Our Restless Hearts: An Introduction to Doing Catholic Morality
Lesson 3: The Reality of Sin and Grace
Question to Reflect: How could sin and evil have entered into the world, when God is supposedly good?
SIN: MAGISTERIUM
Catholic theology acknowledges the presence of sin, and there are many ways to describe this:
1. St. Augustine of Hippo
2. The Sacred Scriptures
A. Old Testament
B. New Testament
3. Catechism for Catholic Church
SIN: ST. AUGUSTINE
q For Augustine, SIN was a “free act of will whereby one turns from God, the highest and immutable
good, to some created thing, the goodness of which is deficient by comparison.”
q SIN is thus tied to WILL, understood as a way that a person exercises his or her choices to do or not to
do an action, and as something that can be formed or malformed.
AUGUSTINE vs. Manichaeism
q Manichaeism argued for a dualistic understanding of reality: a struggle and opposition between the
two equal powers of good and evil.
q Augustine disagreed with this cosmology; evil was not an equal power to God, but rather evil was the
absence of God and the good.
SIN: OLD TESTAMENT
In the Sacred Scripture, the Old Testament description of sin:
1. Hattah or “Missing the mark” focuses on the offense inflicted on another by failing to meet one’s
covenant obligation ([Link].14:27).
2. Depravity and perversity refer to the defect of character or disorder that weighs the sinner down (cf. Ps
38:5).
3. Pesa or Rebellion and transgression picture sin as a conscious choice, which destroys positive
relationships (cf. Jer. 3:6).
The Old Testament manifests certain shifts of emphasis in its conception of sin. A more primitive, less morally
developed idea of sin, pictures it as defilement or stain, the sense of being unclean before the face of God.
Sin is also as a crime, an internal willful violation of Yahweh’s covenant relationship.
SIN: NEW TESTAMENT
New Testament authors identified Christ as the suffering servant who has come to “justify many, bearing the
guilt” (Is 53:11). Christ calls all to a radical conversion from the power and deadly evil of sin, to the kingdom of
His Father. To all entrapped in the snares of sin, he offers forgiveness:
1. “Your sins are forgiven” (Lk.7:48)
2. “Sin no more!” (Jn. 5:14; 8:11).
SIN: CATECHISM FOR CATHOLIC CHURCH
q Real sin hurts our loved ones and us; it really destroys, injures, dishonors, perverts, poisons, and
corrupts. Sin often has a compulsive aspect to it. We seem to be “caught in it” and addicted like an
illness that weakens us and keeps us in the dark, with its own kind of pain (CCC 1803).
ESSENCE OF SIN
q It is refusing to follow our own conscience’s call toward the good.
q It is rejecting God, our creator and Lord, and our own true selves and others, and turning away from
God, our true end.
q It is breaking God’s loving covenant with us, shown forth in Jesus Christ dying and rising for our sake.
REALITY OF SIN
Sin as a moral reality, is an action which alienates us from or makes us strangers from:
A. Our True Selves (Intra-personal)
B. Our Neighbors (Interpersonal)
C. The Larger Community (Societal)
D. God (the ground and source of all three)
CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF SIN: James Keenan
q Sin as a “failure to bother to love…” Acknowledging that there are sins out of weakness, he
nevertheless argues that often, people sin out of their strength in that they could have done more
good, but failed to do so. “Our sin is usually where you and I are comfortable, where we do not feel
the need to bother, where, like the Pharisee, or even [Albert] Speer, [the minister of armaments and
architect of Nuremberg during World War II], we have found complacency, a complacency not where
we rest in being loved but where rest in our delusional self-understanding of how much better we are
than others.”
CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF SIN: Pope Francis (Laudato Si’)
“They suggest that human life is grounded in three fundamental and closely intertwined relationships: with
God, with our neighbor and with the earth itself. According to the Bible, these three vital relationships have
been broken, both outwardly and within us. This rupture is sin. The harmony between the Creator, humanity
and creation as a whole was disrupted by our presuming to take the place of God and refusing to acknowledge
our creaturely limitations.”
Structure of SIN
q Personal sin is never just “private” without any effect on anyone else. Rather, just as all “persons” are
relational, it is always affecting others and the community in everything they do, and likewise being
affected by what others do. So personal sin is neither committed nor overcome in “private.”
q The grace of personal conversion and repentance always involves a community dimension.
Social SIN
Social sin refers to negative moral attitude and acts or failure to act that is common to a community or
particular society. Its remedy is to change what is negative or lacking in the community’s moral acts or
attitudes into what is positive and graced.
DEGREES OF SIN
1. Mortal Sin – Sin is defined a “mortal” when its nature, intention and circumstances involve grave matter,
sufficient knowledge, full consent of the will. It can only be erased through the Sacrament of Confession.
2. Venial Sin – It is called venial (from “venia” meaning pardon or forgiveness) when it does not involve the
“person’s fundamental freedom nor lead to spiritual death. It can easily be pardoned through prayers, good
works and mortification.
Though venial sins are by definitions pardonable, they should not be taken lightly for they offend God.
Moreover, carelessness with regard to them, especially when a habit develops, can lead to mortal sin.
GRACE: God’s Love Freely Given
Question to Reflect: If sin is willed by man, can man also will or get grace? In other words, can we be good in
our own ways?
AUGUSTINE vs. Pelagius
q Pelagius: Human beings can know and do all the divine mandates without Grace.
q Augustine: Everything is grace. And human being has to cooperate/respond to it.
In discussing grace, it is important to strike a balance between God and human beings.
There can be a tendency to focus too much on God (i.e. there is no need for human beings to do anything,
because grace does all the work) or on human beings (i.e. human beings can know and do all the divine
mandates without grace).
It is important to remember that “it is God communicating Godself and human beings opening themselves up”
and responding to this self-communication.
History and Grace
q Council of Carthage (418): "Whoever says that… if grace were not given, it would be possible but not
easy to obey God's commandments without that grace: let him be anathema. For the Lord was
speaking of the observance of the commandments when he said: "Without me you can do nothing" (Jn
15:5). He did not say: "Without me it will be more difficult for you to do anything." (Jesuit Fathers of St.
Mary's College, The Church Teaches, p.219)
q Council of Trent (1545-63): "Unless a person is born again of water and the holy Spirit, he cannot enter
the kingdom of God. The Council further declares that actual justification in adults takes its origin from
a predisposing grace of God through Jesus Christ, that is, from his invitation which calls them, with no
existing merits on their side." (Session 6, Chap.5: Norman Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils,
p.672)
q Vatican II (1962-65): "From the liturgy, then, especially from the Eucharist, grace comes flowing to us
as if from a fountain." (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, 10: Norman Tanner, Decrees of the
Ecumenical Councils, p.823)
q Catechism of the Catholic Church (1994): Making clear the different fundamental notions of grace, it
teaches us that:
1. "Grace is favor, the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children
of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and of eternal life." (n.1996)
2. "Grace is a participation in the life of God. It introduces us into the intimacy of Trinitarian life." (n.1997)
Grace as Gift
q Grace is a gift freely given from God that is most often seen understood as love and mercy that allows
people to break away from sin and be in communion with God.
q Grace is God’s presence in the world, dwelling in and with creation, allowing creation to encounter
God openly and freely.
Dis-Grace
q Leonardo Boff also acknowledges a state of dis-grace: a “lack of encounter, refusal to dialogue,” and a
turning inward to oneself rather than outwards towards others.
q It is a return to S-I-N.
Salvation and Grace
I Sacred Scriptures
A. Old Testament: GOD’S GRACE is usually reflected on the SALVATION of the RIGHTEOUS:
1. Noah
2. Moses
3. David
God established a COVENANT with Israel.
COVENANT with Israelites: God gave them laws and commandments which were guides for the morality,
protection, and well being of the people. They were to obey His commandments, serving and loving Him as
the only God. For atonement of sins, they were to sacrifice certain unblemished animals. In turn, He would
protect them and bless them in various ways, bring them to a land of milk and honey, and raise them to their
reward at the end of the age. All male Israelites were circumcised in agreement to God's covenant.
Circumcision would serve as a sign of the covenant for future generations of Israelites.
Noahic Covenant: “I establish My covenant with you; and all flesh shall never again be cut off by the water of
the flood, neither shall there again be a flood to destroy the earth.”
Abrahamic Covenant: Now the LORD said to Abram, “Go forth from your country, and from your relatives, and
from your father’s house, to the land which I will show you; And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless
you, and make your name great; And so you shall be a blessing; And I will bless those who bless you and the
one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Mosaic Covenant: “‘Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My
own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests
and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel.”
Davidic Covenant: “Your house and your kingdom shall endure before Me forever; your throne shall be
established forever.”
B. New Testament: GOD’S GRACE is the sending of His Only begotten Son, JESUS CHRIST. God established a
COVENANT with the Jews and Gentiles.
COVENANT with the New People: The new covenant is similar to the old in that we are still to obey God's
commandments and love Him as the only God, and we still need atonement for sins. However, rituals and
sacrifices done under the old covenant were eliminated.
q The new covenant is the fulfillment of all the covenants because it is anchored on the perfect
obedience of Christ to the Father.
q The New covenant perfected the Old Covenant because the ratification of the covenant is Jesus
Himself.
q Grace became understood as salvation and forgiveness, particularly through Jesus Christ who is grace
in the flesh.
Grace in the Bible
q In the Old Testament, GRACE, as God’s loving kindness to Israel, is characterized as gratuitous (i.e.
something that is unearned or unmerited; it is something God’s freely chooses to give without people
having to work for it) and steadfast.
q In the New Testament, GRACE became understood as salvation and forgiveness, particularly through
Jesus Christ who is grace in the flesh.
II The Church: Under the new covenant God has sought to take the laws and commandments out of the
people's hands and to establish them in their hearts. He has given us His Holy Spirit (the same Spirit instilled in
Jesus while He was on earth). This is God inside us - guiding, teaching, and convicting us. He dwells in the
Church through the Sacraments.
Grace in the Catholic Church
q In the Catholic Church, "grace" is divided into "actual grace" and "sanctifying grace." Both forms of
grace are vital to the "supernatural life" of each Catholic's soul.
q Both actual grace and sanctifying grace are needed to permit the soul to achieve a state of worthiness
to enter Heaven.
q Actual grace is a temporary supernatural intervention by God to enlighten the mind or strengthen the
will to perform supernatural actions that lead to heaven. Actual grace is therefore a transient divine
assistance to enable man to obtain, retain, or grow in supernatural grace and the life of God.
q Sanctifying grace is sometimes called "habitual grace." According to the Catholic Catechism, sanctifying
grace is "an habitual gift, a stable and supernatural disposition that perfects the soul itself to enable it
to live with God, to act by his love. Unlike actual grace, sanctifying grace is a permanent state, a
property that meshes with the individual's soul and is only lost through mortal sin.
A. The Seven Sacraments: These graces are visible in the Church’s administration of the seven Sacraments:
1. Baptism
2. Confirmation
3. Reconciliation
4. Eucharist
5. Matrimony
6. Holy Orders
7. Anointing of the Sick
Teachings of Grace
q For Augustine, it is in grace that freedom is healed.
q For Thomas Aquinas, it is in grace that human nature is transformed and elevated.
q For Leonardo Boff, Father of Liberation Theology, grace is finding some measure of hope amidst
poverty and injustice in the world.
q It is through grace that one can discern properly and make morally sound judgement. It is through
grace that one can become free to love and serve others and God and choose to do the good that is
needed in the world.
