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."
**********

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.

Christ is in our midst!!

InvoSinner,


I have a magazine article that describes the scientific research done on the Shroud of Turin. It talks about the savage treatment that the Person Who was wrapped inthat shroud endured. There were over 600 blows counted just on the front and back of the Person scourged. The Right Eye was almost knocked out. The Person was branded with a hot iron on several places on His body.

The scientists could not come to the conclusion that this was Christ's shroud, but by faith we believe it. The Church teaches that Our Lord took on Himself the punishment for sin that none of us could endure. If it is claimed that sin only hurts us, the shroud says otherwise.

A lot of things are involuntary we're lucky to be able to choose our faith. Worship as you please to find grace through salvation

Blood of the lamb. God help us all. Yahweh, Yoshua, Elijah.

For St. Basil's teaching: St. Augustine says (City of God, 1.21):

"When God orders a person to be put to death, the killing is not murder, but obedience to Him who has the power of life and death."

The Hebrews do not sin involuntary while doing God's commandment, involuntary sin does not apply when divine justice is at work.

As for your next question, you must remember that for St. Basil the key distinction isn't between two moral evils. It's between moral evil and physical evil. Take the soldier forced to kill as an example. He's not choosing evil, he's coerced into an act that has an evil effect, but his will doesn't consent to malice.

Aquinas later touches up on this topic:

"We may never choose moral evil for the sake of good; we may only tolerate physical evil to avoid a greater one."

Many Saints have also talked about the situation of the Lord causing Mary distress.

St. Ambrose, (Exposition on Luke 2):

"He did not err by staying behind, but gave a sign that a Son must obey His Father before all others."

Mary's distress was real, but Jesus's act was perfectly good. Just as God's judgments can bring temporal suffering without injustice, Jesus's obedience to His divine mission caused Mother Mary pain, but not through disobedience or wrongdoing. Anxiety in Mary is a permitted sorrow, do remember that.

This is a quick explanation and I hope it helped you even a little in understanding involuntary sin. God bless!

Christ is in ou rmidst!!

IMHO, involuntary sin is committed when we offend Our Lord but we are not aware of due to spiritual immaturity. This latter is why we go to our spiritual father and lay questions in his lap. Having greater spiritual understanding and experience, he helps us sort out things we may not be aware of. It's not about being scrupulous to the point we are afraid of doing anything, it's about being humble enough to admit we do not know everything and are in constant need of growth in our spiritiual walk and in repentance.

I had typed up a passionate reply to all the comments, but I must have hit "preview" instead of "post". Maybe it was for the best, because now I can more soberly provide an update:
I talked with my priest twice, but he didn't seem very interested in the topic. He told me I wasn't imposing, but still I got the impression that he was uncomfortable, and now he isn't responding to my texts requesting to schedule a third meeting. I think it would be improper for me to pry further.
Regarding the first problem, my priest said that St. Basil was wrong and that these actions aren't involuntary sins. But unfortunately, he was unable to provide a logical justification besides "if you lookup certain RCC documents, you'll see they teach that it's not sinful for a soldier to kill his enemies in war." Regarding the second problem (which it seems all the discussion here was about), he didn't have a concrete answer. The first time we spoke he said that there is no Church dogma on the subject and we have leeway in belief, but the second time I provided references to teachings from the saints and the popes, and he agreed that they were correct - that each of our sins really do add to Jesus' suffering. It didn't seem like he knew much about the topic in-depth, and so I take what he said with a grain of salt, so to speak. Still, it was helpful to bounce my ideas off of him and I have a better understanding now of the issue.
The priest also told me something similar to Hutsul above - I should focus more on the good deeds that I do instead of worrying about these topics. I am now better able to explain why I find this wrong - if I consciously try to ignore that I am causing God to suffer, then that is not loving God with my whole heart, which contradicts His command. Theophan, this also applies to what you typed about scrupulosity and finding fault with the tiniest of infractions - If I love Jesus with all my heart, of course I will myself feel sorrow whenever I know He is hurt, even the tiniest amount.

What I would like to believe, actually what I have been believing for the past few months, is that the amount of suffering God experienced on the cross does not scale with the amount of sins committed in the world. That is not to say that the Shroud of Turin is fake, or that Christ did not suffer greatly, it is just to say that if I were to lose focus during Mass an extra time it wouldn't make God suffer any more than if I wouldn't have. This is also not to say that sin is without consequence - Sin disappoints God, and it sets a bad example, and it causes others to suffer. Note the key difference here is that I try to love others as much as myself, not with my whole heart. This makes all the difference. For example - losing focus during Mass is an involuntary sin and it makes Jesus suffer and I love Him with all my heart so I'd feel terrible, but while losing focus during a conversation is rude and hurtful to the person I'm talking with, I only love this person as much as myself so I don't feel terrible.
Does this make me a heretic? I wonder. Because in essence what I'm believing is that the Roman Catholic Catechism is mistaken, that several of the papal encyclicals are mistaken, and that many Catholic saints were mistaken about this issue. I hope it doesn't, because to bow to the consensus teaching on this topic seems to be akin to agreeing to live the rest of my life in misery. Not that I'd refuse if I was confident that it's what God wants, but it just doesn't seem right to say that He does.

Hi HaveFaith, thanks for trying to address the first point, the St. Ambrose quote was nice to read.
Still, I disagree - as a general rule under St. Basil, all soldiers returning from war were to be prescribed a penance of refraining from communion for 3 years. If there is just physical evil here but no sin, then why was there penance prescribed?
Similarly for St. Ambrose - I fully agree that Jesus made the right decision in obeying his Father at the expense of His mother's distress. But if we apply the logic of St. Basil here that evil committed unwillingly because of being forced by the circumstances constitutes involuntary sin, then mustn't we conclude that Jesus did the same?

Glad to hear you talked with your Priest! I hope he shed some light on the topic.

Regarding your concerns, you need to see the penance as medicinal. War, even if justified, still hurts the soul deeply. Penance clears and heals the soul. As St. John Chrysostom teaches, not all penances are for guilt; some are for healing.

And for your other question, involuntary sin requires involuntary imperfection. Jesus has no imperfection, voluntary or involuntary. It is not possible for Him to commit involuntary sin because He does not fufill the requirements to do so.

God bless!

Thanks, your answers were tremendously helpful. You inspired me to spend hours on the Internet trying to dig up the direct quotations from St. Basil instead of relying on secondary sources. Here's what I found:

Cannon XIII: Our Fathers did not consider murders committed in the course of wars to be classifiable as murders at all, on the score, it seems to me, of allowing a pardon to men fighting in defense of sobriety and piety. Perhaps, though, it might be advisable to refuse them communion for three years, on the ground that they are not clean-handed.

And for a sailor throwing cargo overboard - I incorrectly attributed that to St. Basil. It was written by St. John of Damascus:

An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith Ch. XXIV: Notice that there are certain things that occupy a place intermediate between what is voluntary and what is involuntary. Although they are unpleasant and painful we welcome them as the escape from a still greater trouble; for instance, to escape shipwreck we cast the cargo overboard.

Neither saint chose to use the word "sin" to describe these actions. Perhaps we really cannot say that they did consider these actions to be sins. And anyway, saints can be wrong, right? I feel more comfortable now regarding the first problem I posted. The only thing I can see is - when assigning penance, how is the priest supposed to be aware of these actions? I suppose we ought to say during confession - "I think it's probably not a sin, but you should know that I was in so-and-so situation and I did so-and-so."

I also want to correct what I typed for the second problem - it was not St. John Chrysostom who said that he sins every hour of his life, but it was St. John of Kronstadt (an Orthodox 19th century saint). Still, I think the problem stands - if deliberately not focusing during prayer is a voluntary sin, then involuntarily losing focus is an involuntary sin. If the Catholic Church dogmatically teaches that every sin of ours adds to the suffering Jesus experienced on the Cross (does it?), then we really are causing him suffering every single hour of our lives. That seems to lead either to apathy or incredible scrupulosity. If we try to love Jesus with all our heart, mind, and soul, then it leads to the latter. That can't be right, can it? Is it OK to believe that sin does not add to the suffering Jesus experienced on the Cross?

Unable to find a satisfactory answer, I turned to consulting generative artificial intelligence on the matter. Although they more or less all provided the same argument, Qwen was the only one I found that didn't constantly hallucinate or self-contradict. It was able to clearly source and convey this simple argument:

1. Summa Theologiae III:46:5 teaches that "The very least one of Christ's sufferings was sufficient of itself to redeem the human race from all sins..."

2. Summa Theologiae III:48:2 teaches that "Christ's suffering was sufficient and superabundant atonement... of infinite worth."

3. Therefore, His pain during the Passion did not have to scale with the amount of sin humanity commits.

4. Finally, a reply to the objection that the Church, regardless of the above, teaches that Christ's pain did in fact scale: while the Church does use language similar to "every sin is another nail in Jesus' Cross", which can be found in CCC 598, Miserentissimus Redemptor 13, The Way of the Cross, writings of numerous saints, etc..., this language is simply devotional and is not meant to be taken literally. It's just trying to make you feel bad for upsetting God, not for actually hurting Him. It's similar to someone saying "you're breaking my heart". Just like we recognize that when Jesus said "call no man father" he didn't mean it literally, we have to recognize the same here.

It's not ideal, but, combined with my thoughts discussed above, it seems to be the most truthful. So, I'm going to half-heartedly accept this until I come across a stronger argument from either side.

You'd be right, InvoSinner, that sin does not literally add pain to the cross. For the Lord is not nailed anymore, with the nails all our sins, future, present and past were nailed down.

But it is simply a way to show you how much the Lord sorrows when we sin. Sin let's us separate from Christ himself, which pains the Lord so much to lose the grasp of his beloved, which is you! God, who is your father, your mother, your spouse, your nurse, your friend, your root, your foundation. You are everything for him, for he will be on the cross for you, poor for you, in the tomb for you. A God who came to serve rather than to be served, for you.

I personally don't see the metaphor for sins being added suffering to the cross something to make you miserable. It's a beautiful way for you to realize how much the Lord wants you when he already suffers if you simply leave him. Imagine loving so much that you feel a nail being stabbed in you when your dear leaves you!

I hope you don't only see this quote through legalistic lenses by getting your sources from the scholastic tradition that AI usually pumps out and instead see the mysticsm and beauty in such theology.

God bless.