Posted by little worm at nas-2-74.boston.navipath.net on May 15, 2000 at 17:54:13:
In Reply to: Intriguing dilemma, but not necessarily... posted by Isis on May 15, 2000 at 14:18:27:
: Not really, because if they passed under the arch supposedly ALL of their :sins would be removed, including the sin of defying God's will. So their :whole banishment experience and the resultant decision to bust back into :heaven would be null & void. If their souls were totally clean slates :they wouldn't want to go through with the plan anymore.
Their banishment experience wouldn't be nullified...they'd still have the memories, along with the hatred. Walking through the arches wouldn't take that away, because they weren't legitimately sorry for their sins. If they were legitimately sorry they wouldn't have had to bother with the arches...they could've transubstantiated and went to a confession booth. But they weren't sorry for their actions, and thus confession wouldn't have removed their sins. That's why they went to the arches: their sins would be forgiven, even though they weren't sorry.
: I'm also not sure about your logic; it seems more reasonable that the :action of suicide be what incurs the mortal sin rather than the intention. :Because that prevents a difficult dilemma; let's say a person is very old, :or in extreme pain, and they mentally just give up and die. Is that :suicide?
If you will yourself to die, its suicide. It doesn't matter if you're in extreme pain. It doesn't matter why you're killing yourself, only that you ARE killing yourself.
:Or say someone takes an extreme risk, like skydiving, their chute fails to :open and they go splat. Is that considered suicide because they made a :conscious choice that could lead to their deaths?
No, because the person wasn't performing the action for the purpose of him dying. You have to have an intent of being killed. Putting yourself in a risky situation doesn't mean that you want to die.
:It seems a bit tricky. But then there is that thing about having sinned :in your heart and all that; I guess we'd need a theologian or a priest to :tell us what the official party line is on this.
nope, just gotta realize that intent is the key factor.
-lw-