Theology 4

The Ten Commandments

The Ten Commandments are moral imperatives of how to love others and to follow Christs own
command to love (CFC 864).

THE 1st COMMANDMENT: I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other gods before me.
Speaks about loyalty to God.
SINS AGAINST THE FIRST COMMANDMENT:

1.) Against Faith

Voluntary Doubt: disregard to hold as true what God has revealed and what
the Church proposes for belief.
Involuntary Doubt: hesitation in believing and difficulty in overcoming
objection connected with faith.
Incredulity: neglect of revealed truth and willful refusal to assert to it.
Heresy: obstinate denial of some truth; opinion or doctrine opposing teachings
or belief of Church.
Apostasy: total repudiation of Christian faith.
Schism: refusal of submission or separation from Church and its beliefs.

2.) Against Hope

Despair: Man ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in
attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins.
Presumption: Confident expectation of divine blessing and the beatific vision
of God.
- Upon OWN capacity: Man hopes that he will be able to save
himself without help from high.
- Upon GODS power or mercy: Man hopes to obtain forgiveness
without conversion and glory without merit or effort.

3.) Against Chastity (Gods Love)

Indifference: neglects or refuses to reflect on divine charity; it fails to consider
its prevenient goodness and denies its power.
Ingratitude: fails or refuses to acknowledge divine charity and to return him
love for love.
Lukewarmness: hesitation or negligence in responding to divine love; it can
imply refusal to give oneself over to the prompting of charity.
Acedia (Spiritual Sloth): goes so far as to refuse the joy that comes from God
and to be repelled by divine goodness.
Hatred of God: it is contrary to love of God, whose goodness it denies, and
whom it presumes to curse as the one who forbids sins and inflicts
punishments.
 4.) Superstition
Departure from the worship due for the true God. It expresses itself in various
forms of divination, magic, sorcery and spiritism.
To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere
external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand,
is to fall into superstition.
5.) Polytheism
Worship more than one god.
6.) Idolatry
It divinizes creatures, power, money or even demons.
Man commits idolatry whenever he honors and reveres a creature in place of
God, whether this be gods or demons (e.g., satanism), power, pleasure, race,
ancestors, the state, money, etc.
7.) Irreligion
Evidenced in tempting God whether words or deeds (tempting God by
putting His almighty power to the test).
- Sacrilege: wrong treatment of the sacraments and its rituals.
- Simony: the buying or selling of spiritual things (e.g. Sacraments from
Priests)
8.) Atheism
It rejects and denies God's existence.
Atheistic humanism falsely considers man to be an end to himself, and the
sole maker, with supreme control, of his own history.
Based on a false conception of human autonomy, exaggerated to the point
of refusing any dependence on God.
9.) Agnosticism
Agnostics affirms that God is incapable of being known, as if He was
incapable of revealing Himself.
Involves indifferentism and practical atheism (doesn't accept or reject claims
about God).

THE 2nd COMMANDMENT: You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.
Prescribes respect for the Lord and His name.
SINS AGAINST THE SECOND COMMANDMENT:

1.) Cursing
Using the name of God the Father to curse, condemn, or berate others.
2.) Blasphemy
Uttering against God words of reproach, hatred or defiance.
Speaking ill against God
Failing to respect Him in our speech.
3.) Taking the Lords name in Vain
Speaking Gods name in an empty, insincere, or irreverent manner i.e., Oh my God.
4.) Swearing of Oaths in Gods Name
Making God as witness to what one affirms; a false one is absolutely contrary
to the Holiness of the divine name.
 THE 3rd COMMANDMENT: Remember to keep Holy the Lords day.
The sabbath is the day of the Lord of mercies and a day to honor God.
SINS AGAINST THE THIRD COMMANDMENT:

1.) Missing Mass on Sunday or a Holy Day of Obligation without serious reason.
2.) Doing unnecessary work on Sunday.
3.) Intentional failure to Fast or Abstain on appointed days.
4.) Requiring employees to work on Sunday in non-essential occupations.
5.) By indulging in diversions which are over-fatiguing or sinful in nature.

THE 4th COMMANDMENT: Honor thy Father and Mother.

Bridge that connects our love of God and our love of our neighbor.
SINS AGAINST THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT:

1.) On the part of the Children:

Serious failure to care for aged parents.
Failure to carry out the last will of a deceased parent.
Serious disrespect for or disobedience to parents, superiors or authorities.
Wishing death or evil on parents.

2.) On the part of Parents:

Abuse or serious neglect of children.
Failure to baptize children in a reasonable time (within a few months after
birth).
Serious neglect of the Religious Education or upbringing of children.

THE 5th COMMANDMENT: You shall not kill.

Every human life from the moment of conception until death is sacred.
SINS AGAINST THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT:

1.) Intentional Homicide

Direct and Intentional Killing (murderer and those who cooperate voluntarily
in murder).
Intention of indirectly bringing about a persons death.
Exposing someone to mortal danger without grave reason.
Refusing to assist a person in danger.
Those who have usurious and avaricious dealings that leads to
hunger and death of their brethren.
2.) Against Unborn Children
Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of
conception.
Abortion
- Direct Abortion: abortion is willed.
- Formal Cooperation in an Abortion: people who does a completed
abortion.
Other Experimentations on Fetuses:
- Attempts to influence chromosomic or genetic inheritance that is not
geared towards the betterment of the fetus.
3.) Euthanasia
4.) Suicide (even serious entertainment of suicidal thoughts).
5.) Failure to Respect Soul of Others: Scandal, etc.
6.) Failure to Respect Health.
 take into account needs of others and the common good (help in attaining
living conditions that allow them to grown and reach maturity: food, clothing,
housing, health care, basic education, employment, social assistance);
Use of Drugs that isnt for therapeutic reasons.
Anything that is excessive that leads to abuse (alcohol, food, tobacco,
medicine).
7.) Failure to show Respect for the Person and Scientific Research.
Cloning
Experimentation
Organ Transplant/Selling when a person is not deceased.
8.) Failure to Respect Bodily Integrity.
Kidnapping
Hostage Taking
Terrorism
Torture
Intended Amputation, Mutilation, Sterilization.
9.) Failure to Respect the Dead.
10.) Failure to Safeguard Peace.
Anger (reaches deliberate desire to kill).
Deliberate hatred (when one wishes evil towards another).
Failure to avoid war (forbids intentional destruction of human life.)
*However, as long as the danger of war persists and there is no international
authority with the necessary competence and power, governments cannot be
denied the right of lawful self-defense, once all peace efforts have failed.

THE 6th COMMANDMENT: You shall not commit adultery.

Defilement of the flesh, spirit and of perfecting sanctification in the fear of God.
SINS AGAINST THE SIXTH COMMANDMENT:

1.) Adultery: defilement of marriage bed.

2.) Birth Control: unintentional promotion of pre-marital sex.
3.) Fornication: sexual intercourse between an unmarried man and woman.
4.) Self-Abuse: enjoying sexual pleasure alone.
5.) Sins against Chastity: defilement of the flesh, spirit and of perfecting sanctification in the
fear of God.

THE 7th COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not steal.

Respect the property of others.
SINS AGAINST THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT:

1.) Stealing
Robbery, burglary, theft
Graft, bribes, embezzlement
Usury (illegal action of lending money at unreasonably high rates of interest)
Cheating and fraud
Failure to pay bills, taxes and debts.
Failure to support (financially and emotionally) family.
Damaging the property of others.
Wasting time or materials.
Not giving employees a just wage.
2.) Buying stolen goods.
 THE 8th COMMANDMENT: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Forbids misrepresenting the truth in our relations with others.
SINS AGAINST THE EIGHTH COMMANDMENT:

1.) False Witness and Perjury

2.) Failure to Respect Reputation of Others
Rash Judgment: an act of mind that, on the basis of insufficient evidence, attributes
something morally discreditable to another or denies something morally creditable.
Detraction: without objectively valid reason, discloses anothers faults and failings to
persons who did not know them.
Calumny: by remarks contrary to the truth, harms the reputation of others and gives
occasion for false judgments concerning them.
3.) Adulation: through which malicious acts and perverse conduct are confirmed; becomes a
grave fault when it makes on an accomplice in anothers vices or grave sins
4.) Boasting or Bragging: offense against truth.
5.) Irony: aimed at disparaging someone by maliciously caricaturing some aspects of his
behavior.
6.) Lying: speaking in a falsehood with the intention of deceiving.

THE 9th COMMANDMENT: You shall not covet your neighbors wife.
Forbids the thought of carnal concupiscence.
SINS AGAINST THE NINTH COMMADNMENT:

1.) Lust of the Flesh: temptation for physical (do something to make flesh feel satisfied) desire from
some sinful activity.
Sexual Sins
Gossip
Physical Violence
Drug use
2.) Lust of the Eyes: desire to possess what we see or to have those things which have visual
appeal.
3.) Pride of Life: sinful temptation for excess greatness or power.
Desire to get credit or glory for things that others did.
Desire for others to worship us.

THE 10th COMMANDMENT: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors goods.
Forbids the desire to take someone elses property.
SINS AGAINST THE TENTH COMMADNMENT:

1.) Greed: Desire to amass earthly goods without limit (overconsumption).

2.) Avarice: arising from a passion for riches and attendant power (miserliness and hoarding).
3.) Envy: sadness at the sight of anothers goods and the immoderate desire to acquire them for
oneself.