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The
complexity of sin
PRAISED BE JESUS
CHRIST!
(Now and Forever)
Sin. It’s a topic people urge priests to talk about with some frequency.
There is no doubt in my mind that the “sense of sin” has become eroded.
In the past it wasn’t unusual for people to be scrupulous, seeing sin
where it didn’t exist. That rarely seems to be a problem these days.
Yet, sin is real. It can also be complex.
Sin is disobedience. It is revolt against God. It is diametrically
opposed to the obedience of Jesus. The Catechism of the Catholic
Church defines sin as “an offense against reason, truth, and right
conscience” (1849).
As a consequence of original sin (the disobedience of Adam and Eve), the
grace of original holiness was lost and we, as descendants of Adam and
Eve, are subject to pride, covetousness, envy, anger, gluttony, lust and
sloth.
Personal sin is a deliberate action or pattern of actions or omissions
that violate conscience. Personal sins can be actual or habitual. Actual
sin is the failure to choose the good in a particular thought, word or
deed, while habitual sin is the failure to choose the good in a pattern
of repeated and unrepented thoughts, words or deeds.
Scripture provides several lists of sins. These lists reflect evils
prevalent in ancient times. While they remain part of human experience,
the centuries have added sins the authors of Scripture would not have
imagined.
In the epistle to the Galatians, St. Paul contrasts the works of the
flesh with the fruit of the spirit: “Now the works of the flesh are
plain: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmity,
strife, jealousy, anger, selfishness, dissension, factions, envy,
drunkenness, carousing, and the like. I warn you, as I warned you
before, that those who do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of
God” (Gal. 5:19-21).
The epistle to the Romans also offers a list: “maliciousness, greed,
ill-will, envy, murder, bickering, deceit, craftiness” (Rm. 1: 29-30).
This section of the epistle to the Romans speaks too of women who
exchange “natural intercourse for unnatural and men who lust for one
another.”
The first epistle to the Corinthians presents yet another list: “Do not
deceive yourselves; no fornicators; idolaters, or adulterers, no
sodomites, thieves, misers, or drunkards, no slanderers or robbers will
inherit God’s Kingdom” (1 Cor. 6: 9-10).
The Scriptures do not hesitate to name sin in its various forms, condemn
it, and point to its consequences.
The Catechism teaches that sins are mortal or venial according to
their gravity. Mortal sin is a grave violation of God’s law. It turns a
person away from God. Venial sin offends and wounds charity, but
does not rupture a person’s relationship with God.
Thomas Aquinas is instructive. He teaches that mortal sin embraces
something that, of its nature, is incompatible with sanctifying grace.
Sanctifying grace is the gift of God’s own life, infused into our soul
by the Holy Spirit to heal it of sin and to sanctify it. Received in
baptism, it is lost through mortal sin but is restorable, normatively
through the sacrament of penance. Thomas Aquinas writes, whether it is
blasphemy or perjury, homicide or adultery, in mortal sin a person’s
will is set upon something that, of its nature, involves a disorder.
Mortal sin is not a question of knocking over pegs. An action or
omission can objectively (on the books) be a mortal sin. Yet, the person
who knocks that peg over is not thereby automatically guilty of mortal
sin.
Sin is an act or failure to act in violation of one’s conscience. I put
myself ahead of what I understand God wants of me. Three conditions must
be met for a sin to be mortal. The Catechism (1857) teaches that
“mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also
committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent.” If any one of
those three is absent, the act or omission remains an evil, a privation,
a disorder, but the person subjectively is not guilty of a mortal sin.
Good faith ignorance (feigned ignorance does not excuse) diminishes or
even removes guilt. Feelings and passions can also diminish full consent
of the will, as well as external pressures or pathological disorders. It
should be obvious why Jesus instructed that we should not sit in
judgment of others (Matt. 7:1; Lk 6:33). That which an observer
perceives to be sin may not in fact be such subjectively, that is, for
“the sinner.”
While a person must obey the judgment of his/her conscience, conscience
may be lacking in formation. It can make erroneous judgments. All are
expected to take the trouble necessary to find out what is true and good
and realize that conscience is gradually blinded through a habit of sin.
“I don’t want to know” equates to feigning ignorance. The Catechism
teaches (1792) “ignorance of Christ and his Gospel, bad example given by
others, enslavement to one’s passions, assertion of a mistaken notion of
autonomy of conscience, rejection of the Church’s authority and her
teaching, lack of conversion and of charity: these can be a source of
errors of judgment in moral conduct.” It continues to instruct (1793)
that if a person is not personally responsible for their erroneous
judgment, the evil committed cannot be imputed to them. However, one
must work to correct the errors of moral conscience. A good conscience
is enlightened by the teachings of the Church. It is educated.
Venial sin is the failure to observe necessary moderation in lesser
matters of moral law, or, without full knowledge or complete consent in
grave matters.
So, sin is complex. The fact remains that many decisions are motivated
by selfishness. These decisions can be and at times are incompatible
with the holiness to which God has called us. The Scriptures clearly
warn that sin is not be taken lightly.
To paraphrase St. Gregory of Nazianzus and the Council of Trent: The
sacrament of penance is the ordinary route to salvation for those who
have fallen into mortal sin after baptism, just as baptism is the
ordinary route to salvation for those who have not yet been reborn. As
the same time the Church strongly recommends the regular confession of
venial sins in that such confession helps a person form conscience,
attacks evil tendencies, and allows a person to be healed by Christ and
progress in the spiritual life. For, as St. Augustine teaches: Whoever
confesses his/her sins works with God.
Sin in one form or another is part of everyone’s life. At the same time,
God is slow to anger and rich in compassion to those who fear offending
him.
In an upcoming edition: God’s forgiveness and reconciliation
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