A
AaronsStaff
Guest
Is it possible for one to sin hypothetically?
For example, you are daydreaming about a particular moral quandary, and you wonder what you would do in a particular situation. And let’s say one option was a sin and the other wasn’t, if you thought to yourself what you would do in the situation, and you thought you’d probably end up doing the sinful action does that in and of itself make you guilty of the sin?
Sometimes I find myself in situations where I think to myself, what if X suddenly happened? what would I be obliged to do and/versus what would I actually do? And I feel incredibly overwhelmed, because sometimes our sentiments and predispositions push us to be inclined to take one course of action over another, and when you pose moral questions to yourself about what you would do in a given situation, sometimes it feels like you are inclined to make the immoral choice and even fear that that is what you would do if the situation arose in spite of the fact that you knew you didn’t want to do the immoral action and hoped for the strength to do the opposite. Are such hypothetical things sins?
Let’s use the old scenario of lying to Nazis to save Jews in hiding. Like let’s say someone posed this moral question to you, and everything inside of you feels inclined to lie, in spite of the fact that you know all lying is wrong, and had that hope that maybe you would be inspired by God to do something in that scenario that both is not a sin but protects the people you are trying to save, but if this doesn’t happen, is even thinking that you would probably lie if that situation arose a sin in and of itself? Or is it confined to the realm of the hypothetical?
For example, you are daydreaming about a particular moral quandary, and you wonder what you would do in a particular situation. And let’s say one option was a sin and the other wasn’t, if you thought to yourself what you would do in the situation, and you thought you’d probably end up doing the sinful action does that in and of itself make you guilty of the sin?
Sometimes I find myself in situations where I think to myself, what if X suddenly happened? what would I be obliged to do and/versus what would I actually do? And I feel incredibly overwhelmed, because sometimes our sentiments and predispositions push us to be inclined to take one course of action over another, and when you pose moral questions to yourself about what you would do in a given situation, sometimes it feels like you are inclined to make the immoral choice and even fear that that is what you would do if the situation arose in spite of the fact that you knew you didn’t want to do the immoral action and hoped for the strength to do the opposite. Are such hypothetical things sins?
Let’s use the old scenario of lying to Nazis to save Jews in hiding. Like let’s say someone posed this moral question to you, and everything inside of you feels inclined to lie, in spite of the fact that you know all lying is wrong, and had that hope that maybe you would be inspired by God to do something in that scenario that both is not a sin but protects the people you are trying to save, but if this doesn’t happen, is even thinking that you would probably lie if that situation arose a sin in and of itself? Or is it confined to the realm of the hypothetical?
