By: Xyrille Yves Zaide

MORAL EVIL

MORAL

is

any one practice

or teaching

within a moral code.

EVIL

evil is either metaphysical, physical, or moral.

• Metaphysical evil is not evil properly so called; it is but the negation of a greater good, or the limitation of finite beings by other finite beings.

• Physical evil deprives the subject affected by it of some natural good, and is adverse to the well-being of the subject, as pain and suffering.

• Moral evil is found only in intelligent beings; it deprives them of some moral good.

EVIL

is defined by

St. Thomas (De malo, 2:2)

as a privation of form or order or due measure

Evil implies a deficiency in perfection,

hence it cannot exist in God who is essentially

and by nature good

WHAT IS MORAL EVIL?

Moral evil

is the result of any morally negative event caused by the intentional action or inaction of an agent,

such as a person. An example of a moral evil might be murder, or any other evil event for which

someone can be held responsible or culpable.

We are created to love God, to do God’s will. If we love ourselves more than God, if we do our own will instead of God’s will, we commit sin.

NATURE OF SIN

1. Sin, Guilt, Redemption and Forgiveness of Sin

2. Sin is defined

3. Sin is possible

4. In the light of reason sin is hateful

5. In the light of faith sin is hateful and the greatest of all evils

Nature of sin

SIN AND GUILT, REDEMPTION AND FORGIVENESS OF SIN

• Matthew 9:13 – It was Christ’s mission to call sinners to repentance

• Luke 18:9 – Whoever humbles himself before God and acknowledges his sins receives forgiveness, whereas pride and hypocrisy make forgiveness impossible

• Mark 2:1-12 – Several times we see Him forgiving people’s sins by a miracle

• Mark 10:45 – He redeemed mankind from sin by His death: “The son of Man is come to give His life for the redemption of many”

• John 1:29 – He is the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world

SIN IS DEFINED BY ST. AUGUSTINE

• Factum vel dictum vel concupitum aliquid contra legem aeternam

“Any thought, word or deed against the eternal law of God.”

• Sin is the turning away from God, our true end

SIN IS POSSIBLE

because we possess free will

which we can abuse and turn against the purpose

for which God gave it to us.

IN THE LIGHT OF REASONSIN IS HATEFUL

Because:

a. It humiliates and degrades our nature;

b. It is often an injury to our fellow-men, always an injury to ourselves; and

c. In itself and its effects it is a disturbance of the moral order of which God is the true source.

IN THE LIGHT OF FAITH SIN IS HATEFULAND THE GREATEST OF ALL EVILS

Because in its innermost nature, it is:

a. A rebellion against God’s most holy will;

b. A contemptuous defiance of the Almighty Creator;

c. A base act of ingratitude towards God;

d. An insult to the thrice holy God;

e. A mockery of Christ;

f. An assault to our own soul;

g. A surrender of true interior liberty and peace

KINDS OF SIN

THE WORD SIN IS USEDFOR THREE DIFFERENT THINGS

ORIGINAL SIN

MORTAL SIN

VENIAL SIN

ORIGINAL SIN

• also called ancestral sin, is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the fall of man.

• A state of complete separation from God inherited from our first parents.

MORTAL SIN

• Mortal sin is called mortal because it is the "spiritual" death of the soul.

• Complete separation from God brought about by an act of our own free will.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS: MORTAL

• If we die without repentingwe will lose Him for eternity.

• However, by turning our hearts back to Him and receiving the Sacrament of Penance,

we are restored to His friendship.• Catholics are not allowed to receive Communion if they have NOT confessed

MORTAL sins.

WE MUST REMEMBER:

VENIAL SIN

• Venial sins are slight sins. They do not break our friendship with God, although they injure it. They involve disobedience of the law of God in slight (venial) matters.

• Not a complete separation from God, yet a willful deviation from the right path and weakening of the life of grace.

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN MORTAL AND VENIAL SIN

Mortal sins = sufficient acts to destroy our

relationship with God

Venial sins = weakens our relationship

with God

CONDITIONS TO CONSIDER SIN AS MORTAL:

1. it must be a grave matter;

2. we know we are sinning; and

3. we freely choose to sin.

The absence of one will make a sin NOT MORTAL,

or not a sin at all.

WHAT MAKES A REAL MORTAL SIN?

MORTAL SINS DIFFER MUCH IN GRAVITYThe Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) defines these sins as grave matter:

(This is not necessarily all of the possible grave matters.)

• Abortion

• Adulation of another's grave faults if it makes one an accomplice in another's vices or grave sins, but it is not grave when it only seeks to be agreeable, to avoid evil, to meet a need, or to obtain legitimate advantages.

• Adultery

• Blasphemy

• Defrauding a worker of his wages

• Deliberate failure to go to mass on Sunday unless excused for a serious reason or dispensed by one's own pastor

• Divination, magic, and sorcery

• Divorce (If civil divorce, which cannot do anything to the spiritual marriage in the eyes of God, remains the only possible way of ensuring certain legal rights, the protection of inheritance, or the care of the children it is not a sin.) [21]

• Drug Abuse

• Endangering their own and others' safety by drunkenness or a love of speed on the road, at sea or in the air

• Envy (if to the level of wishing grave harm to another)

• Euthanasia

• Extreme Anger (at the level of truly desiring to seriously hurt or kill someone)

• Fornication

• Gluttony

• Hatred of a neighbor/to deliberately desire him or her great harm

• Homosexual acts

• Incest

• Lying (gravity measured by various conditions in catechism)

• Masturbation

• Murder

• Perjury and False Oaths

• Pornography

• Prostitution

• Rape

• Rich nation's refusal to aid those which are unable to ensure the means of their development by themselves

• Sacrilege

• Scandal (deliberately causing someone to sin gravely)

• Suicide

• Terrorism that threatens, wounds and kills indiscriminately

• Unfair wagers and cheating at games unless the damage is unusually light

Venial sins are usually divided into

deliberate and indeliberate.

TEMPTATION AND THE OCCASIONS OF SIN

“ I delight in the law of God after the inward

man, but I behold another law in my

members fighting against the law of my mind,

and making me captive to the law of sin”

-St. Paul(Rom. 7:22)

WHAT IS TEMPTATION?

It is the incitement to choose some personal satisfaction in place of the will of God.

Thomas à Kempis: “So long as we live inthis world, we cannot be without tribulation and temptation”

Job: “The life of man upon earth is a life of temptation. No man is so perfect and holy but he hath sometimes temptation”

3 STEPS TO DISTINGUISH TEMPTATIONa. Occasion of temptation:

• Either some external object that fall under our senses; or

• Some stimulus, feeling, or emotion within us.

Conflict arises in our soul between passion and duty.

b. Temptation itself:

“Let no man, when he is tempted, say that he is tempted by God. For God is not a tempter of evils, and He tempts no man. But every man is tempted by his own concupiscence, being drawn away and allured” (James 1:13)

c. Outcome – Temptation comes to an end when our will decides either for or against our duty.

TEMPTATION IS NOT SIN

• It is a conflict

• It must be remembered that: “ where the will withholds consent there is no sin”

TEMPTATIONS ARE USEFUL

• God would not permit them unless useful in many ways.

• The Holy Ghost promises the victor’s crown to all who have stood the test of temptation:

“Blessed is the man that endureth temptation, for when he hath been proved, he shall

receive the crown of life, which God hath promised to them that love Him.”

• Temptation steels and fortifies the will• Temptation makes us aware of our

helplessness and learn to cast ourselves with humility and childlike trust into the arms of God.

• Where there is conflict, there is courage, vigilance, fidelity, wisdom, prudence, firmness, ardor and endurance.

PREPARE TO MEET TEMPTATION

a.Prayer: all-important means for gaining the victory in temptations

b.In times of peace we must prepare for war; training our will by deliberate acts of self-denial and self-conquest.

c.Turn away from objects or imaginations that give rise to temptation.

d. Resist temptation from the very beginning

“ The enemy is more easily to overcome, if he be not suffered to enter the door of our hearts, but be resisted at the very gate of his first knocking” (Imitation of Christ, 1, 13:5)

Resist beginnings; al too late the cure,

when ills have gathered strength through

long delay.

e. Real personal love of Christ is the best armor against temptation.

“Many waters cannot quench charity, neither can the floods drown it” (Cant. 8:7)

St. Agatha: “My mind is settles and grounded in Christ. Your words are winds, your promises are rains, your terrors are floods. With that violence so ever that may beat against my house, it can never fail, for it is founded upon solid rock.”

WE CANNOT AVOID TEMPTATION

• BUT we are strictly bound to avoid the proximate occasions of sin, whenever it is possible.

SIN AND PUNISHMENT

BEING WISDOM ITSELF, GOD MUST HAVE PROVIDED A PERFECT SELECTION FOR HIS LAW

• To suppose would imply that He could be indifferent to its being observed. His justice, too, demands such a sanction.

“For it would be clearly a negation of justice for Him to show Himself equally kind to those who do His will and to those who maliciously set it aside.”

THE ETERNAL GOD HAS PROVIDED AN ETERNAL SANCTION FOR THE MORAL LAW• If we deliberately violate that law in an important matter,

we separate ourselves completely from God --- we say to His face:

Non serviam – “I will not serve thee.”

• If we die in mortal sin, our separation from God becomes eternal.

We have forfeited our right to the kingdom of light and joy, and our lot is cast with those who dwell in the realm of darkness and eternal pain.

• Over the gate of hell, these dreadful words are written:

Through me you pass into the city of woe:

Through me you pass eternal pain.

Through me among the people lost for aye.

All hope abandon, ye who enter here.

-- Dante, Inferno

LOVE AND FEAR

• LOVE OF GOD – noblest motive which ought to inspire us in the battle of sin.

• FEAR OF GOD, of judgment and Hell – was needed to ensure their perseverance in God as declared by many saints. They were doing what Christ bade them to do:

“Fear Him that can destroy both soul and body into Hell” (Matt. 10:28)

IF SIN IS SUCH A DREADFUL EVIL, THE GREATEST OF ALL EVILS, WHY DID GOD PERMIT IT? WHY DOES HE NOT HINDER IT?

• Mysterium inquitatis – the mystery of inquinity

(2 Thess. 2:7)

Divine Wisdom

has good grounds

for not hindering the entrance of sin

into this world