Sin Subjective?

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I was talking with a Protestant Gentleman the other day and he told me that Sin was Subjective. He pointed to 1st Corinthians 8 and said that to those it was a sin to eat meat sacrificed to idal it was a sin and to those it wasn’t it wasn’t a sin. Hence Sin is Subjective to the person and therefore the Catholic Church shouldn’t be laying these things on people and just let them be. What should I say? Thanks and God bless.
 
I think there needs to be a distinction between the particulars and the fundamentals. In the example you give, disobedience of lawful authority is the sin, not the actual eating of meat. Just because lawful authority (most particularly, but not exclusively, the Church) changes the rules at times, for reasons of prudence or in response to particular situations, does not make the sin of disobedience subjective.
 
Montie_Claunch said:
I was talking with a Protestant Gentleman the other day and he told me that Sin was Subjective. He pointed to 1st Corinthians 8 and said that to those it was a sin to eat meat sacrificed to idal it was a sin and to those it wasn’t it wasn’t a sin. Hence Sin is Subjective to the person and therefore the Catholic Church shouldn’t be laying these things on people and just let them be. What should I say? Thanks and God bless.
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He is right in the sense that the subjective *intent *of some is not to do idolatry and others it is, but he can’t argue against the truth of the existence of objective wrongs without contradicting himself. Idolatry is objectively wrong. Otherwise why would the Bible ever bother saying it? But whether a certain act is idolatry might depend on the subjective intent of the agent and the surrounding circumstances.

Scott
 
Montie_Claunch said:
I was talking with a Protestant Gentleman the other day and he told me that Sin was Subjective. He pointed to 1st Corinthians 8 and said that to those it was a sin to eat meat sacrificed to idal it was a sin and to those it wasn’t it wasn’t a sin. Hence Sin is Subjective to the person and therefore the Catholic Church shouldn’t be laying these things on people and just let them be. What should I say? Thanks and God bless.
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What he is saying is that sin is relative not subjective. If he truly meant subjective he would be correct. However, the position that you illustrate is a matter of making sin relative.

As a protestant he will have a highly juridical view of salvation and so it is right to give him an analogy. If a man kills another is he subject to the law or if he feels that murder is not a crime does the judge let him go on his own view of what is right or wrong? This is the same with God. In His justice we have the natural law written on the heart of each of us. God will judge us according to our works and if we violate the eternal law it will not be according to our will but His will that we are judged.
 
Montie_Claunch said:
I was talking with a Protestant Gentleman the other day and he told me that Sin was Subjective. He pointed to 1st Corinthians 8 and said that to those it was a sin to eat meat sacrificed to idal it was a sin and to those it wasn’t it wasn’t a sin. Hence Sin is Subjective to the person and therefore the Catholic Church shouldn’t be laying these things on people and just let them be. What should I say? Thanks and God bless.
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Sin has both objective and subjective elements.

Materially speaking (objective), sin includes the commission or omission of thoughts, words, and deeds contrary to God’s will. That’s not subjective, but applies to all.

Formally speaking (subjective), sin must be voluntary. We might have accidentally or unknowingly acted contrary to God’s will. Insofar as the act was contary to God’s will, it was a sin, objecitvely speaking, but moral acts, what St. Thomas Aquinas calls “human acts” are only those acts with are voluntary. So subjectively speaking, such acts resulting from invincible ignorance, for example, are not sins in the subjective sense.

We are culpable for our sins, insofar as they are voluntary. Many acts are mixed, that is, have some involuntariness and voluntariness associated with them. Sins which are partially involuntary can have diminished culpability, but culpability still remains due to the partially voluntary nature of our act.
 
Mosher is right. He’s using “subjective” when he really seems to be preaching relativism.
 
the Catholic Church shouldn’t be laying these things on people and just let them be. What should I say?
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One can simply read Scripture which is filled with admonishments against sin to know that the Church has never been called to simply “just let them be.”
 
There is a great radio program in the Catholic Answers radio archives called “Is the Truth Subjective?” I think it was in June of this year. Download and let him listen to it!
 
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