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Traditional Catholic Faith => General Discussion => Topic started by: Desmond on January 03, 2016, 11:57:07 AM
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I'm uncertain, due to the extreme subjectivisation in contemporary catholic moral theology (?), about this topic.
In general, does it make a difference if thoughts are voluntary or not in regards to their sinful nature?
In our day and age it is almost impossible, except through hermitism maybe, to avoid scandalous and/or blasphemous ideas, be them implicit or explicit.
Even talking to your average person is often sufficient to hear all sorts of impure things.
Hence, my question is the following:
are exogenous ideas, when received by our mind, and contemplated upon, sinful in themselves?
What about ex nihilo thoughts, seemingly originating from our own mind, but rejected as soon and best as possible with a conscious effort?
Would even those need to be confessed?
It's very hard to determine the origin of thoughts, but on the same token, it is also hard if not impossible to be sorry about something one doesn't perceive as his fault?
Realising I can't express myself clearly and properly, and apologising and thanking everyone in advance,
Desmond.
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Temptations are not sin. A temptation of thought can be very often involuntary. All saints had impure temptations, even the ones who lived in caves and had no possible connection to scandal or occasions to sin. The point is to not accept the thoughts, which is a matter of the will. But no matter how holy one is, you'll never get rid of temptation. It may become easier to conquer, but human nature is always frail.
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Such thoughts are often involuntary and thus not sinful - there are many people who suffer from intrusive blasphemious thoughts, often being result of OCD. Such thoughts can appear without a reason and are difficult to fight - the more you want to supress them, the more obtrusive they become (somewhere I read a good comparison - if I tell you "dont think about apples for next 10 seconds", what will you think about? I bet you will end up thinking about apples). For any thoughts to be sinful there must be a conscious and voluntary contemplation of them or indulging in them on your part.
If these thoughts are unwanted, you do your best to fight them and don't give them voluntary consent, there is no sin involved. I talked to SSPX priest from my chapel about it, he said many people suffer these uncontrollable intrusive blasphemious thoughts even during Mass, and if you do not accept these thoughts and consciously reject them, you are not sinning. God knows these thoughts are not from you.
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Temptations are not sin. A temptation of thought can be very often involuntary. All saints had impure temptations, even the ones who lived in caves and had no possible connection to scandal or occasions to sin. The point is to not accept the thoughts, which is a matter of the will. But no matter how holy one is, you'll never get rid of temptation. It may become easier to conquer, but human nature is always frail.
Yes I thought as much, by parallel with temptation proper, for instance we all know about Padre Pio's constant (demonic) temptations throughout his life.
Such thoughts are often involuntary and thus not sinful - there are many people who suffer from intrusive blasphemious thoughts, often being result of OCD.
Correct me if wrong, but weren't similar thoughts once believed to be the result of demonic influences? Such in medieval demonology etc. Also exemplified in St. Ignatius' rules for the discernment of spirits?
For any thoughts to be sinful there must be a conscious and voluntary contemplation of them or indulging in them on your part.
If these thoughts are unwanted, you do your best to fight them and don't give them voluntary consent, there is no sin involved.
Well, apart from the difficulty in closing one's mind to them, how can one be sure about it anyway? It would require constant mental monitoring on one's own train of thoughts with the risk of evoking, as you said yourself, the very thoughts he's trying to avoid.
I talked to SSPX priest from my chapel about it, he said many people suffer these uncontrollable intrusive blasphemious thoughts even during Mass,(...)
I wasn't talking about such blasphemous exceptional thoughts, but normal ones picked up from others/tv/books/internet, and meant spontaneous lustful ones for instance. However what the priest describes doesn't seem to be normal at all, but result of either psychological or spiritual troubles.
It is often said a preliminary sign of demonic oppression/influence is the frequent appearance of blasphemous inclinations coupled with aversion towards the sacred for instance.
God knows these thoughts are not from you.
Ok so they are from demons/spirits?
It would seem they once were accepted as normal more all less a.k.a. ordinary in the functioning of an individual's mind, whether today, even in demonology, we have a clear distinction between the ordinary-natural vs extraordinary (pathological in psychiatry?)-praeternatural.
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Of course devil might be (and probably is) involved in intrusive blasphemious thoughts (although OCD is well-known reason to cause them - relationship between such problems and devil is something I'm not competent to talk about). It is understandable - sadly, vast majority of human population today lives in the state of mortal sin and is on the pathway to hell, thus the devil focuses his efforts on those few who keep the faith. If you google "uncontrollable blasphemious thoughts" or something like that you will see how widespread the problem is - it can certainly be related to the fact that Satan is at the height of his power in the world today (anti-Christian governments and popular culture, rise of Mohammedanism, abortion h0Ɩ0cαųst, public acceptance of sodomy - the scale of today's evil is uncomparable with any point in the history since Christianization of the Roman Empire). That does not mean the intrusive and unwanted thoughts are sinful (and certainly not mortally sinful, since mortal sin requires full consent).
It is worth to note that there were several Saints who suffered such intruvise blasphemious thoughts - among them St. Anthony Mary Claret and St. Therese of Lisieux.
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In order for a sin to be mortal three things are required; grave matter, knowledge, and consent. While it is true that sinful thoughts are sinful and we all understand that they are sinful it is also true that sometime it is by our thoughts that the devil will confront us. Many times this is how he tries to induce us to sin. So, if you do not consent to the sinful thoughts then you do not have culpability for them.
The next time that you are confronted by the sinful thoughts I recommend the following invocations; "Yes to Jesus Christ. No to sin." or "Oh my Jesus please give me purity." Say these prayers over and over again and maybe you can defeat the devil. It will also help if you call upon the Immaculate Virgin Mary.
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You destroyed me at "ex nihilo" thoughts and "exogenous ideas".
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You destroyed me at "ex nihilo" thoughts and "exogenous ideas".
I think that he's referring to thoughts that pop into your head for no reason, out of nowhere, or from outside ... as opposed to thoughts that a person might generate from within his own mind. If one exposes himself to certain things, like watching a bad movie, even if he does not consent directly to impure thoughts, there still may be a venial culpability because a specific decision occasioned the thoughts.
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I'm uncertain, due to the extreme subjectivisation in contemporary catholic moral theology (?), about this topic.
In general, does it make a difference if thoughts are voluntary or not in regards to their sinful nature?
We must confess all sins, mortal, venial and those we are unsure of.
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You destroyed me at "ex nihilo" thoughts and "exogenous ideas".
I think that he's referring to thoughts that pop into your head for no reason, out of nowhere, or from outside ... as opposed to thoughts that a person might generate from within his own mind. If one exposes himself to certain things, like watching a bad movie, even if he does not consent directly to impure thoughts, there still may be a venial culpability because a specific decision occasioned the thoughts.
Yes, thank you Ladislaus.
Ex nihilo thoughts, are those ideas that just come "out of nowhere", with no seeming relation to anything you are experiencing or are witnessing, with no apparent logical connection etc.
While with"exogenous ideas" I tried to describe, as you say, for instance a movie, a picture, an article from a newspaper, a comment from someone both in real life or the internet and so on. Meaning ideas you come in contact with, often involuntarily.
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I'm uncertain, due to the extreme subjectivisation in contemporary catholic moral theology (?), about this topic.
In general, does it make a difference if thoughts are voluntary or not in regards to their sinful nature?
We must confess all sins, mortal, venial and those we are unsure of.
That's not true. There's no strict obligation to confess venial sins. Nor, according to probabilists like St. Alphonsus, is there a strict obligation to confess doubtful sins ... subject to your confessor. Confessors are taught to forbid scrupulous persons from confessing doubtful sins ... whereas the lax might be told to confess them.
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What if you only think you committed a venial sin but it was actually a mortal sin, but you did not confess it because you weren't sure or thought it was "only" a venial sin?
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I'm surprised that InfiniteFaith has been able to resist chiming in on this topic. Strikes me as a topic right down his alley to jump in with a bunch of armchair pontificating.
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I think that he's referring to thoughts that pop into your head for no reason, out of nowhere, or from outside ... as opposed to thoughts that a person might generate from within his own mind.
I wasn't really looking for an explanation, but only laughing at the OP's unique style of throwing Bull Manure.
How could a thought come from nowhere?
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I think that he's referring to thoughts that pop into your head for no reason, out of nowhere, or from outside ... as opposed to thoughts that a person might generate from within his own mind.
I wasn't really looking for an explanation, but only laughing at the OP's unique style of throwing Bull Manure.
How could a thought come from nowhere?
That is what the devil wants you to think.
:really-mad2: :really-mad2: :really-mad2:
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What if you only think you committed a venial sin but it was actually a mortal sin, but you did not confess it because you weren't sure or thought it was "only" a venial sin?
Yes. As I said, how is one supposed to correctly self-diagnose the very nature of a thought, especially without even thinking about it for fear of committing (or repeating) a sin.
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I think that he's referring to thoughts that pop into your head for no reason, out of nowhere, or from outside ... as opposed to thoughts that a person might generate from within his own mind.
I wasn't really looking for an explanation, but only laughing at the OP's unique style of throwing Bull Manure.
How could a thought come from nowhere?
I don't know, maybe they do not come out of nowhere?
How does a human mind work?
The atheistic sciences have a notion of "subconscious" and also describe the phenomenon as someone mentioned already, "Intrusive thoughts":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrusive_thought
What I called ex nihilo may only be apparently "out of nowhere", but instead generate from one's own mind due to earlier stimuli: possibly a memory or a stimulus barely intelligible (at least not lucidly) from the exterior world.
Where do near-sleep or sleep thoughts come from? Do you know? Is one responsible also for them?
Maybe they're all, as poche says, the works of demons to tempt/confuse a soul.
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What if you only think you committed a venial sin but it was actually a mortal sin, but you did not confess it because you weren't sure or thought it was "only" a venial sin?
If you're scrupulous, your Confessor may tell you not to confess such doubtful sins. If you sincerely THINK it was venial and didn't confess it, even if it HAPPENED to be mortal, you're still absolved of your sins ... just as if you had simply forgotten to confess a mortal sin. So long as you don't deliberately and consciously withhold confessing something you know to be a mortal sin.
Your words actually reflect precisely how a scrupulous mind works ... tormented by all the "what if"s. I think it's venial, but what if I'm wrong, and what if it's really mortal, and what if I don't confess it and then I compound the sin by a bad confession, etc. etc. etc. You do the best you can. If you're scrupulous, you can be pretty sure that if you commit a mortal sin there'd be zero doubt about it. Scrupulosity is a spiritual disease that God wants people to be rid of because it's founded in a lack of belief in the Mercy of God. God doesn't wish to go around tormenting souls with fear, uncetainty, and doubt. Do the best you can and if you're not deliberately withholding something you know to be a mortal sin, you can be assured that you're forgiven of all your sins in Confession.
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You're right, I was aiming more at the OP. While we do not need to confess venial sins, per the OP who does not seem to know whether the sin is venial, mortal or even a sin at all - he should confess it - hopefully the priest will council him what is a sin and what to confess for next time.
For venial sins, whereby we are not excluded from the grace of God, and into which we fall more frequently, although they be rightly and profitably, and without any presumption declared in confession, as the custom of pious persons demonstrates, yet may they be omitted without guilt, and be expiated by many other remedies.
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You're right, I was aiming more at the OP. While we do not need to confess venial sins, per the OP who does not seem to know whether the sin is venial, mortal or even a sin at all - he should confess it - hopefully the priest will council him what is a sin and what to confess for next time.
Yes, a good confessor will easily detect scrupulosity and would advise the person accordingly. If, on the other hand, the confessor detected laxity, the person would be encouraged to confess doubtful sins. So this advice on this thread must be taken with a grain of salt; only a confessor (a good one) can provide the correct guidance for any specific individual.
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If you're scrupulous, your Confessor may tell you not to confess such doubtful sins. If you sincerely THINK it was venial and didn't confess it, even if it HAPPENED to be mortal, you're still absolved of your sins ... just as if you had simply forgotten to confess a mortal sin. So long as you don't deliberately and consciously withhold confessing something you know to be a mortal sin.
What about a situation when a person believes he/she hasn't commited any mortal sins and thus approaches the Eucharist without confession, but is wrong and one their sins was in fact mortal in God's eyes. Objectively they accepted the Body of Christ sacrilegiously (obviously one of the gravest offences), but they don't know it, so they won't confess it in the next confession - will such a person be fully forgiven in Confession? Or does sacrilegious acceptance of the Eucharist become a venial sin because the person did not know he accepts the Sacrament unworthily?
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It is difficult to find a good confessor today. In my opinion, a lot of this talk of scrupulosity comes from modernist confessors who want to control you, and tell you not to confess, which can only worsen the situation.
Nevertheless, scrupulosity can real as it could be a form of OCD, but OCD could result from a poor diet of junk foods, OTC vitamins and drugs, and/or environmental factors like bad drinking water and agricultural chemicals. Having a diet of Pepsi and Coke can cause OCD as the sugar or artificial sweeteners can cause serious health problems. When we eat a poor diet or take harmful drugs, we are poisoning our body, which is a temple of the Holy Spirit --- and that is a sin.
We should be confessing all thoughts, words, and deed that miss the mark. Missing the mark means that our thoughs, words and deeds are not of God, but come from the world and its concerns, ourselves (our flesh), or the devil. St. Paul tells us to pray unceasingly, so every time our thoughts are not of God, in essence, we are sinning as we are failing to pray unceasingly.
My priest told me that whenever I am having a sinful or distracting thought which is not of God, then I should pray immediately:
Lord Jesus Christ, I reject these thoughts, help me and save me.
This has been of tremendous spiritual help to me. My dreams are now more peaceful too.
When we pray, the devil is most clever in tempting us to worry about our parent's health, about our finances, about our country and the direction it is taking, or worse, to think about some indecent ad that we heard over the radio, TV, or Internet. We must reject these thoughts immediately, focus on Christ, and return to our prayers. Looking at a Holy Icon of our Lord or of His Most Pure Mother can help us tremendously to refocus on Christ.
A simple statement, such as, "Lord Jesus Christ, forgive me a sinner for I have sinned in thought, word, and deed" could be a good way to begin your confession after the customary beginning prayers. Then any sinful thoughts (that are not mortal) would have been confessed. My priest encourages me to begin my confession with those words.
By the way, Father Robert Bishop of the Claretians is an excellent priest and confessor. He says the Traditional Latin Mass and is biritual (Ruthenian).
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Temptation vs. sin
If we reject a temptation immediately, and by turning to Christ, do not allow that line of thought to continue or progress, then we have not committed a sin, but by the Grace of God, we have overcome sin.
We must follow the advice of 1 Peter 5:8-9
Be sober and watch: because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour. Whom resist ye, strong in faith. (Douay-Rheims Bible)