Hello everyone. This is my first post here. Polo was nice enough to comment on my web site over at vBadvanced, so I thought I would return the favor. So, here I am.

My name is Louis. I am a 35 year old Father of a wonderfull 2 year old boy Andrew - my pride and joy. My beautiful wife Tracy and I live on Long Island. I am a Catholic. The title of the thread is Guilt - Good or Bad? and I would like share my thoughts on the matter, and also hear what you folks think.

I often hear that Catholics are "guilt" driven, so I decided to give it some thought. Rather than try and figure out why it is said, I wanted to tackle it head on. In my opinion, guilt is not a bad thing. Sure, sometimes it is misplaced. Sometimes we feel guilty over things we have no control over, or things that are not our fault, but overall, I believe guilt is good.

As a Christian, I believe that God has given us free will to do as we please. He of course has offered us a direction, but as human beings, we do not always follow His directions. Often we choose His gift of free will over His guidance. Guilt has always brought me home. Guilt is like the "check engine" light in my car: it comes on when something is wrong. Guilt is my conscience telling me that what I am doing is not good for my soul. It is like a gentle tide pulling me towards the beach when I swim out too far. The first step towards curing an addiction is to admit you are addicted. When I become addicted to sin, and the good Lord knows there are many temptations, my guilt pulls me back to the path that God has laid out for me.

I believe part of the problem with society today is that it tries to remove guilt. We are taught "if it feels good to you, it is good". We are taught that guilt brings us down. Guilt is nothing but an anchor: cast it off and move on. While I agree, letting guilt invade our every thought is certainly not beneficial, it has it's purpose. For me, guilt is what I feel when I recognize what I have done was wrong, and I believe that without it, I might have never repented.

Just my two cents. A wonderful site you have here.

welcome louis-

i do agree that godly guilt over sin is a good thing. if it shows us our sin so that we repent and change directions.
but there is also false guilt not from God that tried to tell us we are not worthy of God's love- that guilt is not good.

Welcome Louis,
Glad that you came by,
Thanks for you ideas on this subject, I agree with you as well, guilt to me is the emotion i get from the Holy Spirit saying "you know you shouldn't have done that". After all with out guilt we would just do it again. I feel that I am blessed by my guilty.

I agree with you as well JM, just like everything else, guilt can be rooted on the wrong side of the fence.

God Bless

Welcome to the boards!

As already said, there are two types of guilt, or sorrow as I call it. worldly sorry, and Godly sorrow. And to go along with what is already said, I bring to memory this verse:

"For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death." 2 Corinthians 7:10

Godly sorrow is the type that will lead you back to what is right, and will keep us in line. It brings us to repentance of that thing, and we will not repent from repenting (we won't regret or feel sorry for repenting of that thing, wishing we hadn't turned from it)

But then there is sorrow, guilt, that is worldly and brings death. That is the type of guilt that is come when you either did nothing wrong, or you have already been forgiven of that thing and it needs not to be brought up again and again. That type brings death to the person, it keeps someone down and out. As when someone falls, or makes a mistake, they are knocked down, but must get back up. But this worldly sorrow/guilt, keeps that person down and hinders their getting back up.

So, guilt is good in some cases, as long as it brings you to repentance and sheds light on the sin you did, but after that, if you have through the blood of Jesus and due to His sacrifice asked for forgiveness for that thing, then you are forgiven and any guilt that comes afterwards, is not godly. Once you are forgiven, God doesn't even remember you sins, so He won't bring guilt to you. Hebrews 10:16-17 "This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, said the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; And their sins and iniquities will I remember no more."

God Bless you much!

I agree with you here I don't believe that God uses guilt to keep us in check, i think it is the love of God and the voice of the holy spirit and the truth that we know that sparks an emotion that we express as guilt.

follow with me a min;
does a sad movie give us tears to cry... no
does a joke tickle us under the arm to make us laugh... no
does the Holy Spirit convict us of our sins to make us feel guilt... no

all of these are things that happen as a product of our emotions to something that effects us.
God wants us to love him not for his power but by our own free will as a love which comes from his love for us, and just as we feel sorry for something we did to someone we love well that is the way i feel we should feel when we sin against God.

Now i do agree if a person says something to make you feel guilty well then they are thinking only of themselves and yes that is wrong. Is it wrong for you to feel guilty for not going to see your mom... no. is it wrong for her to make you feel guilty... yes.

If you can sin and not feel guilt... well it scares me... That would be kin to watching old yeller and not crying. God doesn't desire us to be guilty for sin. God desires us to gain the passion to repent so we can come clean to him and if guilt is the emotion that drives me to repent then to me guilt can be a good thing,
but guilt can be good and in other ways yes guilt can be evil.

thats my thoughts on this matter