If I am being held at gunpoint

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BornInMarch said:
No.

“Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” - catechism

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm

If you are held at gunpoint, than deliberate consent is absent and therefore the sin is not mortal. It doesn’t matter what act it is or how horrible the act is; if deliberate consent is missing than it is not a mortal sin. Anyone who argues otherwise is going against the catechism.

And for the record, I think that most people would crack under threat of death. Whenever I hear someone announce they would rather die than do something like that (people who talk of martyrdom from the comfort of their armchairs), I immediately assume that they would be the last ones to face martyrdom.
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“What is morally right and required of us” and “what I, Reepicheep the weak and sinful man might do in this situation” are not the same thing.

If I say it is my moral duty to accept martyrdom in such and such a situation, that does not mean that I assert my eagerness to be a martyr, nor that I boast of my own courage. It means that I believe what Mother Church has told me, that in such and such a situation I must be prepared to accept martyrdom, and may God grant me the courage to obey Him.
 
CrossofChrist said:
If I am being held at gunpoint, and am told to murder someone or else my family and I will be shot, would I commit a mortal sin if I murdered the person?
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Probably. That is to say assuming ‘the person’ was the one you were being told to murder.

I mean it’s got to count against something major that you’d willingly steal the life of one person to protect your own and those who are closer to you. Seems slightly selfish.

Alright. More than slightly.

Because I mean otherwise threats and intimidation can be used as an excuse to run the show and we’ll all have enabling escape cards. That sort of would put us all in the shoes of prison guards in despotic places the world over, right? I mean if no one would ever be intimidated think of how much less evil could ever get done?
 
CrossofChrist said:
If I am being held at gunpoint, and am told to murder someone or else my family and I will be shot, would I commit a mortal sin if I murdered the person?
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Yes, most likely. You would be murdering someone with full knowledge of what you are doing, and consenting to the act inasmuch as you are doing it to save yourself. Killing the gunman would be self defence, killing an innocent isn’t. Why does the innocent person deserve to die just because you don’t have familial ties to them? Many martyrs have chosen to die rather than commit sin.
 
Kanade said:
Yes, most likely. You would be murdering someone with full knowledge of what you are doing, and consenting to the act inasmuch as you are doing it to save yourself. Killing the gunman would be self defence, killing an innocent isn’t. Why does the innocent person deserve to die just because you don’t have familial ties to them? Many martyrs have chosen to die rather than commit sin.
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Consent is absent if he’s being coerced.
 
It happened far too often in war, that a soldier was forced to shoot his army mates or be shot himself.

They rarely got over it of course. Haunted them always
 
TheAmazingGrace said:
No, it wouldn’t be a mortal sin, since there is no real consent. The scenario you mention is highly unlikely, but the same reasoning could be applied to a broad variety of situations, i.e. you were told to give up classified information, grant access to your workplace, engage in a sexual act, etc.
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In my opinion, Yes, it would be, it would be similar to someone holding a gun to your head and asking you to deny your beliefs, if you did, your life would be spared…but upon denying your faith (denying God), you did so for the sake of your own safety and the sake of your earthly life.
 
I’ve read with interest these responses. We all agree that to shoot an innocent person while being held at gunpoint is objectively grave matter, or evil. But I believe that BorninMarch, TheAmazingGrace, and AdamPeter are correct; you do not give deliberate consent if you are being held at gunpoint. Therefore, it cannot be a mortal sin, even though the moral choice is to refuse to shoot the innocent person and risk death and death of your family. In my opinion, to shoot would be an example of moral cowardice and venial sin.

Consider abortion, which is the taking of an innocent human life. The Church imposes the ecclesiastical penalty of excommunication on those who willingly procure or participate in an abortion. But there is no penalty for those who act out of grave fear. There is no full consent if you are coerced to sin.
 
Trident_H said:
I mean it’s got to count against something major that you’d willingly steal the life of one person to protect your own and those who are closer to you. Seems slightly selfish.

Alright. More than slightly.
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Yup. This.

I couldn’t shoot a family member. So I guess I would be shot.
 
Perhaps part of the disconnect between the two camps of thought is that “venial sin” comes off sounding trivial, which doesn’t jive with our understanding of the seriousness of the action of killing an innocent person. Venial sin still offends God. It is still sin. We’ll still be punished for it. It just doesn’t damn one’s soul to hell or completely cut off God’s grace from our lives.
 
BornInMarch said:
Do you think you know more than the catechism? Because the catechism says that pulling the trigger won’t forfeit ones soul.

" For a sin to be mortal, three conditions must together be met: “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.”"

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a8.htm
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Don’t forget that the catechism also says this:
1756 It is therefore an error to judge the morality of human acts by considering only the intention that inspires them or the circumstances (environment, social pressure, duress or emergency, etc.) which supply their context. There are acts which, in and of themselves, independently of circumstances and intentions, are always gravely illicit by reason of their object; such as blasphemy and perjury, murder and adultery. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.
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vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a4.htm
 
Shooting someone else to save your own life is grave matter, and morally evil. Even if being coerced while held at gunpoint, you still have full knowledge that it is wrong and you give deliberate consent to the action in the fact that you are not just a passive observer or passive participant. You are deliberately consenting and in control of yourself and your actions. You have the option to refuse to cooperate in the gunmans demand.

Unless the gunman forcibly puts the gun in your hand and forces your finger to pull the trigger while aimed at someone else, you have to provide deliberate consent and perform a deliberate action of your own free will to aim the gun at the other person and pull the trigger.

If you deliberately consent and perform the grave act of killing another person, even under duress or the emergency situation of being held at gunpoint, you are committing a morally evil act.

The good intention of saving yourself and your family does not justify the killings of someone else at the demand of a gunman.

1754 in the catechism states:
1754 The circumstances, including the consequences, are secondary elements of a moral act. They contribute to increasing or diminishing the moral goodness or evil of human acts (for example, the amount of a theft). They can also diminish or increase the agent’s responsibility (such as acting out of a fear of death). Circumstances of themselves cannot change the moral quality of acts themselves; they can make neither good nor right an action that is in itself evil.
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Because of the circumstance, your responsibility as the agent of the morally evil act is possibly diminished due to the threat of death, but the circumstances do not alter the morality of the act itself.
IN BRIEF
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1757 The object, the intention, and the circumstances make up the three “sources” of the morality of human acts.
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1758 The object chosen morally specifies the act of willing accordingly as reason recognizes and judges it good or evil.
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1759 “An evil action cannot be justified by reference to a good intention” (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Dec. praec. 6). The end does not justify the means.
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1760 A morally good act requires the goodness of its object, of its end, and of its circumstances together.
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1761 There are concrete acts that it is always wrong to choose, because their choice entails a disorder of the will, i.e., a moral evil. One may not do evil so that good may result from it.
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1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments, corresponding to the answer of Jesus to the rich young man: "Do not kill, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Do not defraud, Honor your father and your mother."132 The gravity of sins is more or less great: murder is graver than theft. One must also take into account who is wronged: violence against parents is in itself graver than violence against a stranger.
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1859 Mortal sin requires full knowledge and complete consent. It presupposes knowledge of the sinful character of the act, of its opposition to God’s law. It also implies a consent sufficiently deliberate to be a personal choice. Feigned ignorance and hardness of heart133 do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.
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1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense. But no one is deemed to be ignorant of the principles of the moral law, which are written in the conscience of every man. The promptings of feelings and passions can also diminish the voluntary and free character of the offense, as can external pressures or pathological disorders. Sin committed through malice, by deliberate choice of evil, is the gravest.
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The “prompting of feelings and passions” that would result from the threat of your family being murdered would probably count towards “diminishing the voluntary and free character of the offense”, but I think there would still be a significant stirring of your conscience as you steadied your aim as you prepared to murder someone, even if you thought it might save your family.

You would know it is wrong, you would know that it was an act disordered from God’s will, you would feel guilt, and you would have to chose to go through with the act. Even if your responsibility for the act was diminished somewhat because of the circumstance, I would still suggest heading to confession afterwards, as well as counseling for you and your whole family, as I’m sure this kind of scenario would be horribly traumatizing.

I pray that we all may never be put in a situation like this, and that anyone who is may be filled with courage by the Holy Spirit to avoid cooperating in evil, and that the Lord will protect them from harm
 
AdamPeter said:
Consent is absent if he’s being coerced.
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No, it isn’t. If I kill another person to save myself, I am consenting to that action and I have a full understanding of what is going to happen. I’m not being tricked. I have a choice, I can allow myself to be killed instead (which is why there’s no defence of duress available to a charge of murder under English law)
 
Kanade said:
No, it isn’t. If I kill another person to save myself, I am consenting to that action and I have a full understanding of what is going to happen. I’m not being tricked. I have a choice, I can allow myself to be killed instead (which is why there’s no defence of duress available to a charge of murder under English law)
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But Kanade, in terms of culpability (which is really what we’re discussing when we say mortal or venial sin) can a person coerced into sin really be said to have consented to it? If a woman is raped at gunpoint, did she consent to an extramarital affair?
 
Hard to say regarding the culpability as “just a question”.

It is yes grave matter… is it possible that ones culpability- then in the hic et nunc - is lessened due to duress etc…? it is possible.

There may possibility be reduced culpability. Maybe.

Or not.
 
Bookcat said:
Hard to say regarding the culpability as just a question.

It is yes grave matter…it may be that ones culpability - then in the hic et nunc - is lessened due to duress etc…

Or not.
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Right.

You have to do the anthropology. Nobody is bothering with that. And it can’t be done for an abstract example, because there is not an actual person acting. It can only be done with approximation in reality, because one can’t see inside another’s soul (prophetic gifts excepted).

The more virtuous the person, the more he would be expected to be able to suppress fear and act with heroism.
 
Bookcat said:
Hard to say regarding the culpability as “just a question”.

It is yes grave matter… is it possible that ones culpability- then in the hic et nunc - is lessened due to duress etc…? it is possible.

There may possibility be reduced culpability. Maybe.

Or not.
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Exactly. The morality of the act can easily be discerned to be evil, but the culpability is ultimately something between only God and the agent performing the act.

Two people could be in the exact same scenario and one could be guilty of mortal sin, the other not. The interior character of heart and conscience is something that would vary for every individual. Therefore, we as an internet community can probably not accurately define, in a definitive way, whether mortal sin is committed or not in the OP’s scenario.
 
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