Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!psuvax1!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@lancia.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Mortal Sins?? Message-ID: Date: 27 Oct 89 08:27:10 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 92 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu The biggest question which she has asked that I did not know the answer to is about the (7?) mortal sins. Any RC's out there want to give some insight into what they are (neither one of us can even remember them), what is meant by mortal - does it imply that you cannot be forgiven these sins, even through the payment Christ made on the cross? We believe that as sinners we will always sin, and have sinned much in the past, but that through our faith, knowing the Lord died for us individually on Calvary, and our Love of the Lord, we have accepted the payment he made for those sins. Most of all, what is the biblical support for the concept of mortal sins? There isn't any sin that can't be forgiven, except the one that one is not sorry for. Catholic theologians divide sin into two kinds, mortal and venial. The distinction was known to the Fathers of the Church (e.g., St. Augustine, St. Jerome), by the late 4th century. A possible New Testament reference to this distinction is as follows: He who knows his brother is committing a sin that is not unto death, shall ask, and shall give life to him who does not commit a sin unto death. There is sin unto death; I do not mean that anyone should ask as to that. All lawlessness is sin, and there is a sin unto death. (I John 5:16-17) Mortal sin is called mortal because it means spiritual death to the soul, separation from God, its life, for all eternity. Mortal sins are incompatible with one's salvation. Mortal sins have to be repented of and forgiven if one is to save one's soul. Venial sins are not incompatible with one's salvation. Venial sins *at most* cause a short sojourn in Purgatory -- nothing at all, compared to Hell. Nobody can avoid all venial sins execpt by a special grace from God. A human being is *very* holy when he gets to the point where he is habitually avoiding *fully deliberate* venial sins. Venial sin is what the New Testament (St. John? St. James?) was talking about when it said that the just man falls seven times daily. The danger of venial sin is that it leads to mortal sin. Venial sin weakens one's soul, clouding the intellect and weakening the will's ability to resist mortal sin. The spectacular falls that one sometimes sees in public personalities don't happen overnight. The people involved had some venial sin that they were attached to, and did not try to root out. Perhaps they liked flattery. Perhaps a temper that there was little effort to control. For a sin to be mortal, 3 things are necessary: - the act involved has to be something serious - you have to do it fully deliberately - you have to do it knowing what you're doing If one of the above three things is not present, the sin is venial. Examples of things that are typically one or the other (keep in mind that you need all three things for a mortal sin): mortal: murder; blasphemy; theft of large sums of money; perjury venial: over-eating; face-saving lies A good analogy to help understand this is human relationships. I can be someone's friend, and still slip up every now and then. For example, maybe I sometimes inadvertently say something that hurts my friend's feelings. A friendship can survive that. But if I hurl insults at a person whenever I see them, I can't be their friend. That's the way it is with God. One can't be a murderer or fornicator or what have you and reach Heaven. That kind of stuff has to be given up. But if I every now and then neglect a few things because I have a little spiritual laziness to which I am attached, God isn't going to condemn me to Hell for it. Saying that all sin is mortal leads to the extremes of either: laxness -- Every sin deserves Hell, I can't possibly avoid every sin, therefore I might as well give up. rigorism -- Every sin deserves Hell, therefore I better darn sight stop sinning. It's fairly easy to avoid all mortal sins in one's life, especially if one has access to the Sacraments on a regular basis. The venial sins are where the difficulty comes in. Joe Buehler jhpb@lancia.ATT.COM att!lancia!jhpb