Mortal Sin and Unrepentance

[pseudoanselm]

Hey all. I’m new to the forum. So, what’s up?

The title of my thread has been a vexing one for me. Maybe you can relate and shed some light on the subject for me.

We’ve all been taught that unrepentant mortal sin leads to damnation.

But, it seems to me that if you know you’ve committed a mortal sin, you automatically repent. In my experience, when I commit a mortal sin, I feel the regret right away. So, the repentance almost accompanies the act itself.

Now, if you didn’t know you committed a gravely immoral act, you couldn’t repent b/c of your ignorance. You’d feel no regret.

Having said that, ignorance can be vinicible. So, damnation could result b/c you cared nothing for the truth about certain behaviors and, thus, did not seek or find answers. That could be a mortal sin in itself, I guess. But, that would be different than being damned for the gravely immoral act you committed (ie. murder, etc.).

So, To me that leaves only one possibility for one to commit a mortal sin and not be repentant. And, that is if the person commits the mortal sin soley for the intent of spiting God and his law. I guess it is akin to a fundamental option contra God. It would be hating goodness for the sake of hating it.

So, besides vincible ignorance or a fundamental option against God, I think any mortal sin is always and naturally supervened by contrition and confession and even a purpose to amend one’s life. Do you all agree? Disagree?

 

[puzzleannie]

pseudoanselm:

We’ve all been taught that unrepentant mortal sin leads to damnation.

But, it seems to me that if you know you’ve committed a mortal sin, you automatically repent. In my experience, when I commit a mortal sin, I feel the regret right away. So, the repentance almost accompanies the act itself.

It is a very good thing that you have a well-developed conscience that tells you immediately when you have committed a mortal sin and moves you to repentence. It would be great if we all had that good conscience. Unfortunately many people persist in their mortal sins because of convenience, deliberately flouting laws of God and of the Church, rebellion, or laziness. The longer a person clings to his sin, the easier it is to ease his conscience until it no longer functions properly, and rather than repentence, he is moved to justifying and excusing his choices. That is unrepentent mortal sin, when the person knows full well that what he has done and is doing is wrong, but clings to the wrong-doing, and what is more tries to rationalize his actions. This condition is deadly to the soul, deadly to spiritual health, which is why we call it “mortal”.

An analogy would be insulin resistance. The longer a person clings to improper diet and health habits, the less likely his insulin-regulating hormones will function properly, the more likely he will gain wait and suffer other symptoms, even in extreme cases leading to diabetes, a deadly disease that can only be controlled, not cured.

 

[Fortiterinre]

Excellent analogy. The part of “repentance” that is easy to forget is “firm purpose of amendment,” actually intending and following through to change your life to avoid the sin confessed.

 

[Tantum_ergo]

I was reading somewhere about the difference between repentence and remorse. It seems to me that the OP is not feeling repentence but remorse. Now remorse in itself is not a bad thing IF it leads to repentence, but it CAN be bad if it does not.

The root of “repentence” is the same as the root of “pennance” or “penitence”. In penance, we DO something about the wrongs we have done.

With remorse, OTOH, we are thinking more of ourselves. Oh, we are sorry that we can no longer look upon ourselves as being “nice” or “good”. We have done something bad, and we don’t like how it makes us FEEL. . .guilty. And now we are stuck in “feeling mode”. Too many people become so swallowed up by their remorseful FEELINGS that they can wind up in DESPAIR. And, of course, if we’re focused on what we are feeling, we can convince ourselves that we can’t be actually doing something about the wrong we’ve done until we feel “right” again. . .

So. . .(and believe me, I feel remorse a LOT more than repentence most days). . . if we sin mortally, and we feel guilt and shame AND immediately act on making ourselves right with God through penance and contrition. . .that’s good.

If we sin mortally, feel guilt and shame, and are convinced thereby that because of that feeling we have already “repented” enough, or are paralyzed into just focusing on our feelings. . .that is NOT good, IMO.

Bottom line: Mortal sin? Get thee to the priest ASAP!

God bless.

 

[Mystophilus]

I am so far out of my depth that I cannot even see the shore from here. Nevertheless, from the Catechism:
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 heart do not diminish, but rather increase, the voluntary character of a sin.

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.

 

[stanley123]

puzzleannie:

The longer a person clings to his sin, the easier it is to ease his conscience until it no longer functions properly, and rather than repentence, he is moved to justifying and excusing his choices.

But would it be a mortal sin for that person, if his conscience were not functioning properly? Let me give you an example. The use of ABC is a mortal sin in the sense that it is a grave matter, whether it be by single or married people. But according to the statistics, a huge majority of married Catholics in the USA are using or have been using ABC? And although the lines at the confessional are quite short, the lines for the Holy Communion are quite long, as at Communion time, row by row down through the entire Catholic Church, each row is almost completely emptied. What then does this easing of the Catholic conscience in the matter of artificial birth control mean?

 

[puzzleannie]

stanley123:

But would it be a mortal sin for that person, if his conscience were not functioning properly? . … . What then does this easing of the Catholic conscience in the matter of artificial birth control mean?

it means that many Catholics, knowing full well what the Catholic Church teaches about ABC, have been rationalizing and making excuses for themselves for so long that their consciences have become dull and barely functional, they feel no remorse each day when they pop the pill or use condoms or engage in sex after sterilization (or outside marriage), they do not repent, they have no intention of repenting, the vigorously resist any preaching or teaching that urges them to honesty and repentence about their actions. They are therefore receiving communion unworthily (a sacrilege and a mortal sin in itself), therefore are bearing the weight of repeated, habitual, unrepentent mortal sin, and are in grave danger of eternal damnation if they should die in that condition. They are in a state of denial. It is also simply a psychological reality that when we allow our conscience to become dull an inactive in one area, it wall also cease to function properly in other areas, allowing us to “tolerate” or even promote other types of sinful behavior.

 

[stanley123]

puzzleannie:

it means that many Catholics, knowing full well what the Catholic Church teaches about ABC, have been rationalizing and making excuses for themselves for so long that their consciences have become dull and barely functional, they feel no remorse each day when they pop the pill or use condoms or engage in sex after sterilization (or outside marriage), they do not repent, they have no intention of repenting, the vigorously resist any preaching or teaching that urges them to honesty and repentence about their actions. They are therefore receiving communion unworthily (a sacrilege and a mortal sin in itself), therefore are bearing the weight of repeated, habitual, unrepentent mortal sin, and are in grave danger of eternal damnation if they should die in that condition. They are in a state of denial. It is also simply a psychological reality that when we allow our conscience to become dull an inactive in one area, it wall also cease to function properly in other areas, allowing us to “tolerate” or even promote other types of sinful behavior.

I tend to agree with you.
However, it looks to me like this may not be what the US RC Church is saying in the case of annulments for example. They seem to be saying that modern psychology has shown us that people today may not be giving full consent or may not have the proper intent when they are getting married and so they can get their annulment, even after 10 or 15 years of marriage… They seem to be basing many of their decisions on granting an annulment on soft psychological reasons, which were not admitted before, and this has led to a numerical increase in the number of annulments from 9 in the year 1930 in the USA to 63,933 in 1991 in the USA.