I have been TOLD... so what?

[Trurl]

How come that so many people confuse the two propositions: “You know that X” and “You know ‘the teaching’ that X”? Let “X” be “extra-marital sex is sinful”, for example, or “non-procreative sex is sinful”, or something similar. People assert that we (others) KNOW that “X is sinful”… because WE HAVE BEEN TOLD. Is it really possible that they TRULY cannot comprehend the difference?

This problem is serious, after all one of the three requirements for something to be “mortally sinful” is that the person who commits the act must be “aware” (sometimes expressed as “fully aware”) that the act is a grave matter. No, I am not “aware” that such actions are a “grave matter”, however, I AM aware that SOME people consider them a grave matter. But this is only the opinion of those people, nothing more. And the opinion of those people is not accepted as valid, they have no credibility. After all how can one take those people seriously who cannot understand the difference between “You know that X” and “You know the teaching that X”?

 

[Tietjen]

How come that so many people confuse the two propositions: “You know that X” and “You know ‘the teaching’ that X”? Let “X” be “extra-marital sex is sinful”, for example, or “non-procreative sex is sinful”, or something similar. People assert that we (others) KNOW that “X is sinful”… because WE HAVE BEEN TOLD. Is it really possible that they TRULY cannot comprehend the difference?

This problem is serious, after all one of the three requirements for something to be “mortally sinful” is that the person who commits the act must be “aware” (sometimes expressed as “fully aware”) that the act is a grave matter. No, I am not “aware” that such actions are a “grave matter”, however, I AM aware that SOME people consider them a grave matter. But this is only the opinion of those people, nothing more. And the opinion of those people is not accepted as valid, they have no credibility. After all how can one take those people seriously who cannot understand the difference between “You know that X” and “You know the teaching that X”?

Actually the three conditions are grave matter, full knowledge and deliberate consent (you only named two). Your defense appears to be linked to the second condition, the sinner must have full knowledge of the sinful character of the act; in other words, he must be acting with an informed intellect and must know this act violates God’s eternal law. If you are trying to claim that you do not pocess an informed intellect, then judgement (as always) rests between you and God; because only he and you know the truth of the matter. However, for most Catholics, who know and trust that the Church is the pillar of truth, the question involves an obedience to what God has given us in our journey towards salvation, namely the Church. Do we trust that God has given us the instrument needed to form a “correct intellect” enough to help us determine right from wrong? Yes, believers do. For the unbeliever, and those who reject the Church (for whatever reason), it of course remains a mystery as to how anyone can allow a spiritual institution to have such authority over their lives. They perfer instead to value their own opinions and “dogmas” above all else and rely solely on their own understanding of all things spiritual. This isn’t a new question. It’s simply repeating the same question that many who lack an informed intellect have asked down through the ages.

 

[wanabesaint]

Sin is that which erases the charity of your heart…

borrowing o f money is a better test.

borrowing of money was orignially recognized as a sin. today, in error its not by ignorance of the fact of the reality of what happens when you borrow money and cant pay it back? or what if you borrowed to attain what you couldnt or didnt need?

Today the federal governmen is defunct, in the ignorance of borrowing more than canNOT be payed back by the current generation that borrowed it to attain an over heated fictional economy that provide alot of luxury and excess, but nothing to show for.

and the people, the posterity that its put on as a great burdon, now cant have a heart of charity, giving of any excess they might atttain, because the government has to take ALL in taxees to maintain the fictional economy…

sex is the same, if it takes away your charity of heart, and makes you compromise your soul that you cant stand against what is wrong, you dont know right from wrong because you condon wrong, you have lost your charity of heart, that is a sin…

Your trying to live in a Godless to be and is society, the path to hell, do you have a charity of heart to stand against it proves or disproves the issue.

Your either all in, or not in, your discipline in one matter affects the all in or not issue, its not a pick and chose God, chose and live with it, but be ready to die to the reality.

If you break one commandment, you have broken them all. If you bully a person, you kill their soul, that is equal or worse than killing one in the life form.

 

[JRKH]

How come that so many people confuse the two propositions: “You know that X” and “You know ‘the teaching’ that X”? Let “X” be “extra-marital sex is sinful”, for example, or “non-procreative sex is sinful”, or something similar. People assert that we (others) KNOW that “X is sinful”… because WE HAVE BEEN TOLD. Is it really possible that they TRULY cannot comprehend the difference?

This problem is serious, after all one of the three requirements for something to be “mortally sinful” is that the person who commits the act must be “aware” (sometimes expressed as “fully aware”) that the act is a grave matter. No, I am not “aware” that such actions are a “grave matter”, however, I AM aware that SOME people consider them a grave matter. But this is only the opinion of those people, nothing more. And the opinion of those people is not accepted as valid, they have no credibility. After all how can one take those people seriously who cannot understand the difference between “You know that X” and “You know the teaching that X”?

Tietjen has given a wonderful response to this.

Just to add a thought or two of my own…The validity or invalidity of the above will vary greatly depending on the particulars of the people involved in a conversation.
For example, “you know” has different connotations in a discussion between a practicing Christians, or one practicing and one non-practicing, or one practicing and on who was but now has renounced, or one practicing and one who has never heard the teachings of Christianity.

Tied to this is the concept, discussed in the Catechism, of “vincible and invincible ignorance”.
Some of this is covered HERE and we would ALL benefit from reading and understanding this especially when discussing matters with a person who is truly trying to understand and work through things in their mind.

Peace
James

 

[St_Francis]

Sin is that which erases the charity of your heart…

borrowing o f money is a better test.

borrowing of money was orignially recognized as a sin. today, in error its not by ignorance of the fact of the reality of what happens when you borrow money and cant pay it back? or what if you borrowed to attain what you couldnt or didnt need?

…

Borrowing money in and of itself is not a sin. Lending at usurous rates is the sin.

 

[St_Francis]

Trurl,
The problem you are having is with evaluating actions and with being overly particular about how people put things. You know that people do not always speak with great precision.

But wrt actions, there are certain ones which can be known to be wrong with some thought about their essence or about their context.

For example, adultery. We can know this to be very wrong because people who get married take a vow not to have sex with other people. This vow is in the context of forming a family. Thus it is very clear that breaking this vow would be serious matter and gravely wrong, *whether or not people clearly state it is againsst Church teaching. *

 

[Qwestions]

Hello, Trurl! Since you omit a religious designation and use so many unmodified pronouns, it’s difficult to understand exactly what you’re asking. Are we to assume that you’re wanting to argue that Catholics have a wrong impression of what constitutes mortal sin? Or that non-Catholics can’t understand what Catholics define as mortal sin? Or that Catholics aren’t well enough read to understand mortal sin? Or that stray Catholics, here and there, are inventing what constitutes mortal sin on their own initiative, so their definitions are meaningless to others? Or that the Church’s teachings are not valid?

Any confirmed Catholic should be thoroughly familiar with the differentiations between venial and mortal sin, and the scope of activities that fall within those two categories. Anyone wondering what is included in Catholic teaching about sin can do a search of Examination of Conscience, both here on CAF and on the Internet. Read several of them as different wordings may give you different insight as to the breadth of issues covered under each of God’s Commandments. That way, you can fully inform yourself and won’t be upset by the failure of others to fully inform you. Although every possible sin isn’t listed, every possible sin is covered within the categories of issues for each Commandment.

Two other points: Catholic teachings ARE valid, although anyone can choose to reject them. Catholics have the responsibility to continually educate themselves so that they are fully aware of the Church’s teachings.

 

[Julia_Mae]

No, I am not “aware” that such actions are a “grave matter”,

Maybe when you come home and find your spouse in bed with the letter carrier, you’ll find the matter has a certain degree of gravity.

 

[fhansen]

How come that so many people confuse the two propositions: “You know that X” and “You know ‘the teaching’ that X”? Let “X” be “extra-marital sex is sinful”, for example, or “non-procreative sex is sinful”, or something similar. People assert that we (others) KNOW that “X is sinful”… because WE HAVE BEEN TOLD. Is it really possible that they TRULY cannot comprehend the difference?

This problem is serious, after all one of the three requirements for something to be “mortally sinful” is that the person who commits the act must be “aware” (sometimes expressed as “fully aware”) that the act is a grave matter. No, I am not “aware” that such actions are a “grave matter”, however, I AM aware that SOME people consider them a grave matter. But this is only the opinion of those people, nothing more. And the opinion of those people is not accepted as valid, they have no credibility. After all how can one take those people seriously who cannot understand the difference between “You know that X” and “You know the teaching that X”?

In some cultures people believe that murder is a “good”, and would wear it as a badge of courage. We don’t always, at first glance, understand the reasons for why a particular act is morally wrong, so yes, being told that “X” is sinful isn’t sufficient, in and of itself, for us to know for ourselves that “X” is sinful. We often have to find things out the hard way; in fact that’s the purpose of our stay here on planet earth, and until and unless that’s done we don’t really know anything.

 

[PennyinCanada]

I have been TOLD… so what?

Thank you for posting this question. I understand this scripture better…

He called a little child over and stood him in their midst and said: "I assure you, unless you change and become like little children, you will not enter the kingdom of God. Matt 18:3

When a father tells his 4 yr old daughter that when she gets older and a boy asks her out, the boy has to come and meet daddy first. Daddy wants to shake his hand and look him in the eye, and make sure that boy will treat his daughter with respect and like a princess. Daughter replies “Of course daddy! I love you!”, gives him a kiss, and knows she’s a precious, loved, the ‘never replaceable’ princess, the apple of his eye. She hears these words as words of love. Daddy is smart enough to know that when same daughter is 15, she’ll laugh in his face, and stay out until she feels like it. Likely the young man may never have the courage and strength to ring the bell, come in and look daddy in the eye. (Let’s hope so)

There is a lot of trust between father and daughter when daughter is 4. Lots of hugs, kisses, miss you’s, smiles. That’s how it could be between you and God the Father. As with all of us we reach adulthood to find out we need to become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of God. You can pick today which daughter you would like to be. Regardless of our earthly fathers, God the Father is always the amazing, loving, kind and compassionate, ‘lay your life down’ kind of dad that we all wish we had, and that some of us were blessed to have. Having that image of a dad means we’ll wish that kind of dad for our children. Who wouldn’t want that? Funny when we date, a cute smile can get us to over look anything. Maybe even go on the pill and take chances with our hearts and with getting pregnant. Daddies don’t like that kind of young man to treat his daughter that way.

The teachings of the Church are there to protect ourselves from ourselves.

If the entire world changed in a blink of an eye and people only had sex with their spouse, we can’t comprehend how very different the world would be! STD’s, teen pregnancy, AIDS, single parents and the poverty they suffer, broken hearts, abortion, would all disappear. What a world that would be, and God hopes that we would make that world for all to live in. We made other choices.

 

[Richard320]

I think it depends on the authority of whoever makes the statement.

If it’s online, and they can quote an authoritative text, like the Catechism or the Code of Canon Law, ignorance is no longer a defense. Otherwise, you might do well to ignore some of the extreme replies, as scrupulosity reigns an awful lot.

In person. Well, here’s an easy example. Someone tells you, “You can’t park here.” There’s no sign, they are just some random person on the street, and they offer no justification besides their own say-so. You ignore them. If the same person points out that there’s a fire hydrant in front of your car, they’ve offered a pretty good argument. If however, the person who says, “You can’t park here” is wearing a uniform and a badge and holding a ticket book, they’re speaking with authority and you would do well to respect it without asking for any further proof.

 

[R_C]

Oh, logic The wonderful bricks we use to build a maze in our mind that will block all knowledge outside, and lose ourselves in it

Why, when as a child I wanted to do something and it was wrong, my parents told me not to, and if I was not able to understand why, they’d say: “because we said so.” Of course, they had excellent reasons, and as I grew up I learned, understood, and if I did not agreed, I followed by obedience and humbleness until I understood and willfully agreed.

And if anyone knows how to solve triple integrals and differential equations, physics and chemistry problems, how to program a computer, how to build a house, how to cook, or how to grow vegetables, it would be because someone taught him to do some things in a certain way and to not do some other things, and eventually, even if he did not understand at first, I saw how indeed those things brought forth positive results.

Let’s get something straight: nobody here thinks X is sinful because someone told us so. We have excellent, excellent and lengthy and rational reasons to do what we do. We could speak for hours on why extra-marital or non-procreative sex is not good, even from the purely secular standpoint. And in fact there are countless books spread throughout the centuries on these topics. So, my dear friend, by now we know that X is sinful.

By the way, perhaps you are unaware of the fact that there is a clear hierarchy in our beliefs. Thing that we call de fide or veritates catholicae (universal truths) are certain. Other things, such as sententia fidei proxima, sententia certa, sententia communa, and sententia probabilis, are called theological opinions because they are not necessarily infallible, meaning they are right, but that the teaching could be made more accurate in time, etc. and we neither dispute nor reject them, because they are truthful.

The Church has the teaching authority to say that something is grave matter. But even beyond that, anyone can understand what grave matter is. Life is grave matter. One’s parents are grave matter. One’s wife is grave matter. Even an atheist would be rather upset if someone tried to do something against the safety of these. Just not to the full extent required It is good to have a wise Teacher explain, for instance, just how far does the grave matter of life go, and which things offend it, and why is that so.

 

[bilop]

How come that so many people confuse the two propositions: “You know that X” and “You know ‘the teaching’ that X”? Let “X” be “extra-marital sex is sinful”, for example, or “non-procreative sex is sinful”, or something similar. People assert that we (others) KNOW that “X is sinful”… because WE HAVE BEEN TOLD. Is it really possible that they TRULY cannot comprehend the difference?

This problem is serious, after all one of the three requirements for something to be “mortally sinful” is that the person who commits the act must be “aware” (sometimes expressed as “fully aware”) that the act is a grave matter. No, I am not “aware” that such actions are a “grave matter”, however, I AM aware that SOME people consider them a grave matter. But this is only the opinion of those people, nothing more. And the opinion of those people is not accepted as valid, they have no credibility. After all how can one take those people seriously who cannot understand the difference between “You know that X” and “You know the teaching that X”?

If you know the Church teaches something is sinful, that’s enough awareness to committ mortal sin. You don’t have to believe.

 

[Trurl]

Your defense appears to be linked to the second condition, the sinner must have full knowledge of the sinful character of the act; in other words, he must be acting with an informed intellect and must know this act violates God’s eternal law. If you are trying to claim that you do not pocess an informed intellect, then judgement (as always) rests between you and God; because only he and you know the truth of the matter.

To clarify, it is not a “defense” which is presented, it is a question. But that is fine. What you say is that there is no definitive, official teaching about the subject. As you say, it is between God and myself. That is good enough fore me.

They perfer instead to value their own opinions and “dogmas” above all else and rely solely on their own understanding of all things spiritual.

I see that you put the word “dogma” into quotes. This is good, because otherwise it would be an insult. There are no “dogmas” in the secular world. And (speaking for myself) the word “spiritual” is just a meaningless phrase.

 

[Trurl]

But wrt actions, there are certain ones which can be known to be wrong with some thought about their essence or about their context.

For example, adultery. We can know this to be very wrong because people who get married take a vow not to have sex with other people. This vow is in the context of forming a family. Thus it is very clear that breaking this vow would be serious matter and gravely wrong, *whether or not people clearly state it is againsst Church teaching. *

Yes, certainly, SOME actions can be known to be wrong in our society, according to our morality. Adultery is wrong these days, because we were brought up to respect a mutually accepted contractual agreement (marriage). But in other types of societies, without a formal agreement to stay “faithful”, what you call adultery would simply not exist, however multiple sexual relationships would, and no one would have a problem with it. Even today, if a couple does not demand mutual “faithfulness”, there is no problem at all.

 

[Trurl]

Are we to assume that you’re wanting to argue that Catholics have a wrong impression of what constitutes mortal sin?

First, I do not argue, I ask questions. Yes, I wonder just how should one understand that one must be “fully aware” of the gravity of an action. What constitutes “full knowledge”? I think this question is of utmost importance.

 

[Trurl]

Maybe when you come home and find your spouse in bed with the letter carrier, you’ll find the matter has a certain degree of gravity.

yes, there are SOME actions we consider “wrong”, because someone is HARMED! This is the most important point: “someone is HARMED”. As far as I am concerned, without explicit harm there can be no problem.

 

[Trurl]

In some cultures people believe that murder is a “good”, and would wear it as a badge of courage. We don’t always, at first glance, understand the reasons for why a particular act is morally wrong, so yes, being told that “X” is sinful isn’t sufficient, in and of itself, for us to know for ourselves that “X” is sinful. We often have to find things out the hard way; in fact that’s the purpose of our stay here on planet earth, and until and unless that’s done we don’t really know anything.

As long as there is a rational and secular explanation, I am all ears.

 

[Trurl]

The teachings of the Church are there to protect ourselves from ourselves.

If I would be religious, there would be ONE and only one prayer I would utter: “Oh, Lord, please save me from the people who wish to save me from myself!”.

 

[Trurl]

I think it depends on the authority of whoever makes the statement.

If it’s online, and they can quote an authoritative text, like the Catechism or the Code of Canon Law, ignorance is no longer a defense. Otherwise, you might do well to ignore some of the extreme replies, as scrupulosity reigns an awful lot.

Actually I read the catechism. As soon as I found some serious logical errors and fallacies, I threw it aside. I am not about to give credence to explicit logical fallacies.

In person. Well, here’s an easy example. Someone tells you, “You can’t park here.” There’s no sign, they are just some random person on the street, and they offer no justification besides their own say-so. You ignore them. If the same person points out that there’s a fire hydrant in front of your car, they’ve offered a pretty good argument. If however, the person who says, “You can’t park here” is wearing a uniform and a badge and holding a ticket book, they’re speaking with authority and you would do well to respect it without asking for any further proof.

Very well said, good analogy. As soon as I see God in his usual “uniform” issuing the stern warning, I will heed the words. But there is no “real policeman” in reality (using your metaphor). There are all sorts of “fake” policemen, in “fake” garbs, citing all sorts of confusing and contraditory “rules” and all of claiming that they are the “real McCoys”. So I am ignoring them.