Can luck make a sin not a sin?

[Yorkshireman]

Something I’ve wondered about an aspect of sterilization: What is the church position if a woman opts to be sterilized because she wants a life without children but it’s discovered on the operating table that she could never have had children anyway? Is what the woman did still a grave sin?

 

[puzzleannie]

well that scenario is hardly what I would call luck
if she intended to sin and carried out the sin yes she sinned
suppose she intended to rob a bank, got the bag with the money but found it was full of paper instead of money, did she sin? yes

 

[Yorkshireman]

But if the woman’s inherited genetic position turns out to be that she can’t have children anyway then a sterilization operation wouldn’t have changed anything.

 

[puzzleannie]

But if the woman’s inherited genetic position turns out to be that she can’t have children anyway then a sterilization operation wouldn’t have changed anything.

the result of the action isn’t the only thing that makes a sin, intent and carrying out the deed, and grave matter are also required. if the matter was discovered and the surgery did not happen, then she still committed a sin in planning to do it, which should be confessed. Think of the thousands of women who use artifiical birth control for years, only to find out when they are “ready” by their own selfish standards to have children, that they are in fact infertile or unable to conceive. They still sinned all the while they tried to unnaturally thwart conception.

 

[Yorkshireman]

The thing is if a woman can’t have children I don’t believe God had anything to do with. I don’t believe in a god that thinks, “That girl shall not have a uterus when she grows up.” It’s just biology. Sometimes one’s inherited genetic make up isn’t conducive for bringing offspring into the world.

Many animals, if we studied it, would be shown not to be able to have offspring. That doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it. Many fish eggs lying on a river bed don’t become fish. I don’t believe God makes sure that a particular fish egg gets eaten by a fully grown fish and so never grows up. It just happens that way.

If God isn’t involved in the fact that a woman doesn’t have a uterus then he isn’t interested, in the fullest sense, whether she has children.

 

[JRKH]

The thing is if a woman can’t have children I don’t believe God had anything to do with. I don’t believe in a god that thinks, “That girl shall not have a uterus when she grows up.” It’s just biology. Sometimes one’s inherited genetic make up isn’t conducive for bringing offspring into the world.

Many animals, if we studied it, would be shown not to be able to have offspring. That doesn’t mean God had anything to do with it. Many fish eggs lying on a river bed don’t become fish. I don’t believe God makes sure that a particular fish egg gets eaten by a fully grown fish and so never grows up. It just happens that way.

If God isn’t involved in the fact that a woman doesn’t have a uterus then he isn’t interested, in the fullest sense, whether she has children.

In this you are expanding the discussion beyond what you are asking about. Whatever the reason for the woman’s sterility, or God’s active part in it, it has nothing to do with whether her intent and actions were sinful. In the case you described in your OP the intent and the actions are clearly sinful.

Now if a woman has concerns about whether she would be a good mother etc, then finds out she is sterile, and is OK with that, then no sin is committed since she had not done anything to artificially prevent having children. It was simply the “Will of God”.

Luck plays no part in whether something is sinful or not.

Peace
James

 

[Joe_Kelley]

27* "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ 28 But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.

Matthew 5:27-28 The sin is in the intent; not in the action.