Q. First off, last week's message presupposes the existence of a soul, which puts the burden of proof on you. In essence, there must be a soul before there can be acts injurious to it, but how can we know that this really is the case?
A. Your question is proof there is. Only beings with a soul can question. Chemicals, plants and animals can't question precisely because they don't have a soul (and consequently the faculties necessary to question: intellect and will).
Or if you prefer, you tell a donkey a joke, it doesn't get it and give a donkey laugh. Why? Because it has no intellect to understand the joke. (You may tell your boyfriend the same joke and he doesn't laugh either, but that's a different matter )
Basically, our spiritual functions - thinking and loving - must come from a spiritual source. We call this spiritual source the soul. All the pagan Greek philosophers and the great religions Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism and Christian agree on the existence of a spiritual nature of man.
Q. Secondly, how does masturbation mortally injure the soul?
A. We can answer this one beginning with a syllogism
a. Everything created has a purpose.
b. Sex was created
c. Therefore sex has a purpose
Anything that diverts sex from its purpose therefore can be said to pervert it.
All perversions - whether physical, intellectual, electrical, biological, chemical, sexual - have the same 3 effects you would get from using anything for something it is not intended: injury to the would-be-user, damage to the object being misused and frustration in achieving the desired goal.
For example, if I were to attempt using a radio to boil water,
a. I would probably get electrocuted (injury to the would-be user)
b. The radio would short-circuit or blow up (damage to the object)
c. I would not manage to boil any water (frustration in achieving the desired goal)
Masturbation has these same 3 effects:
a. I weaken my will (injury to the would-be user; all vices weaken the will)
b. I damage the faculty of sex in my life (damage to the object being misused; sex is meant to be a physical giving of one's whole self to another. Masturbation neither "gives" nor does so "to another". Because it doesn't give, it can't procreate; because it doesn't involve "another" it can't unite. Procreation and unity are the 2 natural purposes of sex.)
c. I end up unhappy (frustration of desired goal).
The above tries to explain why masturbation is a sin.
Q. By why is it a mortal sin?
A. Because when a husband and a wife beget a child, God is necessarily invoked to create a soul for that new human being. Sex is serious, sex is sacred because it directly involves God. And this human love we have - that both reflects and involves Divine Love is one of the most beautiful realities on earth. Therefore, anything that touches on it - especially to pervert, mar or desecrate it - is serious.
Happy Fathers' Day!
28th June 2015