Missing Mass. No sin, venial sin, mortal sin

[paperwight]

Natural law tells us that adultery is wrong.

Well up to a point. What about those cultures which practise/used to practise polygamy?

 

[poche]

They may not consider polygamy to be wrong but there is anecdotal evidence that would elad to the conclusion that something is objectively evil about the situation of a man with two or more wives. Also some of those societies that practice polygamy will punish adultery with death.

 

[stpurl]

No mortal is objective. A sin is either mortal objectively speaking or venial, objectively speaking.

Killing is objectively wrong, it isn’t some subjective thing.

No, I’m not saying something is objectively subjective. There are objective truths out there, and one must be able to know them. Out of curiosity, what then in Catholic teaching would you hold to be an objective truth?

 

[Gorgias]

No mortal is objective. A sin is either mortal objectively speaking or venial, objectively speaking.

I appreciate that this is what you think, but it’s incorrect. From the catechism:

1857 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.”

1858 Grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments

1873 The kinds and the gravity of sins are determined principally by their objects.

Therefore, ‘gravity’ is an objective consideration.

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.

1860 Unintentional ignorance can diminish or even remove the imputability of a grave offense.

1862 One commits venial sin when, in a less serious matter, he does not observe the standard prescribed by the moral law, or when he disobeys the moral law in a grave matter, but without full knowledge or without complete consent.

1874 To choose deliberately - that is, both knowing it and willing it - something gravely contrary to the divine law and to the ultimate end of man is to commit a mortal sin.

In other words, the distinction between ‘mortal’ and ‘venial’ sin is one found in the knowledge and consent of the subject who commits the action. Therefore, this distinction is subjective, not objective.

Killing is objectively wrong, it isn’t some subjective thing.

Right. It’s “grave”, which is an objective consideration.

Out of curiosity, what then in Catholic teaching would you hold to be an objective truth?

Whether one has transgressed against the Ten Commandments, for example. However, this objective knowledge doesn’t automatically imply “mortal sin”… just “grave sin”.

 

[stpurl]

Respectfully, I disagree with you.

If one cannot determine a sin to be objectively mortal due to its gravity, and to the person performing it doing so with full knowledge and full consent, then one has gone down the relative rabbit hole into the position that there is no act whatsoever which can be seen as wrong in and of itself, regardless of whether they may be mitigating factors in its performance.

 

[Gorgias]

Respectfully, I disagree with you.

You’re not disagreeing with me – you’re disagreeing with the Catechism (i.e., the Church)!

If one cannot determine a sin to be objectively mortal due to its gravity

No, one cannot. However, one can determine a sin to be objectively grave.

to the person performing it doing so with full knowledge and full consent

That’s not up to you to determine. Nor does it fall to the individual (even St Paul says that he cannot comment on the state of his own soul!). It falls solely to God, who judges the state of our souls.

one has gone down the relative rabbit hole into the position that there is no act whatsoever which can be seen as wrong in and of itself

Not true. We can tell, objectively, whether the behavior was sinful or not. Therefore, we can tell whether an act is “wrong in an of itself”. What we cannot discern, however, is the person’s level of culpability for that act. Why is that a problem? Why does it cause you to disagree with the teachings of the Church?

 

[stpurl]

I do not believe that I am disagreeing with the teachings of the Church. I might disagree with your interpretation of what the catechism says, but your interpretation is, I think, wrong. I wonder if we’re talking past each other because at some points you seem to agree with what I say but then segue into discussing what objectively and mortal and grave mean to the INDIVIDUAL. That’s where I think we go off track. I have never disagreed that an individual might commit a sin which is objectively mortal—say a woman who shoots and kills a man, with full knowledge that murder is wrong, knowing the man is unarmed, but who has perhaps been emotionally abused and is in such a psychologically damaged state that the action is mitigated by same. But still, the action of murder, the deliberate killing of a human being, is itself objectively a mortal sin.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

There is no such thing as grave sin if given as an alternative or addition to mortal and venial sin. There are simply mortal and venial sins. A venial sin is a sin that does not kill one’s relation with God. Usually these are things like white lies, or saying a curse word when stubbing one’s toe. IOW they are not ‘grave’ in MATTER, or are not done with full knowledge or full consent. A mortal sin involves grave MATTER, full knowledge, and full consent. A sin which is grave in matter but does not meet full knowledge and or full consent is NOT a ‘grave sin’. It is a sin of grave matter but not, perhaps, mortal. Which makes it venial, not grave.’
I may sound pedantic but in the last several decades our language has become so blunted and ambiguous that I believe we must make the distinction clear, it is mortal and venial alone.

IMO the real sin of the 21st century is how Christians have made the exception into the rule, and made the norm unacceptable. One dare not speak of objective mortal sin because the default position of so many (and especially here where people’s little learning has become a dangerous thing) is that there are so many exceptions that one cannot deem anything mortal as ‘it might NOT be due to all these excuses blah blah blah”.

I have always used the term “objectively mortal sin” to refer to sins that by their very nature are mortal, i.e., sufficient to deprive the sinner of divine grace, to lose their friendship with God, and to lose their salvation. This would presuppose sufficient reflection (you know it is mortally sinful) and full consent of the will (you go ahead and do it anyway because you want to, and there is nothing impeding your free choice or compelling you to do it against your will). If either or both of these are absent or imperfect, then there’s no mortal sin. That is not a terribly complicated concept to understand.

I have been given to understand, here on CAF, though, that “objectively mortal sin” is a disliked term, and instead, we are to say “grave sin” or “gravely sinful matter”. Well, that came as news to me! I went along for over 40 years using this terminology, and unless I had a serious and ongoing intellectual deficiency, I just understood that this was the term to use. For a priest or teacher to say “X is a mortal sin” — and I have heard that many, many times — the existence of all three conditions is just a given, and we needn’t qualify it by saying “that is, if the sinner fully understood what they were doing and fully wanted to do it”.

I strongly suspect that there is an unwillingness these days to call out mortal sin for what it is, to suggest that people can actually commit it, and to suggest that they might be lost for all eternity on account of it. You can make your own guesses as to where this unwillingness comes from. Eve was told that she would not die if she ate the fruit. Where did she get that idea?

 

[stpurl]

I’m with you. Heck, I will take the old Baltimore catechism any day, and it was very clear. But so many people today want to have that ‘universal heaven’ and they want to downplay or excuse sins so that they are no longer ‘mortal’. And a lot of them are, to do them justice, the kind of loving and caring people who are not concerned for themselves (they hold personally to a pretty high standard usually) but for all the ‘poor’ and the ‘ignorant’ etc.

I always say Satan likes it best when he can TWIST the best. And that’s what he has done here. He has taken the virtue of ‘love of others’ or ‘compassion’ and turned it into an idol, that this is ‘above all’ what must be done as a Christian. Also he has taken the word ‘love’ and stripped it down and made it so all-encompassing that it means simply nothing definite, but can mean diametrically opposed things depending on who SAYS it and who HEARS it.

I mean, how does one ‘argue’ when the other person, dripping with the sweetness of the “I’m here to care for the poor person who hasn’t had MY advantages”, tries to sugarcoat everything by pleading with tears in eyes that we be SENSITIVE and merciful and not be rigid old hidebound critics who don’t want to let the Holy Spirit blow away all those old rules and open our eyes to the wonder of the NEW Jesus. . .yah blah.

If all the pablum really is a true development and I really AM a rigid hater, hey, we’ll all know one day but even then, if the view of the universalist is right, I’ll get into heaven anyway.

But I’d rather ‘test everything and hold to what is good’. Remember the house that was built on stone —that rigid old stuff? It stood. The house that was built on nice soft yielding sand. . .didn’t fare so well!

 

[Gorgias]

I do not believe that I am disagreeing with the teachings of the Church. I might disagree with your interpretation of what the catechism says, but your interpretation is, I think, wrong.

Fair enough. Yet, when the Church talks about ‘grave sin’ as belonging to the ‘object’, and “mortal vs venial” as belonging to considerations of the ‘subject’, I’m not sure how you can hold to a contrary position. However, you’re welcome to hold to your own opinion.

I have never disagreed that an individual might commit a sin which is objectively mortal—say a woman who shoots and kills a man, with full knowledge that murder is wrong, knowing the man is unarmed, but who has perhaps been emotionally abused and is in such a psychologically damaged state that the action is mitigated by same.

OK – you realize that this isn’t an objective consideration, right? It centers on the subject – that is, the person who has a certain set of knowledge, and comes to the event with personal (i.e., subjective) experiences which form them.

But still, the action of murder, the deliberate killing of a human being, is itself objectively a mortal sin.

Killing is grave sin. Murder is a subjective conclusion.

 

[stpurl]

Again, respectfully, I disagree with your definition of objective. Perhaps I’m simply not modern enough, but I find the Baltimore catechism was much clearer when it referred not to ‘grave’ sins as per recent terminology, but ‘material sins’. Those would be mortal sins which were committed without full consent or knowledge and thus were venial sins in effect on the person committing them until the person became aware of the mortal nature of said sins; yet the sins committed before the knowledge would not turn ‘into’ retroactive mortal sin; only subsequent sins if then committed with full knowledge and consent would be mortal sins. The catechism was very clear of the actual sins (mortal and venial) as opposed to Original Sin, and you’ll be interested to note that people were told to be careful not to judge a person ‘personally guilty of mortal sin’ lest they be guilty of the venial sin of rash judgment. But we were NOT told that we could not comment on the correctness of determining a given action in and of itself to be a mortal or a venial sin, only that a person who committed what appeared to be a mortal sin might (through lack of one or all the conditions required) not be actually sinning mortally, and that one could even commit what appeared to be a VENIAL sin but be sinning mortally.
Tell you what, I will eschew the terms objective and relative (and ‘grave sin’) in favor of this:
There are ultimately two types of sin: Original sin and actual sin.
Of the actual sin, actions re same are those of omission—not doing something we should; and commission—doing things we should not do.
Further, actual sin, omission or commission, may be either mortal or venial.
Mortal sin completely destroys one’s relationship with God; venial only impairs it to a degree, greater or lesser.
Mortal sin requires three things; grievous or grave matter; it must be a thought, word, or action which if either omitted when it should be done, or committed when it should not, is a mortal, killing, destroying offense against God; it must be done with sufficient knowledge that it is such an evil, and committed with full consent.
A sin which is mortal but which does not meet full knowledge or consent by the person is a material sin and falls by default into the second category:
venial sin is an offense against God which is not ‘grievous’, but still wrong; or is not fully known to be grievous to the point of mortal, or is not engaged in with full consent.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I’m with you. Heck, I will take the old Baltimore catechism any day, and it was very clear. But so many people today want to have that ‘universal heaven’ and they want to downplay or excuse sins so that they are no longer ‘mortal’. And a lot of them are, to do them justice, the kind of loving and caring people who are not concerned for themselves (they hold personally to a pretty high standard usually) but for all the ‘poor’ and the ‘ignorant’ etc.

I always say Satan likes it best when he can TWIST the best. And that’s what he has done here. He has taken the virtue of ‘love of others’ or ‘compassion’ and turned it into an idol, that this is ‘above all’ what must be done as a Christian. Also he has taken the word ‘love’ and stripped it down and made it so all-encompassing that it means simply nothing definite, but can mean diametrically opposed things depending on who SAYS it and who HEARS it.

I mean, how does one ‘argue’ when the other person, dripping with the sweetness of the “I’m here to care for the poor person who hasn’t had MY advantages”, tries to sugarcoat everything by pleading with tears in eyes that we be SENSITIVE and merciful and not be rigid old hidebound critics who don’t want to let the Holy Spirit blow away all those old rules and open our eyes to the wonder of the NEW Jesus. . .yah blah.

If all the pablum really is a true development and I really AM a rigid hater, hey, we’ll all know one day but even then, if the view of the universalist is right, I’ll get into heaven anyway.

But I’d rather ‘test everything and hold to what is good’. Remember the house that was built on stone —that rigid old stuff? It stood. The house that was built on nice soft yielding sand. . .didn’t fare so well!

Wonderfully put. The Baltimore Catechism is amazing. As you say, test everything and hold to what is good.

 

[Gorgias]

Tell you what, I will eschew the terms objective and relative (and ‘grave sin’) in favor of this:

That definition sounds about right. You’re not using the terms “objective” and “subjective”, which seem to be the point of contention.