Why not do sin all your life and confess on your deathbed

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Title basically. What is stopping you from doing sin for most of your life before just confessing it all at your deathbed.

Honestly the best I came up with is that any person who claims to follow Christ would also be inclined to follow Christ’s teachings as well and when you turn away from god you stop being Christian.

I’m interested to see your opinions on this and if there is any canonical teaching regarding this.
 
the first issue here comes when you die before you manage to have your confession heard.

the second issue here is that if you live all your life living badly with the attempt to cheat God, its going to be pretty hard to come up with some sincere sorrow at the very end.

these are among other issues with this but these are the short version I can come up with.
 
I was taking a class at my parish on the Early Church ca. 33AD to 500AD, & I was told that it was actually common to wait for baptism & conversion on their deathbed.
 
I heard that too. I believe the Emperor Constantine the Great did so upon his deathbed.

As for the OP’s position: This is the road to perdition, brother. Do the best you can to live a life in the state of grace. You never know when Death comes for you.
 
it was common practice long ago, but its VERY strongly discouraged if not outright condemned by the church since then.
 
The problem is, nobody knows when a person is going to die. One’s future is not guaranteed. Not everyone dies on their deathbed and have their sins confessed.

I wouldn’t be that foolish to risk my life on such a thing.
 
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1.It’s pretty risky; 2. you would not be able to partake of the Eucharist during your life; 3. is sin better than serving God? I don’t think so.
 
Just to clarify. I was just acknowledging that it was common in earlier days, but not saying it was right or wrong. It was what it was.
 
  1. How do you know you’ll get the chance to confess?
  2. The longer you live with the willingness to sin the harder it’s going to be to repent.
  3. This is an attempt to game the system, and that doesn’t work with God.
  4. With that kind of life behind you, even if you can squeak into Heaven your Purgatory will be long and ferocious.
Edit: and 5. What El Kevino said. It’s the sin of presumption.
 
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I thought it’s considered a sin to think “I can just confess this later.” Isn’t it called being presumptive of God’s Mercy? I think that has an impact on if you can make a valid confession. At least, you’d be obligated to tell your confessor that you sinned your whole life with the intent of confessing before death. If you withhold this info, then it wouldn’t be a valid confession for sure.
 
I thought as much, just wanted to clarify in case anyone was getting any ideas 😉 ).
 
But where is your deathbed, and when will you occupy it? What if you die in a traffic collision? 103 Americans do each day.

This completely discounts the fact that sin is not private. It always and everywhere affects others.

As well, it discards the joy that is inherent in the virtues.
 
Julius said:
Title basically. What is stopping you from doing sin for most of your life before just confessing it all at your deathbed.

Honestly the best I came up with is that any person who claims to follow Christ would also be inclined to follow Christ’s teachings as well and when you turn away from god you stop being Christian.

I’m interested to see your opinions on this and if there is any canonical teaching regarding this.
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God is Love and we’re suppose to reciprocate by loving God and our neighbor and ourselves. There is no other reason required than this.

Sin in of itself makes people’s lives more miserable. The happiest people in the world are, on average, people such as pastors or religious who tend to be particularly focused on avoiding it. People that do lots of stereotypically sinful things tend to have bursts of energy and pleasure with long bouts of boredom/depression/sorrow/emptiness. It’s a common misconception that Christians are missing out on something. It is the other way around.

A forgiven person may still incur temporal consequences in Purgatory.

A person who has openly sinned all their life is far less prone to ever ask for forgiveness at the end of it, since they have allowed their heart to be hardened and their intellect darkened.
 
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Julius said:
Why not do sin all your life and confess on your deathbed
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Because it likely wouldn’t be an honest confession. Some people come to a realisation that they have been living an evil life, or something may trigger an honest confession on their deathbed. Perhaps pride stopped them from confessing before and when approaching death they realise the futility of it all. This can save a soul.

But if you intentionally plan to live a debauched careless morally repugnant life, you will go to hell.

Of course nobody is perfect and most people will make mistakes and moral errors throughout their lives, but that is what confession is for.

In any case, there is no fooling God. There is no get out free cards.
 
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Precisely. That “let’s just sin all our life and confess at the last instant” would be my idea of hell on earth.
 
If this is one’s plan they may likely find themselves hit by a bus or drop dead of a heart attack. God will not be mocked.
 
VictoriaAdAeternam said:
If this is one’s plan they may likely find themselves hit by a bus or drop dead of a heart attack. God will not be mocked.
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At some point everybody treats life like it’s their own personal playground, but there is only tragedy at the end of that mentality.
 
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Julius said:
Title basically. What is stopping you from doing sin for most of your life before just confessing it all at your deathbed.

Honestly the best I came up with is that any person who claims to follow Christ would also be inclined to follow Christ’s teachings as well and when you turn away from god you stop being Christian.

I’m interested to see your opinions on this and if there is any canonical teaching regarding this.
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Since no one knows in advance, their last minute of life,
  1. it would seem then, to be a galactic gamble to wait till the end to get reconciled with God.
  2. what would that say about one’s understanding of God and loving God in life, 1st above everything?
Would someone’s confession , who played that game with God, all their life, even be considered serious by God?
 
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