Is it okay to deny christ in word to save your life if you have a family depending on you?

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All aspects of this question—the perspective of cannon law, moral theology, social justice—are important. And quite frankly fun-I love our faith! But there is one question that must be asked before any of those answers are relevant:

Do you believe that God is faithful?

If so, then you know that even should it appear that there is no one to care for your children should you be killed out of love and faithfulness to Him—God will not abandon them. He is the Author of every good thing and of life itself. Of their lives! He cherishes them, loves them into existence every moment, knew their name before time, etc. Therefor, it isn’t exactly that YOU have been providing and watching over them, it is that HE provided YOU for them to be taken care of. All of the things that you are and have given and every influence and protection you have to offer is HIS gift of love to your children. (He is just generous enough to let us be a part of it and to share in His providence. But it doesn’t come from us.). And He will continue to provide for them and protect them, even without you. He will also reward your faithfulness with an outpouring of grace for your salvation, for those you love, and for the whole world. They will benefit more from that grace than from anything you could do in a million lifetimes of caring for them.

What can you give your family that God cannot surpass, when He has given them you and everything else besides?

Well, with moral theology and cannon law, and trust aside, what about Love? Do you love Him? His promises are so beautiful, and He is faithful. To you. He loves you so much He gave you those children that you cherish so deeply so that you might experience that deep and unutterable love. Then, having experienced it, to realize that it is a reflection of what His love is for you. Would you die for whom you love, in order to never betray that love? He did.

Do you love your family? Obviously yes! And deeply so! Would you die to save them? I think from the anguish of your question you would readily do so. It sounds like you would give up your eternal life to save their temporal lives. Would you give up your temporal life to save their eternal lives?

I suppose then, my ultimate answer is that if you denied Christ to save yourself so you can be there for others, you have missed the point. He is your God. You are His own. And HE is faithful.
 
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It is also very, very biblical.

Matthew 10:22

22…But he who endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 10:37-39

37 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
38 and he who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for my sake will find it.
 
Here is a passage from the Catechism that makes allowance for duress and fear.
1735 Imputability and responsibility for an action can be diminished or even nullified by ignorance, inadvertence, duress, fear, habit, inordinate attachments, and other psychological or social factors.
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Another passage explains that dire circumstances, while not making good an act that is evil, may diminish one’s responsibility:
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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Other passages address specific evils. Most Catholics would agree that prostitution is gravely and intrinsically evil, but the Church shows compassion for prostitutes, as did Jesus:
from 2355: While it is always gravely sinful to engage in prostitution, the imputability of the offense can be attenuated by destitution, blackmail, or social pressure.
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Similarly with regard to suicide:
from 2282 Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
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There are other Catechism passages as well which show compassion for the sinner. This doesn’t mean that the Church is soft on sin. It means that the Church, like God, is not quick to condemn.
 
The principles I discussed weren’t anything unusual. They are in the catechism. And this is a person who has stated that she is a minor, and has not been through RCIA yet. Therefore, I don’t think I said anything rude in noting the Catholic teaching is a bit less harsh than her opinion.

If you disagree with the Catholic teaching, as an adult Catholic, or simply feel other Catholics are too wishy washy and every one of them should be a martyr when a gun is held to their head or their family’s head, that’s your opinion. It still doesn’t make it Church teaching, and the Church will continue to recognize reduced culpability for grave sins committed under severe duress, while continuing to praise those who do manage to act with great heroism in affirming their faith even when they or their family member gets killed for it. I sincerely hope if it comes to that, all of us are willing and able to be such brave martyrs. But I also think, if someone broke down and couldn’t do it, God would forgive him…maybe even before the person who broke down could forgive himself.

God bless
 
DaddyGirl said:
The apostle Peter “denied” Jesus three times in public.

Is he banned from heaven?
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Indeed Peter denied Christ, and still Christ loved him. Peter repented and would later become a martyr.

If we deny Christ, we have sinned, but like Peter we may repent and be saved.
 
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BornInMarch said:
Finally, for everyone who says “No it’s still a sin” or “I’d let a nut blow my child’s brains out before I renounce God”, I think you are hypocrites.
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In Catholicism it is often said that intent is everything. Parents are charged with protecting their children. If someone puts you in the unlikely position of renouncing Christ to save your Child, I believe your duty would be to consider your child’s welfare before your own. Selflessness and sacrifice is rewarded in Christianity, there are numerous examples of this.

On the other hand, if ISIS tells you that you have to renounce Christ on film for the whole world to see or they would chop your head off, I would tell them no deal. I can’t possibly predict how I would hold up under torture, but if God wanted me to resist, I imagine he would give me the graces to somehow do so. Others have resisted, why couldn’t I?

Our Lord has been very good to me, in the unlikely scenario that he wanted me to die a Martyr’s death, I think it would be clear that was what was being asked of me, and I would do my very best to earn that crown.
 
DaddyGirl said:
Ah. There is the answer to the OP’s question!

It’s okay to deny Jesus to save your family…and then you can repent and be forgiven. And then, you can even become a martyr.

So…it’s okay.
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It is not “okay” as such. We’re not supposed to sin to begin with.

That being said, the OP’s case would likely mitigate how much of a sin that denying Christ would be. Extreme duress excuses much, because it removes power from the person under that duress.

See the difference? Sin is always bad (though we can always be forgiven if we are truly repentant and try our best not to do so anymore), but sometimes things aren’t mortally sinful in the correct context.
 
DaddyGirl said:
Ah. There is the answer to the OP’s question!

It’s okay to deny Jesus to save your family…
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No, it’s not okay. The act is still evil. However, it may be pardonable. Suppose you love God but in a moment of weakness deny him in order spare your life. You may well be inclined to repent, be forgiven, and possibly do better the next time you are called upon to suffer or die for your faith.

On the other hand, if you deny Christ with the intention of hurrying to Confession, and if later you would deny Christ again, any number of times as needed to save your life, I don’t know if it can be said that you are repentant. Repentance is necessary for forgiveness, if I recall correctly.
 
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I’m sering on multiple threads this idea that reduced culpability due to extreme duress or other mitigating factor as stated in the Catechism is the same as “making sin okay”. Where do people get this idea?

If you’re kidnapped by bank robbers and they hold a gun on you or hold your family hostage and make you go rob a bank with them, the judge or jury might find you not guilty of bank robbery due to your reduced responsibility, or find you guilty but give you a lighter sentence than the other robbers because you didn’t freely make the choice to rob.

This doesn’t somehow make it okay that you robbed a bank. Robbing the bank is still bad.

Same deal.
 
We aren’t talking about whether God ‘will forgive’ a repentant person. Of course He may. What we are talking about are principles. The OP was presented as a scenario ‘is it OK to deny Christ’. THAT is what I at least have been trying to point out and where Brittany despite not being through the technicalities of her local RCIA is also correct --that as this OP puts the question, it is not “OK” to deny Christ due to ‘situations’. The question was not whether one could repent and be forgiven.

The question was not whether 'is this really sinful or not" either.

The question was 'is it OK to deny Christ because this situation (in this case, 'a family depending on you) exists, and thus that an objectively grave act (which denial of Christ IS) is 'OK".

And no, it isn’t OK.
It is presumptuous to tell people (as some have) to not worry, or that there is no sin whatsoever involved.

It is not being mean, hateful, judgmental, nasty, to point out that denying Christ --no matter WHAT the ‘circumstances’ – is wrong.

It is disingenuous to turn the question into, “Well, of COURSE the people who don’t deny are saints, but don’t expect that kind of behavior from ‘real people’ like us.”

As I have said, I don’t know what my reaction would be, but I know one thing it would NOT be, a response of, “Well hey, I’m not really sinning and He’ll forgive me, not that there is anything TO forgive”. Heaven help me, I would KNOW I was sinning, and I would be extremely repentant if I caved. But from the way most people talk on here, the whole thing is shoved onto the ‘man with the gun’ and people are absolutely totally not culpable of ‘anything’ and those who suggest otherwise are crazy.

That latter teaching might be what you’re gleaning from your worldview and catechesis but it differs from mine, and it differs from the historical sacred tradition and magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church which is that ‘rigid’ version I’m holding too and in which I am addressing the actual OP and NOT side issues.
 
I’d read this beautiful example:

bible.usccb.org

2 Maccabees, CHAPTER 7

Daily Bible Readings, Podcast Audio and Videos and Prayers brought to you by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
bible.usccb.org bible.usccb.org
 
DaddyGirl said:
It’s okay to deny Jesus to save your family…and then you can repent and be forgiven. And then, you can even become a martyr.
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What you describe here is hinting at the sin of presumption - when we sin intentionally thinking “I can just go to Confession”.
 
You seem really angry about this issue, and reading a lot of stuff into posts I made that once again, pretty much repeat the Catechism. As for “is it okay” you may have missed the post I made in this thread noting that mitigation for a serious sin is not the equivalent of saying “it’s okay”.

I think for some reason you read into my posts a lot of bias and personal attack that I didn’t make and got all wound up over whatever assumptions you made, and there’s not much I can do about that except pray for a greater understanding and better communication.

Peace out
 
I think the problem here is a matter of perspective. Are we judging the actions of someone else who has faced this choice, or are we discerning what we ought to do if we ourselves are faced with the choice?

For example, a man goes to the bank.
There is a nice pen on the counter. He takes the pen. It is stealing. Violated the Ten Commandments. Grave Matter.

The conversation about whether it is a grave offense, whether his soul is in mortal peril, etc. is a very, very different conversation than “what should I do if I am standing at the bank considering the pen I would like to make mine sitting before me.”

Should I, knowing it is not mine, knowing it is offensive to God, take it? NO! All of the arguments about no one haarmed, or tiny temporal effects, or would God really punish someone with hell for THAT, all of that is meaningless. The question is: do I care so little for God that I would prefer that pen to eternal life with Him? Would I offend Him for the sake of that pen? Taking that pen may not be a grave offense against the 7th Commandment, but it most certainly is an offense against the 1st. And what a paltry god that pen will prove to be!

Here it is the same thing. To over simplify: before you commit the offense you hold yourself in the gaze of God’s Justice, which is mighty to behold. After an offense, you throw yourself on God’s Mercy, which is infinite.

In the case of denying God to save your life for other people, it appears we are throwing ourselves on God’s Mercy before the event so that we can sin against Him, and then we will be left to God’s Justice after.
 
I’m not angry. I also (I hope) am not reading ‘stuff’ into your posts (or anybody else’s for that matter. Yes, that post you made recently was made as I was making mine and therefore I did not see it. I don’t see bias or personal attack from you, I was just responding. I have noticed (and noted) the tendency in all (not just me, not just you) to perhaps be uber-sensitive to a perceived ‘attack’ and then to go hunting for further ‘evidence’ to the point where seeing the word “the” would evoke, “see, look at them using an indefinite article, can’t even commit to something definite” 😁

Again I am not angry (or rigid, or mean). I’m a 61 year old grandma raising two little grandsons and working and maintaining the home and dealing with the usual back to school kerflufle on never enough sleep. Perhaps that, without my conscious knowledge, comes through as anger when to me it’s a simple response. Anyway, stay tuned. Once I get over the school years third (yes third) cold and have an hour of peace (rare but possible) and a few sessions with the knitting needles, I’ll be so mellow you can pour me, and hopefully a lot better company.
 
Okay, I see better now.
I’ve always been taught that “the Internet is not a rich medium” because we can’t see each other’s facial expressions, hear tones of voice, etc and sometimes when people are just having their say they come off as angry when they aren’t.

Perhaps I came off as talking down to Brittany also when that was not what I intended to do.

I really think you and I are in agreement quite a bit. I just have a realistic view of human nature. Not everyone is going to be a hero. As someone else noted, St. Peter, after making a big show of defending Christ with a sword, got scared later and denied him 3 times. Peter repented immediately and became much stronger later with the help of the Holy Spirit, but if a saint could deny Jesus in the clinch, many people might do the same. Doesn’t make it right or “okay”, means it will likely happen though.
 
Is it okay to deny christ in word to save your life if you have a family depending on you?

Well, that depends on the context. If I have a madman waving a gun in my face and I’m reasonably sure that an affirmative is going to render my kids fatherless (and with far lower chances of having successful lives as a result), then absolutely.

“Jesus Who? I’m familiar with no one that has the last name “Christ”. Is it Dutch?”

But in the context of something more chronic like an employment situation? No, I wouldn’t deny Him. But I’d also spend my spare time looking to go somewhere a little more accepting of my culture.
 
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Saint Peter had not received the Holy Spirit at that point. He had not been redeemed by Christ’s blood which had not yet been shed. He was not holy at that point.

So yes, hopefully those of us who have been baptised are holier than Peter was at the time that he betrayed Jesus.

I believe one of the defining characteristics of St. Peter’s life was that he would have done anything to not have betrayed God. That is contrition. Which warrants forgiveness by God’s merciful plan. I wonder if it would have turned out the same if he had said, “If they ask me, I will deny him, because I know he will forgive me later.” This is a form of presumption. Which is blasphemy. Which is the only unforgivable sin.

You argue that the right thing to do would be to save your life by denying Christ. How do you think your argument measures up to that of Jesus Christ?

John 15:13

13 Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
 
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