The Whole Man is Sick

[Truthstalker]

Allow me to put this in context. I just finished Bainton’s rather excellent little book on Martin Luther, which allowed me some justification and knowledge of my prejudices against Lutheranism, as well as some sympathy, which was lacking. That statement should be put in the context of pointing out that reading Calvin’s Institutes almost resulted in me becoming Catholic. Almost. So I am couching this thread with the caveat that I am not defending ML. Nor do I wish to draw more of a connection between the thread title and ML than I already have.

Luther felt that confessing individual sins was like taking out the individual pus-filled sores of a systemic infection: symptoms would be cured, but not the underlying condition. The whole man is sick, not just its parts.

What say you in response to the previous paragraph?

 

[Spirithound]

For this miserable sinner, that often seems like an apt description.
On further reflection, however, I don’t think so. As a Catholic, I believe when I confess my sins to the priest and he gives me absolution, I am clean. As of that moment, I am in a state of grace, and I am not “sick” with the sins I have previously committed. I can sympathize however, in knowing that I’m probably going to sin again, probably something wrathful or lustful . So I am still “sick” with the concupiscence, or tendency to sin, that results from original sin. I’m not totally comfortable with that last sentence though, since confession does truly absolve me of my sins.

I feel that Luther, in that paragraph, is yearning for an end to his concupiscence, but he’s not finding it, and indeed very few people have ever been granted that, if ever.

I know very little about Luther, and so I don’t know whether that was his intent, or whether he made this further leap:

If one is truly despairing about one’s sins, it would be a mistake to blame the sacrament of Confession, or God, and to totally dispense with it in hopes of finding that “total fix” I noted above. Is he perhaps thinking something along the lines of “Once Saved, Always Saved” ? In that model, one’s personal relationship with Jesus is the only factor, no matter how sinful one is, and so that would seem to be the “total fix”. As a Catholic, I have a personal relationship with Jesus, but part of that relationship is the sacraments that He gave to the Church.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Allow me to put this in context. I just finished Bainton’s rather excellent little book on Martin Luther, which allowed me some justification and knowledge of my prejudices against Lutheranism, as well as some sympathy, which was lacking. That statement should be put in the context of pointing out that reading Calvin’s Institutes almost resulted in me becoming Catholic. Almost. So I am couching this thread with the caveat that I am not defending ML. Nor do I wish to draw more of a connection between the thread title and ML than I already have.

Luther felt that confessing individual sins was like taking out the individual pus-filled sores of a systemic infection: symptoms would be cured, but not the underlying condition. The whole man is sick, not just its parts.

What say you in response to the previous paragraph?

##** I believe the whole man is sick - it is the WM that is justified, sanctified, etc. The Fall, was of the WM. It is the WM for whom Christ died - He did not die for some parts of man. He assumed an entire human nature: not flesh only, or soul only, but the WM. How can we be saved if He did not ? **

 

[Belloc_Fan]

Luther felt that confessing individual sins was like taking out the individual pus-filled sores of a systemic infection: symptoms would be cured, but not the underlying condition. The whole man is sick, not just its parts.

What say you in response to the previous paragraph?

If all you’re doing in the confessional is listing the acted-upon sinful desires, then I think he’s right, at least to an extent. Confessing individual sins (particularly if you only confess sins of commission) helps cure the symptoms, but often not the disease. But I think there’s more to it than that.

I think that there are three levels: the capacity to sin, the inclination or desire to sin, and the actual sin itself (I’m not sure exactly how to word it, because sometimes the desire is a sin itself: cf. Matthew 5:28). Free will creates in us the capacity to sin, original sin creates in us the inclination or desire to sin, and we commit the actual sins ourselves (I mean “actual” here as in an active sin, as opposed to original sin).

Baptism cleanses us of all of our actual sins, and helps to cleanse us of our inclinations to sin by giving us the graces to combat those desires. The process of sanctification is intended to help continue this process of rooting out the core causes of our sins. But we’re not totally cleansed of our inclination to sin until after this earthly life is ended.

But confessing individual sins is still vital. For one, they are enough to keep us out of heaven. For two, God instructs us to - James 5:14-16 tells us we should, John 20:22-23 gives priests the power of absolution.

So we need Baptism as well as Confession for the process of justification and sanctification. Christ sums it up best in John’s Gospel during the washing of the feet.

**John 13:10 **Jesus replied, “Whoever has taken a bath does not need to wash except the feet, for he is clean all over. You are clean, though not all of you.”

In Baptism, we are bathed, and in Confession, we’re just cleaning our feet after we get them dirty again.

All of that said, you should do more than just confess individual sins - you should confess sinful desires and trends as well as sins acted upon, and search your soul for the roots of the sins you’re confessing. Most priests, in my experience, will directly address why you’re committing these sins - if they don’t, you should. Like Matthew 5:28 says, sometimes these desires are sinful of themselves (don’t forget that coveting is itself a violation of the 10 Commandments), and if you’re truly repentant, you’re not going to want to walk down that road again anyways.

So basically, confessing individual sins is something we’re called by God to do, but we’re also supposed to root our the seeds of sin from our souls.

 

[Truthstalker]

You may be familiar with the case of the “tree-man”, an Indonesian with a virus that causes him to grow warts all over himself. They can cut off the warts one by one, they can even dig out each wart individually, but even if every wart is completely removed, he would still grow more warts somewhere else.

In Catholic theology the metaphor would seem to be that each wart is a sin, but there is still the base desire to sin. I suspect that behind that base desire to sin is something a little deeper, which would cause one to want to have a desire to sin. That deeper thing cannot be rooted out of someone while they are still alive. Even if concupiscence were eliminated I think we would regrow it. Physical death must occur before it is dead.

I appreciate the (name removed by moderator)ut so far, people.

 

[neophyte]

…Luther felt that confessing individual sins was like taking out the individual pus-filled sores of a systemic infection: symptoms would be cured, but not the underlying condition. The whole man is sick, not just its parts…

Of course the problem is deeper than the individual sin. And so we have recourse to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Penance, by which we are given grace for the healing of our souls.

The truth is that the Sacrament does act on the underlying condition.