I do not understand the Protestants’ stance on “sin being sin” with no matter of “degree” of evil or wickedness. There is no “difference” if one steals a nickel from his/her mother’s purse or commits mass murder? That makes no sense to me. I believe God is a fair and just judge (Deut. 32:4; John 5:30 ) and that the degree of sin will determine the degree of punishment. What is your thinking ?
As is well known, we Catholics distinguish between mortal and venial sins. Mortal sin is so called because it is to the soul what death is to the body: it destroys charity, the source of the higher life. By destroying charity it destroys the quality of adoptive sonship; it undoes the higher, true life of the soul which consists in the resemblance to God through sanctifying grace. For this reason, those sins are the greatest which offend directly against God, e.g., infidelity and blasphemy. They disrupt the proper relationship between Creator and creature at the very root. We must always bear in mind that the nature of mortal sin consists in this, that it destroys charity.
To constitute a mortal sin three conditions are necessary: a grave matter, clear knowledge (awareness) of the evil, and full consent of the will.
Any transgression of the divine law, in which one of the above three conditions is lacking, is a venial sin. It is so called because it may be remitted without recourse to the sacrament of penance. A venial sin does not destroy the supernatural life of the soul, nor its union with God. And since the love of God is not extinguished, such a soul can always make full reparation by contrition. But conscious and deliberate venial sin, freely and deliberately committed, bears in itself a real peril.
One who seriously strives for perfection will always endeavor to grow in the supernatural life and to draw closer to God. In other words, he will desire and seek an ever increasing inflow of divine grace.
