What IS feigned ignorance?

[Victorious_song]

Another thread just brought this up, but I don’t understand the term…feigned ignorance. What is it? Is it lying to others about not knowing something is wrong, or ignoring it, so you can do it, or is it lying to yourself to convince yourself something isn’t a sin? I tseems more logical that it’s the second, because it seems almost redundant to teach that pretending something ins’t a sin doesn’t mean it’s not a sin. But then, if the second is true, what of the scrupulous, who often feel like they’re just lying to themselves when they convince themselves that they aren’t sinning. How can they then know if they’re feigning ignorance?

 

[iloveangels]

Another thread just brought this up, but I don’t understand the term…feigned ignorance. What is it? Is it lying to others about not knowing something is wrong, or ignoring it, so you can do it, or is it lying to yourself to convince yourself something isn’t a sin? I tseems more logical that it’s the second, because it seems almost redundant to teach that pretending something ins’t a sin doesn’t mean it’s not a sin. But then, if the second is true, what of the scrupulous, who often feel like they’re just lying to themselves when they convince themselves that they aren’t sinning. How can they then know if they’re feigning ignorance?

The word “feigned” means “pretended.” Feigned ignorance is pretended ignorance. That’s when a person really knows something but pretends they don’t for some reason. Of the two choices you have there, it’s much more like the first. People almost always know very well when they’re feigning ignorance. With feigned ignorance you very clearly know something’s wrong but you deny it for a reason.

Scrupulosity is something different. That’s when you don’t know whether something is a sin or not and it bothers you that it might be. And sometimes you can’t stop thinking about it, but that little kernel of doubt is always there. You don’t know for sure.

There’s one other difference too. With feigned ignorance, people often really don’t care what God thinks of it. In contrast, it’s very likely that if you’re very concerned about what God thinks about it and you don’t want a reason to deny anything, that it’s scrupulosity, not feigned doubt that’s going on.

If you think you’re having troubles with scrupulosity, a priest can often help. They’re trained to understand these things.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

Another thread just brought this up, but I don’t understand the term…feigned ignorance. What is it? Is it lying to others about not knowing something is wrong, or ignoring it, so you can do it, or is it lying to yourself to convince yourself something isn’t a sin? I tseems more logical that it’s the second, because it seems almost redundant to teach that pretending something ins’t a sin doesn’t mean it’s not a sin. But then, if the second is true, what of the scrupulous, who often feel like they’re just lying to themselves when they convince themselves that they aren’t sinning. How can they then know if they’re feigning ignorance?

Scrupulosity is more like OCD - it’s people who keep worrying and fretting about sin, especially mortal sin. They worry that every little thing they do is sin and that they will go to hell for doing these things. They worry that even worrying about sin is a sin!!! I don’t think other faiths end up in scrupulosity but ours does, since we have the classification of sins into mortal and venial, and we have an obligation to confess in kind and number.

Anyway, back to your question, “feigned ignorance” is when someone pretends not to understand something or know something, but in reality, they do know it. It’s lying, but not necessarily blatant lying. Such as, a young woman is quite good at golf, but the instructor is so handsome that she pretends to be a beginner so that he will help her with her strokes. Or, a person is at work, and the talk turns to politics, and he pretends not to know anything about the candidates so his fellow employees will leave him out of the discussion, when in reality, he knows one of the candidates VERY well and the others well enough to know he can’t, as a Catholic, vote for them.

Does that help?

 

[ChibiViolet]

Scrupulosity is more like OCD - it’s people who keep worrying and fretting about sin, especially mortal sin. They worry that every little thing they do is sin and that they will go to hell for doing these things. They worry that even worrying about sin is a sin!!! I don’t think other faiths end up in scrupulosity but ours does, since we have the classification of sins into mortal and venial, and we have an obligation to confess in kind and number.

Anyway, back to your question, “feigned ignorance” is when someone pretends not to understand something or know something, but in reality, they do know it. It’s lying, but not necessarily blatant lying. Such as, a young woman is quite good at golf, but the instructor is so handsome that she pretends to be a beginner so that he will help her with her strokes. Or, a person is at work, and the talk turns to politics, and he pretends not to know anything about the candidates so his fellow employees will leave him out of the discussion, when in reality, he knows one of the candidates VERY well and the others well enough to know he can’t, as a Catholic, vote for them.

Does that help?

No, people of other faiths can have it too. This is an excerpt from this link: obsessivecompulsions.com/scrupulosity/:

Scrupulosity can affect people from a variety of faith traditions. Research linking the development of Religious OCD to a particular belief system is incomplete, but there is currently no evidence showing those practicing one religion or another are more likely to become scrupulous. Like other forms of OCD, the exact cause of the disorder is unknown. Scrupulosity is an equal opportunity disorder, but it may be the result of several factors such as environmental influences and genetics.

 

[Catholic80]

Another thread just brought this up, but I don’t understand the term…feigned ignorance. What is it? Is it lying to others about not knowing something is wrong, or ignoring it, so you can do it, or is it lying to yourself to convince yourself something isn’t a sin? I tseems more logical that it’s the second, because it seems almost redundant to teach that pretending something ins’t a sin doesn’t mean it’s not a sin. But then, if the second is true, what of the scrupulous, who often feel like they’re just lying to themselves when they convince themselves that they aren’t sinning. How can they then know if they’re feigning ignorance?

Scrupulosity and lying to yourself are different. For the scrupulous person, the sin they commit isn’t the sin they think they are committing. For example, if the scrupulous person swears and then confesses it, but thinks afterwards they didn’t confess it in enough detail, so they confess it again, maybe even multiple times, their swearing (what they think is the sin) is not the sin, but it their lack of faith in the love and mercy of God, which is a greater sin. In a way, they are ignorant of their real sin.

Lying to oneself is where one fights against ones conscience and convinces themselves that what they are doing is not really sin. For an example, an abortionist who acknowledges that murder is wrong, and that aborting the fetus indeed kills a growing human, but justifies oneself by arguing that the “greater moral” is in doing the mother’s wishes because of x y & z, is lying to themselves. There is a fight going on inside themselves and they have to oppress that voice of the Holy Spirit in order to continue.

Or, there can be feigned ignorance by refusing to search for truth. For example, if a person disagrees with the teaching that sex outside of marriage is wrong, and says, “well, it doesn’t make any sense to me, so I’m not going to follow the Church’s teaching,” but doesn’t bother to research and understand why the Church teaches this, then it is also feigned ignorance. They may not know why it’s wrong, but they are refusing to learn why. It’s like the student who won’t do his homework and then claims he’s simply too stupid to do well in school. It’s not his intelligence that’s the problem, but his will.

Feigned ignorance is either knowing or having the opportunity to know and refusing the truth. True ignorance comes from innocence. If no one ever taught them and they didn’t have the opportunity to learn, and natural law didn’t come into play, then well, they are truly ignorant.