Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Brian T. Coughlin) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Temptation and Impure Thoughts Message-ID: Date: 1 Apr 91 09:20:51 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH Lines: 53 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Re: Brendan Mahony In article brendan@cs.uq.oz.au (Brendan Mahony) writes, in response to Cathy Fasano: >>Whether one believes the (in this case homosexual) action immoral or not, >>merely considering the action is not in itself immoral. As a general case >>in moral theology, unacted-out temptation is never considered sinful -- in >>fact, resisting temptation is considered a practical virtue to be prayed >>for, studied and emulated. >Perhaps a little over simplified. The (RC) church would definitely claim that >there is sin in entertaining thoughts or fantasizing about a sinful action. >This is referred to as sin by Christ and the ten commandments. Notice >that it is "thou shalt not covet..." rather than "thou shalt not take..." Hi, Brendan! In my experience, you're both right, to an extent. The Church does *not* consider a normal, "out-of-the-blue" impure thought to be a sin; the Church stresses firmly that being tempted is NOT equivalent to being sinful. So in that respect, one would not be sinning by merely having an impure thought appear in one's mind. However, one WOULD be sinning if, instead of "banishing" the thought from one's mind immediately, one continued to "dwell" on the thought, "savoring" it, as such. Along those lines, one would not be sinning if one looked at a member of the opposite sex and was struck by a "fantasy" of a sexual encounter with that person; it's quite natural for that "urge" to strike from time to time. But it's the obligation of the Christian to say, "Yes, I acknowledge that I find myself sexually attracted to [him/her], but the life I lead insists on my *not* "following up" on that attraction; [he/she] is simply attractive to me, and that's that." To react to these random thoughts by trying to *deny* their existence (or possible recurrence) would be silly; one would be driven mad by self-inflicted grief, shame, and confusion. One must instead accept these "awkward" thoughts for what they are... simple, fleeting temptations, and nothing more... and move on. Simple as that. I hope this is applicable to what you were talking about...! :) >In seeking to resist temptation one should really be aiming to clean >one's mind of impure thoughts as well as one's body of actions. That's quite true; a goal of every Christian is to have pure body AND pure mind. But it should be noted that it is inappropriate, if not somewhat hazardous, to mistake temptation itself for a sin. ---- Take care! Sincerely, Brian Coughlin oracle@eleazar.dartmouth.edu