Why is stealing wrong?

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Elijah_Baley

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Not that I dispute it, but elsewhere on a secular forum folks are trying to justify stealing nonessentials. So why is stealing wrong?
  1. Theologically.
  2. As could be explained to a secularist.
 
Stealing is generally wrong, but depends on how much harm is caused to the owner who is being stolen from. A person who samples a grape in the grocery store is committing at most a venial sin, and cannot be compared to the great harm caused by, say, someone who robs a bank.

A secularist who won’t recognize even natural law will probably not accept any reasoned arguments against stealing. Perhaps they themselves don’t mind having to pay more for products at the store to cover the costs of stealing, or perhaps they can excuse and justify thievery and robbery in their minds when they themselves become direct victims.

There are rare situations where stealing is actually justified, as I recall an apologist explaining moral theology, but again a secularist wouldn’t want to hear the reasoning.
 
Theologically- God, via the Church, says so. Easy.

Secularly- disrupts society; society, when disrupted, impugns the progression towards perfection of culture. Subsidiarity (you can argue this from the U.S. Constitution) demands that individuals bear responsibility. Anytime the individual, who has responsibility for self first and foremost, necessitates a previously needless interruption by the higher spheres, it disrupts society.

In The Kite Runner, the father tells the son that the worst sin is theft. Or maybe he said all sin is theft… and it’s true in many ways.

Adam stole from his descendants the chance to be in the Garden, communing with God, by evil.

What is theft, but a physical representation and affecting of a lie? “This is mine”, when it’s most certainly not. So theft is lying in a degree.

This is why St. Thomas Aquinas argued that if they were to put to death forgers, they should put to death heretics, since they forged false doctrine.

Just don’t tell PBS. 😉
 
Elijah_Baley said:
Not that I dispute it, but elsewhere on a secular forum folks are trying to justify stealing nonessentials. So why is stealing wrong?
  1. Theologically.
  2. As could be explained to a secularist.
Click to expand...
What kind of society could exist if there is no basic respect between people on that basic level?

And “nonessentials”? Who is to determine what is and what isn’t? What is to you may not be to me or vice-versa.

This is why every society, religious (whatever religion) or not, has laws that include theft as a crime. Remove it and society breaks down to anarchy- and violence.
 
Elijah_Baley said:
Not that I dispute it, but elsewhere on a secular forum folks are trying to justify stealing nonessentials. So why is stealing wrong?
  1. Theologically.
  2. As could be explained to a secularist.
Click to expand...
CCC 2408 The seventh commandment forbids theft, that is, usurping another’s property against the reasonable will of the owner. There is no theft if consent can be presumed or if refusal is contrary to reason and the universal destination of goods. This is the case in obvious and urgent necessity when the only way to provide for immediate, essential needs (food, shelter, clothing . . .) is to put at one’s disposal and use the property of others.

CCC 2409 Even if it does not contradict the provisions of civil law, any form of unjustly taking and keeping the property of others is against the seventh commandment: thus, deliberate retention of goods lent or of objects lost; business fraud; paying unjust wages; forcing up prices by taking advantage of the ignorance or hardship of another.

The following are also morally illicit: speculation in which one contrives to manipulate the price of goods artificially in order to gain an advantage to the detriment of others; corruption in which one influences the judgment of those who must make decisions according to law; appropriation and use for private purposes of the common goods of an enterprise; work poorly done; tax evasion; forgery of checks and invoices; excessive expenses and waste. Willfully damaging private or public property is contrary to the moral law and requires reparation.
 
Elijah_Baley said:
Not that I dispute it, but elsewhere on a secular forum folks are trying to justify stealing nonessentials. So why is stealing wrong?
  1. Theologically.
  2. As could be explained to a secularist.
Click to expand...
In the shortest and most basic terms - stealing from another is wrong because you do not want another stealing from you…

Peace
James
 
Stealing is wrong, because, one it,s agains God Commanded, : “Thou shall not steal.” Second ,because once you do, you think it,s ok,and it,s not, and to say it,s ok is wrong. May God, help you too understand. Amen
 
How about as relates to software piracy? That’s the particular manifestation being argued.
 
Elijah_Baley said:
How about as relates to software piracy? That’s the particular manifestation being argued.
Click to expand...
Stealing objects is wrong if there is in fact property. Property is ownership of something. Ownership is control of that something. Ownership is never viewed as complete ownership by individual men. The state almost always allows a degree of ownership but not absolute in property. That is demonstrated through zoning, property tax and various other laws that control your real property.

Software piracy is wrong if there can be ownership in ideas. Ownership in ideas is the foundation of intellectual property. I do not believe that ideas should be something that people can own. Copyright allows for ownership in ideas for a certain time period. It is not treated like property because it is turned over to the ‘public’ after a certain time period. So even those who advocate for the ownership of ideas usually do not go so far as to say that ownership should be perpetual. Ideas are not the same as property because they are not physical. One persons use of an idea in no way diminishes the use of it by someone else.
 
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