Two of the heresies which are growing in modern society are the denial of natural law and the denial of free will. Readers have the list of free will posts here below......
Let me start with the first problematic belief, which takes the shape of people denying responsibility for actions because "they do not know" something is wrong.
The Catholic Encyclopedia is a good starting place for the understanding of natural law. The entire idea hinges on the fact that human being were created in the image and likeness of God.
Such philosophies are relativism, subjectivism and determinism deny the fact that we are all created to be with God in heaven, that we have this goal from the very fact that we are human beings, and that our intelligence and free will guide our actions and thoughts.
In other words, anything which is against human nature, as created by God, is against natural law. Human nature is the discriminating norm for natural law.
According to St. Thomas, the natural law is "nothing else than the rational creature's participation in the eternal law" (I-II.94). The eternal law is God's wisdom, inasmuch as it is the directive norm of all movement and action. When God willed to give existence to creatures, He willed to ordain and direct them to an end. In the case of inanimate things, this Divine direction is provided for in the nature which God has given to each; in them determinism reigns.
Like all the rest of creation, man is destined by God to an end, and receives from Him a direction towards this end. This ordination is of a character in harmony with his free intelligent nature. In virtue of his intelligence and free will, man is master of his conduct. Unlike the things of the mere material world he can vary his action, act, or abstain from action, as he pleases. Yet he is not a lawless being in an ordered universe. In the very constitution of his nature, he too has a law laid down for him, reflecting that ordination and direction of all things, which is the eternal law. The rule, then, which God has prescribed for our conduct, is found in our nature itself. Those actions which conform with its tendencies, lead to our destined end, and are thereby constituted right and morally good; those at variance with our nature are wrong and immoral.
To be human is to have knowledge of natural law. God ordered the universe and, specifically, human nature, to reflect Himself. The Divine nature informs human nature, and the Divine authority gives all all an innate obligation to follow natural law.
....
The discriminating norm is, as we have just seen, human nature itself, objectively considered. It is, so to speak, the book in which is written the text of the law, and the classification ofhuman actions into good and bad. Strictly speaking, our nature is the proximate discriminating norm or standard. The remote and ultimate norm, of which it is the partial reflection and application, is the Divine nature itself, the ultimate groundwork of the created order. The binding or obligatory norm is the Divine authority, imposing upon the rational creature the obligation of living in conformity with his nature, and thus with the universal order established by the Creator. Contrary to the Kantian theory that we must not acknowledge any other lawgiver than conscience, the truth is that reason as conscience is only immediate moral authority which we are called upon to obey, and conscience itself owes its authority to the fact that it is the mouthpiece of the Divine will and imperium. The manifesting norm (norma denuntians), which determines the moral quality of actions tried by the discriminating norm, is reason. Through this faculty we perceive what is the moral constitution of our nature, what kind of action it calls for, and whether a particular action possesses this requisite character.
The ability to reason is the faculty given to us by God, separating us from all other creatures, gives us the clarity as to what is moral, what action follows this knowledge of morality in a specific situation, and whether an action is moral.
This ability is in us by the very fact that we are human, and not because we are in sanctifying grace although sanctifying grace can inform natural law and lead to an understanding of other laws.
And, here comes an area of confusion for moderns: there are primary and secondary binding precepts.
To the first class belong those which must, under all circumstances, be observed if the essential moral order is to be maintained. The secondary precepts are those whose observance contributes to the public and private good and is required for the perfection of moral development, but is not so absolutely necessary to the rationality of conduct that it may not be lawfully omitted under some special conditions.
In addition, natural law is universal, to all people of all times.
Natural law is immutable; as long as humans exist, natural law exists.
And, here is the answer to those modern lawyers of all kinds who deny natural law. There is a new class both of civil and canon lawyers who have erroneously moved away from natural law philosophy.
The question arises: How far can man be ignorant of the natural law, which, as St. Paul says, is written in the human heart (Romans 2:14)? The general teaching of theologians is that the supreme and primary principles are necessarily known to every one having the actual use of reason. These principles are really reducible to the primary principle which is expressed by St. Thomas in the form: "Do good and avoid evil". Wherever we find man we find him with a moral code, which is founded on the first principle that good is to be done and evil avoided. When we pass from the universal to more particular conclusions, the case is different. Some follow immediately from the primary, and are so self-evident that they are reached without any complex course of reasoning. Such are, for example: "Do not commit adultery"; "Honour your parents". No person whose reason and moral nature is ever so little developed can remain in ignorance of such precepts except through his own fault. Another class of conclusions comprises those which are reached only by a more or less complex course of reasoning. These may remain unknown to, or be misinterpreted even by persons whose intellectual development is considerable.
Without Revelation, natural law is much harder to discern. Therefore, humans have a duty to pursue Revelation and supernatural law. See Vatican Council, Sess. III, cap. ii CE
to be continued.....................
Monday, 10 November 2014
Confusion on Natural Law
If modern theologians and philosophers deny we can know natural law, naturally, they are..
- denying God
- denying we humans are different than animals
- denying the soul
- denying natural religion
- denying natural knowledge of God
- denying conscience
- denying free will
- denying the rational capacity of humans; in other words, denying reason
- denying Revelation, which is the restatement clearly of the natural law
more later...
Confusion About Excommunication
There are several situations in the Catholic Church which result in automatic excommunication.
These are the sins which cause automatic excommunication in the Catholic Church. These are clarified in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
These apostasy, heresy, schism (CIC 1364:1), violating the sacred species (CIC 1367), physically attacking the pope (CIC 1370:1), absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin (CIC 1378:1), consecrating a bishop without authorization (CIC 1382), and directly violating the seal of confession (1388:1)
Automatic excommunication for abortion (CIC 1398 and Evangelium Vitae 62) applies not only to the woman who has the abortion, but to "all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed". Canon 1329 is applied. That is the point. The more severe, the most narrow the application is the rule for Canon Law.
Canon Law 1329.1 refers to direct, immediate and grave.
Also included is membership to the Masons and receiving Holy Communion while in an irregular marriage.
Automatic excommunication is called latae sententiae.
One does not need to understand what this means to be automatically excommunicated, as these are such grave evils. There are two types of knowledge.
Formal and material knowledge are these two types of knowledge. Natural law covers formal knowledge for any person over the age of 13.
One does not have to know it is an act which makes one an excommunicate, but only have to know it is really bad, like abortion for those brought up Catholics.
Material knowledge has to do with precepts within the law. One cannot attend a Mass where only the host is consecrated, for example and not the wine, which is a serious sin and an extension of natural law. Hitting a pope comes under material knowledge, which means one has to know it is an extension of natural law.
Not so with abortion, which is so evil, one would know how serious this is.
If one is a Mason and has gone through some of the ceremonies, one is excommunicated. This would occurs about the fourth level, which equal automatic excommunication.
Some Canons are Church laws, and some are God's laws. God's laws is where one could not ever say "I did not know", such as with abortion. One is culpable for breaking God's laws.
Blasphemy, adultery, abortion, judicial murder, bestiality and so on NO EXCUSE. Arbitrary justice, (lynch mobs, Star Chamber and so on ), is also a serious sin which a person cannot excuse themselves.
See the difference?
These are the sins which cause automatic excommunication in the Catholic Church. These are clarified in the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
These apostasy, heresy, schism (CIC 1364:1), violating the sacred species (CIC 1367), physically attacking the pope (CIC 1370:1), absolving an accomplice in a sexual sin (CIC 1378:1), consecrating a bishop without authorization (CIC 1382), and directly violating the seal of confession (1388:1)
Automatic excommunication for abortion (CIC 1398 and Evangelium Vitae 62) applies not only to the woman who has the abortion, but to "all those who commit this crime with knowledge of the penalty attached, and includes those accomplices without whose help the crime would not have been committed". Canon 1329 is applied. That is the point. The more severe, the most narrow the application is the rule for Canon Law.
Canon Law 1329.1 refers to direct, immediate and grave.
Also included is membership to the Masons and receiving Holy Communion while in an irregular marriage.
Automatic excommunication is called latae sententiae.
One does not need to understand what this means to be automatically excommunicated, as these are such grave evils. There are two types of knowledge.
Formal and material knowledge are these two types of knowledge. Natural law covers formal knowledge for any person over the age of 13.
One does not have to know it is an act which makes one an excommunicate, but only have to know it is really bad, like abortion for those brought up Catholics.
Material knowledge has to do with precepts within the law. One cannot attend a Mass where only the host is consecrated, for example and not the wine, which is a serious sin and an extension of natural law. Hitting a pope comes under material knowledge, which means one has to know it is an extension of natural law.
Not so with abortion, which is so evil, one would know how serious this is.
If one is a Mason and has gone through some of the ceremonies, one is excommunicated. This would occurs about the fourth level, which equal automatic excommunication.
Some Canons are Church laws, and some are God's laws. God's laws is where one could not ever say "I did not know", such as with abortion. One is culpable for breaking God's laws.
Blasphemy, adultery, abortion, judicial murder, bestiality and so on NO EXCUSE. Arbitrary justice, (lynch mobs, Star Chamber and so on ), is also a serious sin which a person cannot excuse themselves.
See the difference?
Big Prayer Request
A Mr. Finnell, who is a Bible Christian, keeps writing and trying to convert me to Protestantism.
I am asking all the Catholic bloggers to pray for his conversion.
Thanks...
I am asking all the Catholic bloggers to pray for his conversion.
Thanks...
Nostalgia
I was thinking today of the differences between university students' communication lifestyles and mine as a student. Now, I was an undergraduate in Iowa, but worked for a bit, then, went back to grad school at ND. Little had changed, however. My undergraduate room had the same furniture as this one. The bed was a settee in the day, and and then one pulled it out at night.
Some colleges did not even have phones in the individual rooms when I was in the dorm as an undergraduate. A few did, if one was in a top private college. Otherwise, everyone shared a public phone on the floor, and one had to use change, not credit cards.
For those of us who had private phones in the dorm rooms, one shared the line and number with one's roommate, and the number was an extension which came through a main switchboard at the college.
Mobiles, or cells, had not yet been invented.
No one had a personal TV. One was in each floor common room, where we also did our ironing, made coffee, popcorn and pizzas.
Very large computers were used at my undergrad university for research only. By the time I was in graduate school, we were using computers, but only in the "computer rooms" of the university. The first PC I remember was a BBC. Of course, there was no Internet and the operating systems were interior to the university, with some computers, such as in the library, connected to other library databases.
If one wanted to talk with friends, one went either to the dorm floor common room, if these friends were girls, as I went to Catholic universities, which had separate dorms for men and women, or one went out. One could meet up in the on-campus coffee shop or in the cafeterias, until these closed.
Main floor common rooms allowed students of the opposite sex until eleven, because of parietals.
So, most of the time, if we wanted to be with friends, we went off campus to various places, either in groups, or on a date.
And, dates were sometimes made in person and not on the phone. Long phone conversations could only occur if one had a private room, not a roommate and definitely not on a hall phone.
Amazing, just imagine talking in person most of the time and not on a phone.
Imagine life without a pc or laptop or tablet or cell phone.
Imagine planning meetings in person,
Many of us did have private phones at home, but most girls my age did not have their own phone number. The phone in our rooms were extensions, and dad or mom would monitor phone time when we were home.
I remember having my own phone number as an extension number in undergraduate college and thinking this was so cool...not my parents' number.
Then, in grad school, I had my own number. Wow!
Living without a PC and a private phone meant we met up with friends daily, in little groups or even groups of ten or twelve, doing things together, the girls taking about boys and the boys, I suppose, talking about girls.
Meeting in the common rooms meant planning, as these were popular for group study as well as talking. And, really, if one wanted to talk with one's boyfriend, one had to meet outside the dorm either on or off campus. Of course, meetings were in public. Such was the life we led in Catholic colleges and universities.
We still practiced manners, in those days. Hall phones in the dorms, because they were shared, involved very public conversations. Everyone knew who was going out with whom. No secrets in the girls' dorms.....
We read newspapers, magazines, and periodicals, some in the dorms, and some in the libraries. Some of us thought we were so cool to subscribe to our own personal favorite mags. These were delivered in the mail room, where we all had mail boxes, the size of small shoe boxes. Those of us who got newspapers or mags picked these up from a pile on the table in front of the mail boxes. We had individual keys to our mailboxes.
I was so cool to get The Guardian in college delivered to me, I was so avant garde, an American getting a foreign newspaper. Most of the time, I read such in the periodical room of the library.
Life was simpler and more under one's own control. We have something called privacy. No GPS, no one looking at what we read or ate or how we spent our money. No groups anywhere followed our daily habits.
We had no parents spying on us on Facebook. And, because phones were scarce, we, maybe, talked with our parents once every two weeks and we called them.
Some campuses had credit unions, but we did not have credit or debit cards, only checkbooks and so much cash to spend. I would have had the student version of this exact ticket in grad school.
We went to stores now and then to shop, as shopping was not entertainment and we had to organize going shopping with the few students who had cars, or take either a campus shuttle bus or the city bus. Many of us had bicycles and used these regularly.
One kept one's bike in the dorm room and I remember carrying mine up several flights of stairs.
I was devastated when my new blue ten-speed Schwinn was stolen. And, one just did not replace a bike. I had used money I won from a poetry contest to buy it. Sigh...ended up with a not-so-cool second-hand bike.
Other than the lack of electronic devices, college life resembled today's student lives, except that, as Catholics in universities with in loco parentis, most of us were pretty good kids getting on with studying in highly competitive environments.
I wonder at the long hours of study in quiet reading rooms in the library or in the quiet hours of the floor common rooms.
As grad students, we had our own "carrels". In fact, I would say that student life was still somewhat "monastic" with study hours, and communal hours, strict rules regarding visitors and so on.
One must remember that universities began with the monks and nuns in Europe, complete with the cloister-like quadrangle architecture on many older campuses even today.
We obviously had more quiet, more privacy, and more chance for thinking and reflection, as well as long talks in the quads with friends about philosophy, theology and politics. We also were outside a lot, walking, running, biking, playing tennis or whatever. We even walked when on dates. It was cool to walk around the lakes at ND with one's special boyfriend.
If we went out to movies or dates, these things happened on the weekends, and not on Sunday night. We had too much homework and some seminars were held in the evenings. I distinctly remember breaking up tete-a-tetes with the happy saying, "Got to go, have a paper due (or an exam), remember?." (Although, to be honest, I was never a last minute paper writer and usually had mine done early.)
Somehow, we got through life without cells and tablets. Somehow, we did lots of serious research without the Net. Somehow, our lives were quieter, simpler, and more conducive to actually learning and thinking.
Nostalgia day......
Some colleges did not even have phones in the individual rooms when I was in the dorm as an undergraduate. A few did, if one was in a top private college. Otherwise, everyone shared a public phone on the floor, and one had to use change, not credit cards.
For those of us who had private phones in the dorm rooms, one shared the line and number with one's roommate, and the number was an extension which came through a main switchboard at the college.
 |
| my phone as a teen at home... |
No one had a personal TV. One was in each floor common room, where we also did our ironing, made coffee, popcorn and pizzas.
Very large computers were used at my undergrad university for research only. By the time I was in graduate school, we were using computers, but only in the "computer rooms" of the university. The first PC I remember was a BBC. Of course, there was no Internet and the operating systems were interior to the university, with some computers, such as in the library, connected to other library databases.
If one wanted to talk with friends, one went either to the dorm floor common room, if these friends were girls, as I went to Catholic universities, which had separate dorms for men and women, or one went out. One could meet up in the on-campus coffee shop or in the cafeterias, until these closed.
Main floor common rooms allowed students of the opposite sex until eleven, because of parietals.
So, most of the time, if we wanted to be with friends, we went off campus to various places, either in groups, or on a date.
And, dates were sometimes made in person and not on the phone. Long phone conversations could only occur if one had a private room, not a roommate and definitely not on a hall phone.
Amazing, just imagine talking in person most of the time and not on a phone.
Imagine life without a pc or laptop or tablet or cell phone.
Imagine planning meetings in person,
Many of us did have private phones at home, but most girls my age did not have their own phone number. The phone in our rooms were extensions, and dad or mom would monitor phone time when we were home.
I remember having my own phone number as an extension number in undergraduate college and thinking this was so cool...not my parents' number.
Then, in grad school, I had my own number. Wow!
Living without a PC and a private phone meant we met up with friends daily, in little groups or even groups of ten or twelve, doing things together, the girls taking about boys and the boys, I suppose, talking about girls.
Meeting in the common rooms meant planning, as these were popular for group study as well as talking. And, really, if one wanted to talk with one's boyfriend, one had to meet outside the dorm either on or off campus. Of course, meetings were in public. Such was the life we led in Catholic colleges and universities.
We still practiced manners, in those days. Hall phones in the dorms, because they were shared, involved very public conversations. Everyone knew who was going out with whom. No secrets in the girls' dorms.....
I was so cool to get The Guardian in college delivered to me, I was so avant garde, an American getting a foreign newspaper. Most of the time, I read such in the periodical room of the library.
Life was simpler and more under one's own control. We have something called privacy. No GPS, no one looking at what we read or ate or how we spent our money. No groups anywhere followed our daily habits.
We had no parents spying on us on Facebook. And, because phones were scarce, we, maybe, talked with our parents once every two weeks and we called them.
Some campuses had credit unions, but we did not have credit or debit cards, only checkbooks and so much cash to spend. I would have had the student version of this exact ticket in grad school.We went to stores now and then to shop, as shopping was not entertainment and we had to organize going shopping with the few students who had cars, or take either a campus shuttle bus or the city bus. Many of us had bicycles and used these regularly.
One kept one's bike in the dorm room and I remember carrying mine up several flights of stairs.
I was devastated when my new blue ten-speed Schwinn was stolen. And, one just did not replace a bike. I had used money I won from a poetry contest to buy it. Sigh...ended up with a not-so-cool second-hand bike.
Other than the lack of electronic devices, college life resembled today's student lives, except that, as Catholics in universities with in loco parentis, most of us were pretty good kids getting on with studying in highly competitive environments.
I wonder at the long hours of study in quiet reading rooms in the library or in the quiet hours of the floor common rooms.
As grad students, we had our own "carrels". In fact, I would say that student life was still somewhat "monastic" with study hours, and communal hours, strict rules regarding visitors and so on.
One must remember that universities began with the monks and nuns in Europe, complete with the cloister-like quadrangle architecture on many older campuses even today.
We obviously had more quiet, more privacy, and more chance for thinking and reflection, as well as long talks in the quads with friends about philosophy, theology and politics. We also were outside a lot, walking, running, biking, playing tennis or whatever. We even walked when on dates. It was cool to walk around the lakes at ND with one's special boyfriend.
If we went out to movies or dates, these things happened on the weekends, and not on Sunday night. We had too much homework and some seminars were held in the evenings. I distinctly remember breaking up tete-a-tetes with the happy saying, "Got to go, have a paper due (or an exam), remember?." (Although, to be honest, I was never a last minute paper writer and usually had mine done early.)
Somehow, we got through life without cells and tablets. Somehow, we did lots of serious research without the Net. Somehow, our lives were quieter, simpler, and more conducive to actually learning and thinking.
Nostalgia day......
Sunday, 9 November 2014
Second repost on culpability and ignorance
Wednesday, 22 January 2014
Friday, 27 July 2012
Readers have asked me to look at Garrigou-Lagrange more directly with his definitions of sins. I did a few this past week and here are some more. He divides sins into classifications. After all this negativity, I shall go back to the virtues, which are much more interesting and fun for me.
These categories are connected to Thursday's response as well. The Dominican writes:
The sin of ignorance is that which springs from voluntary and culpable ignorance, called vincible ignorance. The sin of frailty is that which arises from a strong passion which diminishes liberty and impels the will to give its consent. As for the sin of malice, it is committed with full liberty, quasi de industria, intentionally and often with premeditation, even without passion or ignorance. We shall recall what St. Thomas teaches about each of them.
This first demarcation reveals that frailty or weakness is culpable, which is hard for modern men and women to understand. We make psychological excuses for many things.
I am not going into all the categories of ignorance, but I want to highlight one. Here is Garrigou-Lagrange again:
Voluntary or vincible ignorance cannot completely excuse sin, for there was negligence; it only diminishes culpability. Absolutely involuntary or invincible ignorance completely exculpates from sin; it does away with culpability. As for concomitant ignorance, it does not excuse from sin, for, even if it did not exist, one would still sin.
Invincible ignorance is called "good faith." That ignorance be truly invincible or involuntary, it is necessary that the person cannot morally free himself from it by a serious effort to know his duties. It is impossible to be invincibly ignorant of the first precepts of the natural law: Do good and avoid evil; do not do to others what you would not wish them to do to you; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; one God alone you shall adore. At least by the order of the world, the starry sky, and the whole creation, man can easily obtain a knowledge of the probability of the existence of God, supreme Ordainer and Legislator. When he has this probability, he must seek to become more enlightened and must ask for light; otherwise he is not in genuine good faith or in absolutely involuntary and invincible ignorance. As much must be said of a Protestant for whom it becomes seriously probable that Catholicism is the true religion. He must clarify his idea by study and ask God for light. Unless he does this, as St. Alphonsus says, he already sins against faith by not wishing to take the means necessary to obtain it.
If one does not desire to be free of sin, that in itself is a problem. As the author states, issues involving the human capacity of knowing natural law never excuse a person. I hope this is not confusing. In other words, as I have stated before, all people must learn what they need to know to be free of a vice and pray for help. Counseling and the sacramental life are necessities, not luxuries.
Fraility also involve choice: A sin of frailty is one which springs from a strong passion, which impels the will to give its consent. With this meaning, the Psalmist says: "Have mercy on me, a Lord, for I am weak." (17) The spiritual soul is weak when its will yields to the violence of the movements of the sensible appetites. It thus loses rectitude of practical judgment and of voluntary election or choice, by reason of fear, anger, or concupiscence. Thus, during the Passion, Peter yielded through fear and denied our Lord three times. When, by reason of a lively emotion or of a passion, we are inclined toward an object, the intellect is induced to judge that it is suitable for us, and the will to give its consent contrary to the divine law.(18)
But we must distinguish here the so-called antecedent passion, which precedes the consent of the will, and that called consequent, which follows it. Antecedent passion diminishes culpability, for it diminishes the liberty of judgment and of voluntary choice; it is particularly apparent in very impressionable people. On the contrary, consequent or voluntary passion does not lessen the gravity of sin, but augments it; or rather it is a sign that the sin is more voluntary, since the will itself arouses this inordinate movement of passion, as happens in a man who wishes to become angry the better to manifest his ill will.(19) Just as a good consequent passion, such as Christ's holy anger when He was driving the merchants from the Temple, increases the merit, so an evil consequent passion augments the demerit.
I repeat that there is always culpability, but sometimes this is lessened. Before I get to sins of malice, which we mostly understand, let us look at this warning from the text.
It would be a gross error to think that only the sin of malice can be mortal because it alone implies the sufficient advertence, the full consent, together with the serious matter, necessary for the sin which gives death to the soul and renders it worthy of eternal death. Such an error would result from a badly formed conscience, and would contribute to increase this deformity. Let us remember that we can easily resist the beginning of the inordinate movement of passion, and that it is a duty for us to do so and also to pray for help, according to the words of St. Augustine, quoted by the Council of Trent: "God never commands the impossible, but, in commanding, He warns us to do what we are able and to ask Him for help to do that which we cannot." (22)
This is the rub...we must not cover over our own tendencies and weaknesses. As one of my readers noted remembering Barney in The Andy Griffith Show, "Nip it. Nip it in the bud!"
to be continued...
Types of sins and culpability mark two--perfection
Readers have asked me to look at Garrigou-Lagrange more directly with his definitions of sins. I did a few this past week and here are some more. He divides sins into classifications. After all this negativity, I shall go back to the virtues, which are much more interesting and fun for me.
These categories are connected to Thursday's response as well. The Dominican writes:
The sin of ignorance is that which springs from voluntary and culpable ignorance, called vincible ignorance. The sin of frailty is that which arises from a strong passion which diminishes liberty and impels the will to give its consent. As for the sin of malice, it is committed with full liberty, quasi de industria, intentionally and often with premeditation, even without passion or ignorance. We shall recall what St. Thomas teaches about each of them.
This first demarcation reveals that frailty or weakness is culpable, which is hard for modern men and women to understand. We make psychological excuses for many things.
I am not going into all the categories of ignorance, but I want to highlight one. Here is Garrigou-Lagrange again:
Voluntary or vincible ignorance cannot completely excuse sin, for there was negligence; it only diminishes culpability. Absolutely involuntary or invincible ignorance completely exculpates from sin; it does away with culpability. As for concomitant ignorance, it does not excuse from sin, for, even if it did not exist, one would still sin.
Invincible ignorance is called "good faith." That ignorance be truly invincible or involuntary, it is necessary that the person cannot morally free himself from it by a serious effort to know his duties. It is impossible to be invincibly ignorant of the first precepts of the natural law: Do good and avoid evil; do not do to others what you would not wish them to do to you; you shall not kill; you shall not steal; one God alone you shall adore. At least by the order of the world, the starry sky, and the whole creation, man can easily obtain a knowledge of the probability of the existence of God, supreme Ordainer and Legislator. When he has this probability, he must seek to become more enlightened and must ask for light; otherwise he is not in genuine good faith or in absolutely involuntary and invincible ignorance. As much must be said of a Protestant for whom it becomes seriously probable that Catholicism is the true religion. He must clarify his idea by study and ask God for light. Unless he does this, as St. Alphonsus says, he already sins against faith by not wishing to take the means necessary to obtain it.
If one does not desire to be free of sin, that in itself is a problem. As the author states, issues involving the human capacity of knowing natural law never excuse a person. I hope this is not confusing. In other words, as I have stated before, all people must learn what they need to know to be free of a vice and pray for help. Counseling and the sacramental life are necessities, not luxuries.
Fraility also involve choice: A sin of frailty is one which springs from a strong passion, which impels the will to give its consent. With this meaning, the Psalmist says: "Have mercy on me, a Lord, for I am weak." (17) The spiritual soul is weak when its will yields to the violence of the movements of the sensible appetites. It thus loses rectitude of practical judgment and of voluntary election or choice, by reason of fear, anger, or concupiscence. Thus, during the Passion, Peter yielded through fear and denied our Lord three times. When, by reason of a lively emotion or of a passion, we are inclined toward an object, the intellect is induced to judge that it is suitable for us, and the will to give its consent contrary to the divine law.(18)
But we must distinguish here the so-called antecedent passion, which precedes the consent of the will, and that called consequent, which follows it. Antecedent passion diminishes culpability, for it diminishes the liberty of judgment and of voluntary choice; it is particularly apparent in very impressionable people. On the contrary, consequent or voluntary passion does not lessen the gravity of sin, but augments it; or rather it is a sign that the sin is more voluntary, since the will itself arouses this inordinate movement of passion, as happens in a man who wishes to become angry the better to manifest his ill will.(19) Just as a good consequent passion, such as Christ's holy anger when He was driving the merchants from the Temple, increases the merit, so an evil consequent passion augments the demerit.
I repeat that there is always culpability, but sometimes this is lessened. Before I get to sins of malice, which we mostly understand, let us look at this warning from the text.
It would be a gross error to think that only the sin of malice can be mortal because it alone implies the sufficient advertence, the full consent, together with the serious matter, necessary for the sin which gives death to the soul and renders it worthy of eternal death. Such an error would result from a badly formed conscience, and would contribute to increase this deformity. Let us remember that we can easily resist the beginning of the inordinate movement of passion, and that it is a duty for us to do so and also to pray for help, according to the words of St. Augustine, quoted by the Council of Trent: "God never commands the impossible, but, in commanding, He warns us to do what we are able and to ask Him for help to do that which we cannot." (22)
This is the rub...we must not cover over our own tendencies and weaknesses. As one of my readers noted remembering Barney in The Andy Griffith Show, "Nip it. Nip it in the bud!"
to be continued...
Repost on Blasphemy
Sunday, 13 July 2014
On Blasphemy
St. John Vianney describes a “bad death”. He points out that some people say a quick death is bad, or one from a painful disease, or one from an executioner.
The Cure notes that most martyrs were killed by executioners. He notes that St. Francis de Sales die quickly, immediately. He writes that St. Roch and St. Francis Xavier died of the plague.
The only bad death is dying in sin. I dread seeing all the missed opportunities for grace and holiness. I dread not seeing, until my particular judgment, the horrible seriousness of my many sins. As the saint describes, we shall see our sins “in the broad light of day” not in confusion or darkness. We shall see what we did not want to face.
If we keep saying “no” to grace, grace will not suddenly be given to us at death, as we have turned against God so many times. God’s mercy and justice decide our deaths, not us.
The Cure writes this: “Voltaire, realizing that he was ill, began to reflect upon the state of the sinner who dies with his conscience loaded with sins. He wished to examine his conscience and to see whether God would be willing to pardon him all the sins of his life, which were very great in number. He counted upon the mercy of God, which is infinite, and wit this comforting thought in mind, he had brought to him one of those priests whom he had so greatly outraged and calumniated in his writings. He threw himself upon his knees and made a declaration to him of his sins and put into his hands the recantation of all his impieties and his scandals. He began to flatter himself on having achieved the great work of his reconciliation. But he was gravely mistaken. God has abandoned him; you will see how. Death anticipated all spiritual help. Alas! This unfortunate blasphemer felt all his terrors reborn in him. He cried out, ‘Alas, am I then abandoned by God and men?’….
No priests came. He went mad at death, and despaired. Voltaire’s friends who wanted him to die as he had lived, secular, hating God and the Church, denied entry to anyone who could have helped him.
I know a man who wanted to become a Catholic as he was dying. His family could not get a priest to come to his hospital room and to hear his confession. I sincerely hope God granted him baptism of desire, but why did he wait until the very end?
I pray for a happy death. St. Joseph, hear this prayer.
By the way, St. John Vianney reminds us that ignorance of sin, of God’s standards of morality, is our fault.
I have spoken with someone recently who told me that ignorance of sin would cover the sins of two people steeped in sin. No, this is simply not true. We have all the information written in our hearts in natural law. We have all the information we need plus the grace sufficient for salvation. This is our Catholic teaching.
How interesting that so many Catholics do not know that there is a natural law philosophy connected to the theology of the Catholic Church. It is also interesting that the vast majority of the Catholics I have spoken with in the last six months have not read any, none, of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
This is so serious a sin of omission on the part of Catholics that it needs to be addressed from the pulpit. Why do not priests encourage the reading and study of the CCC?
I am sure St. John Vianney would have encouraged his parishioners to study this book. And, if he would have had it at his disposal, he would have referred to it.
I want to quote one more section from the sermons and then move on. This selection is from a sermon on blasphemy and some people may be surprised at the list of sins which this great saint lists under this sin.
“I tell you, therefore, that we blaspheme: 1. When we say that God is not just in making some people so rich that they have everything in abundance while so many others are so wretched that they have difficulty in getting bread to eat. 2. When we say that He is not as good as people say, since He allows so many people to remain weak and despised by others while there are some who are loved and respected by everyone. 3. Or if we say that God does not see everything, that he does not know what is going on in the world. 4. if we say that ‘If God shows mercy to So-and-So, He is not just because that man has done too much harm. 5. Or again, when we come up against some loss or setback and we lose our temper with God and say such things as: ‘Ah, but I certainly have bad luck! God cannot do any more to me! I believe that He does not know I am in the world, or if He does know, it is only so that He can make me suffer!’ It is also blasphemy to criticize the Blessed Virgin….”
One more sin of blasphemy I want to mention if the sin of “final impenitence”. St. John Vianney writes that“Impenitence is a spirit of blasphemy, since the remission of our sins is achieved through love-which is the Holy Ghost.”
Free Will Posts Not To Miss or Forget
Sorry, wifi problems
Will write when I can on free will, culpability, blasphemy and sacrilege.
In the meantime check these out:
Will write when I can on free will, culpability, blasphemy and sacrilege.
In the meantime check these out:
04 Sep 2014
I am beginning to think that the last two generations have no idea what free will exactly is. The society and cultures of the West want to blame parents, circumstances of life, financial recessions, even holidays for people ...
13 Feb 2014
http://supertradmum-etheldredasplace.blogspot.com/2014/02/comments-interesting-do-you-have-free.html. In order to have free will, people must have a center of their being which is independent. Mortal sin makes us thralls, ...
04 Feb 2014
We are at the point where technology is creating the future not predicting the future. Someone said today that free will is gone in most people in the States, and possibly in the EU. Think about this...................who has free will?
07 Apr 2013
One of the themes of this blog has been the interaction of grace and free will. Thankfully, we have a long tradition of the writings of the Doctors of the Church and others on this subject. The reason I bring it up again is that there ...
04 Sep 2014
I cannot possibly summarize the sections in Ripperger on free will, but I want to share a bit from the section on choosing evil. The will normally chooses what is perceived as a good. But, what about people who make evil ...
04 Sep 2014
... control over their choices. I am repeating this list as it seems to me that the issue of having a free will must be addressed in order to break through the false idea that we are merely thrown about by passions. More again later.
04 Sep 2014
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for ...
12 Sep 2014
is those mysteries that are non-evident and unseen (fides est de non visis) for we are certain beforehand that Providence is directing all things infallibly to a good purpose, and we are more convinced of the rectitude of His ...
22 Aug 2013
God gave us free will, which sets us apart from the animals, and is part of how we are made in His Image and Likeness. We are called, especially those of us who are baptised, to know, to love, to serve God in this world and to ...
23 May 2013
The Evil of Relativism-the denial of free will and hell. Posted by Supertradmum. I cannot believe this. I am astounded. A religious person, in a habit, said that there was no difference between good and evil in a person.
09 Oct 2014
The second head is the denial of free will, in my opinion, one of the most prevalent of heresies, which undermines each person's ability to choose truth over error. Psychology has damaged this teaching of free will; we all can ...
25 Jan 2013
In his Retractiones, Augustine insists that his earlier work On Free Will was simply not concerned with predestination, but with anthropology over against the Manichees.[3] For Augustine, the two debates can be distinct, for, ...
09 Sep 2013
Posted by Supertradmum. Concluding this little three part series on the sin of presumption, I want to stress that this sin involves not only pride, but the denial of free will, reason, and revelation. Presumption also denies natural ...
24 Aug 2014
Some people do not want God in their lives, nor do they want God's Will in their lives. Those who choose to go against the graces which God gives them block prayers. Free will trumps our prayers for some people. We can ...
23 Jul 2014
(2) God wills all men to be saved and no on to perish...nor after the fall of the first man is it His will forcibly to deprive man of free will. (3) That those, however, who are walking in the path of righteousness in their innocence, He ...
13 Sep 2014
Man's meritorious work may be considered in two ways: first, as it proceeds from free-will; secondly, as it proceeds from the grace of the Holy Ghost. If it is considered as regards the substance of the work, and inasmuch as it ...
19 Mar 2014
God has a perfect will and plan for us and a permissive will, which allows evil things to happen. This permissive will forms the mystery of suffering and the allowance of evil, from the free choices of men and women. However ...
16 Jan 2014
The first is the denial of free will. People chose to make bad choices daily. There is a growing number of Catholics on twitter, in blogs and in daily speech who reveal that they do not understand two things about free will.
Perfection Series VII: Part V
Finally, let us reflect that in Holy Communion we unite ourselves not only to Jesus but also to all the members of the Mystical Body of Christ, especially to the souls most dear to Jesus and most dear to our heart. It is in Holy Communion that we realize fully the words of Jesus, “I in them ... that they may be perfect in unity” (John 17:23). The Eucharist renders us one, even among ourselves, His members, “all one in Jesus” as St. Paul says (Gal. 3:28). Holy Communion is truly all love of God and neighbor. It is the true “feast of love,” as St. Gemma Galgani said. And in this “feast of love” the soul in love can exult singing with St. John of the Cross, “Mine are the heavens and mine is the earth, mine are men, the Just are mine and sinners are mine. The Angels are mine, and also the Mother of God, all things are mine. God Himself is mine and for me because Christ is mine and all for me.”
This selection from the book in this series reminds us all that we are united to others and that our reception of Communion is not merely a private devotion, but connects us to the entire Mystical Body of Christ.
Therefore, receiving is worthily becomes an act of charity for the entire Church and not just for our own benefit. As we grow in love, so the Church grows in love as well.
All of the members of the Church, the Church Militant, the Church Suffering in purgatory, and the Church Triumphant are joined in Holy Communion.
This selection from the book in this series reminds us all that we are united to others and that our reception of Communion is not merely a private devotion, but connects us to the entire Mystical Body of Christ.
Therefore, receiving is worthily becomes an act of charity for the entire Church and not just for our own benefit. As we grow in love, so the Church grows in love as well.
All of the members of the Church, the Church Militant, the Church Suffering in purgatory, and the Church Triumphant are joined in Holy Communion.
St. Bonaventure made himself an apostle of this truth and he spoke of it in vibrant tones, “O Christian souls, do you wish to prove your true love towards your dead? Do you wish to send them the most precious help and golden key to Heaven? Receive Holy Communion often for the repose of their souls.”
For the souls in Purgatory, then, Holy Communion is the dearest personal gift which they can receive from us. Who can say how much Holy Communions are helpful in their liberation? One day St. Mary Magdalene of Pazzi's dead father appeared to her and he said that one hundred and seven Holy Communions were necessary for him to be able to leave Purgatory. In fact, at the last of the one hundred and seven Holy Communions offered for him, the saint saw her father ascend into Heaven.
When Jesus is mine, the whole Church exalts, the Church in Heaven, in Purgatory and the Church on earth. Who can express the joy of the Angels and Saints at every Holy Communion devoutly received? A new current of love arrives in Paradise and it makes the blessed spirits vibrate every time that a creature unites himself to Jesus to possess Him and be possessed by Him. A Holy Communion is of much greater value than an ecstasy, a rapture or a vision. Holy Communion transports the whole of Paradise into my poor heart!
St. Philip Neri loved the Eucharist so much that, even when he was gravely ill, he received Holy Communion every day, and if Jesus was not brought to him very early in the morning he became very upset and he could not find rest in any way. “I have such a desire to receive Jesus,” he exclaimed, “that I cannot give myself peace while I wait.” The same thing took place in our own time to Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, since only obedience could make him wait until 4 or 5 a.m. to celebrate Mass. Truly, the love of God is a “Devouring Fire” (Deut. 4:24).
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