prudential judgment

[angell1]

is it possible to sin with prudential judgment?

I find that the church has left many things intentionally open so that people can discern for themselves

for example: what activities to do on sundays, or the use of NFP, whether or not to attend a certain wedding, etC…

so let’s say that I discern that shopping on sunday doesn’t fall in to the category of sin, or that for my particular family, 2 or 3 kids is quite a handful especially with my disability.

but, I guess my whole issue is, what if I’m wrong?

other people may discern that shopping on sunday is mortal sin (since I think it was forbidden by the church once) or what if my reasons for not having more kids are not serious enough. maybe I’m being selfish without knowing it? -or maybe I shouldn’t have gone to my friend’s wedding since it had a high probability of being invalid

there’s are just some examples.

what do you guys think?

 

[TravisandJill]

My advise as a fellow scrupulous person is to ask this to your confessor and do what he tells you. Use his judgement as your own for the time being. Then you can rest assured even if he was wrong you won’t be responsible for it

 

[MT1926]

I can help you out with the work on Sundays issue. I have heard this question several times on Catholic Answers Live and the answer always seems to be, “doing something different than what you do during your normal work week”. The old law of not even being able to cook a meal on Sunday has passed with the new covenant in Christ. Just for example if someone were to take me out to Golf 36 holes on a Sunday that would be an 8 hour day of work for me. But put me on my tractor cutting my grass for those same 8 hours with my headphones in and Catholic Answers Live App playing and I am having the most relaxing Christ centered Sunday I could have. Also, the church isn’t strict about the Sunday issue either, it is more about taking a day. My Pastor once told me if this were a strict command he would be breaking it, because he works every weekend. So he takes a day during the week as his Sabbath. On a side note he usually goes golfing that day. To much work for me.

 

[Ron_Conte]

To avoid sin, prudential judgment on the morality of acts must never approve of an intrinsically evil act. Also, one must be sincere in seeking moral truth. Negligence in seeking moral truth (by failing to learn Church teaching on ethics) or insincerity in making moral prudential judgments can make such judgments culpable.

Prudential judgments must seek to avoid harming others; any act that is reasonably anticipated to do more harm than good would not be moral to choose.

Invincible ignorance applies, given the above conditions, if the person makes an error of judgment in assessing the morality of a proposed act, with a sincere but mistaken conscience.

You don’t need to be absolutely certain in order to act, but only morally certain.