Why the Church Distinguishes Between Mortal and Venial Sin, Part II

Last time, in this space, we were looking at the question of mortal and venial sin and trying to understand how St. James  remark that "whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it. (Jas 2:10). Perhaps a useful analogy would be to say rather "Injury is injury, but there's injury and there's injury." Sin is fundamentally injurious. But it is tricky because it fools us into imagining some of the injuries we inflict on ourselves and others are "fun" (like lust) and some are "bad" (like murder). We console ourselves that as long as we don't commit the "bad" sin, it's okay to dabble with the "fun" ones. Indeed, we can even imagine that the lightweights and lowlifes who do cave in to "bad" sins just don't have the moxie we do "where it counts." "I thank God I am not like other people," we mutter contentedly, "Okay, so I shoplift now and then. Those stores are rich. But I'm never cruel to dumb animals. People who do that should go to jail!"

In contrast to this bogus self-righteousness St. James strips away this illusion of "okay" injuries and says bluntly "all sin is an injury to God, neighbor and self." Absurdly indulging our "minor" sins since they are not as serious as Joe Blow's "bad" ones is like indulging ourselves in a few cracked ribs or black eyes on the excuse that "it's not as if I was taking cyanide." Sane people avoid all injuries if they can, not just the "bad" ones. But sane people also know the cyanide poisoning is going to be harder (perhaps impossible) to cure.

And we all know this. That is why (whatever our proclaimed theologies) our working awareness of mortal and venial sin (by whatever name we call it) keeps us from classing the innocent with the guilty and prevents the vast majority of healthy adults from treating a cereal-spilling two year old like a serial-killing 22 year old. But in addition to this, the recognition of mortal and venial sin is crucial in avoiding classing the guilty with the innocent, something our culture is not quite as good at.

This came home to me recently in a bull session I had with a friend. Chatting about the possibility of moral progress my friend, speaking as an average "sin is sin" Christian said, "One society is no worse than any other just as no person is any worse than another." In other words, there is no difference at all between the nations because there is no difference at all between the people who comprise them.

Now with my newly won grasp of mortal and venial sin I was suddenly emboldened to observe that the "plain fact" upon which his whole argument rested was, in truth, sheer moonshine. For even though all have sinned (as Catholic teaching vigorously asserts), the real plain fact is, Mother Teresa, Francis of Assisi and Billy Graham are--obviously, overwhelmingly--far better people than Adolf Hitler and Charles Manson or Lot's friendly neighbors. Why? Because the former have opened themselves to grace and the latter, so far as we can tell, have not.

This points us to a paradox. Namely, that the notion of mortal and venial sin is rooted in the recognition that real moral growth and differentiation is possible. In short, the overarching truth of human history is the variety of God's gift of Redemption, not the monotonous sameness of the Fall.

Lest I be taken for a mooshy-squooshy universalist, allow me to explain. In our fallen state apart from grace, it is quite true that "sin is sin" and everything ultimately gets sucked down the same sewer pipe. Without God, it doesn't much matter whether you go to the devil by murdering someone or by "harmlessly" rotting away in front of ten thousand hours of "Gilligan's Island" reruns. Both fates ought to send us flying to our prayers. But as real and as uniformly disastrous as the Fall is in all its chaotic manifestations, we must also acknowledge that the full truth is, since Christ died and rose again, we are not apart from grace. "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men." (Titus 2:11).

This is why it is cheap and silly to say of human beings and their works "They're all the same since they're all fallen." For since the greater fact of Redemption has entered the world, many have responded to the New Life and are no longer the same. And while it is true that even in redemption we must remember that those who have responded are no less fallen than those who have not, it does not follow that we are forbidden to recognize the real effects of real grace in the world. Thus, it is not arrogant to say that Billy Graham or Charles Wesley or St. Clare (or even good non-Christians like Gandhi or Socrates) are better human beings than Himmler or Stalin or Lucretia Borgia. It's just sober common sense.

And this is the root of hope. For if we throw up our hands and say there's no such thing as growth or improvement (which is the necessary corollary of the belief that "no person is any worse than another") then we doom ourselves to a sort of fatalism. For calling all people the same in that sense is identical with saying nothing has ever happened, since Francis is the same as Hitler is the same as King David is the same as Shirley MacLaine. In contrast, the Catholic vision says that the Redemption does make human beings, both individually and corporately, better human beings if they receive it. Not "better" in the sense of "superciliously superior" but better in the sense of "healed and whole." We are not to be snow-covered dunghills (as Luther imagined), we are not to be mere monsters with a heavenly Lawyer pleading for us, but glorious new creatures all the way down to our bones. That is why the Church takes history seriously. She believes God has been continually at work both in the world and in our lives as kind of storyteller and that it will one day reach a conclusion like a story does. Something wonderful is to be made of us. In short, she really does believe in Creation and holds that Creation is still going on--a Creation that involves our choices, even our evil ones, and God's choice to redeem us if we will but let him.

I do believe in the reality of sin then. Therefore, I do not believe that "every day in every way, we're getting better and better" and that Heaven is a sure thing for everyone (though I pray all will be saved.) The hubris of automatic progress is a dangerous lie since it disastrously overlooks the very real possibility of damnation for any of us (especially me). But, following St. Paul, I do not infer from the fact of the Fall that it is best therefore to have a meaningless opinion of everyone as "equally bad and equally good." Nor do I infer that since the Fall is a fact, it is therefore the Foundation. Rather, according to Romans 12:3, we are to have, not a meaningless nor a gloomy opinion, but a sober or accurate one, illumined by the truly foundational fact of the totally unearned and undeserved grace of Redemption won by Christ. Such a sober opinion (particularly of ourselves) springs neither from self-denigration nor from arrogance, but from love. And love (contrary to the proverb) sees. It sees as the eye of man sees and it has the power to distinguish, not only shades of gray, but all the range of color, shape and subtle nuance which the mind and choices of God and man can present to it. It is this power of sight (what St. Thomas calls "the authority of the senses") which endows Catholic theology with the wisdom to which I was too long blind: the commonsense, practical, and hopeful wisdom which distinguishes between mortal and venial sin.