There is a scale of sinning - of doing the right or wrong thing (and bearing in mind the wrongness is motivation):
1. Do the right thing.
2. Do the wrong thing and realise it was wrong, and learn from the experience.
3. Do the wrong thing and realise it was wrong.
4. Do the wrong thing and deny to yourself it was wrong.
5. Do the wrong thing and say to yourself it was the right thing.
6. Do the wrong thing, say it was the right thing - and try to persuade other people it was the right thing (aka. "Doubling-down").
7. Try to persuade as many people as possible that categorical wrong-ness is abstractly right.
4-7 are all necessarily self-damned states - increasing in severity.
7. Is the leftist intellectual: leftism being the philosophy of value-inversion as a means to evil (evil being the motivated destruction of God and divine creation). It is the worst; because such a person is not merely (like all of us, some-times) a sinner who failed to resist temptation; but (and without excuse of personal temptation or participation) someone angling to join Satan's strategic management team from a basis in shared goals.
5 comments:
5-7 you can definitely see in people's faces. Probably 1-4 as well but 5-7 are very clear.
In 4-7 there is not conscious awareness that wrong is being done. And therefore no space for remorse, repentance and change. Merely repetition.
Until by grace the still small voice of intuition begins to be heard, courage grows and we dwell more in 1-3.
@William - Yes, especially in real life. But some actors/ presenters/ politicians etc are able to hide it, when in controlled conditions; or maybe they can distract us from really looking.
@Chris - My point is that people choose to be 'not conscious'; and often go to great lengths to keep themselves 'unconscious'. It is that choice which is self-damnation.
Examples are when someone says I will repent later, or I can't be blamed when my motives are good, or it's not my fault (meaning it's not my responsiobility).
However, anybody capable of asserting these, is responsible; and has chosen evil.
@Chris - there is absolutely consciousness at those stages, in fact I would say you can't be in them without it. Remember that Will (or the Heart) is prior to Intellect - the intellect is constantly rationalizing to support the commands of the will, it is never in a superior position. Promoting what is against God's law is never the result of a faulty application of some theorem or making a mistake in your sums, it can only come from a decision of the will to oppose what God has ordained. The rationalizations that usually follow and arise in the intellect are anesthesia to put the moral conscience to sleep, so it does not bother the will pursuing its self-chosen ends. And those are first deployed to put one's own conscience to sleep (stage 5), then deployed against others (stages 6 and 7), because the rebellious Will will not stand to hear from the consciences of others either.
And in that they come to resemble their master Satan, wanting ultimately to void all of creation, because all of creation bears testimony against him.
Maybe, there's a 3.5 which goes something like '3.5 Realise that what you are about to do is wrong and still do it.'
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