Are there degrees on sin?
For example - is stealing worse than looking at pornography? Is masturbation from pornography (if you’re married) the same as adultry?
If you’re married with children and live stressful lives and a husband or wife happened to masturbate every now and again because their partner may be legitimatally too tired for sex - is that a grave sin?
What if a spouse had to deploy with the military for a year? Is the other spouse then obligated to no self-gratification for a year? Wouldn’t it be better for a spouse to blow off some of that sexual energy through masturbation than to say - have a one-night-stand with a stranger?
Is masturbation ok by itself, or does it only become a sin if you use pornography to aid the masturbation?
Curious.
> Are there degrees on sin?
I can’t see how there could be, if we accept Holy Writ at face value. We are told that “the wages of sin is death.” Little sins, big sins, frequent sins or one-off sins: death is what you get if you sin.
Had Our Lord sinned — even once, even a tiny sin like uttering “Dammit!” when hitting his thumb with a hammer, as all carpenters do — he would have been blemished and would have therefore been an unacceptable Sacrifice: recall that in the Old Testament the sacrificial lamb had to be without blemish, perfect in every way.
What about the so-called “unforgivable sin” that Our Lord talks about — the “Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost”? What about that? Isn’t that a “worse” sin than the others?
In my view, yes-and-no: it becomes self-evident and logical: Atheism is the “unforgivable sin”, the “Blasphemy against the Holy Ghost”. Why? By definition.
If you are an Atheist you do not believe in God. Therefore you cannot and will not ask him for forgiveness. You therefore Blaspheme against the Holy Ghost because you do not believe in God’s power to forgive. That can only change when you cease being an Atheist. For as long as you continue in that state, you cannot be forgiven.
So, all sin is equal. In my view this is because God wants our obedience, not our sophistry. If there were a sliding scale of sin, then we would be tempted to apply sophisticated logic to rationalize it. He doesn’t want us to be clever with casuistry: He wants us to do what He tells us, to be obedient. Period.
We are told that He wants” obedience rather than sacrifice”, and for us to “harken” rather than to give Him “the fat of rams”. We should therefore take what He has said at face value.
Those are my thoughts. What do you think?