Chapter Six Sin The Nature of Sin - PowerPoint Presentation

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Chapter Six

SinSlide2

The Nature of Sin

Sin is:

An offense against reason, truth, and right conscience

Against Reason: We act contrary to good judgment

Against Truth: We act contrary to what is meaningfulAgainst Conscience: We act contrary to what is good for usSin detaches us from any good in our life—love, fellowship, and GodSlide3

The Nature of Sin

Sin’s origin, the fall of humanity, the disharmony created within us, and the battle we face everyday between making a good choice or bad is rooted in pride:

Reading: C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”Slide4

The Nature of Sin

Main point’s from C.S. Lewis’ chapter on sin

All of us commit the sin of pride

The most evil of all vices is pride—this is how the devil became the devil

Pride is the complete anti-God state of mindPride is the chief cause of misery Pride always produces animosity between people and GodIf you are proud you cannot know GodSlide5

The Nature of Sin

Your book, the Catechism, and C.S. Lewis all describe sin as creation lacking something

Sin (evil) is essentially the absence of what ought to

be

Example: Sin removes our happiness, our peace of mind, our relationships, our own self-respect etc.Slide6

Nature of Sin

Now depending on the kind of sin will determine how detached you become from God, neighbor, and yourself

There are sins that “cry to heaven”

Blood of Abel

The sin o SodomitesOppression in Egypt The cry of foreigners, widows, and orphansInjustice to the wage earner There are sins of the flesh

Impurity

Hatred

There is

Original Sin and personal sinSlide7

Nature of Sin

Original Sin

Why is our life so full of conflict: conflict between the soul, which is immortal, and the body, a prey to sickness and to death; between the reason and the passions, which draw us in opposite directions; between man and the universe—man, who struggles daily to wrest a living from the earth, which responds with famines and catastrophes? What is the reason for all the affliction? And, above all, why should little children suffer and die?Slide8

Nature of Sin

Original Sin

Created as a compound of flesh and spirit, we are a meeting place of the world of visible things and the invisible world

“We are a boundary line between two worlds”

St. ThomasWe are a bundle of contradictions said John Cardinal Newman. He said that our humanity is a strange composite of heaven and earth, cloaking corruption yet weakness mastering powerSlide9

“What sort of freak then is man…how novel, how monstrous, how chaotic, how paradoxical, how prodigious! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, repository of truth, sink of doubt and error, glory and refuse of the universe”

Pascal Slide10

Nature of Sin

Original Sin

This is the balance that we are to manage in our lives

Being

divided, this is a great challenge for all of us because we are of the earth but meant for heavenThis opens another point: Earthly

reality and

heavenly reality

The Transfiguration of Jesus for example reveals to us the glory that we are called too

We are meant to become holy as Christ was in His Transfiguration Slide11

Nature of Sin

Original Sin

Another question we can ask is did God create us to receive these struggles?

We ultimately cannot understand the Mind of God but we do know that God created us in His image and likeness

We were created to be in harmony with God, neighbor, and ourselvesGraced by God we shared peace, love, and justice unlike we experience todaySlide12

Nature of Sin

Original Sin

Adam chose just as we continue to choose today to break from God. The Fall and our falls are revolts against God’s love

We wish to be no longer

in God but against GodToday the Church recognizes two forms in which we turn away from this loveSlide13

The Nature of Sin

Particular Sin

There are two categories of particular sin which is a turning from God’s love

Mortal

VenialAs it has been said before the moral principle for making a moral decision is the object. This also applies to the gravity of a sin and if it is mortal or venialSlide14

Mortal Vs. Venial

Mortal

Grave violation

Destroys charity

Full rejection of charity Contrary to God’s loveContrary to loving neighborVenial

Less serious

Weakens charity

Partial rejection of charity

Love to God is not fully jeopardized

Love of neighbor is not fully jeopardized Slide15

Mortal Sin in Detail

What makes a sin mortal?

Grave matter

Full knowledge

Complete consentIf any of these are absent, it does not become a mortal sinSlide16

Mortal Sin in Detail

Grave matter: What we do (the object) must be serious enough to destroy the love of God

The Ten Commandments are God’s Law that reveal to us what causes us to be cut off from God’s love

Murder

adultery,ApostasyAbortionBlasphemyDefrauding the poorSlide17

Mortal Sin in Detail

Full knowledge: To commit mortal sin we must know that what we are doing is seriously wrong

If we are ignorant of an act being serious we cannot be held accountable and in the eyes of God punishment can be withheld or diminished

The questions we would ask someone here is how do they not know something to be wrong when it hurts them or others

Pretending however to be ignorant or choosing not to know the truth does make you blameworthySlide18

Mortal Sin in Detail

Complete Consent: A deliberate and personal choice

Full consent means that we make that free choice knowing full right that it is wrong but do it anyway regardless of the consequences Slide19

Venial Sin in Detail

Venial means “easily forgiven”

Committing a venial sin causes you to fall but does destroy nor tear you away from the love of God

Under the three requirements for an act to be a mortal sin it becomes a venial because one of the requirements were not met

Full knowledge: IgnoranceFull consent: Coerced Slide20

A good analogy to understand the difference between mortal and venial sin is this:

Think of a light bulb

The light (God’s love/grace) will be destroyed if you were to destroy the light bulb (mortal sin)

If the light bulb was covered with dirt, you do not take away the light, it still exists but it is harder to see (venial sin)