Escaping Catholic Totalitarianism

[Catholic_Lady]

Yes. Though it is important to remember that full knowledge and full consent are much deeper and more complex than simply "knowing it's wrong and doing it anyway." It requires a very deliberate turning away from God, which as you said, is something only God himself can know about a person.

Well, there are many ways I would respond to this, one being this: the idea of deliberately turning away from God is not some entirely separate disposition or a fourth component of committing mortal sin. The idea that you are turning away from God is done by the very commission of the act itself with full knowledge and deliberate consent. You don't get a "get out of jail free card" by committing a sin that is objectively a grave matter (with full knowledge and deliberate consent) with the added qualifier that you aren't doing it explicitly as a rejection of God but for some other reason. This "very deliberate turning away from God" you speak of is contained in the very act of will to disobey God in an objectively grave matter in the first place.

I can see why you got scrupples, if you think this way.

You are failing to remember that we are human beings and are prone to weakness and bound to fall into temptation. It's in our nature. And God, who created us, knows our nature better than anyone. He isn't some big meeanie waiting for us to slip up so He can "send us to Hell." A person who, in a moment of weakness, indulges in his/her natural yet sinful inclination is more often than not, NOT purposely doing so to spite God. He/she is doing it bc they are human. It's still wrong, of course, but it isn't a deliberate full rejection of God. Succumbing to very strong, natural inclination is not necessarily "full consent of the will" and isn't grounds for damning yourself.