Sin, Guilt, Forgiveness, and Punishment- Part I

Have you ever heard someone say that God’s forgiveness removes the guilt of sin? And have you ever wondered why God punishes a person from whom He has removed guilt? In other words, if God forgives me, thereby declaring me not guilty and removing sin from my soul, why am I punished? This article will elucidate the reasons why punishment following God’s forgiveness is necessary. We’ll begin with sin.

Sin

What is sin? Sin is a transgression of moral law. It offends God and others. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (par. 1849) states,

Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is a failure in genuine love for God and neighbor caused by a perverse attachment to certain goods. It wounds the nature of man and injures human solidarity. It has been defined as ‘an utterance, a deed, or a desire contrary to the eternal law.’

Simply put, sin is a word, deed, thought, or omitted act that is contrary to grace and separates us from God (CCC 1853).

Sin results in numerous consequences. First and foremost, it separates us from God. If I steal, regardless of the amount, the very act of stealing separates me from God. In the firm choice to steal and in the act itself, I choose to reject God’s grace and put myself at enmity with Him.

Sin also estranges us from the neighbor we harm and the body of Christ, His Catholic Church. It creates disorder in ourselves and in the world. When we sin, we make ourselves guilty of causing each of these defects, and we make ourselves responsible for repairing them.

Please note that the above definition refers to mortal sin. However, even venial sins create disorder by inclining us to commit mortal sins. To read about the distinction between mortal and venial sin, click here.

Guilt

What is guilt? According to the Catholic Dictionary, guilt is the

condition of a person who has done moral wrong, who is therefore more or less estranged from the one he offended, and who is liable for punishment before he has been pardoned and has made atonement.

In other words, guilt for sin is the condition of separation from God.

As I mentioned above, when we sin, we intentionally commit an act that is objectively evil, thereby transgressing God’s law and rejecting His grace. This act severs our relationship with Him. By rejecting the eternal God who made us for eternity in Heaven, we embrace eternal punishment in Hell. We make ourselves guilty of exchanging friendship with God for enmity, Heaven for Hell. But this is not the only thing of which we make ourselves guilty.

We also make ourselves guilty of inordinately turning toward a created good that is finite and temporal, and of harming others. If I steal, I not only turn away from God, I also turn toward theft and the thing I stole. By my actions, I deprive the rightful owner of their property, create distrust in the community, harm the common good, and separate myself from the body of Christ.

Thus, sin creates both eternal and temporal disorders. God’s forgiveness restores the eternal order by putting us back in friendship with Him. But then we must remedy the temporal disorders in the interest of justice and holiness. Forgiveness alone does not accomplish this, but it is the beginning of the process.

For more on guilt, see Summa Theologiae III, q. 86, a. 4, 5 and all answers to the objections in these two articles.

Forgiveness

What is forgiveness? The Catholic Dictionary defines forgiveness as “[p]ardon or remission of an offense. The Catholic Church believes that sins forgiven are actually removed from the soul and not merely covered over by the merits of Christ.” Put another way, forgiveness is the removal of guilt by the infusion of grace that reunites us to God.

For more on grace and how it works, please read these two articles: How God Moves Us Without Destroying Our Free Will and Grace and Our Response To It.

When God forgives us, we are no longer guilty of destroying our relationship with Him because He repaired the relationship with His forgiveness and the infusion of grace. Because of God’s mercy and because He makes us in His image and likeness, we have a duty to then forgive others and correct the wrongs we have committed against them.

Therefore, instead of removing our responsibility to correct what we have disordered, God’s forgiveness makes us more responsible for forgiving others who have sinned against us and for correcting disorders we introduce through sinning.

In other words, God’s grace makes us more like God. Therefore, we must reflect God by showing mercy and restoring order through love just as God does. Jesus tells us what will happen if we do not do this.

In Matthew 18:23-35 (The Parable of the Unmerciful Servant), Jesus compares the kingdom of God to a servant who begged his master for forgiveness. The master then forgave all that the servant owed him. After receiving forgiveness, the servant approached a fellow servant who owned him money and demanded payment. When the man begged him for mercy, the servant threw him in prison.

After other servants related the man’s actions to their master, the master said to the servant, “You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me; and should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on you?” The master then threw the servant in jail. Jesus then tells us, “So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

So, forgiveness removes guilt, but it does not remove responsibility. And it does not immediately or automatically reorder everything that sin disorders. Reordering occurs when we cooperate with the grace that proceeds from God’s mercy and accept God’s punishments as disciplines that reform our souls and the world around us.

By refusing to show mercy after God forgives us, we reject the grace that helps to show mercy out of love for God and neighbor, and we put ourselves back into a state of enmity against God, just as the unmerciful servant did.

Tomorrow, in the second half of this article, I discuss punishment and discipline related to sins God has forgiven.