www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Understanding Involuntary Sin

I'm having trouble understanding the concept of involuntary sin, and this is something that has been troubling me for a year now. I've talked to my priest about it, but my thoughts weren't as well collected as they are now, I'm hoping you all can share some outside perspectives before I go to bother my priest again.

Involuntary sin makes sense to me on the surface - if, for example, swearing deliberately is a voluntary sin, then logically doing so by habit, or without otherwise willing it, is an involuntary sin. However, having thought about it deeper, it seems to contradict Catholic dogma. The way I understand it, there are two conceptions of involuntary sin, I'll explain the problems I see with both.

The first understanding of involuntary sin is based off several examples from St. Basil the Great. He taught that a soldier forced to kill during war, or a sailor forced to throw other's cargo off a sinking ship are involuntary sins. Killing willingly is a sin, but if you are drafted into war and forced to kill, you have sinned unwillingly. However, this seems to pose a problem, as God has killed many. I suppose we can say that when God does it killing is not a sin, but God has also directed the massacre of thousands of gentile civilians. If the Hebrews sinned involuntarily in obeying God's command, this seems to pose a contradiction with the teaching that God is not the author of sin.

Furthermore, if we take this logic of St. Basil further, we can say that choosing between the lesser of two evils is an involuntary sin, because you are still committing evil. Because of course the soldier doesn't have to kill, he can just refuse to fight; the sailor doesn't have to vandalize, he can just choose to drown. I take it that these actions, however, are voluntarily sinful, which is why it is better to choose the other. Now, this also seems to pose a contradiction because we know that God as a teenager ran away from His mother at His Father's direction. He was disobedient and caused her great anxiety. However, we know that God cannot sin - a contradiction.

The second understanding of involuntary sin is based off several examples from St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine. They taught that losing focus during Mass and swearing are involuntary sins. These are actions that we can take without contemplation or desire or explicit will or agreement on our part, all of which make these sins involuntary. While I don't see any explicit contradictions with this understanding, I find it deeply troubling in light of other Church teaching. St. John Chrysostom confessed "I have sinned every hour of every day of my life," - if you pause and reflect on how many such involuntary actions we take throughout the day I'm sure you'll agree. Now, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ suffered for all of our sins, and every time we sin we add to His suffering. There is a popular expression used - "every sin you commit is like another nail in Jesus' Cross." Well, if I'm hurting God every hour of my life that just makes me completely miserable, I'm constantly in repentance mode and just honestly hating myself for being such a horrible drag on God. Because of this, I'm having a hard time accepting this understanding of involuntary sin as well.

Again, I will be very thankful for your perspectives!

Quote from above:
"Now, the Catholic Church teaches that Christ suffered for all of our sins, and every time we sin we add to His suffering. There is a popular expression used - "every sin you commit is like another nail in Jesus' Cross." Well, if I'm hurting God every hour of my life that just makes me completely miserable, I'm constantly in repentance mode and just honestly hating myself for being such a horrible drag on God. Because of this, I'm having a hard time accepting this understanding of involuntary sin as well."
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If we Christians spent only half the time concentrating on doing good and trying to emulate the Christ of the Gospels- rather than attempting to decipher sin and Hell and "correct" theology- this world would slowly become the Kingdom of God for us. Further, we need to always remember that the same measuring stick we use to condemn or forgive others will be used on us by God. This is expressed constantly in the Gospels and in the Lord's prayer -and this needs to be a guide in dealing with sin.

We can overcome self -loathing, the guilt of sin- by: embracing the cross, doing good works, and loving and forgiving others. Dissecting the nature of Sin (or Hell ) is of little comfort. My humble take on the subject.

I once heard a teacher say "whenever we sin, we don't hurt God - we only hurt ourselves". For a little while, I really believed it. I haven't sinned as much in years as I did during that little while. It's simple really, if you tell me not to feel guilty about sin - I'm not going to feel guilty about sin.

If what you're saying instead is that I should feel guilty, but I should feel less guilty because of all the good I do - then I still feel guilty. Regardless of how much good I do, I'm still hurting God every hour of my life! I hope this is sufficient further explanation on why it seems wrong to me, but I respectfully would really like this thread to focus on the theology; I don't intend for it to turn into a psychotherapy session.

Christ is in our midst!!

I have come to think of involuntary sin as sin that I commit due to spiritual immaturity. We all are on the spiritual road--or spectrum--and are always able to learn from our spiritual father. There are always attitudes and practices that we have that we may not be aware separate us from perfect communion with Our Lord. It may be an unforgiving heart that finds fault with the smallest things or dredges up long past grievances that we mull over. The Desert Fathers remind us that dwelling on past wrongs separates our minds from concentrating on the many blessings we have from our God and the need to be constantly thankful as well as making an honest effort to work on that constant conversion of life called metanoia.

I see the word "sin" as an acronym for "separation (from God), selfishness, self-centeredness IS normal, necessary, needed." Any combination of this is the Devil's whisper to us just before we fall.