Catholic hamartiology
Branch of Catholic thought that studies sin
Catholic hamartiology is a branch of Catholic thought that studies sin. According to the Catholic Church, sin is an "utterance, deed, or desire", caused by concupiscence, that offends God, reason, truth, and conscience. The church believes sin is the greatest evil and has the worst consequences for the sinner (original sin and damnation), the world (human misery and environmental destruction), and the Catholic Church itself (Passion of Jesus and wounds to the church's unity). Based on the Bible, the Catholic Church distinguishes between two kinds of sins: mortal sin and venial sin. The Catholic Church also distinguishes between the state of being in original sin and the commission of actual sin.
Official teaching
The Catechism of the Catholic Church details most aspects of the church's official teaching on sin and forgiveness.
Reality of sin
The reality of sin is one of the arguments of divine revelation, e.g., sin is present in history and divine revelation sheds light on it.
Nature of sin
Sin is an "utterance, deed, or desire" that offends God, reason, truth, and conscience. It is caused by concupiscence. Sin is the greatest evil and has the worst consequences for the sinner, the world, and the church.
The public source identifies “Catholic hamartiology” as branch of Catholic thought that studies sin. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Catholic, hamartiology and Branch.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q58847317. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Catholic hamartiology” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.