The Decalogue and avoidance

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Most everyone agrees with at least some of the 10 Commandments, yes?

Very few want to be
murdered or lied to or have something stolen from them or involve in spouses sexually…
 
That is my point. With the teacher, (bible) listing all the “don’ts”, (in general) which makes a shorter list, the “do’s” are everything else not prohibited.
An entire list of don’ts would fill a novel. (Think law books)
Further. With Christ’s new “two commandments” condensing the concept further, yet including the “old ten” simplifies this more. And, it is permissive in delivery, not restrictive.
Dominus vobiscum
Whoops! Previous post missed the “reply to:” part.
 
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fhansen said:
Maybe because the wrong that we do is the more obvious evil-and the first needing to be addressed?
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This is not always they case.
Too me if you do something evil then you ae saying no to that good thing. There is always a saying no to something good. I still cannot understand why people would think only of the thing they do. Maybe Catholics have a hard time understanding ommission!
They are just think everything is commission.
Maybe they just say “ommmission? What is that? Please explain! Is that even Catholic?!”??
 
Yes, both words and concepts are Catholic, and we often pray a confiteor at Mass for forgiveness of sin: “for what I have done and what I have failed to do”. Anyway this whole thing sounds a bit like a strawman. Here’s from the catechism:
1853 Sins can be distinguished according to their objects, as can every human act; or according to the virtues they oppose, by excess or defect; or according to the commandments they violate. They can also be classed according to whether they concern God, neighbor, or oneself; they can be divided into spiritual and carnal sins, or again as sins in thought, word, deed, or omission. The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will, according to the teaching of the Lord: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. These are what defile a man.” But in the heart also resides charity, the source of the good and pure works, which sin wounds.

Virtually any sin can be committed by commission or omission. Failure to attend an AA meeting might not qualify as a sin of omission. It has more to do with when we fail to stand up against some injustice; where we could prevent a crime or speak up for the defenseless or correct a falsehood against a neighbor when they’ve been slandered, etc, but don’t.
 
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The idea behind the Decalogue isn’t to tell us what’s right, but to tell us what is wrong. I actually see this is quite freeing: if only a few things are forbidden, that means we are free to do almost anything we want.

Even still, there are some things that are more desirable than others. The goal of the Decalogue is to build a wall, so to speak, to keep inherent evils out, in order to cultivate a sanctuary safe from evil, so that we can move freely within these walls and build good things within them without them getting destroyed by evil.

The Decalogue then outlines the limits of what is the bottom limit of being good. It doesn’t outline the ideal good, but simply produces a sanctuary in which we can build this ideal. The Law was given to Israel in order to purify them from evil so that, when Christ came, he would reveal to them what they should build within that sanctuary, that is, he would reveal the kingdom of heaven, the ideal kingdom of true happiness, particularly laid out in the Sermon of the Mount.

Do you know what Paradise means, etymologically? It means walled garden. The Decalogue is the walls of this garden, and inside is the place we prepare for the revelation of the New Jerusalem, lowed down from heaven by God himself. Adam and Eve were supposed to be the source through which this garden was to expand into the whole earth, subduing it in preparation for the arrival of heaven, but instead they sinned, and Israel was founded by God to prepare for the New Adam, building the walls in the holy Land so that the New Adam could plant the tree of life within it, and then together they would expand this garden to the Gentiles.

This all also explains the relationship between mortal sin and Grace. Not committing mortal sin, as outlined by the Decalogue, isn’t salvation, but it cultivates a sanctuary, a temple, in our souls so that the Holy Spirit can enter and rest within us, transforming us by his grace. But committing a mortal sin breaks the walls of this sanctuary and allows evil to defile it, casting out the Holy Spirit as if he were a demon.
 
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Hey OP. I think this is a great question. I can only offer my opinion on some of these things. Firstly there are donts. Sure this isn’t engaging as such, but they are important. It’s a warning. If you tell a child “don’t touch a fire”, it’s to protect them so they don’t get burned. That’s how I see donts.

But there are also dos…
our Job in this life as Christians is to love God and to love others. So how do we do that? That’s part of the process…learning. A good place to start though might be the beatitudes… Care for the sick, counsel the doubting etc., feed the hungry… etc. etc.

A near death experiencer I saw claimed to have met
Jesus. He asked Jesus if he could build Him a shrine…
Jesus basically said “no thanks”… lol. He asked …ok well what do YOU want me to do?
Jesus said… “Love the person your with”.

This isn’t aCatholic account so I leave it to your discernment either way. But even following the beatitudes Jesus seemed to leave us a task.
 
fhansen said:
Failure to attend an AA meeting might not qualify as a sin of omission
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What? Are you really serious!?
Why do you think that not doung what you should is not a sin??? Seems kind of non-Catholic to say that it is not a sin. Refusing to accept the help God os giving must be a sin of ommission!
 
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jesusmademe said:
What? Are you really serious!?
Why do you think that not doung what you should is not a sin??? Seems kind of non-Catholic to say that it is not a sin. Refusing to accept the help God os giving must be a sin of ommission!
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You are wrong. fhansen is right.
 
I can’t necessarily know God’s will when something is not overtly a sin. I can know that murder is sin, while I can’t know the same about failure to attend an anger management class. But maybe we should add that: “Thou shall attend anger management classes”.
jesusmademe said:
The Church often preach what not do do and to me that is anti-helpful in many cases it seems. Why this focus on what not to do?
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As the Church teaches, the purpose of the law is to identify and disclose sin. So that we may know that we’re sinful if we commit those acts and finally to help us see that we cannot overcome sin without grace, without God IOW. But to identify every specific sin might require a thousand commandments, a “chilialogue”. So the basic and only authentic means to addressing sin is with the Greatest Commandments, love being the true antidote to sin and the standard against which we can judge whether any particular act is sinful or not. It’s what a Christian is definitively supposed to do- with the help of God-and the one sure means of precluding all sin.
 
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Agnus-Dei said:
That is my point. With the teacher, (bible) listing all the “don’ts”, (in general) which makes a shorter list, the “do’s” are everything else not prohibited.
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Longness and Shortness are immaterial

What’s unfurled in time was necesary for those folks at that time…

_
 
fhansen said:
s the Church teaches, the purpose of the law is to identify and disclose sin. So that we may know that we’re sinful if we commit those acts and finally to help us see that we cannot overcome sin without grace, without God IOW. But to identify every specific sin might require a thousand commandments, a “chilialogue”. So the basic and only authentic means to addressing sin is with the Greatest Commandments, love being the true antidote to sin and the standard against which we can jud
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Here is what AskACatholic told me: “That would depend on the person’s reasons and motivations for not going to AA. If you assume that they don’t go because they know they have a problem and refuse to confront the problem, yes, I think that would qualify as a sin of omission.”

This guy agreed with me. It could actually be considered a mortal sin!
 
jesusmademe said:
This guy agreed with me.
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Doesn’t mean either of you are correct. And you kind of glossed over the “That would depend…” part, which means it was not an unqualified agreement.
 
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Yes, so God, who judges by the heart, may be the only one who could tell us with certainty about the right or wrong of any particular action in each person’s individual case. But the fact that this person avoided doing something that may’ve helped him overcome an addiction certainly doesn’t speak well of his intentions to increase in holiness/righteousness. Whether or not that scenario necessarily fits so well with the definition of sin, I’m really not sure.
 
Here we go again.
Catholics do have difficulties with “sin of ommission”!
Even not listening to a teacher when you knew he was giving an extremely important advice is a sin a Priest told me. He said it could be a sin. For me it could be a sin. If I refuse God’s gift to me I sin!
How difficult is that to understand!!!
You seem to say “the only sin of ommission is refusing to attend Mass as a Catholic”.
There are more to sin of ommission than that.
Feel free to dissagree with the Priest and the guy at ask a catholic!

How is it not heresy to deny that sins is mostly about commission!??
You confuse me!!!
 
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Yes but all sin is a “no” to something good.
Or is this wrong? Am I misssunderstanding something?
I really just think that we missunderstand eachother.
Do you people on this forum really don’t believe in sins on ommission?
How can refusing to do what you should not be a sin of ommission?
I say that it must be a sin of ommission. Why do you say otherwise?
An alcoholic who know he need AA and refuses would sin I say. Why do say otherwise? Don’t you believe in sin?
 
jesusmademe said:
Yes but all sin is a “no” to something good.
Or is this wrong? Am I misssunderstanding something?
I really just think that we missunderstand eachother.
Do you people on this forum really don’t believe in sins on ommission?
How can refusing to do what you should not be a sin of ommission?
I say that it must be a sin of ommission. Why do you say otherwise?
An alcoholic who know he need AA and refuses would sin I say. Why do say otherwise? Don’t you believe in sin?
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Sins of omission are the minority.
 
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