What if you ain't had any idea that you committed mortal sin?

Answer 1

This question seems to be based on a misunderstanding of what is 'sin'.

Sin is not breaking a set of rules laid down in priority order rather like motoring offences or secular legislation to do with robbery, murder etc.

Sin is when there is a choice between what God wants us to do and what we want to do (for all manner of different reasons) and we choose to do what we want rather than what He would have wanted us to do. This may or may not be based on written guidelines or instructions. God has provided means in addition to words, such as conscience etc. to understand basic right from wrong.

The Bible however does give lots of detail of sin and its consequences but Jesus summed up living a 'good' (or 'sinless') life with his statement of the two basic commandments: to love God with all your heart, mind and soul and to love others as yourself. If you could do that all the time, you would not sin. Of course, unfortunately none of us can live up to that all the time.

When we get it wrong and do sin, by definition therefore, we get out of step with God. Because God loves all of us and wants us to do what is best for us all, sin therefore has some very nasty consequences for either ourselves or others or both. Sin therefore effectively carries its own (albeit often unforeseen) penalties with it. Sometimes these bad effects can linger on for generations hence the 'sin of the fathers' etc.

If you take the analogy of God as a father, He is trying to stop His sons and daughters from making mistakes with dire consequences. Because we have free will, we all of course often choose to make the mistakes just as we often failed to heed our parents' (often very wise) advice when we were younger.

This is why we have all sinned and have all gone astray. We are not 'good' in any true sense and comparing ourselves to others as either 'better' or 'worse' is quite futile and ultimately unhelpful to ourselves. It can also of course lead to an arrogance which then causes us to behave badly to those whom we consider to be less good or inferior to us.

The Bible does not categorise sins in a list of priorities in the way suggested by the expression 'Mortal Sin', although there were different penalties for breaking different civil laws based upon them in Israel and Judah . The expression 'Mortal Sin' is a human description. That term does not appear in the BIble at all. The Bible does list the general principles by which we can lead lives in tune with God and how we could also depart from that path. This starts well before the Ten Commandments, first listed in Exodus (right and wrong are clearly defined in respect of a number of areas right from Genesis 2).

Paul makes it clear that these lists of various examples ('The Law') are signposts to where we can go wrong. They are not 'laws' in a secular sense. One of the problems of our modern secular society is that people assume that if it is not illegal, it is not morally wrong. This is applied to everything from tax avoidance to more serious issues. This is the background to ever more legislation being enacted in our secular western societies to try and stop people from behaving badly. Note the present argument over regulation of financial institutions. It does seem to be a bit of a 'chase your own tail' futile exercise however as human ingenuity is always working on ways around laws. It is the principle that is wrong.People must choose to do what is right and does not harm others rather than choosing what suits them personally but harms others and is therefore wrong.

What is morally right or wrong does not ultimately depend on very fallible human laws. In this respect the Bible is much more pragmatic and lays down principles and examples from which it should be quite clear what to do in a much wider range of circumstances than can ever be covered by precisely worded human legislation. God also sent the remedy for people not always being able to get it right by providing the sacrifice of the only perfectly good man in Jesus Christ to make up for all of our collective sin, past present and future. This does not of course mean that all material consequences of what we have done will automatically be wiped out by God. The likelihood is that these will still need to be lived with.

This is a long answer but I .

Answer 2

Roman Catholic AnswerTheologicans are divided over exactly where the line is on this question. You do not have to know that it is called a mortal sin to commit it. If you know that it is wrong and you do it anyway, then you most probably have committed a mortal sin and must go to confession as soon as possible. In the meantime, make a sincere act of repentance and resolve never to do it again. In the case of sin, it is always best to err on the side of being a little stricter. As one professor noted, "if you aim for heaven and fall short, thank God, there's purgatory; if aim for purgatory and fall short, there's no good back-up." So aim to commit no sin out of love for God alone.