Hypotheticality

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Atreyu

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First of all, I apologise if I have invented a new word in the title of this thread. Secondly, if you feel this thread would be more at home in the Moral Theology forum, I also apologise. I thought about which forum it should go in to, and Apologetics seemed to be the most appropriate.

Moving on… I’m going to describe two situations, and ask three questions. First of all, the situations:

  • *]The first situation is a situation where we are forced to make a decision between following God’s will (choice A) and directly disobeying God’s will (choice B), via a mortal sin.
    *]The second situation is as follows. Let’s assume that I am married. My wife is pregnant, and suffers a life-threatening injury. For the purpose of this discussion, we can assume that if we do not terminate the baby (choice C), then both my wife and the baby will surely die. However, if we do terminate the baby (choice D), then my wife will surely live. Note that in both choices, the baby dies.

    And now for the questions:

    1. *]Is situation b a particular instance of situation a, with choice C=A and choice D=B? I am assuming it is (as the ends never justify the means), but I would like confirmation!
      *]This question is the meat and potatoes of this thread (hence the name of the thread). Is it a good thing to think about hypothetical situations like this? In other words, should we consider just how much we love God, such that no matter how sorely we were tested we would always choose Him? Or should we wait for such a situation to occur, before we make the choice? In all likelihood, even if we endeavour to always choose God, if such a situation were to occur then our choice is by no means a foregone conclusion. However, when considering the hard choices that others face, is it a good thing to say to oneself “I would choose God in that situation”?
      *]If the answer to question 2 is yes, (it is a good thing to consider such situations) then how does one avoid pride? I hope you understand where pride would enter into what I have described.

      Thanks in advance for your answers!
 
I don’t do Math.

But seriously. Yes, it’s good to think of these situations. No harm is doing so.

But I think you complicate your question. It involves knowing whether abortion to save the mother’s life is allowed or disallowed in catholic teaching and then whether we would follow it or not. From what I gather; I think the thrust of your question is wanting to know we would choose the right path (i.e. God) all the time, correct?

Because we are catholics, we will know with more certainty what God would want (in scenarios where there is clear church teaching - like this case) - it then is up to us to decide whether we want to follow that teaching or not.

Would a more simple analogy be Abraham’s command to kill his own son? If you were as sure as Abe that God was telling you to kill your own son, would you?
 
I have personally known people or have read about people in the situation you described. Both time they chose God’s will - they didn’t abort. Thank God because what the doctor’s recommended ended up being the opposite. Praise God that people still believe in miracles. As for me, I would choose the baby’s life and my husband knows that.
 
What would we do if we found ourselves thinking we would choose our spouse over God?
 
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