Can God forgive our sins?

[Cam42]

[quote name='Catalyst' date='Apr 24 2005, 07:35 PM'] I never asked that question..sin is simply missing the mark of righteousness God has called us too. [/quote]
Actually, it is a lot more than that....the Church teaches about sin thusly:
[quote]Sin is an offense against reason, truth, and right conscience; it is 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." (CCC 1849)[/quote]

[quote]Sin is an offense against God: "Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done that which is evil in your sight." Sin sets itself against God's love for us and turns our hearts away from it. Like the first sin, it is disobedience, a revolt against God through the will to become "like gods," knowing and determining good and evil. Sin is thus "love of oneself even to contempt of God." In this proud self- exaltation, sin is diametrically opposed to the obedience of Jesus, which achieves our salvation. (CCC 1850)[/quote]

It is more than missing the mark, sin is an action that perverts goodness. Missing the mark may be an accident, sinning is never that. We must be clear that God can and does forgive sins. How? It is pretty simple really.

The Church teaches us:
[quote]With bold confidence, we began praying to our Father. In begging him that his name be hallowed, we were in fact asking him that we ourselves might be always made more holy. But though we are clothed with the baptismal garment, we do not cease to sin, to turn away from God. Now, in this new petition, we return to him like the prodigal son and, like the tax collector, recognize that we are sinners before him. Our petition begins with a "confession" of our wretchedness and his mercy. Our hope is firm because, in his Son, "we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." We find the efficacious and undoubted sign of his forgiveness in the sacraments of his Church.  (CCC 2839)[/quote]

God's love is boundless and we can know that through his love that he can forgive our sins. He will do so with all but one. As the CCC teaches, the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. (cf. 1864)

Cam

[Paphnutius]

[quote]As the CCC teaches, the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy of the Holy Spirit. (cf. 1864[/quote]
Or more accuratley, as the Bible teaches and defines....

Edited April 25, 2005 by Paphnutius

[Catalyst]

missing the mark may be an accident? how so?

[Guest JeffCR07]

Semalsia, God Bless, and the Peace of the Risen Lord be upon you,

I pray that my insight might help you in your question:

We agree that when we sin against others, we sin against God, in who all things subsit, but who simultaneously transcends all subsisting thing.

However, me must not make the jump to equate God with all things. When we wrong temporal beings, we must make temporal amends. However, when we wrong God, we must make supernatural amends. The former is within our power, as temporal beings, to do. The latter is not.

So what does this mean? Clearly, it means that we can, through actions of penance, make up for sins against our brothers and sisters. In addition, it means that we [i]cannot[/i], of our own power, make right our sins against God. This is why Christ, the God-Man, is necessary for salvation.

Now, however, I would like to point out something that you have, up until now, failed to discuss, and which, I think, holds the key to answering your question:

We have discovered above that when we wrong temporal beings we incur temporal debt, while when we wrong God we incur a supernatural debt. This leads us to an interesting discovery - [i]temporal beings have no authority to demand anything more than temporal satisfaction[/i].

This means that while my brother or sister can demand temporal satisfaction for any wrong that I do to him or her, he or she is powerless to demand that I go to hell for doing such wrong. The supernatural punishment of Hell is a consequence of our wrongs against God, not against man, for only God has the authority to demand supernatural satisfaction.

Thus we find the answer to your question:

Yes, God can forgive our sins. People can also "forgive our sins" so long as we understand that phrase in that context to mean "forgive us of the temporal wrongs that we have done to them." This, however, is not the correct use of the term "forgive our sins." When we understand "Sin" to be a wrong against God, which demands supernatural satisfaction, then we see clearly that when we [i]wrong[/i] our neighbor, we [i]sin[/i] against God.

Therefore, a person has the authority to forgive or not forgive a [i]wrong[/i] done to him, while God alone can forgive [i]sins[/i]



Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[Paphnutius]

excellent insight as usual!