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Footnote:
"... It makes no difference what the cause of this interference may be, or in what way the will of man may have been exercised, or for what reason, to bring about this inharmony, the effect is the same. Because harmony and inharmony cannot exist together no matter what the cause may be, no matter that in one case the cause may appear excusable or even, apparently forced on the individual, the excuse for, or apparent justification of the cause will not make what is inharmonious unite and work in unison with God's Laws of harmony.
And hence, the man whose will may be excused in the way mentioned by reason of heredity, or environments, or want of proper mental or moral instruction is just as much out of harmony with the violated Law, as is the man who willfully violates the Law. The penalty must be enforced just the same in each case, as the only remedy is the restoration of the harmony."
It seems a tat harsh that the penalty must be enforced just the same in each case, whether we willfully violated the Law, or merely transgressed from ignorance. For "the same in each case" suggests that motive is not part of the equation, and that therefore the Law operates, irrespective of our intent. And this is even true, insofar as the Law will always work, irrespective of causes, to bring about nothing short of a total restoration of the harmony.
Ask then the question, Do sins of the same nature/action carry the same punishment, even when the motive is less "sinful"? And in light of Jesus' clear "the same in each case" phrase, the answer would seem yes. But the answer is no.
Why? For one, because what makes a sin a sin, is the sinner, not the sin; for sin is not an entity which can exist without the sinner--and should suddenly the sinner be pushed out of existence somehow, his sins would for ever disappear with him.
For two, because oftentimes we speak of sins as "objective" facts unto themselves, whose punishibility might be determined by a "subjective" component: our motive for committing them. Yet what we usually define as sin, is, by the mere fact alone even that we call it sin, inextricably interwoven with motive. Murder, suicide, rape, you name it, none of them exist without intent. In each of those sins, intent is a built-in, prerequisite element, without which the sin would not be a sin.
And so, if motive changes, sin itself changes. For example. Let us, for the sake of argument and brevity, define "murder" as: taking human life with the unlawful intent to kill. Then one cannot commit the sin of "murder" as an objective fact unto itself, detached from intent, only to have motive subjectively applied to it in mere determination of the punishibility of such act. For "murder" without the unlawful intent to kill, that is, without "mens rea" (Latin for: "a guilty mind,") simply is not murder anymore, but something else--manslaughter perhaps.
Hence, asking whether the "same" sin carries the same punishment when the motive is less sinful, is really an invalid question even, as with the changing of the motive, the sin in question is already no longer the "same" any more. It would be like asking whether murder is less punishable in absentia of an unlawful intent to kill, which very question itself negates murder.
Mary, mother of Jesus, therefore spoke from truth too when she recently said, "Self examination is always helpful in choosing what course of action should be taken in any given situation. "Am I being motivated by love in this choice?" should always be one of your first considerations. You can see by this explanation that an action by itself cannot be said to be "wrong" or "right" when the motive for the action is the determining factor. So, of course, two similar "sins" would not have the same "punishment" when the motive is not the same."
Jesus illustrates the truth hereof ("The Beliefs of a Mission Preacher,") as he says, "Ignorance, while it will not relieve him [the preacher] from its consequences, and neither will it invoke the penalties of the Law that apply to the willful deceiver or teacher of false doctrines, yet neither will it excuse him or relieve him from the penalties of that Law which demands the truth, and only the truth to be believed and taught." Here we see that the "same" sin, that of telling untruth, calls forth the operations of two different Laws when the untruth is being told as an outright lie, or being taught as the result of ignorance. Laws that, as unto themselves, each work irrespective of cause until they have wrought a full restoration of the harmony; yet Laws that, as unto the sinner, will be called in different instances. And this, of course, because Jesus was, in fact, not talking about the "same" sin.
Yet that the Law must operate, irrespective of causes, as the only remedy in restorating harmony, this is because, "Truth is of itself a fact. It can have no affiliation with untruth, no matter that untruth is the result of ignorance, for all untruth is the result of ignorance, and must be eradicated from the hearts of men before there can be that harmony between God and man which the very nature of truth itself requires."
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