One’s conscience is not an absolute indicator of whether or not one has sinned. Why? Because our consciences can be ill-formed, darkened, or eclipsed from the truth. Pius XI famously said, “The sin of the century is the loss of the sense of sin." And this is so true.
How does it happen? Does one following their own conscience necessarily mean they know what is or is not sinful - what is or is not right or wrong? Absolutely not. Again, our consciences can be ill-formed, darkened, or eclipsed from the truth. A loss of the sense of sin will always dull our consciences; and unless we keep it sharp by going to confession regularly, examining our consciences daily, and learning the WHAT and WHY of the Church’s teachings, we will be forever walking in darkness and at the least, uncertainty, about the sinful nature of some moral actions.
Back to the loss of the sense of sin. How?
1. Committing sin aids us in losing our sense of sin.
The consequences of sin are that is weakens our will, darkens our intellect, disorders the passions, and increases our concupiscence (our inclination toward sin). The more one sins, without confession and true repentance, the more the sin becomes a habit; the more it is habitual, the more inclined we will be toward committing it, thus dulling our conscience and sense of sin. Because sin is darkness, it eclipses our minds from Divine light and wisdom and darkens our intellect – our way of thinking. It can even lead us to “justifying” our sinful choices because our intellects have become so darkened from the truth. Eventually this leads us down the slippery slope of committing mortal sin (CCC #1855) because sin always leads to more sin.
Think of a golf swing one might practice. They do it over and over and over again until eventually it becomes “etched” into their muscle memory; it becomes so habitual and ingrained that they don’t even need to think about it anymore. That’s the effect sin can have on us if we are not “keeping ourselves in check” through regular confession and a daily examination of conscience. When we continue to commit it, it becomes a way that we adopt and become so accustomed to that we don’t even think anything of it anymore; our sense of sin becomes dulled by our obstinacy in sinning without repenting and trying to change our ways.
**I say “without repenting and trying to change our ways” because there is a crucial difference between two people who commit the same sin, but have a different disposition about it afterward: One’s sense of sin is actually becoming sharpened through repentance, while the other, dulled.**
2. We lose our sense of sin through secularism.
"Secularism" is by nature and definition a movement of ideas and behavior which advocates a humanism totally without God, completely centered upon the cult of action and production and caught up in the heady enthusiasm of consumerism and pleasure seeking, unconcerned with the danger of "losing one's soul." This secularism cannot but undermine the sense of sin. At the very most, sin will be reduced to what offends man. But it is precisely here that we are faced with the bitter experience which I already alluded to in my first encyclical namely, that man can build a world without God, but this world will end by turning against him."
The more man isolates God, the more man isolates himself. The more man “tosses out God,” the more man loses his moral compass and makes up his own compass to serve his own self (to the neglect, however, of his soul).
We live in a world which continually tries to push God out of the public square and disassociate any type of law that may bear God’s fingerprint. The more we are told we "should" to “hide God,” and “keep it private,” the less likely we will be courageous and stand for what is right and true. Because we are silent and passive, the sin becomes the “norm” of society – acceptable. What was once considered bad half a century ago is now “just another way of living” today (remarriage, homosexual relations, abortion, and the like).
Sin is never a way of living – it is a way of dying.
Through this system of secularization, we come to accept sin as “good” and what is objectively good as dispensable or “good for you” (i.e….relative). Look at the widespread number of tv shows, songs, and movies – how much of them portray the sin of fornication (sex before marriage) in a glamorous and appealing way? How much of them portray the use of profanity and using “Jesus Christ” and God’s name in vain as acceptable and just the norm of regular, every day language? You can’t watch anything without seeing that.
Which leads to my next point…
3. We lose our sense of sin by becoming desensitized to it from the world around us.
It is a no-brainer that the more one exposes oneself to something, the more accustomed and familiar they become to it.
When I was in high school and through my early years of college, I used to love watching MTV’s The Real World and Laguna Beach (there were many others, but those were my favorites that I actually followed). I remember my dad saying to me from time to time, “Why do you bother watching that junk???” I used to joke it off as a teenager and an “independent college student” thinking my father was just an old stiff; I would respond, “Oh dad, please. It’s just for fun, it’s entertaining, it’s not like I’m going to do that…” ...Now looking back, dad, you were right!
Really? Watching people get drunk, have sex, cheat on each other, use swear words, lie, deceive, murder….that’s what I called entertainment? And think of how many movies, books, songs, and shows exemplify these things today! You may even enjoy some of them yourself. But as a Christian, be honest about the content – it glorifies sin. You are filling your heart and mind and soul with sin. THAT’S what you’re doing. God created us with a much higher dignity than filling ourselves with sin. If we fill ourselves with these sins through a consistent diet of music, tv, and media which portrays them, and the Lord tells us that the wages of sin are death and merit hell….do we really want to be doing that? That’s the real perspective.
I think we shrug the seriousness of this off for a number of reasons (from which I can recount from my own personal experience).
1. Laziness (For example, we don’t want to put in the effort of ridding those shows from our tv diet)
2. Our loss of the sense of sin (i.e. "It's not really that big of a deal...")
3. Our lack of serious concern for our eternal salvation
And even though one may not go out and commit those actions which they’ve seen out of imitation, there’s no doubt that it at the least desensitizes us to those sins until we get to the point where we shrug it off and say, “Eh, so many people are doing it…what’s the big deal?” Ever thought that?
Again, we’ve lost our true sense of sin and sin has become something glamorized by society today. The old saying goes, “What’s popular isn’t always going to be right, and what’s right isn’t always going to be popular.”
4. Moral relativism has contributed to our loss of a sense of sin.
This viewpoint believes that morality is relative to how a person FEELS about various moral actions, now how they objectively ARE right or wrong. It neglects absolute moral truth and says there is none, which is a contradiction in logic itself. If a person feels or thinks murder is ok for x,y,z, then “Hey! That’s what they believe to be true, so what works for you will work for you and what works for me will work for me.” Again, this is the epitome of laziness in striving for absolute truth, or, this is the individual’s way of avoiding a confrontation of their conscience which is cowardice.
I recently listened to the story of an atheist, Jennifer Fulwiler, who converted to Catholicism. Even though her father was a stout atheist from her infancy, he did give her a wise piece of advice throughout her childhood and adulthood: “Seek for the truth and follow it wherever it will lead you, even if it’s somewhere you don’t want to go.” I thought that was so profound. Yet we today have lost this “search for truth” and substituted it with a lazy dismissal of moral relativism. Another reason we don’t search for the truth of moral actions is because we have a sense of where it may lead us or how it may convict us, and thus we fear that, so we retreat in cowardice.
5. Wrongly interpreted Scripture passages.
This is sad, but I’ve seen it – Christians using Scripture to justify sins like abortion, homosexual relations, remarriage, and the like. If a Christian we know says “x” is ok because it’s in the Bible, but another Christian over here says "x" is NOT ok, well….can't I just choose for myself if it’s right or wrong? Problem: Both people are Christians yet interpreting it two entirely different ways. I saw a book that came out about a year ago written by a Christian; its entire content was a Biblical defense of homosexual relations! It caused quite a controversy in Christian bookstores across the nation because stores were not sure whether or not they should put something like that on their shelves.
As Catholics, we don’t believe that using the Bible alone is enough to tell us about how to live – it certainly tells us a lot but not enough. What do I mean? The Bible doesn’t interpret itself. Just because one knows Scripture, it does not necessarily mean he is using it the right way. We need to be careful of this. Look at Satan - he knew Scripture very well (see Luke 4:1-13) and was so prideful and foolish as to try to misinterpret it against God Himself.
Today, sadly, we see arguments for all types of immoral behaviors and they claim they are all justified by the Bible. This leads us to a logical question - which is the true interpretation and how does one know? They cannot all be inspired by the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit is Truth and cannot contradict Himself. IF, however, one believes that Christ inspired not only the Holy Bible, but a Church to which He left on earth to guide us in the truth through the power of the Holy Spirit (“I have much more to tell you, but you cannot bear it now. But when he comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will guide you to all truth” – John 16:12-13), then it makes sense that one would turn to that Church for clarification and proper interpretation of what God said and how He meant it.
It is a blessing to have the Catholic Church guide us in understanding the truth of God’s ways in times that are constantly changing and morals are becoming a seemingly relative notion. We should be especially grateful for such an accurate moral "compass” at a time when Christians themselves (unknowingly or not) are using the Bible to contradict God’s law in prevalent areas of morality today.
How have any of these 5 reasons for the loss of a sense of sin affected you? They've affected us all, to some degree. We must pray unceasingly for ourselves that we may always have a spirit of humility, who like Jennifer Fulwiler, learned to “Seek for the truth and follow it wherever it will lead you, even if it’s somewhere you don’t want to go.”