Disobedience

Disobedience is the refusal to conform to the commandof a superior. We have seen that obedience is a virtue; it followsthat disobedience is a vice. And when a just command, a requirementof law, is disregarded with contempt, we have disobedienceof a seriously sinful character. Many acts of disobedience arevenial faults, because they are done with thoughtlessness, or forsome purpose other than merely contemning the law and thuspractically 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 acontempt of just precept or command. A greater sin is contempt ofpreceptor and commander. Hence, disobedience is not so great a sinas blasphemy, for instance, or murder; these sins involve contemptfor God’s law, and also contempt for God himself as the supremeexcellence and the master of life and death.