What about the situation of the truly severe wicked…the people who live and rollick in sin…really bad lifestyle…wouldn’t it be true that their Venial matters would likely be our Grave Matters. This is why I don’t buy the “ignorance” clause. Falling deeper into sin clouds or conscience to the fact of having little “awarness” of matters. With the “ignorance” argument the truly severely wicked would be safer from Mortal sin than the devout. And we know the bible and church teachings are absolutely chock full of references that teach the opposite.
The seriously wicked life…like a hit man? He is involved in so many over the top mortal sins (although just one is enough for hell) that you are right that he might not even notice some of the other grave things he routinely does. His chances of being obdurate or impenitent are large. His conscience is near blind to sin. The righteous person is better off.
Also, this man is suffering all the disordered consequences within his life of doing those sins. They are eating away at his respect for life, for example, even if he has stopped thinking about such things.
I agree that care must be made to preserve the idea that there is some point in knowledge and following God. Sometimes especially that is difficult when thinking about ecumenism. I personally don’t like how unbaptized babies are often discussed at this modern point in time. I live closer to Augustine in that respect (please no one hit me. I know my perspective is totally unpopular). Both of these two remind me of what you are saying here about mortal sin.
Some random CCC that might be relevant. See, the hit man is culpable.
**1791 **This ignorance can often be imputed to personal responsibility. This is the case when a man “takes little trouble to find out what is true and good, or when conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin.” In such cases, the person is culpable for the evil he commits.
**1865 **Sin creates a proclivity to sin; it engenders vice by repetition of the same acts. This results in perverse inclinations which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and evil. Thus sin tends to reproduce itself and reinforce itself, but it cannot destroy the moral sense at its root.
In regards to the you reposnse on Masturbation correct me if I am wrong…doesn’t your angle allow for one person committing the offense be mortally guilty while the other is only venially? Even if both believe it is a sin…Certainly there are people out there that have been taught this very subject is venial or even worse…not a sin at all?
Yes. My response does allow for one to be doing it as a mortal sin and one as a venial sin.
The one CCC you gave about “no one is deemed ignorant of the principles…” could be very relevant to the masturbation thing. I think the idea that sex is for between man and wife is something that might be possible for a reflective, self-disciplined man to figure out by reason alone. Then he could reason from this that masturbation is serious. Of course, as Vat1 discusses, Revelation lets us know these sorts of things with certainty and no admixture of error. Maybe when a boy is told it is healthy and in fact is told that it is bad NOT to do it, I think he is possibly not responsible at the level of mortal sin if he does it. Of course, it will give him a habit and a taste for something grave, which is why that advice is so horrible and so scandalous. Once he gets older, he might just keep doing it even when he starts to realize it is serious, putting him in mortal sin and making him be rather stubborn about it as well. It could also lead him to deliberately ignore his conscience in other areas. My experience is that a lack of chastity clouds many non-sexual reasoning processes as well.
I read your user name, of course, but once you mentioned leaning traditional I did a :doh2:. An acolyte, of course. I, too, lean toward sufficient. I figure they have to mean fully sufficient instead of fully full in the new CCC.
