How do we know anything at all?

[fakename]

In the light of our sinfulness I’m having trouble figuring out how we know thing anything.

Now it seems that will and intellect are connected. Now since people do sin, shouldn’t that mean they have a bad will at least sometimes? And so if they have a bad will, doesn’t that mean that their intellect is corrupted? And if the intellect is corrupted how is that they retain even a modicum of intelligence after a sin?

Also, everyone sins, so how is it that everyone knows something?

 

[Texas_Roofer]

Sin, will, and intellect are related, to commit sin the will must support the the sin and the intellect must know of the sin and fail to prevent the sin. Yet this is typically a temporary condition. A person can be good 95% of the time but weak to a certain type of sin. So a good will and intellect are standard but all human will and intellect contain some degree of corruption. This is generally referred to as a fallen nature of man or original sin

 

[fakename]

If you sin then you have a bad will correct?

Then since will=intellect in substance, then it follows that you’d have a bad intellect. But a bad intellect lacks knowledge. So then since everyone sins, then why do some people have knowledge?

 

[ThinkingSapien]

Then since will=intellect in substance, then it follows that you’d have a bad intellect. But a bad intellect lacks knowledge. So then since everyone sins, then why do some people have knowledge?

This looks a little bit like confusion from conflation to me. I’ve got no doubts that “will”, “knowledge” and “intellect” are interrelate. But interrelation is not the same as equality (will ≠ intellect). These three attributes are also not the only things that influence human behaviour. Determining why some one displays a certain behavior (sinful or not) may require information on other influences such as past experiences, knowing the motivations, their inhibitions, and so on.

 

[tonyrey]

We can sin because we have **free **will. We can choose to be reasonable or unreasonable, i.e. rational or irrational. Nothing causes us to act in a particular way or to make a particular decision unless we are failing to exercise our power of choice.

All sin is the result of ignorance because if we could understand everything like God we would know it is not in our interest to sin. But it is culpable ignorance if we aware that what we are doing is wrong.

The intellect is not necessarily corrupted in every respect because the worst criminals are very clever and use their knowledge to commit the most heinous crimes. We are more likely to sin because we inherit the moral blindness and weakness of our ancestors. We often find vice more attractive than virtue and disobedience more enjoyable than following the precepts of the Gospel. Worst of all, our love is introverted and turned inwards rather towards others. We become selfish, callous and hard-hearted unlike the good Samaritan who went out of his way to help others. Our knowledge of what suits us increases rather than diminishes! It is not the intellect that is weakened but our ability to resist temptation - which is why we need God’s grace to deliver us from evil…