Articles

St. Paul says “I am not aware of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted; it is the Lord who judges me.”

In other words, he isn’t aware of any sins that would separte him from God, but that does not prove he is going to Heaven and not going to Hell. God decides that.

But we know that a mortal sin must be intentional and therefore you must know you are committing one. So how does St. Paul not know if he has?

The very nature of sin is that it blinds us from our new condition. This is why people who commit apostasy fall into deeper and deeper insanity and shameful behavior.

This blindness is towards the truth. In other words, the more we sin, the more we live in a delusion instead of reality.

So, every time a person commits a new mortal sin, especially while already being in sin, they make it more and more likely that they will live in such a delusion that they will even deny the fact that they are in sin.

St. Paul was deeply aware of this truth, knowing it from his former condition of blindness towards Jesus, as well as the insanity of everyone he encountered as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles.

He knew that, if he was unaware of any mortal sins he might have committed against God, it isn’t proof that he hadn’t committed any. He very might well have sinned, and it may have caused him to become unaware that he had sinned.

This is why he says it’s the Lord who judges, because God always sees the pure truth, and remembers all, even when we forget or become blind to the Truth.