If one deliberately commits the sin of presumption, assuming that their presumption will be forgiven in confession, will that confession be valid?
For example, a person masturbates. They do it once, and recognize the need to go to confession. They do it again and again afterwards, up until they get to confession. This person recognizes the sin of presumption as well, and presumes it will be forgiven.
While both masturbation and presumption are mortal sins, if one goes to confession and confesses these sins with a firm resolution to not commit them afterwards, is that confession valid? Or would the presumption invalidate the whole thing?
Laudatur Iesus Christus.
This line of reasoning is very important. It points to a serious risk of the unforgivable sin interwoven with the “presumptions” in the underlying example. If adopted practically, the example’s approach may lead one into a sort of cul-de-sac of logic where the Sacrament of Penance becomes an occasion of sacrilege and Holy Communion a source of damnation.
The fear of God is the foundation of all wisdom. If one begins to mistake the “mechanism” of the Sacraments as a means allowing the commission of sin, then one is mistaking the gifts of the Holy Spirit as a means for doing evil. This is dangerously close to calling the Holy Spirit a servant or facilitator of evil.
But the risk is more insidious and subtle than this. The real risk comes in the deep effects this approach might have on one’s psyche. If one views the Sacrament of Penance as instrumental in one’s doing evil, rather than instrumental in one’s praising God, then one’s definition of love may become so degraded, that love of God becomes impossible.
This is similar to the effects of divorce on marriage. If one defines the love required by marriage as ‘sufficient self-control and self-donation to commit oneself to life-long support, affection, compassion, and betterment of another person, regardless of the changes in the person or the circumstances that one cannot foresee,’ one does a difficult but specific thing when asking someone to marry. If, however, one defines the “love” required by marriage as ‘commitment to be with a person until one’s emotions change or the circumstances or other person change sufficiently as to make the matter unpleasant,’ then one does a very different and degraded thing when asking another to marry. If one labors under the second definition, he fails to develop the skills or strength required by the first definition, because that is not his goal or intention.
Similarly, if one loses the horror of sin, the fear of God, and replaces it with the ‘technical acknowledgment of the need to “process the sin” through Confession – or more likely through the penitential rite at the beginning of Mass,’ one does not develop the skills or strength to love God, simply because one is not intending to love Him, but only to offer “ritual compliance.”
This failure to “intend to love God,” unless it is truly disavowed and repented, makes forgiveness impossible. This is the great danger of Pharisaic legalism.
To put this another way, the “firm resolution to not commit them afterwards” is not enough for forgiveness. One must regret the sins as well. Without sorrow for the sin, a resolution to not commit it again does not equal contrition. If one does not feel the pain of sin, one’s heart is likely hardened to God and reconciliation with Him is impossible, because one does not actually seek it.
Such a trap requires deep and subtle conversion.
Spiritus Sapientiae nobiscum.
John Hiner
