Full Knowledge and the Mortal Sin of Heresy

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From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear that it’s a mortal sin to disagree with church teaching. But in order to commit a mortal sin, you need to be fully aware that what you’re doing is sinful. If you doubt a church teaching, isn’t it because you generally believe that your own belief is the truth, and therefore from God? And of course if you’re convinced that something is true, you’re also convinced that God wants you to believe it. So I have trouble understanding how someone can be a heretic and be fully aware that they’re sinning. Can someone explain this to me?

(Sorry if this is in the wrong section.)
 
Hanna_C said:
From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear that it’s a mortal sin to disagree with church teaching. But in order to commit a mortal sin, you need to be fully aware that what you’re doing is sinful. If you doubt a church teaching, isn’t it because you generally believe that your own belief is the truth, and therefore from God? And of course if you’re convinced that something is true, you’re also convinced that God wants you to believe it. So I have trouble understanding how someone can be a heretic and be fully aware that they’re sinning. Can someone explain this to me?

(Sorry if this is in the wrong section.)
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Here’s the CCC on heresy:
2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."11
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and doubt:
2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:
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Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.
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Simply having doubts is not heresy. It’s what you do with those doubts. If you doubt a Church doctrine or dogma and do not apply due diligence in learning why the Church teaches what she does, you may be not fully aware but you may be guilty of deliberately cultivating doubt.

If you learn about a Chuch teaching and reject it, that’s heresy. Because you must do the learning first, it is nearly impossible that you wouldn’t have full knowledge.

BTW, in order to commit a mortal sin, you must have full knowledge that the act is sinful. That doesn’t mean you must agree it is sinful. Knowing that the Church teaches it as sinful is full knowledge.

And of course, heresy is only involved if the teaching that is being rejected is one that Cahtolics are required to believe and assent to. Rejecting a disciplinary teaching and acting upon that is sinful but not heresy. It’s disobedience.
 
Thanks for your comments; that helps a lot. But does it make a difference if you don’t realize that it’s a mortal sin?
 
Hanna_C said:
Thanks for your comments; that helps a lot. But does it make a difference if you don’t realize that it’s a mortal sin?
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It might matter in terms of your culpability (ie whether you are excommunicated for heresy). But since heresy, by definition, involves those teachings that Catholics are required to believe, it would be grave matter. The only way to be ignorant of the gravity would be to be ignorant of the teaching. You couldn’t reject the teaching (commit heresy) if you didn’t know it.
 
I’ll just come out and explain my situation; I’ve spent most of my life in flat-out denial of one of the Church’s teachings. I struggled a lot with the idea of either accepting or rejecting it; but when it came down to it, I honestly believed that my opinion was the truth, and the Church teaching was not. And only today did I realize that that might actually be a serious problem. The next scheduled reconciliation at my church is Monday, and I want to know if I need to make special arrangements to confess this before I can receive communion tomorrow night.
 
Hanna_C said:
I’ll just come out and explain my situation; I’ve spent most of my life in flat-out denial of one of the Church’s teachings. I struggled a lot with the idea of either accepting or rejecting it; but when it came down to it, I honestly believed that my opinion was the truth, and the Church teaching was not. And only today did I realize that that might actually be a serious problem. The next scheduled reconciliation at my church is Monday, and I want to know if I need to make special arrangements to confess this before I can receive communion tomorrow night.
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Yes, you must go to confession prior to receiving the Blessed Sacrament. Remember that one must confess every mortal sin in the same confession and cannot simply get one or two off their conscience and then go back later to take care of the rest. I would recommend a thorough examination of conscience prior to entering the confessional. There are many aids available for this if you do a google search. Also, the sacrament of Penance and absolution is only valid if one has a truly contrite heart and a firm resolve not to persist in one’s sin(s).

Take solace in knowing that The Catholic Church was founded by Christ Himself and teaches and contains within it the fullness of Truth. 🙂

I will keep you in my prayers.
 
Thank you. I appreciate your prayers. But can you clarify one more thing for me?
I always thought that motive made a difference in assessing whether a sin was mortal. I understood a mortal sin to be one made out of rejection of God, contempt for God, and selfishness, i.e., “I know that stealing is wrong, but I’m going to steal this woman’s life savings anyway because I want to buy a yacht.”
Heresy, on the other hand, isn’t committed out of selfishness or rejection of God. If you’re saying, “I believe that this is God’s truth and I’m going to stand by it, even though the Pope says otherwise,” then yes, it’s a sin, but the motive is certainly better; you could even say the motive is noble, if the person truly believes it.
But the church teaches that motive doesn’t make a difference? I’m struggling to understand.
 
Hanna_C said:
From what I’ve read, it seems pretty clear that it’s a mortal sin to disagree with church teaching. But in order to commit a mortal sin, you need to be fully aware that what you’re doing is sinful. If you doubt a church teaching, isn’t it because you generally believe that your own belief is the truth, and therefore from God? And of course if you’re convinced that something is true, you’re also convinced that God wants you to believe it. So I have trouble understanding how someone can be a heretic and be fully aware that they’re sinning. Can someone explain this to me?

(Sorry if this is in the wrong section.)
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God gave the Church authority in matters of faith and morals and said he would be bound by whatever the Church taught and bound. If you know that then you know the Church cannot teach in error in matters of faith and morals and that if you or I or any Catholic has a different view on a teaching then it is we who are wrong. God did not give us the teaching authority.
 
Hanna_C said:
Thank you. I appreciate your prayers. But can you clarify one more thing for me?
I always thought that motive made a difference in assessing whether a sin was mortal. I understood a mortal sin to be one made out of rejection of God, contempt for God, and selfishness, i.e., “I know that stealing is wrong, but I’m going to steal this woman’s life savings anyway because I want to buy a yacht.”
Heresy, on the other hand, isn’t committed out of selfishness or rejection of God. If you’re saying, “I believe that this is God’s truth and I’m going to stand by it, even though the Pope says otherwise,” then yes, it’s a sin, but the motive is certainly better; you could even say the motive is noble, if the person truly believes it.
But the church teaches that motive doesn’t make a difference? I’m struggling to understand.
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Intention and motives ** sometimes **comes into the consideration but rarely. Good intentions never justify bad actions. However, circumstances can reduce culpability. Stealing is the classic theological example used frequently. If you steal food to feed your starving chirdren, it is still wrong but your personal culpabilty is lessened.

If the act is morally neutral, intention is often what makes the difference. An example of this might be buying a new car. That’s morally neutral but if you buy a new car in order to pridefully show off your good fortune, that *could be *sinful.
If you’re saying, “I believe that this is God’s truth and I’m going to stand by it, even though the Pope says otherwise,” then yes, it’s a sin, but the motive is certainly better; you could even say the motive is noble, if the person truly believes it.
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Or it could actually be worse. If you are stubbornly (obstinate is the word the Catechism uses) clinging to your own belief rather than submitting to the teaching of the Church, you *could be *compounding your sin with pride or malice. If you act on that belief, you *could be *compounding your sin with disobedience. I do not mean “you” personally, of course.

There *are *visionaries in the Church and they have, over the centuries, been responsible for the development of doctrine for the good of the Church. However, it is hard to accept that one person’s interpretation, contrary to the teachings that have been developed and reiterated over 2000 years by theologians and scholars from around the world, is more correct.
 
Well, I’m far the only person to have had this opinion, but I get what you’re saying. The idea that the Church can’t be wrong is just something I really struggle with, because I’ve always been taught to think for myself. I do realize that no human being is right about everything, and if everybody stood by their own opinion, we’d have a pluralistic mess. That’s why, when I’m uncertain about something (which is very often the case), I try to keep in line with the Church. Nine times out of ten, the Church’s conclusions make perfect sense to me, so that’s not a problem. But if I read all of the Church’s arguments and still can’t find anything very convincing, then I have a lot of trouble accepting it. I feel like I have to surrender my own experience and my own reason, and I’ve never felt comfortable doing that.
 
Hanna_C said:
Well, I’m far the only person to have had this opinion, but I get what you’re saying. The idea that the Church can’t be wrong is just something I really struggle with, because I’ve always been taught to think for myself. I do realize that no human being is right about everything, and if everybody stood by their own opinion, we’d have a pluralistic mess. That’s why, when I’m uncertain about something (which is very often the case), I try to keep in line with the Church. Nine times out of ten, the Church’s conclusions make perfect sense to me, so that’s not a problem. But if I read all of the Church’s arguments and still can’t find anything very convincing, then I have a lot of trouble accepting it. I feel like I have to surrender my own experience and my own reason, and I’ve never felt comfortable doing that.
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Accepting the teachings of the Church that are hard for us really boils down to having humility. When I became Catholic, I still had doubts about the Church’s teachings on contraception and homosexual “marriage.” However, I came home to the Church after honestly concluding that many of their other doctrines were correct and reasonable; like you said, nine times out of ten things made perfect sense. I reasoned that, being a recent convert and former atheist, my own opinions and conclusions might not hold as much weight as doctrine that has been taught and upheld over 2000 years, doctrine that has been gone over by countless clergy and saints who spent more time in prayer and scripture study in one day than I probably did in a year. I still doubted, but I committed myself to further study and prayer.

As a result, I’ve come to see how the Church’s position on contraception makes sense. I’m still shaky on same-sex “marriage.” I don’t think that it’s a valid marriage, but I’m hesitant to say that it should be illegal given that we have a secular government. However, I have decided in humility to defer to the Church, hold my doubt and continue reading, and meanwhile act and support the Church’s position as if I believed in it 100%.

I recently read something by Origen where he stated that sometimes there were intellectually or otherwise very difficult passages in Scripture, and that they were put there on purpose to make us realize that we cannot fully understand everything that is from God. If I’ve decided that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, founded the Catholic Church, and that the Church is the guardian of His teachings on earth, then I will humbly submit my own intellect and reason in the few areas where I still doubt an disagree.
 
Hanna_C said:
Well, I’m far the only person to have had this opinion, but I get what you’re saying. The idea that the Church can’t be wrong is just something I really struggle with, because I’ve always been taught to think for myself. I do realize that no human being is right about everything, and if everybody stood by their own opinion, we’d have a pluralistic mess. That’s why, when I’m uncertain about something (which is very often the case), I try to keep in line with the Church. Nine times out of ten, the Church’s conclusions make perfect sense to me, so that’s not a problem. But if I read all of the Church’s arguments and still can’t find anything very convincing, then I have a lot of trouble accepting it. I feel like I have to surrender my own experience and my own reason, and I’ve never felt comfortable doing that.
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Also, read in today’s Gospel:

[BIBLEDRB]John 6:60-69[/BIBLEDRB]

If we believe that Christ has the words of eternal life, and believe He is the Holy One of God, then it is the sin of Heresy to put ourselves and our own reason above that of God. We can turn back and no longer walk with Him, or we can answer Him like Peter did.
 
I think it has less to do with doubting the reason of God, and more to do with doubting that the reason of the Church is the reason of God. I’ve never believed that God is wrong and I am right, but only that the Church is wrong and God agrees with me.
 
Hanna_C said:
I’ve never believed that God is wrong and I am right, but only that the Church is wrong and God agrees with me.
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That’s what Martin Luther thought too. And John Calvin. And so on and so forth, creating the “pluralistic mess” we have today. Actually, you kind of defined the sin of heresy in a nutshell. As others have quoted, the catechism says: “Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same” (CCC 2089). So, to go back to your original question, your intention in this case does not reduce your culpability. In fact, your intention - believing that God sides with you and not the Church - is the very essence of the sin. And if you act on your belief (I don’t know if you can do that because you haven’t specified what you disagree with), the fact that your conscience says it’s right does not reduce your culpability either. Hitler and his SS officers were probably 100% convinced that what they were doing was the right thing, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t evil.

So yes, you must go to confession if you want to receive the Eucharist. And be sure to be honest with your confessor. For a confession to be valid, you must truly be sorry and not desire to continue committing the sin. This might call for an involved discussion. It’s pretty cut and dry what it means when the sin is an action, but when the sin is an obstinate doubt, what does it mean to firmly resolve to sin no more? And are you really sorry about it? Again, things you should discuss with your confessor and probably will have to discuss more than once.
 
A good idea maybe to ask a priest about what you are doubting to get a better understanding of what the Church teaches. Your welcome to send me a private message, maybe I can help.

From the Catechism -

Faith

2087 Our moral life has its source in faith in God who reveals his love to us. St. Paul speaks of the "obedience of faith"9 as our first obligation. He shows that “ignorance of God” is the principle and explanation of all moral deviations.10 Our duty toward God is to believe in him and to bear witness to him.

2088 The first commandment requires us to nourish and protect our faith with prudence and vigilance, and to reject everything that is opposed to it. There are various ways of sinning against faith:

Voluntary doubt about the faith disregards or refuses to hold as true what God has revealed and the Church proposes for belief. Involuntary doubt refers to hesitation in believing, difficulty in overcoming objections connected with the faith, or also anxiety aroused by its obscurity. If deliberately cultivated doubt can lead to spiritual blindness.

2089 Incredulity is the neglect of revealed truth or the willful refusal to assent to it. "Heresy is the obstinate post-baptismal denial of some truth which must be believed with divine and catholic faith, or it is likewise an obstinate doubt concerning the same; apostasy is the total repudiation of the Christian faith; schism is the refusal of submission to the Roman Pontiff or of communion with the members of the Church subject to him."11
 
To commit a mortal sin, do you have to be aware that it’s a mortal sin? What if you know that it’s a sin, but, since you’re not really clear on whether the Church considers it a grave matter, you think it’s venial?
 
Hanna_C said:
To commit a mortal sin, do you have to be aware that it’s a mortal sin? What if you know that it’s a sin, but, since you’re not really clear on whether the Church considers it a grave matter, you think it’s venial?
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If you know its a sin (no matter the type) then why would you commit it anyway??
The simple answer is to talk to your priest.
 
thistle said:
If you know its a sin (no matter the type) then why would you commit it anyway?.
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Everybody would like to say they’ve never done something they know is a sin, but that’s not true of anybody. We’ve all sinned.
 
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