Mortal Sin: Understanding Objective Evil and Subjective Guilt
Fr. Jacob Maurer
Originally posted on 6/20/2010

One of the great joys of the Catholic life is the sacrament of Penance – the sincere confession of our sins to a priest, absolution of those sins and carrying out our desire to change in the penance the priest offers us.

This isn’t to say that the confession is fun. Done well, a confession explores and brings to light our faults and failings to present to our Savior via His priests. Given our experiences with people in general, strangers, acquaintances, friends and family, we know that putting ourselves out there can be a risky venture at best – devastatingly painful at worst.

What keeps us coming back is the moment when the priest, by the authority passed on through the Apostles from Christ, forgives us from our sins. The knowledge that God holds nothing against us and welcomes us back with open arms is what emboldens us to take the risk. The story of the prodigal son realized in our own lives.

So where do we to start?

Obviously we confess sin, but the real point is being able to recognize and admit to both venial and mortal sins. The differences between the two are usually laid out to us far too simply: venial sins are small, mortal sins are big. In light of that, let’s take a moment to examine the parts of a sin. The first is easy: there has to be an act performed that is objectively evil (we define evil as anything against God’s will). Secondly, the evil must have been freely chosen. Finally, you have to have known it was evil.

Why is this all important? Well, take a car accident where both drivers get into a wreck where both cars are totaled. The objective evil is the destruction of their goods. And both drivers know that this is an evil occurrence (again – not in the sense of malevolent, but that it is not good). But this car accident is not a sin because they did not freely and willfully choose to commit this act against the good; it was an accident.

Take another situation: a husband comes home, sees some cookies and eats a few before finding out that his wife was saving them for the neighbors. The objective evil is the taking of something that wasn’t meant for him (and the loss of a gift to the neighbors). This evil was freely chosen by the husband. But it is not a sin because the husband did not know that he was doing something wrong.

Ultimately, sin involves three things: an objective evil, the consent of the intellect (knowledge) and the action of the will (choice). If any one of those three is not present, then no sin exists.

With this basic grasp on sin itself, we can turn to the question of degree, and specifically mortal sin: what makes sin ‘mortal’? The Catechism tells us that “Mortal sin is sin whose object is grave matter and which is also committed with full knowledge and deliberate consent” (CCC 1857, my emphasis). Reading on, we find that grave matter is specified by the Ten Commandments (CCC 1858). In short, if we’ve knowingly and willfully sinned against the Ten Commandments, then we’re in danger of having committed a mortal sin.

The problem with determining mortal sin, however, is that mitigating factors have to be considered. Take an easily identifiable objective evil of grave matter, say abortion. Can we say carte blanche that everyone who has ever directly participated in abortion has committed a mortal sin?


Think about what we’ve gone over for a second.

The answer is a solid, resounding NO. What we can say for certain is that a grave evil has been perpetrated. But what do we know of the knowledge and will of any particular person? Did the person in question fully know that what they were doing was gravely evil? Did that same person freely choose to commit the act? Did that a person choose this grave evil in ignorance – or was he or she forced into the act? In either case, despite the objective evil that is present, there would then be mitigating factors that could lessen or even remove the guilt of the person. Until those are sussed out, we can only speak to the action and not the guilt of the person.

Welcome to the world of the subjective, which is where sin lives. Just a bit earlier we saw how sin required an evil act, a free choice and an understanding of what was being chosen. If all are present, but any of them are diminished (unintentional ignorance, for example), the sinfulness of the act is lessened – or possibly even mitigated.

This is what often makes confession difficult on a practical level, that objective evil doesn’t necessarily equal subjective guilt or responsibility. One can have participated in something genuinely bad without necessarily incurring sin.

This is another reason why the sacrament of penance is so terribly important; we often need the help of our confessor to show us where we are – or are not – truly in sin. How often do we feel guilty for something that isn’t sinful on our part? Likewise, we sometimes need to hear our confessor remind us that we actually did know better and that our hearts should be more sorrowful.

Are most people in a state of mortal sin? In the end only the penitent and God can know for sure, though a good priest confessor will always be at hand to help guide a person to the truth. For our part, we need to approach the sacrament with honesty and trust that God will always offer His forgiveness. We sincerely examine our actions, our knowledge and our choices, placing them before the Lord. And as long as we place them before God with contrition, our sins – mortal or venial – will always be forgiven. It is Christ’s promise to us that every sin will be forgiven. This is the source of our hope and the joy we hope to share with all.