.
So, is this true to say: Every one can observe the commandments of God, but in fact no body did it?
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M
Montrose
Guest
No we cannot say that.
P
pohandes
Guest
I mean except Lord Jesus and his holy mother.
M
Montrose
Guest
Still no because in theory anybody could go through their life without committing any kind of sin (no matter how unlikely).Montrose:
I mean except Lord Jesus and his holy mother.
F
fhansen
Guest
We can do it to the extent that we’re in communion with God, remaining in Him and He in us. That’s the basis of being “justified and constituted in grace” as quoted in my post above. Man’s lack of this basic justice (communion with God) is the reason he cannot totally refrain from sin. In this life we can overcome sin but probably not fully unless by a special gift of grace, partly because:
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then [in heaven] we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Cor 13:12
Our relationship with God, the true object of all human desire, is not fully consummated in this life. Man’s perfection is achieved to the extent that it is consummated. It’s a process, a process begun here on earth. Quoting from the catechism again:
1732 As long as freedom has not bound itself definitively to its ultimate good which is God, there is the possibility of choosing between good and evil , and thus of growing in perfection or of failing and sinning. This freedom characterizes properly human acts. It is the basis of praise or blame, merit or reproach.
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U
Usagi
Guest
Not “whatever she does.” She will become a sinner by sinning. That’s an action that she does, and could in each individual case have avoided.
The likelihood of a human unaided by God (and even for most of us with God’s aid available but left up to us to utilize) going through an entire lifetime without committing even one venial sin is essentially zero. Not because God makes us sin. Not because people who don’t get a typical lifetime (from zygotes to very young children) are sinners.
Have you sinned at least once? I know I have. Even the greatest of saints don’t consider themselves exceptions (well, presumably Our Lady would have, but I have not yet had the privilege of meeting her). It’s not necessary to bring up babies when for every human adult the truth of “all have sinned” is simply obvious.
K
kapp19
Guest
This needs some qualification - over “in theory” and “could”…
P
pohandes
Guest
Is this true to say “we sin in any way” or not?
F
fhansen
Guest
I didn’t quite understand the question here.
P
pohandes
Guest
Is this sentence right or wrong: “we sin in any way”?
F
fhansen
Guest
I just don’t understand it, the way the sentence is structured. What does it mean to say? Maybe this will help, from the Council of Trent:
Canon 23.
If anyone says that a man once justified can sin no more, nor lose grace,[124] and that therefore he that falls and sins was never truly justified; or on the contrary, that he can during his whole life avoid all sins, even those that are venial, except by a special privilege from God, as the Church holds in regard to the Blessed Virgin, let him be anathema.
The Church teaches that, while in the body, in this life, it’s virtually impossible to refrain from all sin unless for a special gift of grace granted for that purpose. God didn’t create man to be a sinner and yet, due to an imperfect connection or communion with Him in this life, we will struggle.
"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." 1 Cor 13:12
That full knowledge of God is the Beatific Vision.
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P
pohandes
Guest
I found some evidences that point to “All people are sinners.”
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. (1 John 1:8)
Because we are dead or at least wounded through sin, the first effect of the gift of love is the forgiveness of our sins. (ccc:734)
To reunite all his children, scattered and led astray by sin, the Father willed to call the whole of humanity together into his Son’s Church. The Church is the place where humanity must rediscover its unity and salvation. The Church is “the world reconciled.” She is that bark which “in the full sail of the Lord’s cross, by the breath of the Holy Spirit, navigates safely in this world.” According to another image dear to the Church Fathers, she is prefigured by Noah’s ark, which alone saves from the flood. (CCC: 845)
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