NOBODY IS ENTIRELY FREE FROM SIN
Official Catholic doctrine teaches, “It is not a question of the man doing
Penance being one who says ,’Well, Lord, I think I’ve lived today pretty
perfectly. I prayed generously and faithfully. I’ve loved my neighbour more than
adequately – no failure there. I honestly don’t think I’ve failed you at all. So
really, for a man who loves you as well as I do, there’s nothing more except
some work of supererogation: so I’ll do this bit of Penance’. No, the man who
does Penance is one who says, ‘Lord, the end of another messed-up day. I let you
down at every turn. I’ve lived for myself all through. You’re not giving the
basic graces I need. Lord, please…I’m serious: so I’ll do this” (page 4, Friday
Penance, John C Edwards SJ).
Matthew 12:34 has Jesus telling us that if you have any unrepentance in you any
good you do is telling God that you only care about good when it suits you not
that it is good. “How can you being EVIL speak GOOD things? For out of the
abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. A GOOD man out of the GOOD treasure
of the heart bringeth forth GOOD things, and an EVIL man out of the EVIL
treasure bringeth forth EVIL things”.
The First Epistle of John claims that anybody who says he has no sin is a
liar and the truth of God is not in him at all. It does not say it just means
people who think they have never sinned or people who think they do not sin any
more but used to. So clearly it means both. This tells us that nobody alive is
completely free from sin. They always have some sin in them. If all sin will be
punished with eternal damnation then there is no hope except by somebody like
Jesus keeping the law of God for us in our place.
Romans 3 teaches that all are sinful and nobody is an exception. It speaks in
the present tense. It says that the reason nobody could be saved by obeying the
Law of Moses was because nobody can keep it right despite it making provisions
for forgiveness from God. That means we are all sinners and never have a clean
moment.
In Isaiah 64:6, the prophet says that we and all our right ways are filthy rags
before God. He says we so he included himself too. And he would have lived like
a holy man and he claimed to be totally evil.
Jeremiah 13:23 says that a leopard cannot change its spots or an Ethiopian his
skin just like the evil cannot do good. Isn’t that a nice piece of cynicism from
the God of the Jews and the Christians? Jeremiah is saying they would pretend to
be good but are not.
As St Augustine observed in Book 21, Chapter 27, of his City of God, Jesus in
Matthew 6 gave out the Lord’s Prayer and immediately after stressed that you
cannot be forgiven your sins unless you forgive first and indicated that it
should be said as much as possible for it was the best prayer that he was
hinting that all of us are continually in sin.
The doctrine that we are never completely pure is a logical consequence of the
doctrine of Moses and Jesus that we must love God totally and with all our
hearts meaning we serve ourselves and others the way God commands so that it is
really God who is being served. We could never manage that in all things.
The black and white attitude which lies behind the Bible’s attempt to convict
everybody of sin is dangerous. Many of the supposedly good and evil things we do
are really neutral – as bad as they are good or neither if you like. If
consequences have any bearing on morality or right and wrong at all then you
have to believe that there are actions which are neutral.
WORKS CONSULTED
ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS CATHOLICS ARE ASKING Tony Coffey, Harvest House, Eugene,
Oregon, 2006
FRIDAY PENANCE, John C Edwards SJ, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1985
CITY OF GOD, St Augustine, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1986
EVERYMAN’S ROAD TO HEAVEN, Leo J Trese, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1961
APOLOGETICS AND CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, Most Rev M Sheehan DD, M H Gill & Son,
Dublin, 1954
RADIO REPLIES, VOL 1, Frs Rumble and Carty, Radio Replies Press, St Paul,
Minnesota, 1938
THE SINNER’S GUIDE, Ven Louis of Granada, TAN, Illinois, 1983
CHRISTIANITY, David Albert Jones OP, Family Publications, Oxford, 1999
THE INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, John Calvin, Hodder and Stoughton,
London 1986
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible