Need help refuting liberal idea of mortal sin

[Ziggamafu]

Can you refute this?

Physical world:
You will die, regardless of choice.
You can choose to die immediately by a fatal decision.
You can accidentally die immediately.
You can choose to risk death by unhealthy and / or risky decisions.

Spiritual world:
You may die, but only by choice.
You can choose to die immediately by a mortal sin.
You cannot accidentally die immediately.
You can choose to risk death by venially sinful decisions.

But only a suicidal person who wants to die immediately would make a fatal decision because nobody who wants to live would knowingly drink poison or jump off of a cliff, regardless of how tempting it may be.

Therefore, if a person does not want to die spiritually, but commits an action that would normally mean spiritual death, then he must not sufficiently know the fatal nature of the action or he must not be acting of a free will.

Now in the physical world, regardless of either ignorance or lack of consent, a fatal action yields physical death. But in the spiritual world, because of Christ, a normally fatal action of the spirit may not yield spiritual death if it is not willed or known. This leaves only deliberate suicide as a means to spiritual death. But we’ve already seen that the only people who commit suicide are those people who are not so much interested in the means to their end but rather in the end itself; they want death.

Therefore, mortal sin, regardless of the means by which it is achieved (there are a variety of grave offenses to choose from), is the deliberate suicide of the soul; an act by which one wishes the spiritual death that one knows may be attained thereby. If one does not wish spiritual death but only wishes the satisfaction derived from the grave offense, one cannot sin mortally by said offense.

If I know that a certain act will kill me spiritually but I do not wish to spiritually die, then I absolutely will not perform that action. If I perform that action and do not wish the death that normally results from it, then I obviously either do not know the act is spiritually lethal or I do not freely will it. I cannot both not want to die and yet knowingly and willing drink poison. To knowingly and willingly drink poison is to want death.

To commit a mortal sin, one must do something lethal (a grave offense) with full knowledge that the action is lethal and deliberate consent to the lethal action. In a word, suicide. Therefore the rebellion against God’s law is merely the means to the lethal end which mortal sin deliberately chooses: the destruction of charity, the relinquishment of heaven, the abandonment of God, and the denial of Christ. Simply put, one who does not want to die spiritually cannot mortally sin.

 

[dylanschrader]

To commit a mortal sin, one must know that the action is seriously wrong and consent to it.

One does not have to be considering the consequences of the action in order to know it is seriously wrong.

Therefore, mortal sin, regardless of the means by which it is achieved (there are a variety of grave offenses to choose from), is the deliberate suicide of the soul; an act by which one wishes the spiritual death that one knows may be attained thereby. If one does not wish spiritual death but only wishes the satisfaction derived from the grave offense, one cannot sin mortally by said offense.

The argument above is basically saying that in order for a sin to be mortal, one must commit a serious sin for the sake of spiritual death.

This is not true.

It is possible to know an action is seriously wrong and simultaneously not to be considering the consequences of the action.

Spiritual death does not have to be the object of intention for a sin to be mortal, only the grave offense itself has to be the object of intention.

Also, even if I consider the consequences of the action (spiritual death) simultaneously knowing that the action is seriously wrong, I may still intend it. I may decide that the perceived good effects of the seriously wrong action outweigh my spiritual death.

In that case, could you argue that I don’t “fully know or understand” what spiritual death is? Maybe. Even if you do argue this, we have to keep in mind that I only need “full knowledge” that the action is seriously wrong for the sin to be mortal. I do not need to appreciate fully what the effects of the sin will be.

 

[rwoehmke]

The analogy limps because committing mortal sin is more like playing Russian Roulette than committing suicide. In Russian Roulette as in Mortal Sin there is sometimes a second chance. In both cases whether one desires to die or not it can happen.

 

[PhilipCal]

Well, at the end of the day, it might be well to remember what “Sister” said concerning Mortal sin. By the way, this is, to use Fr. John Coroppi’s phrase, "Rock solid dogma.

1). Grevious matter
2). Sufficient reflection
3) Full consent of the will.

If any of those is missing, there is no mortal sin.

 

[Evan]

But only a suicidal person who wants to die immediately would make a fatal decision because nobody who wants to live would knowingly drink poison or jump off of a cliff, regardless of how tempting it may be.

Not true. Many people make fatal decisions all the time. They just believe that the risk of death is less that the possible reward should they live.

eg: Smoking, Driving a car, jumpinout of an airplane w/o a parachute (for the thrill). The reward (a short term goal) outweighs the risk (death, a long term effect)

 

[CCWB]

So let me see if I get this straight. Mortal sin is like a guy doing something that he knows will kill his soul - like diving into a wood chipper - with full consent? Hmm…I guess that *would *require nothing less than suicidal inclinations. But is that the kind of “knowledge” that mortal sin requires? Or does the knowledge only have to be passive, like someone saying “that hole in the ground over there leads to a running wood chipper”. If that’s the case, then the person doesn’t have to “know” the hole leads to certain death; he might jump in if he is recklessly curious or doubts the warning.

 

[dylanschrader]

Persona Humana–while concentrating on sexual ethics–mentions this:

The observance of the moral law in the field of sexuality and the practice of chastity have been considerably endangered, especially among less fervent Christians, by the current tendency to minimize as far as possible, when not denying outright, the reality of grave sin, at least in people’s actual lives.

There are those who go as far as to affirm that mortal sin, which causes separation from God, only exists in the formal refusal directly opposed to God’s call, or in that selfishness which completely and deliberately closes itself to the love of neighbor.

They say that it is only then that there comes into play the fundamental option, that is to say the decision which totally commits the person and which is necessary if mortal sin is to exist; by this option the person, from the depths of the personality, takes up or ratifies a fundamental attitude towards God or people. On the contrary, so-called “peripheral” actions (which, it is said, usually do not involve decisive choice), do not go so far as to change the fundamental option, the less so since they often come, as is observed, from habit. Thus such actions can weaken the fundamental option, but not to such a degree as to change it completely. Now according to these authors, a change of the fundamental option towards God less easily comes about in the field of sexual activity, where a person generally does not transgress the moral order in a fully deliberate and responsible manner but rather under the influence of passion, weakness, immaturity, sometimes even through the illusion of thus showing love for someone else. To these causes there is often added the pressure of the social environment.
In reality, it is precisely the fundamental option which in the last resort defines a person’s moral disposition. But it can be completely changed by particular acts, especially when, as often happens, these have been prepared for by previous more superficial acts. Whatever the case, it is wrong to say that particular acts are not enough to constitute mortal sin.

According to the Church’s teaching, mortal sin, which is opposed to God, does not consist only in formal and direct resistance to the commandment of charity. It is equally to be found in this opposition to authentic love which is included in every deliberate transgression, in serious matter, of each of the moral laws.

Christ Himself has indicated the double commandment of love as the basis of the moral life. But on this commandment depends “the whole Law, and the Prophets also.”[22] It therefore includes the other particular precepts. In fact, to the young man who asked, “. . . what good deed must I do to possess eternal life?” Jesus replied: “. . . if you wish to enter into life, keep the commandments . . . . You must not kill. You must not commit adultery. You must not steal. You must not bring false witness. Honor your father and mother, and: you must love your neighbor as yourself.”[23]

A person therefore sins mortally not only when his action comes from direct contempt for love of God and neighbor, but also when he consciously and freely, for whatever reason, chooses something which is seriously disordered. For in this choice, as has been said above, there is already included contempt for the Divine commandment: the person turns himself away from God and loses charity. Now according to Christian tradition and the Church’s teaching, and as right reason also recognizes, the moral order of sexuality involves such high values of human life that every direct violation of this order is objectively serious.[24]