Mental Sins

A reader writes:

I was listening to a radio show this morning.  During one segment (I didn’t catch the whole thing) the host was disagreeing with a priest who called in and said that committing a sin in your mind is the same as physically committing that same sin.  I know that Jesus said this but is it as simple as the written words or are there distinctions to be made?

Okay, first the standard disclaimer: I didn’t hear this show. I don’t know what show it was and, in fact, I don’t even know if it was a Catholic show. As a result of not hearing it, I can’t comment directly on what was said on the show, only on what I’m told. There is always a risk of something being lost in transmission. In fact, it’s not even clear to me who (the host or the priest) was saying that commiting a sin inwardly is "the same" as committing it outwardly. So for anyone who may have heard the show (whatever it may have been), my comments should not be taken as commenting on the show but on the issue as presented here.

To address the issue, what Jesus said was:

You have heard that it was said, `You  shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that every  one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery  with her in his heart [Matt. 5:27-28].

Translated a bit more literally, he singled out those who look at a woman "to lust after her." (I.e., purposefully looking at her in order to incite lustful fantasies, not just looking at her and feeling attraction.)

Now, Jesus does not say that doing this is "the same as" physically committing the sin. He clearly establishes an equivalence between them, but not an equivalence that admits of no distinctions. Viewed contextually (i.e., in context of Matthew 5 as a whole), it is clear that he is warning that one can commit mortal sin in one’s mind without an external physical action, but this does not mean that one is not more grave than another or that they are fully equivalent to each other.

We’ll see below what some of the relevant differences are.

The reader continues:

There were two examples given on the show that I wouldn’t mind getting your take on.  The first example is adultery.  If X entertains impure thoughts about Y’s wife, is it equivalent (i.e. just as bad) to committing adultery?  Does it make a difference if X knows he would never do it for real even if the opportunity came up even with no repercussions?

Yes, it does make a difference. How badly one has sinned in a particular case is determined by the degree to which one is willing to offend against God and, by extension, his creatures. If one is willing to go all the way and commit adultery outwardly, with all the implications that has for harming the woman, her husband, whatever family she may have, your own spouse (if you are married), your own family (if you have one), the abuse of the conjugal faculty that God designed into your own nature, etc., then that is clearly worse than if you just deliberately fantasize about it.

In the former case, you are willing to cause all kinds of objective damage that is not there if you aren’t willing to commit adultery outwardly. It’s bad enough if you only are being unfaithful in your heart–you’re still doing damage–but it ain’t anywhere near as bad as if you are willing to go all the way and do the act externally.

In the one case your will is configured such that it is willing to offend against God and his creatures in a vastly more destructive way than in the former, and as a result committing an act of adultery outwardly is much, much worse than simply willfully fantasizing about an act of adultery. In the latter case you’re willing to offend God up to a point, but you’re not willing to offend him to the much greater degree involved in outwardly committing the act.

The second example is more extreme.  The host said that he often finds himself having thoughts of shooting drivers who drive slowly in the passing lane.  Now, I doubt he would ever do that even if he could completely get away with it so in that case would the sin be equivalent to murder?  Or would it just be a sin of anger?

First, the emotion of anger is not a sin. One can have this emotion without sinning. It is what one does with one’s will based on the anger (e.g., deliberately nursing the anger by fantasizing about killing someone) that is a sin.

As to the particular case at hand, this is where it gets harder to comment because I don’t know precisely what the host meant. It might be clearer if I’d heard him for myself. I can see the host meaning any number of things, among them the following:

1. When he gets frustrated, the host has intrusive, obsessive thoughts he doesn’t want that involve shooting such motorists.
2. The host gets frustrated and in a non-serious, semi-joking manner imagines shooting such motorists (sort of the way kids play cowboys and indians, without imagining that anyone suffers major harm).
3. The host gets so frustrated that he imagines shooting such motorists in earnest and actually killing them dead, with all the consequences that entails.

The moral character of the thoughts he is having depend greatly on which (if any) of these he may have in mind:

• If it is the first then the host likely has a condition such as Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and he is not sinning by these thoughts as his will is opposed to them.
• If it is the second then the host may well be sinning in some degree as it sounds as if there is an engagement of the will whereby in his frustration he willfully fantasizes about causing these individuals some harm, even if though it is not grave harm. This would be venial sin.
• If the third individual is definitely sinning if he wilfilly engages in such homicidal fantasies. To deliberately fantasize about killing people in earnest is gravely sinful, and if done with adequate knowledge and consent will be a mortal sin.

Not having heard the show, I have no idea which if any of these may have been meant, though I’d assume that it likely wasn’t the last option.

I should also note that even though the host did not understand what the priest was saying, the priest said that having the temptation alone to commit sin is not enough.  You need to engage or entertain the thought for it to be a sin.  So I guess my bottom line question is…  does entertaining the thought make it as bad a sin as physically doing it, or does there also have to be a sincere desire to physically do it?

It’s not the desire to physically do it that increases the gravity of the sin, it’s the will to physically do it. Merely have a desire to do something evil is just temptation. But fostering the temptation by deliberately entertaining fantasies of it engages the will and thus is sinful. Being willing to go even further and commit the act outwardly engages the will even more in sinful behavior and so is more gravely sinful.

Hope this helps!