Mortal sin questions

[fish90]

If you are having sinful thoughts and you dive into the temptation without having committed the action you are thinking about, have you committed a mortal sin? (I am excluding committing adultery just by seeing another person when you are married).

Is it a mortal sin to lie always? I thought the gravity of the sin of lying depends on the scenario like lying to keep a surprise birthday party versus lying about witnessing a crime. What if you purposefully lie but correct the lie within a reasonable time?

I understand that temptation leads to sin when you submit to it. What does this mean? Am I not allowed to think about a sin’s effects for my selfish goals? Have I sinned if I decide to to sin but say no and stop? Can anybody explain temptation better to me?

Is playing GTA (the video game) a mortal sin?

God Bless

 

[John92]

If you are having sinful thoughts and you dive into the temptation without having committed the action you are thinking about, have you committed a mortal sin? (I am excluding committing adultery just by seeing another person when you are married).

Is it a mortal sin to lie always? I thought the gravity of the sin of lying depends on the scenario like lying to keep a surprise birthday party versus lying about witnessing a crime. What if you purposefully lie but correct the lie within a reasonable time?

I understand that temptation leads to sin when you submit to it. What does this mean? Am I not allowed to think about a sin’s effects for my selfish goals? Have I sinned if I decide to to sin but say no and stop? Can anybody explain temptation better to me?

Is playing GTA (the video game) a mortal sin?

God Bless

Setting the will on a sin is a sin, so if you fantasize about having sex with a woman, that’s a sin, and if you fantasize about killing someone, that’s a sin too.

The gravity of lying will depend on the situation, don’t let the scrupulous mislead you on this. You won’t go to hell for lying about a surprise party But avoid lying as much as you possibly can. It’s hard to draw the line between “venial” lying and “mortal” lying, so just don’t do it at all (unless it’s something like a surprise party where it’s obviously venial).

Temptation is when part of you “wants” to do something - wants to fantasize about sex, or wants to steal a beer from your dad, or whatever. Having a sexual thought pop into your head but ignoring that thought would be a temptation, while submitting to it and actually fantasizing would be a sin. However, I’d think that if you just fantasized about stealing a beer from your dad and then didn’t do it that’d be more of a temptation than a sin.

Hope I answered your questions. This article is great on sin, but you have to get used to their terminology (use a dictionary/articles from the encyclopedia itself):

newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

 

[fish90]

Is that fantasizing mortal or venial?

God Bless

 

[John92]

Is that fantasizing mortal or venial?

God Bless

Fantasizing about sexual activity (with full consent and full knowledge obviously) would be a mortal sin. But like I said sometimes a thought pops into your head; as long as you don’t consciously pursue it, and do what you can to ignore it/push it out/distract yourself from it, that’d be a temptation.

 

[Jason_1977]

Setting the will on a sin is a sin, so if you fantasize about having sex with a woman, that’s a sin, and if you fantasize about killing someone, that’s a sin too.

The gravity of lying will depend on the situation, don’t let the scrupulous mislead you on this. You won’t go to hell for lying about a surprise party But avoid lying as much as you possibly can. It’s hard to draw the line between “venial” lying and “mortal” lying, so just don’t do it at all (unless it’s something like a surprise party where it’s obviously venial).

Temptation is when part of you “wants” to do something - wants to fantasize about sex, or wants to steal a beer from your dad, or whatever. Having a sexual thought pop into your head but ignoring that thought would be a temptation, while submitting to it and actually fantasizing would be a sin. However, I’d think that if you just fantasized about stealing a beer from your dad and then didn’t do it that’d be more of a temptation than a sin.

Hope I answered your questions. This article is great on sin, but you have to get used to their terminology (use a dictionary/articles from the encyclopedia itself):

newadvent.org/cathen/14004b.htm

dude, playing a video game is not a sin.

 

[Jason_1977]

Fantasizing about sexual activity (with full consent and full knowledge obviously) would be a mortal sin. But like I said sometimes a thought pops into your head; as long as you don’t consciously pursue it, and do what you can to ignore it/push it out/distract yourself from it, that’d be a temptation.

dude, those thoughts are temptations presenting themselves to you. That’s all. ACTIONS are sins. I can have this random thought of stealing a bag of potatoes from a store. Acting on it or chosing not to act on it are 2 different things.

 

[John92]

dude, playing a video game is not a sin.

You’re right, it’s not, because you’re not actually thinking to yourself “I’d love to go out and shoot somebody!”, or making plans in your head to kill someone: you’re wanting to “kill” imaginary people in an imaginary world as part of a game. If you were actually having homicidal thoughts while playing a video game you might want to put the controller down, obviously.

dude, those thoughts are temptations presenting themselves to you. That’s all. ACTIONS are sins. I can have this random thought of stealing a bag of potatoes from a store. Acting on it or chosing not to act on it are 2 different things.

Moral theology disagrees with you on that :\

Having a random thought about anything is a temptation if there’s no consent of will, or thinking “oh maybe I should steal a bag of chips” and deciding against it, would probably be a venial sin. But fantasizing about other, more serious sins falls into mortal territory.

 

[fish90]

Are watching movies that include grave immorality but are allowed a R-rating a mortal sin? Let’s take Eurotrip. The scenes in this movie are pretty much pornography and sacrilege/blasphemy. Would a person have to go to confession after seeing a movie like this?
God Bless

 

[Jason_1977]

My train of thought is that a thought could be temptation & action or INaction can be a sin. Indifference or LACK of action can be a sin. Thoughts I see as just temptations. Letting them stew is just making it tougher to resist.

 

[Joe_Brown]

dude, playing a video game is not a sin.

unless its causing you to sin. I personally dont like the grand theft auto games because I find that I dont want to go around killing people. For example playing a game that is violent but has a point to it is fine gta doesnt have a point to it, for example something like rainbow six, it may be a bit gory but its a tactical shooter with some stradegy to it.

God Bless:thumbsup:

 

[John92]

My train of thought is that a thought could be temptation & action or INaction can be a sin. Indifference or LACK of action can be a sin. Thoughts I see as just temptations. Letting them stew is just making it tougher to resist.

I’m still gonna have to disagree with you, and I think I’m on the side of the Church in this.

Sin goes beyond mere action: we have to purify our minds as well. Now some people on this board take the idea of sin way too far, I think, and we have to be wary of going to either extreme - the scrupulous and pseudo-Jansenist on the one side, and laxity on the other. We have to find a middle ground. But seriously setting the will on a sin is a sin, and that includes intentional sexual fantasy. That’s just basic Thomist moral theology.

Like I said, check out the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia (it can be found at newadvent.org); it might help you out a lot

But remember to avoid scrupulosity to the same extent that you should avoid laxity: they’re both extremely damaging to the soul. Having a healthy relationship with God means having faith and doing good works. Being obsessed with sin and wrapped up in depression over sin, constant worrying about sin, etc, makes it hard to do good works. Try to focus on other people more than you focus on yourself and your sins will be lessened without your even trying. And, of course, pray, never doubt the power of prayer. You might want to start saying the Divine Chaplet of Mercy, if you aren’t already, it’s a very powerful practice.

 

[camerong]

dude, playing a video game is not a sin.

That’s not at all clear. We say every week that we have sinned in what we do and what he have FAILED to do. Insofar as playing a video game–which is at the least pointless and at the most harmful–takes up the time we could use to do works of God, you should be concerned about the harm to your soul. This, of course, fails to mention the more obvious danger of that particular video game. When you get good at it, you likely feel prideful; when you lose, you feel anger; does it not engender hate and violence? Hate and violence towards animated characters, sure, but you are training your immortal soul towards hatred and unjust violence.

Whether it is a sin, I cannot say–I am not an ethicist–but sitting alone playing a violent video game may clearly be an impediment on your path towards God.

 

[SeanTom]

Fish 90,

James 1:14-15: “Rather, each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire conceives and brings forth sin, and when sin reaches maturity it gives birth to death.”

We are all tempted at one time or another. Mortal sin comes from having your impure desires reaching maturity and acted upon. You should try to remove temptations right from the start and not let it turn into a desire followed by an action.