Wrong views about Mortal Sin

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#1 seemed a bit ridiculous to me, to be honest.

Mostly because of the example of the nun. That’s ridiculous and overkill - which is what I keep saying.

EVERYTHING is a near occasion of sin, if you think about it. I don’t think everyone is perpetually falling into sin just because it’s there. I take showers but it doesn’t mean I’m in there sinning. I’m taking a shower. I change clothes but it doesn’t mean I’m sinning. I tend to other matters and it doesn’t mean I’m sinning. Or that I’m going to - that’s a bit over the top.

The other three seem right.
 
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Pup7 said:
#1 seemed a bit ridiculous to me, to be honest.

Mostly because of the example of the nun. That’s ridiculous and overkill - which is what I keep saying.

EVERYTHING is a near occasion of sin, if you think about it. I don’t think everyone is perpetually falling into sin just because it’s there.

The other three seem right.
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Only 1 and 3 together mean improper disposition.

“A person who lives in a near and voluntary occasion of sin need not expect forgiveness while he continues in that state.”
 
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Okay I’m actually not sure what you mean by that phrase. Can you explain?

Never mind - just saw the edit or either my phone caught up with the refresh. Okay.
 
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Yes, God gives us grace when we sincerely ask for it. I was thinking of presumption…
when it is careless and not sincere.
 
As I said, 1 is still perplexing.

Take the shower example. Or even more personal and necessary matters. If potentially having to touch myself is near sin, and I’m always going to be in that state (or at least once a day/several days a month) - AND I’m always going to fall in it - I should just quit now because humanity is beyond hope.

Perhaps I’m reading it wrong.
 
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Ya! The classic three requirements are: serious sin (abortion is), full knowledge (that it was a sin, that it was a grave sin, that you were commiting it, etc.), and consent (fully choosing to do it). In this case, the woman would not have had full consent and possibly not full knowledge. So technically, no classification of sin (gluttony, lust, lying) can really be said to be objectively mortal or venial since it’s subjective to the way it was commited. The only case I can think of right now is things such as the sin of presumption (i.e. someone purposefully lying to get a raise in a job and planning to just “go to confession” about it afterwards). This is because this defenition essentially includes the way it was commited since for it to be the sin of presumption, it already meets the criteria.

Also, all those young people living lives drenched in lust and instant gratification cannot be written off as being in a state of mortal sin since they may not have full knowledge that what they were doing was a sin. This technically means that it is in many ways easier for Christians to go to hell than other people since Christians actually know better. This doesn’t of course apply to everything as it is still a pretty universal rule that murder is bad, even to non-christians and someone who did kill would most likely be haunted by their conscience, even if they weren’t told it was a sin. And this makes perfect sense. Wouldn’t it be more offensive to you for someone to do something bad that you specifically told them not to do then for them to do something bad when you didn’t tell them. One is a full act of disobedience while another, though still bad, is just a mistake in judgement and it is unknown how that person would have reacted, had you told them not to.
 
margaret42 said:
This would then probably free the conscience of the person wanting the abortion.
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Indeed. The phrase you are likely looking for is “non culpable acts of grave matter”.
Or more likely its a partially culpable act of grave matter = venial personal sin only.

I personally avoid the phrase “objective mortal sin” which is a bit of a theological “mongrel” phrase in my opinion though popular amongst some on CAF. The better theological expression I believe is “grave matter” or “grave disorder” or “objectively disordered”.
 
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TheOldColonel said:
At the heart of scrupulosity is spiritual pride, the fear of not being perfect and needing to hear constantly that their imagined sins are not real.
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I disagree. I have may have suffered from borderline scrupulosity at times (or may have gone over the line at times). I don’t think it was a fear of not being perfect (I knew I was far from perfect) or that I wanted to hear that my sins were not real. As for spiritual pride, yes I think I have been guilty of that, but my concern about this was also a worry to me.

Scrupulosity, I think, is not about thinking you are better than others, or about wanting to be told your sins are not sins. It is tied up more with fear, worry and anxiety.

Would it make sense to turn to a person suffering from anxiety and tell them that their problem stems from pride?
 
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We, as Catholics and even most Christians, are sin obsessed. It is the foundation of our theology. Original sin, mortal sin, without them we might even think we don’t need a savior. As if there is nothing else of importance in our spiritual life.
 
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margaret42 said:
It does involve a lot of fear and anxiety, like you said. This to me is why scrupulosity is sinful.
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Fear and anxiety are not sinful. Have you ever known anyone who suffers from anxiety? They are not intentionally being like this. Sin involves an act of will.
 
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But surely the very thing that moves us further from God is sin.

I can’t really see how anxiety and scrupulosity can move a person further from God, although it can cause the individual much distress. I’m not sure how a person’s distress results in them being further away from God than a person who has a more peaceful state of mind.
 
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The “full” in full consent - might be a key here. Our culture shows mercy to individuals for many things. Our culture goes so far as to label some behaviors as a “disease”. Examples would include alcoholism, sex addicts even perhaps extreme use cases of video games. Some of these behaviors our catholic faith would also label as grave matter. Who is more merciful, God or our society?

If the “full” in full consent in fact means -full-, then the person performing the act the OP used as an example, would have to have performed the act knowing it was of grave matter (accounting for full knowledge and grave matter), and say to himself/herself, essentially, -so what-. I want to do this, I will do this, and I don’t care about the consequences. Anything less is not -full- consent. If the person fights the urge and loses the battle, he/she did so with some degree less than full consent.
 
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Brendan_64 said:
But surely the very thing that moves us further from God is sin.
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Poor terminology.
We reserve the word “sin” for obstacles caused by our own will.
Obstacles that are physical are “disorders.”

One might call scrupulosity a form of negative concupiscence.
Concupiscence is a constitutional spiritual disorder…but it is not sin itself.
It is an inclination to sin.
Does concupiscence move us from God?
I think so, like gravity…if we do nothing it will.

The act of will needed to overcome “negative concupiscence” (ie a tendency to scrupulosity) is trust in a regular confessor.
Trust is something we have some freedom to exercise.
Yet some scrupulous persons decline to do even this.
 
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Sex addiction, gambling addiction, and video game addiction are believed to be caused by a fault in the brain’s feedback system and the serotonin loop. In many cases, the body reacts the same way as it does on certain drugs. It literally creates a physical high. There are also other mental health pieces to that puzzle.

Alcoholism is a bona fide physical dependence.

They’re definitely medical conditions.
 
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Not sure if you agreed with me or disagreed with me 😀

My point is more that many of these behaviors become habit forming, like so many things. Once something is done because one’s will is compromised from habit, does it lessen the “full” in full consent? Something less than 100% consent.
 
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I just love hearing people quibble over what is evil and what is disordered. It reminds me of high school.

he
 
I was trying to finish when the app interrupted me.

Someone who can’t control themselves in a department store could shoplift. It may or may not be a sin for that person. It is a crime, though. If it is that the person is a kleptomaniac and took some things because of a strong need to steal, that person could end up in jail no matter why he took the merchandise. Maybe he did not sin, exactly, but he committed a legal crime.

(On the lighter side, a family member had a dog that got into a bag of dog food stored where he had access to it. He ate the whole bag and got sick. He needed his stomach pumped out because he was just very sick. Too much of a good thing, I guess. He didn’t know when to stop eating.)

There are so many ways people may or may not incur serious sin.
 
Mijoy2 said:
Not sure if you agreed with me or disagreed with me 😀

My point is more that many of these behaviors become habit forming, like so many things. Once something is done because one’s will is compromised from habit, does it lessen the “full” in full consent? Something less than 100% consent.
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A medical condition isn’t governed by sin. That was my point. They are diseases. Not habits. Habits are far easier to break - with no comparison to dependency and disease.
 
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It’s kind of funny how the English langusge works since it is a good thing (could be considered a virtue) to be scrupulous but “scrupulosity” is a very bad thing. Scrupulosity is like a spiritual disease because it tires the soul which is anxious not to sin to a certain point where it believes it’s beyond hope. The evil fruits of this are despair, loss of hope, giving up on the faith, etc. And a sin graver than most mortal sins is believing that you are beyond hope and that God cannot forgive you. This was the sin that Judas fell into which brought him to commit suicide. The graver of his sins was not selling Jesus but of believing that God couldn’t forgive him any more and committing suicide. Unlike this sin, people with scrupulosity usually aren’t doing crazy mortal sins but are so caught up in any small sin that they feel the same disgust with themselves. And of course it’s not their choice, it’s a voice whispering in their ear telling them they’re not good enough. The sin of scrupulosity comes when they choose to listen to that voice, instead of the voice of God which is constantly telling them “you are good enough and I love you”. In this way, they choose to block out God and his mercy by thinking they aren’t good enough for it when in reality, God literally died for them.
 
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