It’s Lent. It’s a penitential season.
So off we go to confession to confess our sins.
But why is something sinful anyway?
Most of us believe things are sinful because someone has told us they are sinful.
“Don’t sleep with a girl before marriage.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s sinful.”
“Why is it sinful?”
“Because the Bible, God’s word says it’s sinful and because the church says its sinful and because the priest says its sinful. It’s sinful. Don’t do it.”
So we think things are sinful simply because the voices of authority said it is sinful.
So soon we associate sinful things with things that give us pleasure–usually sexual sins or sins of gluttony or drunken-ness. Before long, if we’re not careful, we start thinking that anything we like must be sinful.
Then we start feeling guilty and then we start thinking that anything that makes us feel afraid, guilty or ashamed are the things which are most sinful.
The problem is, we never stop to think WHY a thing is sinful from the ground up.
The church teaches that something is sinful for one of two reasons or both–that an action goes against the natural order or it goes against Divine Revelation.
In other words, a thing is wrong if is un-natural or because God told us not to do it–or God told us to do it and we didn’t follow through.
Let’s take a disgusting, but obvious example: bestiality. Continue Reading
