Missing mass on sunday

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BUt what if the person genuinely believes that the Catholic Church or Christianity itself does not hold the fullness of truth? Not out of rebellion but after lots of prayer and study. Why would anyone follow some thing they believe is false?
 
God didn’t have to make us inherit original sin just because of Adam and Eves first sin. He didn’t make Mary inherit it. It was his choice to make us inherit it which makes it sound like he made us with it
 
Yes it makes sense to form your conscience, but unless you are already Catholic it is not likely you would form your conscience based on Catholic morals. If you were not raised in any religion or if you were raised in a different religion it is not that likely someone would just come to the conclusion Catholicism is the truth over the other many religions out there that could possibly hold the full truth
 
rosejmj said:
God didn’t have to make us inherit original sin just because of Adam and Eves first sin. He didn’t make Mary inherit it. It was his choice to make us inherit it which makes it sound like he made us with it
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For God to have removed original sin for all of humanity would have made it so that the Fall has no effect whatsoever on the rest of humanity, which is incompatible with the unity of the human race. Special exceptions such as the Immacullate Conception are not.
 
Still not necessary. God is all powerful. He could have chosen to make us without original sin regardless of Adam and Eve. Also maybe others would have been as holy as Mary if they were made without OS. Only 1/3 of angels rebelled. Maybe only 1/3 or less would have chosen sin if they had been born perfect.
 
In particular read Q 257 onwards and especially Q 264

The Fall reading the whole is best, but you can scroll down to III Original Sin, it then goes onto explain the consequences of Adams sin for all of humanity.
rosejmj said:
He didn’t make Mary inherit it.
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#411 explains this in the above link “The Fall”.
rosejmj said:
It was his choice to make us inherit it which makes it sound like he made us with it
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Reading the above links explains how and why we inherit it .
 
EZweber said:
It should still be noted that if a person has been honestly convinced that missing Mass is not a sin, then there is no sin involved in missing Mass because they have the opposite of full knowledge - complete ignorance.
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Close, but not quite right. You’re correct that there might be no mortal sin, but there would still be a grave (yet venial) sin. The determination would come down to why they were convinced of that. The term you’re looking for isn’t “complete ignorance”, it’s invincible ignorance. If they’re not culpable of their ignorance, then it’s invincible, and therefore, their sin is grave but venial. If, on the other hand, they reject the knowledge that they’re capable of having, then it’s not “complete ignorance”, but culpable ignorance.

I hope the distinction is clear.
EZweber said:
In the case of a lapsed Catholic who honestly believes that he has an obligation not to attend Sunday Mass, he is not guilty of rebellion against God.
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The culpability would proceed from the reasons for becoming “lapsed” in the first place.
 
I have difficulty with that logic. It seems to suspend belief in an objective morality, and instead place an emphasis on personal perspective.
 
AlmaRedemptorisMater said:
I have difficulty with that logic. It seems to suspend belief in an objective morality, and instead place an emphasis on personal perspective.
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I totally understand why you are uncomfortable with that. I am not advocating a subjective morality. You have an obligation to form your conscience according to natural law. However, if you do an immoral act while believing it to be moral, you could be culpable for not forming your conscience properly, but you are not guilty of sin in that act. You will still incur negative effects though. For example, if I am unaware that getting drunk is a sin, and I get in a habit of getting drunk, first of all, I have a moral obligation to learn the natural law that getting drunk is immoral as best I can. When I discover that it is a sin, I try to stop, but I have a problem. I am addicted to alcohol. I am not guilty of sin in the acts before I discovered that it is a sin, but I now have a tendency to sin.
 
Gorgias said:
The culpability would proceed from the reasons for becoming “lapsed” in the first place.
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This seems to support my position because if the culpability proceeds from the reasons for being lapsed, and the person is in no way guilty of causing this lapse, then they are not culpable.
 
Also, what your position seems to say is that it is possible to sin accidentally - do you see why I think that and do you believe that?
 
EZweber said:
I totally understand why you are uncomfortable with that. I am not advocating a subjective morality. You have an obligation to form your conscience according to natural law. However, if you do an immoral act while believing it to be moral, you could be culpable for not forming your conscience properly, but you are not guilty of sin in that act . You will still incur negative effects though. For example, if I am unaware that getting drunk is a sin, and I get in a habit of getting drunk, first of all, I have a moral obligation to learn the natural law that getting drunk is immoral as best I can. When I discover that it is a sin, I try to stop, but I have a problem. I am addicted to alcohol. I am not guilty of sin in the acts before I discovered that it is a sin, but I now have a tendency to sin.
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CCC 1783 Conscience must be informed and moral judgment enlightened. A well-formed conscience is upright and truthful. It formulates its judgments according to reason, in conformity with the true good willed by the wisdom of the Creator. The education of conscience is indispensable for human beings who are subjected to negative influences and tempted by sin to prefer their own judgment and to reject authoritative teachings.
 
I understand what you mean, but most people can come to the conclusion that killing or stealing is wrong because it is part of natural law. People may even recognize the need to be grateful and to pray to God or a higher power, but they may not believe that Mass is the way to do that
 
EZweber said:
This seems to support my position because if the culpability proceeds from the reasons for being lapsed, and the person is in no way guilty of causing this lapse, then they are not culpable.
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You’re missing the point, I’m afraid. There are two sins in play: the lapse itself, and the actions which occur by virtue of the lapse. The former causes the latter. If you want to claim that there’s no culpability for the latter actions, you still haven’t demonstrated that there is no culpability for the former action. It’s that action – the lapse – where a person would be culpable.

(Now, if you could show that there’s no culpability for walking away from the Church – which is, in theory, a possibility – then you’re right: no culpability for mortal sin. However, that’s a more difficult proposition to demonstrate.)
 
Someone leaves the Catholic Church because they think it does not hold the fullness of truth and they seek the find the truth. So done leaves Islam or some other religion because they believe the truth is elsewhere and they are not committing a sin because you don’t believe that religion to be the full truth. However the members of their former religion believe that the person is an apostate and is going to hell. So why would anyone trust the Catholic view that it is a sin to leave the Church when they no longer believe in the Church and they believe they are pleasing God by leaving it?
 
rosejmj said:
Someone leaves the Catholic Church because they think it does not hold the fullness of truth and they seek the find the truth.
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OK – so, stop for a second and think about what you’ve just written…

Is it true that “the Catholic Church does not hold the fullness of truth”?

If so, then the person has judged correctly, and there’s clearly no sin.

If not – if the Church does hold the fullness of the truth, then the person has judged incorrectly. Moreover, in reaching this false conclusion, he commits sin (i.e., he leaves the Church). The question in this case becomes “is the person responsible for his false reasoning which led him into sin?”
rosejmj said:
So why would anyone trust the Catholic view that it is a sin to leave the Church when they no longer believe in the Church
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If the Church truly does have “the fullness of the truth”, then it’s a grave sin to leave. The only question is whether this rises to “mortal sin”, or is merely “venial sin”. A person should trust the logic of the proposition, then, and not the question of belief.

(On the other hand, what you’re talking about, of course, is ‘conscience.’ And yes – if, in his conscience, a person does not believe that the Church has the fullness of the truth, then he’s obligated to follow his conscience. However, a person is also responsible for the proper formation of his conscience, such that it tells him the truth. So, yes … in this case, he must leave the Church; but, he’s morally responsible for that decision! So, his decision to leave might be imputable to him as mortally sinful!)
 
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