Is God a torturer? A difficulty some persons have with the doctrine of hell is the impression that hell implies vengeance and torture, which are incompatible with loving God. It is of course quite understandable that the more caution humans are in establishing punishments, the less they look at punishment as a deterrence and the [...]
Archive for the ‘sin’ Category
Only excerpts or summaries of the posts are shown on this page. Click on the title of a post to see the whole post.The Pain of Hell
Monday, January 9th, 2012Living Without Mortal Sin?
Saturday, January 7th, 2012Do some persons live and die without ever committing any mortal sins? Recently Fr. John Zuhlsdorf ("Fr. Z") stated that "there is only one woman ever who" was "entirely free of mortal sin throughout their life”. Despite correction by several commentators, he continued to defend his claim, putting forth the arguments that (1) one cannot [...]
Lying and Moral Intuitions
Saturday, February 26th, 2011Peeter Kreeft's post affirming the obvious rightness of Live Action is deeply flawed. Despite his claim to know logic well, the argumentation consists mostly of begging the question, ridiculing his opponents, and appeal to majority opinion. One argument from analogy is present, but not entirely sufficient.
Are We Obliged to Do the Impossible?
Friday, November 19th, 2010When speaking generally about the obligation to order our passions, Aquinas says that though it is possible to avoid any particular inordinate movement, it is impossible to avoid all inordinate passions. Nonetheless the possibility of avoiding any particular disordered passion is enough to make it a sin when we don't avoid it. Is this consistent with the position that Aquinas takes on the particular question of obedience? …
It's All Adam's Fault!
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010In several recent posts, I argued that when a person is to some degree determined toward evil on account of an external cause, he is to that degree less free and responsible for doing the evil. In a similar vein someone might argue: it is practically speaking a foregone conclusions that we are going to [...]
Are They Few Who Sin?
Sunday, October 3rd, 2010In the posts Is predictability incompatible with responsibility for sin and The Difference Between Truth and Error, I argued that external causes (genetics, upbringing, circumstances, etc.) that are not the result of a person's will, and yet make it more likely that that person will commit an objectively evil act, decrease the voluntariness of that [...]
Aquinas On The Evidence For Original Sin
Saturday, October 2nd, 2010Aquinas sees the prevalence of evil the human race as evidence of original sin, on the supposition that God has a special providence for man, bestowing gifts of grace upon him. Apart from this view of divine providence, the existence of evil would not particularly support an Original Sin.
Newman and Chesterton on Original Sin
Wednesday, September 29th, 2010Newman, reflecting on the pervasive presence of evil in the world, "the blind evolution of what turn out to be great powers or truths… the disappointments of life, the defeat of good, the success of evil… the prevalence and intensity of sin, the pervading idolatries, the corruptions, the dreary hopeless irreligion…" (Apologia pro vita sua, [...]
The Difference Between Truth and Error
Saturday, September 25th, 2010When circumstances make it extremely probably that someone will act in a given way, they generally do so by making him perceive and thus judge that action in a given way. If this perception is erroneous, the action is an action proceeding from ignorance, and to that extent involuntary.
Is predictability incompatible with responsibility for sin?
Saturday, September 25th, 2010To what extent can a person be morally responsible for an evil deed if he was practically certain to do it in the first place? I argue that in this question we need to consider the difference between good choices that fulfill the will's fundamental inclination and freedom, and evil choices that oppose the will's fundamental inclination and freedom.
I am a Catholic seminarian and deacon in Vienna, and a teacher at the