Disobedience

Disobedience is the refusal to conform to the command of a superior. We have seen that obedience is a virtue; it follows that disobedience is a vice. And when a just command, a requirement of law, is disregarded with contempt, we have disobedience of a seriously sinful character. Many acts of disobedience arevenial faults, because they are done with thoughtlessness, or for some purpose other than merely contemning the law and thus practically denying man’s duty to submit to law. Such acts donot show the full character of disobedience as a vice.

For real disobedience is essentially a contempt of just precept or command. A greater sin is contempt ofpreceptor and commander. Hence, disobedience is not so great a sin as blasphemy, for instance, or murder; these sins involve contempt for God’s law, and also contempt for God himself as the supreme excellence and the master of life and death.