Hi, I'm new here. I'm a Catholic pondering conversion. I am trying to learn about the Church of England and I was wondering, is masturbation a sin? Some people say it is and some people say it isn't, also it is never mentioned in the bible. Is it a sin because masturbation goes hand in hand (no pun intended) with lust? Any help would be greatly appreciated. God Bless!
Dallas , if you are thinking of converting, are there not some more useful questions you'd like to ask?
haha, the reason I ask is that I looked up some Anglican books online and some said it was sinful because of lust, and some said it was normal. I'm a youth and everyone treats masturbation as a norm because it is so common, but I don't want to take any chances.
One main reason why masturbation is a sin is yes it is very much a sin of lust. Very hard to perform the self-abuse without committing lust along the way. However even without lust it is still called the Sin of Onan, in that it violates the natural purpose of marriage and of our organs which is to create babies. Thus in the older times it was simply called onanism. Modern secular scholars renamed to take that sting off. "And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother’s wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother." -Genesis 38:9. This misdeed displeased the Lord; "wherefore he slew him also." Genesis 38:9-10.
Dallas, since masturbation, as you correctly point out, is never mentioned in the Bible (and Onan's sin had nothing to do with masturbation), historically the Church has had to use inference to address it. For example, smoking is never mentioned in the Bible, but it can be inferred that it is sinful because of the damage it does to one's body. Whether such a process works in the case of masturbation is open to discussion, but the traditional opinion of the Church has been that one should not engage in such behavior.
The Catholic Church maintains that it is sinful, mortally so often. However, it may be venial instead depending on how much you "consent" to it (I forget the proper word). The Catechism says this: "By masturbation is to be understood the deliberate stimulation of the genital organs in order to derive sexual pleasure. "Both the Magisterium of the Church, in the course of a constant tradition, and the moral sense of the faithful have been in no doubt and have firmly maintained that masturbation is an intrinsically and gravely disordered action."138 "The deliberate use of the sexual faculty, for whatever reason, outside of marriage is essentially contrary to its purpose." For here sexual pleasure is sought outside of "the sexual relationship which is demanded by the moral order and in which the total meaning of mutual self-giving and human procreation in the context of true love is achieved."139 To form an equitable judgment about the subjects' moral responsibility and to guide pastoral action, one must take into account the affective immaturity, force of acquired habit, conditions of anxiety or other psychological or social factors that lessen, if not even reduce to a minimum, moral culpability."
Think unitive, pro creative. Not selfish, lustful, dog-like. Terrible contraceptive, damaging to your self control of your brain. It’s embarrassing.