Update: On a previous Reformation Day, I was lamenting the one-sideness of the current view of the Reformation (Written before my wife’s conversion btw). It was a sad, tragic necessity, but I have no probem lamenting it and I’m no cheerleader for all things “team!!”
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Because of the upcoming commemoration of Reformation Day, I would like to reprint some material- penned by a Roman apologist of the previous century- that convinces me that the Reformation, while tragic and sad, was and remains a sad, tragic necessity.
This is what the Reformation continues to be about for me: Does the material below, presented without comment, present Jesus Christ and the Father-God he reveals in his person, life, teachings, death and resurrection? Is this the Gospel? Is this the God of the Gospel?
This will, no doubt, be controversial, but the issue continues to be at the heart of the reformation divide and at the heart of any reconsideration of the meaning of unity. I just finished re-reading the Vatican II documents on Ecumenism. For all their excellence, they do not address the issues raised in the doctrine of indulgences. These are the statements of those who tell us to come home to the true church of Jesus. They ought not to be avoided.
The following is a reprint of a chapter from a very well known Roman Catholic apologetics and catechetical book from the mid-twentieth century, Father Smith Instructs Jackson. Here’s a description of the book from its Amazon.com page.
Over 3 million copies of this timeless classic have been sold while influencing thousands of conversions. Witness the engaging and accessible interplay between a priest and a non-Catholic inquiring about the Faith. Their conversation is a masterpiece in catechesis as Jackson asks the questions generation after generation wants to ask and Father Smith responds with wisdom, wit, Scripture references, and solid Catholic teaching. It is one-on-one catechesis at its finest, delivered in a relevant and practical context much like Jesus himself taught.
The author, Archbishop John Francis Noll, was a stalwart warrior against anti-Catholicism in his time, and founded Our Sunday Visitor, which today is a major Catholic publisher. The book from which this chapter is taken is made up of columns written by Archbishop Noll, later edited into this volume. Several million copies are in print.
The entire book is available in Google books.
The Catechsim of the RCC has the following section on Indulgences.
Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin explains the contemporary RC view of Indulgences at Catholic Answers.
Father S. Tonight our instruction will be on the much misunderstood subject of “Indugences.†It might be best for me to explain first that the conception which the generality of non-Catholics have of Indulgences is most erroneous.
Mr. J. What do they believe to be the church’s teaching?
Father S. Many of them suppose that an Indulgence is a pardon of sin for money, or even a license to commit sin.
Mr. J. I told you the other night that I had heard this, but do you really think that many entertain such notions?
Father S. I am sure of it; recently an aged minister, one who preached for thirty-five years, but who is now drawing a pension as a retired minister, told me that the universally accepted definition of “Indulgence†by the non-Catholic world is “a license to sin for a remuneration.â€
Mr. J. Where did they get such an idea?
Father S. Well, it is maintained that the so-called Reformation of the sixteenth century was occasioned by the sale of and traffic in Indulgences; this, they say, is evidence that they are, or were, sold. Then, the plain meaning of the word “Indulgence†is, they say, “a yielding to excess,†a “favor granted,†“a license.†Therefore it is a license to sin for a contribution of money.
Mr. J. How do you answer their charge?
Father S. The ecclesiastical meaning of the Latin word “Indulgentia†means “pardon,†but not a pardon of sin, much less a license to sin. In fact, it has no reference to sin at all, which is pardoned by the worthy reception of the Sacrament of Penance. It is not a pardon of sin, but of the temporal punishment due to sin already forgiven.
Mr. J. What is meant by “temporal punishment†still due after the sins are forgiven?
Father S. Let us suppose a case: You have committed a grievous sin, which renders you liable to eternal punishment. But you sincerely repent of and confess the sin, receive absolution, etc.
Mr. J. Yes Father.
Father S. By your good confession, the guilt of the mortal sin was removed, and also the eternal punishment, which you deserved. But if your sorrow was not as earnest and intense as God would have from you, He would possibly show His displeasure by sending you a little misfortune, or, if you died after your confession you might be punished for a brief period in Purgatory. This would be the temporal punishment deserved for your sin. The temporal punishment may be removed by the performance of penances, good works, prayers, etc., but by an “Indulgence,†the Church applies to your soul the merits of Christ for the complete expiation of your fault. A Scripture example will make the case clearer. David, many of whose psalms are outbursts of repentance for two grievous sins he committed, received assurance from God, through the prophet Nathan, that his crimes were forgiven, but that nevertheless his son would be taken from him. This was to be his temporal punishment after he repented and his sin was forgiven.
Mr. J. If the temporal punishment is not endured here, or is not removed by penance or good works, it will be inflicted in Purgatory. Am I right?
Father S. Yes; unless remitted through the application of Christ’s merits to the soul by the Church, by the grant of an Indulgence.
Mr. J. The Indulgence is not granted at the time of confession?
Father S. No; the Church attaches Indulgences to certain prayers, or good works, which become effective if performed by a person who is in the state of grace and otherwise properly disposed. An Indulgence is either Plenary or Partial: that is, either calculated to remove all or only part of the temporal punishment. Partial Indulgences are usually attached to prayers, whilst for a Plenary Indulgence it is nearly always required that the person receive Holy Communion and pay a visit to the church, where he must say more prayers for the success of God’s interests on earth, especially as they are in the mind of the Pope.
Mr. J. Compliance with such conditions always secures the Plenary Indulgence?
Father S. Not always, If the person is somewhat attached to the sin for which the temporal punishment would be due, if his sorrow be not sufficiently intense, he would not gain the Indulgence in all its fullness.
Mr. J. Since an Indulgence can only be gained after the person’s sins are wholly forgiven, I suppose, if a Plenary Indulgence be actually gained before one’s death, that one avoids Purgatory and has assurance of immediate entrance into Heaven, does he not?
Father S. Yes.
Mr. J. Can a person gain an Indulgence for someone else?
Father S. We cannot gain Indulgences for other living persons, but we can gain them for the souls in Purgatory, since the Church makes most Indulgences applicable to them.
Mr. J. And money is never paid for an Indulgence?
Father S. No; as I have said, works of penance, prayers, Holy Communion, visits to a church, etc. may be among the conditions named for the gaining of an Indulgence; and since the Bible recommends alms as a work pleasing to god; the offering of an alms might be asked, but not in return for the Indulgence.
Remember that a person who has not confessed and repented of his sin could not gain an Indulgence for any amount of prayers, alms and good works. Let us refute the case of “Indulgence traffic,†of which the so-called reformer accused the Church. Pope Leo X, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, when all Europe was Catholic, decided to erect in Rome a cathedral church such as should exist in the capital city of the Christian world. he asked for small contributions for Catholics throughout Europe, and promulgated a Plenary Indulgence to all who should pray for the success of the cause, go to confession and receive Holy Communion worthily, and contribute an alms towards the erection of the great cathedral. Now any instructed Catholic knows that the Indulgence could not be given in return for an alms, no matter how great, without previous confession and Communion.
I have told you that even today, some good work, such as visiting a church, is required for the gaining of a Plenary Indulgence, even after Confession and Communion. The good work specified in that instance was an alms, but the papal letter expressly declared that the poor could gain the same Indulgence by performing good works of another nature.
Mr. J. To me this instance is much the same as the frequent announcements from Protestant pulpits that Almighty God will grant special favors and blessings to those who contribute for home or foreign missionary work.
Father S. It is quite the same. But to explain the grounds for the non-Catholic contention that Indulgences were sold: At that time there was no telegraph service, there were no daily newspapers to acquaint the people of Europe with the desire and the project of the Pope. It had to be done by sending preachers to the several countries. John Tetzel, head of the Dominican order of priests, was commissioned to preach the Indulgence in Germany. It might be that uninstructed Catholics thought that the Indulgence was given in return for their alms. We shall even grant, for sake of the argument, that Tetzel himself abused his charge, but that would not implicate the Church. It would never have justified Luther of the Augustinian order of priest to repudiate his vows and attack the Church.
Mr. J. John Tetzel was not the Catholic Church.
The Internet Monk Archives 
…then they’ll turn around and say, “By the way, if you are not doing A, B, or C, you’re probably not elect.â€
Is this not just works snuck in through a back door? — Confused
Or the latest in “spiritual one-upmanship”.
i.e. “Proof of election/salvation is whatever I do that YOU don’t.” And “The Unpardonable Sin is whatver YOU do that I don’t.”
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I wrote a relatively long discussion of Indulgences working from the Prodigal Son here.
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Imonk, I apologize. I am sorry that I was accusatory toward you. I should stop posting anywhere until I get my head a little more straight. I will bow out and appreciate any prayers you can offer.
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I believe I was responding to you, but where did you gey “flippant?” I was literally going out the door when I typed it, and I still don’t have time (literally) to have a huge debate on the reformed tendency to introspection as a work.
But I said I agree it CAN be a problem, and I cited the best work I know of on the issue.
But for the record, if the reformed can sometimes turn faith into works by a wrong emphasis, Catholicism rejects the radical implications of the fall and tells us that salvation is synergistic. And that sends me to hell immediately. It’s either Luther’s doctrine- ramped up a bit- or universalism if I am to have any hope at all.
peace
MS
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iMonk,
who are you responding to in that last comment? If it’s to me, then what I expressed wasn’t a flippant attempt to sidetrack the discussion, but rather something I’m really struggling with. People like A.W. Pink leave me convinced that EVERYONE is going to Hell.
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It’s not. It can be a problem, but I don’t have time for that debate.
Read Shreiner and Canaday, The Race Set Before Us.
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Confused
…then they’ll turn around and say, “By the way, if you are doing A, B, or C, you’re probably not elect.â€
Is this not just works snuck in through a back door?
Yep… scary, ain’t it?
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Josh S, I’ve always thought that grace as a quantifiable thing goes hand in hand with the OT scriptures where God talks about delivering various blessings, as if a blessing were a discreet thing. Jesus blesses things all the time, as did the men of the Temple, right? Disclaimer: I’ve always understood grace and blessing to be sort of interchangeable.
I can’t speak to the theology behind blessing at all, but, however appealing an purely noumenal view of grace might be, it’s hard (for me, not knowing much) to reconcile it to what Jesus / the OT demonstrates about grace, blessing and cursing (and miracles, even?) – which I imagine to be within the same superaddition to our paradigm of reality that characterizes God’s intervention in our lives.
Jesus blessed stuff, and people. God blessed nations, men. It would seem, some more than others. The Protestant idea of grace is philosophically attractive to me, but I seem to remember from CCD that people have different amounts of charism – something I associate foggily with the parable of the talents, and stories from the OT about Elijah (or Elisha?) and items made holy. I can’t make sense of how various instances of grace aren’t somehow temporal quantities of grace, as well as a “quality” of God’s added to reality somehow.
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Jenny,
I appreciate that statement from the CCC, but I don’t see how anyone can deny that the RCC believes that grace is, to a great extent, substantial and is dispensed by material means and church authority.
That someone saw past this is commendable. Merton wrote eloquently that grace was not ultimately a “thing.” But what view of grace is taught in Indulgences? You are getting “this much” and not “all.”
peace
MS
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“Grace as thing God makes” the connotation of “thing” hit me as negative; could just be internet ears, could be his intent.
The ‘thing’ in Catholic understanding is His life.
CCC 2023 “Sanctifying grace is the gratuitous gift of his life that God makes to us; it is infused by the Holy Spirit into the sould to heal it of sin and to santify it”.
Happy All Saints!
Jenny
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Rob C, Catholic theology has traditionally presented grace as quantifiable. Indulgences prior to Vatican II measured the grace distributed very exactly, using a day of penance under long-dead medieval canons as the unit.
However, I think I was not round enough in explaining myself: Not only do we deny grace can be quantified, but we also deny that grace is a “thing” to be distributed at all. Instead, we say that grace is God’s free and favorable acceptance of us in and for the sake of Jesus Christ. This is diametrically opposed to Catholic theology, which places a great deal of emphasis on “created grace” as a thing God makes that we can earn from him. In Catholic theology, grace is a thing God makes and distributes to lesser authorities who then have the right and ability to distribute it in various ways; it is ultimately external to God. A priest can put in holy water, or the pope can attach it to an indulgence. It’s why there are many Catholic prayers begging Mary for grace–the idea is that God has given the Virgin a superabundance of it, and then she has the ability to distribute it. By contrast, Lutherans identify grace with the very heart of God.
And Catholic “initial justification” is not the same as the Lutheran doctrine of justification at all. Futhermore, it can be merited “congruently” but not “condignly,” according to Trent.
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Sheesh. I also meant to type, “By the way, if you are not doing A, B, or C, you’re probably not elect.â€
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I can’t type this morning. I mean “They’ll beat N.T. Wright with it.”
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I really am starting to think that Catholics and Protestants are talking past each other on the works issue– at least these days. I don’t know how many Reformed Baptists repeat over and over that if you think you contribute in any way to your salvation, you’re not really “save.” They’ll bust out the anathema in Galatians until the cows come home. They’ll be N.T. Wright with it.
…then they’ll turn around and say, “By the way, if you are doing A, B, or C, you’re probably not elect.”
Is this not just works snuck in through a back door?
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Yeah, we’ve probably flogged this horse quite enough (the bones of 200 comments?)
My last stab at increasing mystification about indulgences is along the lines of since we are sons of God, we have a share in the family and rights by virtue of our status. God loves us so much, He shares with us.
It is by no virtue of our own, but all by the grace and mercy of God, that we can do anything. But God lets us help one another. The Elder Brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son is supposed to love and forgive his younger brother. This is not usurping the father’s rights, or putting himself in the father’s place, or taking anything from the father. If the elder brother can be merciful as the father is merciful, he shows himself his father’s son.
It all derives from the father’s mercy.
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Rob C, I didn’t want to get into the whole parsing of sanctifying grace, operative grace, etc. 🙂
Michael – we all sin and fall short. That’s true. We all have to pick ourselves up again and again. There’s a reason why we’re told to forgive our brothers seventy times seven, and that’s because our brothers will offend us (and we’ll offend them) that many times.
But I imagine you don’t just tra-la-la along, being a total pain in the neck, and brushing it off with “I’m saved, so ya-boo sucks to you!”? You do make some efforts at avoiding the same old, same old? You try to conform your will to the will of God?
As regards works – praying, reading the Bible, tithing, giving your time, will not OF THEMSELVES save our souls. But gabbling some version of the Sinnner’s Prayer, or saying “I believe!” and then living as if you don’t is not going to cut it either.
I dunno – at this stage, I’m thinking that if the Church dropped the fine theological language and went all warm’n’fuzzy with some kind of mega-emergent-ownbrand pastor-style ‘God’s grace is so abundantly overflowing that all you have to do is hold your hands out for it to drip down like blessed oil anointing you!’ method of presenting indulgences, Protestants would have fewer problems.
Something along the lines of, I dunno, Elijah and the widow’s flour, or Elisha and the widow’s oil.
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Thanks Michael
It’s a bit confusing but I’m closer to understanding what you believe. I appreciate the patience and restraint that everyone has shown in trying to explain rather than to argue. We do in fact believe different things, but I find I can easily misconstrue what you believe and that at least is fixable.
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imonk
I’ve been clear that works are necessary for salvation and any Reformed Protestant should be comfortable with that.
But I’ve tried to show that it has nothing to do with justification but with sanctification. We cannot merit anything by our working. But our sanctification is wrought in us because of the infusion of Christ’s righteousness in us. Justification is imputation, sanctification is infusion.
I know they come from a different perspective, but this is why I’m trying to help them understand what a Protestant doctrine on salvation is. It is not just a doctrine of justification or a doctrine of sanctification. It is a cohesive (yet distinct) doctrine of union with Christ that brings justification (imputation) and sanctification (infusion).
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I should have been Jewish.
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Patrick wrote:
Introspection’s killing me. I’d rather sacrifice a goat than try to figure out how affirming Calvinism’s going to save me.
And I think that’s why Grace is so misunderstood. Most folks would rather sacrifice a goat than deal with the unquantifiable nature of a New Covenant life.
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Obed and Michael,
“When you really understand Grace that makes you more tolerant of others faults because you know how God loves you despite how screwed up you are.”
“I break God’s law a thousand times a week. At least. And Christ died for each one and graciously forgives each one, and gives me his gift of righteousness for each one.”
I’m with you on this, but I for one am stuck in it. I’m failing completely at the moment to see, however, how any doctrine of substitutionary atonement, no matter how much it emphasizes the availing of grace vs. human efforts at righteousness, doesn’t, at best, replace sacrifices at the Temple and public redress of wrongs with endless, grinding introspection. In the long run, the most successful arguers of irresistible grace / against cheap grace are forced to make the most juridical arguments. I’m absolutely perplexed by this paradox: that Protestant ideas of grace could lead to this much letter-parsing?
Introspection’s killing me. I’d rather sacrifice a goat than try to figure out how affirming Calvinism’s going to save me. I should probably not post if I’m this bewildered.
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Brandon, when you say works are necessary to salvation, you need to keep talking or you are going to leave a very wrong impression to a Roman Catholic reader.
Remember that they believe imputation is a “legal fiction.”
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>…we don’t do anything at all…
No, you’ve pretty much got me there. I do not consider faith technically to be doing. That “faith works” is true, but we are justified by faith alone, but not by faith that is alone.
“Further justification” does make sense in Catholicism, but it doesn’t make sense in Protestantism, but Rob C’s post is helpful. There is a lot of linguistic banter that amounts to differing points of view.
But I believe Galatians 1 and Galatians in general teaches the Lutheran view of faith, works and justification.
I’m done folks. I don’t do well in this level of debate. I’m not going over and I don’t want a believing Catholic to come over. We understand each other but we read the Bible and think of God quite differently.
peace
MS
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Again the distinction between justification and sanctification needs to be emphasized.
Distinction, not division.
Justification is a portion of Union in Christ in which we are united to Christ by grace alone being counted to us through faith alone apart from works. This is the classic Reformed position.
Sanctification is a portion of union in Christ by which we work out our salvation because of Christ’s infused righteousness into us.
Both are aspects of our union with Christ and are portions of salvation. Saying that works are not necessary for salvation is just silly. Every Reformer acknowledged they were. That is simply not the debate.
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We absolutely, unequivocally deny that grace is a quantifiable thing to be parceled out.
Like I said, the analogy limps. We agree that it cannot be quantified. But it can be qualified, no? Do y’all disagree that grace cannot be increased or decreased? God can’t give more or less? My “x” is thereby “grace” and my “y” is thereby “grace upon grace”.
Indulgences are not about grace
That’s not true, Martha. Certainly they have nothing to do with operative grace (i.e., the grace of initial conversion), but they are cooperative grace (the grace of growth in holiness). It is the merits of Christ (i.e., grace) that make them possible (cf. CCC 1478).
Can I say Indulgences are an aspect of sanctification?
Brandon, yes. From a Reformed perspective of justification and sanctification, indulgences have nothing to do with justification and everything to do with sanctification.
As for Michael’s comments, is this what it is boiling down to? Less about indulgences and more about the different ways both camps use the same words. You probably know this already, but others who may not:
1) Catholic initial justification/sanctification = Protestant justification.
2) Catholic further justification/sanctification = Protestant sanctification.
Both camps agree that #1 is a gift given to us at God’s initiative, unmerited, completely free. Both camps (I think) agree that #2 is a gift of God’s grace in cooperation with our will (i.e., our works are an outgrowth of the grace we have received).
So it is slightly confusing for people to claim that Catholics are dolling out “justification” (in the Protestant sense), when really, we’re receiving “further justification/sanctification” (in the Catholic sense), or sanctification (in the Protestant sense).
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Michael,
I think David is a good example. I think he has an obligation to repent – to seek forgiveness and I expect that it has to be a sincere effort. So David has a role to play in his own salvation (a really minor one but a crucial one). David must seek forgiveness and do penance. God forgives him but still visit temporal punishments anyway so that forgiveness does not mean no consequences (wasn’t this covered by someone else already).
When I hear the total passivity argument it sounds like we don’t do anything at all, but I’m sure that’s not what you really mean. I think of our part as (to borrow of phrase from molecular bio) “necessary but insufficient”.
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I understand you completely, but my vileness is on display continually, and my sins all nailed Jesus to the cross. All my sins since Feb 1974 have been done knowing Jesus died for me. Many of my sins are premeditated.
If works or obedience on my part are required for acceptance with God, then I am damned. Christ, however, loved me and gave himself for me. There is now no condemnation for me. I am in union with the one and only mediator and in the New Covenant he will never disown me, but promises I have eternal life.
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Here’s the best explanation of the Gospel I know of outside of Romans and Galatians.
http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/a/c/acanitbe.htm
Turn down the sound.
Guys, I don’t want to sound like I am evangelizing you. Any Protestant confession, such as the Westminster Confession of faith, can explain our view of the Gospel in detail.
I respect you guys too much to engage in a debate, and I’m really not this much into comments 🙂
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I sin often as well (venial sin that is) and I do view obedience as a major part of faith: if I love Christ I love His Law and His Mercy. I believe that if I were to deliberately sin in a grave matter I would effectively be rejecting Christ and that I would loose grace/salvation. Does that formulation make sense to you?
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Hmmm. I think I’ll stick with: A theologian is one who prays and one who prays is a theologian.
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OK Obed,
I get that part but read it differently “for those who are IN Christ” there is no law, and all sins are washed clean, but I argue that you must “REMAIN IN him” and that our future performance matters while we are in the world. Does that make sense to you?
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But to row back one moment: indulgences are a juridical measure, not a salvation one. It’s to do with the temporal effects of the penalties attached to sin, not the effects of guilt upon salvation.
The same way a court of law does not try the state of a murderer’s soul, but the penalties attached to the crime. The murderer/thief/perjurer may be saved by the grace of God and be heaven-bound. He or she still has to serve a sentence, or make reparation to the victims of his or her crime.
And that I have no problem with in principle. For me, the disagreement is based on:
1. The authority of the clergy to make such judgement. As someone who believes wholeheartedly in the Priesthood of all Believers, I cannot buy that.
2. The idea that the above can affect whether or not God is pleased or angry with me.
3. The entire concept of Purgatory being rolled into the above.
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I break God’s law a thousand times a week. At least. And Christ died for each one and graciously forgives each one, and gives me his gift of righteousness for each one.
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You mean like David?
If he’s a justified man, he repents (Psalm 51).
Your question suggests that your view of faith is of a commitment to obedience. Our view of faith is a reliance on Christ alone for rightness with God.
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Isn’t Christ the fulfillment of the Law – not it’s elimination? If there’s a conflict between the Gospel and the Law doesn’t that imply a failure of our understanding?
How can I say I love Christ then break His law?
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Memphis Aggie wrote:
I don’t get that at all. What about the Biblical verses warning the just man not to stray and of his punishments if he turns off the path. I guess I agree that “Gods disposition†doesn’t change in the sense that He certainly loves all the souls in Hell. I think we have a difference of definitions. Salvation is realized by entrance into Heaven, so how can serious sin (we would say mortal) not be relevant? How can “your performance have no bearing� How is that not antinomian?
The key qualifier to everything I’ve written is that it only applies to those who are “saved” or “in Christ” or whatever. It only applies for folks who are in a spiritual state of having Christ’s sacrifice taking their place before God.
Paul’s writings in Romans 7 & 8 (really, most of the book) deal explicitly with this isssue. He talks about the tendancy to sin. He talks about the relation of Law and Grace. He talks about what it means to be “in Christ.” It’s pretty clear in context. “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
What part of “no” in that verse don’t people get?
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OK Michael. Flesh that out a bit with an example of what happens to the man who was saved yet goes out to commit an undeniable sin like murder. Assume I’m ignorant (I’m certainly less schooled) – go ahead and quote scripture I’m happy to hear it – preach please!
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..show me where the 30 minutes of reading scripture as a plenary Indulgence is found in scripture.
“Whatever you bind..in Heaven…”
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If I want to fight I’ll call my family and talk politics. I authentically don’t get the Protestant position – it doesn’t compute for me. Maybe I’m just slow but I really don’t get it – it seems too pat too simplified.
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Aggie:
I don’t want to start quoting scripture. Yes, he is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Yes, future sins are paid for. Yes, the law is totally honored by Christ as our substitute and mediator. The law has lost its sting completely. We now relate to the law as justified persons. We come to the law as those who know the law has been completely honored by Christ and when we fail to obey the law, our union with Christ does not change.
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“As far as sins of saved people go, they’re irrelevent to Salvation.”
Ummm – yes, but… the workings out of this to the extremes leads to James Hogg’s “Confessions of a Justified Sinner”, in which one of the temptations to the protagonist is to commit murder, because if he’s *really* saved, and if he *really* believes he’s saved, and if *nothing* he does can affect his salvation, then if he is afraid to do this, that means he doesn’t *really* believe, and if he doubts his salvation, he’s *really* damned.
Which I don’t think for one moment you’re advocating, but (1) agreed we cannot earn or deserve or buy or merit salvation (2) however, what we do does affect our eternal fate.
I sometimes wonder do (some) Calvinists think when Adam and Eve were created, they were predestined to fall? Or, if they were saved, then how could they sin? And if the sins of saved people don’t affect their salvation, then how could our first parents’ disobedience have any effect?
But to row back one moment: indulgences are a juridical measure, not a salvation one. It’s to do with the temporal effects of the penalties attached to sin, not the effects of guilt upon salvation.
The same way a court of law does not try the state of a murderer’s soul, but the penalties attached to the crime. The murderer/thief/perjurer may be saved by the grace of God and be heaven-bound. He or she still has to serve a sentence, or make reparation to the victims of his or her crime.
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“You’re reading scripture with your presuppositions in tow, just like I am”
I’ll cop to that wholeheartedly. I’m hoping for and explanation , not an argument
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Michael,
You misread me I’m saying I can come up with a need to cooperate with grace through scripture. I haven’t been talking indulgences for a long while since I don’t fully understand the details.
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Two seconds on Google and I find Luther.
OK I’ll play along because I seek mercy not justice and recognize that I’m not righteous under the law.
Even so doesn’t a soul have to accept grace and remain true? Are you saying like Obed seems to be that any future sins are just covered? So if we’re all under the mercy does that gives you a total pass on the Law?
Also to defend the Father S I’d argue he’s offering means of sanctification not justification. Clear enough difference to me – why do you reject it?
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Aggie:
You can come up with Indulgences strictly through scripture? Please….show me where the 30 minutes of reading scripture as a plenary Indulgence is found in scripture.
You’re reading scripture with your presuppositions in tow, just like I am.
MS
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Catholic friends:
Law and Gospel.
Law and Gospel.
He who knows the difference has become a true theologian.
I won’t tell you who said that, but it’s very true.
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Michael,
“C’mon. The prodigal son isn’t about synergism. It’s about an all out resurrection. Our part and God’s part? Aggie, ask any reformation loving Christian if they believe they would go to heaven under any version of that system.”
That’s an argument? How can you say my interpretation isn’t valid? What’s your reasoning (I won’t ask for your Authority :=) ). I can read as well as you, I don’t see why my interpretation doesn’t fit just cause reformation loving Christians don’t like it. Why can’t you read it my way? Seems right out of the text to me.
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Patrick Lynch wrote:
I know this isn’t exactly what you’re saying, but even to the degree that they differ from your opinion, how could you argue the subtleties with them?
Bear with me for not quoting the greater context for the sake of space, but the hypothetical situation you describe is a problem with Christians not really understanding Grace. It’s not really a caracature, because we’ve all seen that kind of thing happen.
However, imagine if the Church in which she got saved had really given her the Gospel rather than just focused on getting her to “make a decision” or “pray the sinner’s prayer” or whatever. Understanding the Gospel and understanding Grace requires us to understand our unworthiness apart from God giving us worth through Jesus. Someone who really understands Jesus’ sacrifice and God’s Grace couldn’t be satisfied with a faith that is centered around using the Bible to criticize people or “knowing everybody else is wrong about most things.” That kind of Pharisaical approach to Christianity is the antithesis of Grace.
When you really understand Grace that makes you more tolerant of others faults because you know how God loves you despite how screwed up you are.
The idea that I can’t do anything to affect God’s disposition to me once I’m in Christ doesn’t make Grace cheap, so to speak. Rather it show’s that Grace is without price. All my good deeds and works are worthless in comparison. But I wanna do ’em anyway out of love for Him and because that desire is a gift from Him to begin with.
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Obed,
One more bit: doesn’t the warning to “remain in me” imply that the graft to the vine can fail? Further if it (the graft) fails and bears no fruit or falls to the ground then it will be collected and burned.
This is all Biblical – no Pope required to have this disagreement. I don’t see how your performance has no bearing.
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Please stop calling me Mike, folks. The name is Michael. Unless you are talking to someone else.
C’mon. The prodigal son isn’t about synergism. It’s about an all out resurrection. Our part and God’s part? Aggie, ask any reformation loving Christian if they believe they would go to heaven under any version of that system.
Mark Shea: The discipline passages are referring to those already justified by the all sufficient work of Christ. Hebrews says that we are being sanctified by the one who has already made us holy. Fr. Smith is handing out justification in little bags based on visiting churches. God gives grace freely and sanctifies us by means of a changed heart.
You know all this, as does any convert. Just say that catholics don’t accept any version of justification that is whole and entire upon being joined to Christ. It’s faith + works and you can never be sure. You are the one with a podcast- I think- on how your Christian life never got going till you gave up knowing you were going to heaven.
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Obed said:
“As far as sins of saved people go, they’re irrelevent to Salvation. That doesn’t make them irrelevant in an antinomian way. It just means that my performance has no bearing on God’s disposition toward me once I’m in Christ.”
I don’t get that at all. What about the Biblical verses warning the just man not to stray and of his punishments if he turns off the path. I guess I agree that “Gods disposition” doesn’t change in the sense that He certainly loves all the souls in Hell. I think we have a difference of definitions. Salvation is realized by entrance into Heaven, so how can serious sin (we would say mortal) not be relevant? How can “your performance have no bearing”? How is that not antinomian?
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Memphis Aggie wrote:
Still don’t get it – in the sense I don’t share the belief – but I’m clearer on what it is that I don’t get.
So do you believe once saved always saved – in the sense that once you’ve accepted Christ and been saved (check check) your Heaven bound? How does that reconcile with sins of confirmed saved people? Did they not do it right, didn’t mean it etc? Is tis why Protestants don’t have confession?
I believe that if God has redeemed me, he can keep me. Once I’m His, he keeps me that way. As far as sins of saved people go, they’re irrelevent to Salvation. That doesn’t make them irrelevant in an antinomian way. It just means that my performance has no bearing on God’s disposition toward me once I’m in Christ. Sin is a fact of life in the fallen world. It’s gonna happen. But that’s part of the processes I wrote about before. The flesh vs. the spirit. The Old Man vs. the New Man. As Paul said, “For what I wish to do, that I do not do, but that which I hate I do.”
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Those of you who believe that the Prodigal Son isn’t a picture salvation in total are into Pandora’s box. Seriously.
It would seem that the Bible is pretty badly over-written if that’s true.
iMonk: What *do* you do with the parable of the unmerciful servant and all that business about God punishing those he loves in Hebrews? The parable of the prodigal son doesn’t seem to address such matters at all. That’s why I think it relating an aspect, not the totality, of the gospel.
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Francis Turretin says:
“Are we saved by works? We affirm.”
We cannot be saved without works, because salvation is justification, sanctification, and glorification, and sanctification is dependent on the infusion of Christ’s righteousness and our growing more and more to His likeness
There has to be a proper distinction between justification and sanctification to properly understand the Reformed worldview.
Read Calvin’s response to Trent, essentially he keeps saying over and over and over, YOU DON’T GET WHAT WE’RE SAYING! Justification and sanctification are different. Yes works are vitally important, IN SANCTIFICATION.
Maybe this is where some of the confusion comes in… I’m looking at the Biblical text from this dichotomy and you don’t really distinguish between the two. Would this be accurate.
How can you help me understand indulgences from a Reformed perspective? Can I say Indulgences are an aspect of sanctification? This would seem to make sense because if you’re in purgatory you still get to Heaven… Just clear up any distortions I have there.
I still object to the doctrine because it does not adhere to the Apostolic, Biblical teaching. I think it strikes at the worth of Christ’s sacrifice and cheapens salvation.
This doesn’t necessarily another Gospel, but as a Calvinist (don’t hold that against me!) I would see it like I would and Arminian perspective on salvation. Insufficient to help the believer continually grow in grace, but not a different Gospel at all.
Thanks for your help!
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“3. Though I don’t have to do anything in order to have Salvation, I should want to do things that please God due to the Spirit transforming me. Even if I don’t want to be better in a certain area, I at least want to want to be better because of the Spirit’s influence on me.”
I’ve seen this play out as almost a tautology.
Somebody gets saved / says the prayer and really means it. The next day, she feel really happy, and, as she isn’t introspective by nature, it never occurs to her that she isn’t really any different than she was before. She goes to church, like to sing worship songs, praying makes her feel special somehow – and that’s it. The people around her notice she talks about God a lot, but she’s still annoying and oblivious, only now she quotes Scripture to criticize people instead of stealing other people’s jokes.
As far as she’s concerned, she’s saved. She’s a Christian – of course she’s right with God. She thinks Baptism has made her a new person. She’ll never believe anybody otherwise. She doesn’t want or see the need to do anything with her faith, and she already feels completely justified in what she says and does. 20 years later? 40 years? Same thing.
You might say that this is just a phase and that God is working with her, and add that I’ve drawn a caricature of real faith and I’m just too mean-spirited to care either way. All I’m saying is, it’s really common, really obnoxious, and seems to me like anything but Christian discipleship in action.
If “justified by faith” makes action moot in the eyes of God, and “faith” is best understood contemporaneously as these ejaculations of piety such as “knowing that everybody else is wrong about most things, supporting Christian publishing, and properly attending church”, you can’t convince her she’s got the wrong idea about Jesus. Some people can’t tell the difference between Pharisees and the warriors of God – they only figure on account of full-immersion, they’re one of the Good Guys.
I know this isn’t exactly what you’re saying, but even to the degree that they differ from your opinion, how could you argue the subtleties with them?
I’m always concerned that without a sensible tradition and a sense of the tangents of history to be critiqued against, faith is easily replaced by a kind of self-justifying Biblical geometry that people triangulate truth or falsity with based on how many quotes they can array in support of their viewpoint. I don’t want to be the billionth Catholic on this blog to shudder at the thought of faith reduced to axioms (and I know lots of Protestants, with some reason, point out that some Catholics are zombies to tradition without living faith or understanding..), but how do you combat that?
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Still don’t get it – in the sense I don’t share the belief – but I’m clearer on what it is that I don’t get.
So do you believe once saved always saved – in the sense that once you’ve accepted Christ and been saved (check check) your Heaven bound? How does that reconcile with sins of confirmed saved people? Did they not do it right, didn’t mean it etc? Is tis why Protestants don’t have confession?
I should be clear here on what I believe so we can contrast them a bit. I believe that you are saved and justified by Christ by faith so that you are Heaven bound (but may still incur a period in Purgatory). However we believe that sin can still knock you off the path – it not yet over until death. Hence confession can bring you in.
Michael,
I agree that the prodigal is a parable about salvation but recall the son cooperates with grace in key ways – he recognizes his sin and rejects it (contrition), he travels home (seeks God, could be seen as penance) and he asks for forgiveness (confession). So the Father does his part but the son does his bit too. Note the Father comes out to plead with the faithful son to come and join them, which indicates a special grace as he did not go and hunt for the wayward son.
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“On top of that, we deny that, even if it were, any man has the authority to tell God how much grace he ought to be dishing out through various means.”
Josh S, that’s the entire point right there. Indulgences are not about grace; the souls in Purgatory are saved. They’re as saved as they’re going to get, they can’t be any more saved; they are completely forgiven. It’s not about grace or dishing out dollops of salvation or a man telling God what He can and cannot do.
Indulgences grew out of the physical penances; they’ve shifted from performance of physical acts to spiritual ones – prayer, confession, ceasing all attachment to sin.
This argument is never going to be settled between our two sides, I think; there will always be (on the one side) an idea that this is a denial of God’s sovereignty and mercy and (on the other) a downplaying of the Communion of Saints and the “sons, not slaves” relationship we have with God.
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Ah, well: tomorrow is the Feast of All Saints. May all the holy men and women of God pray for us in our necessities 🙂
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So now we get into the really fun part: what exactly is a work?
Prayer, if you like, is a work. Reading the Bible is a work.
Anything other than supinely lying back and saying “God is gracious” is a work.
Okay, exaggeration? But what I mean is that the moment we begin to *do* anything with our faith, that is a ‘work’. Decide that yeah, it’s time I started reining in my rotten temper? Hey, unless God by an unmerited act of grace makes my bad temper vanish, then anything I am attempting to do in the way of biting my tongue, counting to ten, trying to see the other person’s viewpoint, is an attempt by works and I am a Bad Christian!
I note the point you make about the ‘legal fiction’ the Prodigal tried to use; he regarded his father as a judge, not his father – and Big Brother felt that Dad should have acted that way also. The father, though, acted as a father, not a judge. This ties in with the Workers in the Vineyard, where the late-comers are paid the same as the ones who have laboured all day.
But isn’t the Lutheran notion of justification such a legal fiction? We are all dungheaps covered by snow – our sins are covered by the righteousness of Christ which is attributed to us, by God the Judge?
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Memphis Aggie Wrote:
If we are not yet perfect, how will be perfected? … I just don’t get the notion of the passivity of the Bride of Christ. Did I misread that? Surely you don’t believe that once justified by faith and grace there’s nothing left to do?
In short… that’s exactly it.
Here’s the implications:
1. Salvation is completely one-sided. Nothing I can do will make me more saved or less saved. Nothing I can do will make God love me more or love me less. Nothing I can do will make God like me more or like me less. Because Jesus’ sacrifice takes my place, God is not mad at me and never will be.
2. Any ways that I “get better” are because God’s Spirit is working within me to transform me into Christ’s likeness. The process of sanctification is just as one-sided and supernatural as the act of justification.
3. Though I don’t have to do anything in order to have Salvation, I should want to do things that please God due to the Spirit transforming me. Even if I don’t want to be better in a certain area, I at least want to want to be better because of the Spirit’s influence on me.
4. Perfection and Sanctification are life-long processes that will never be complete this side of eternity. But the point of senctification on this side of eternity is the process, not the goal. I’m not perfect, but I’m better than I was. And even if I get worse, God’s love is constant. That security in God’s love makes me want to get better.
It’s all pretty counter-intuitive, but that’s the mystery of Grace as I understand it. I used to be rather legalistic in my relationship with God. Though I trusted Jesus for Salvation, I thought Sanctification was all up to me. Constant failure led me to the Throne of Grace and to real joy and freedom in Christ when I accepted the fact that my fleshly personal efforts are total crap. Steve Brown’s book Scandalous Freedom really hits this nail on the head IMO (check it out). The tragedy is that this is such a hard lesson that even most Protestants I know don’t really believe it. So even if a legalistic approach to sanctification isn’t explicitly taught, it’s implicit in the Christian culture. Grace is too God-centered and not me-centered enough to be palpable to many Christians.
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Mark, the Council of Trent specifically says that God’s purpose in instituting penance, which accomplishes the same thing as obtaining an indulgence, is not only reform and improvement of the sinner, but of avenging himself upon said sinner. To wit:
But let them have in view, that the satisfaction, which they impose, be not only for the preservation of a new life and a medicine of infirmity, but also for the avenging and punishing of past sins. (Session 14, Chapter 8)
Naaman’s bath in the Jordan prefigures baptism, not indulgences. It is God providing salvation through his word attached to a physical object, not a means by which a man could curry a little favor with God by doing something good.
Rob C, you’ve illustrated well the fundamental problem Luther had with the Roman system. We absolutely, unequivocally deny that grace is a quantifiable thing to be parceled out. On top of that, we deny that, even if it were, any man has the authority to tell God how much grace he ought to be dishing out through various means.
Mark Shea, you said
it appears to me that Protestants (including Lutherans) basically seem to live in a way better described by Catholic theology than by their own
If you are right, then you understand Lutheran theology far, far better than the vast majority of Lutherans, including seminary professors and clergy. I would suggest an alternative–you do not understand what Lutherans believe very well if you think that what you see comports better with Catholic theology than our own.
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I pretty much lean toward agreement with Matzat 🙂 though I get mine straight from Robert Capon.
Those of you who believe that the Prodigal Son isn’t a picture salvation in total are into Pandora’s box. Seriously.
We have some 200 proof grace over here in the Protestant cellar if you’d like a bottle. It’s free.
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Michael,
It is interesting to see this come down to the extent of Christ’s work. Back in the mid-90s, a Lutheran named Don Matzat was doing a radio program called “Issues, etc.”. So I called in one time, and asked him how there could be anyone in hell, given his Lutheran view of the sufficiency of Christ’s work and unlimited atonement. Here’s was his exact answer — I’ll never forget it: “All the people in hell are saved; they just don’t know it.”
Apparently it is not gnosticism so long as what you are knowing is “that Christ died for you”. (Christ’s death truly saves you, even though you can be simultaneously saved and in hell forever.) But to enjoy that salvation, you have to believe that Christ died for you. The enjoyment of salvation seems to be much better and efficacious than the salvation itself. Somehow, Christ did everything except for one little (but yet enormous thing); believe for you. You have to believe. (But that doesn’t count as work.) Why it is permissible to say that Christ’s work failed to include believing for me, but not permissible to say that Christ’s work did not include working out my salvation in fear and trembling for me, is unclear, and, in my opinion, seemingly arbitrary.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Memphis Aggie,
Yes that is exactly what is believed and taught. (It may be inaccurate theology, just the way Marian stuff happens in the Catholic Church ).
In all of the Southern Baptist churches where I have been a member, there is very little emphasis on becoming Christ like. The emphasis is getting the first decision.
I don’t remember how things are reconciled.
I do remember some serious disagreements in my last Baptist Bible study. Most of the members were in agreement with R.C. Sproul that all the bad that we do is from us; but all of the good comes from God. That still doesn’t make sense. Either we have free will to choose to do good, or to do evil; OR we don’t have the ability to choose either.
(I don’t have any problem with giving God partial credit for our ability)
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Wow this threads been jumping.
Michael had a nice point about justification in the Protestant sense. That is likely the source of the division on indulgences because Catholics see salvation (meaning entry into Heaven) as a two step process: justification and sanctification and (I can be wrong here) Protestant see the entire process as completed by justification. So we have competing scripture on the point as well Christs “it is finished” is read to mean that all of the work of salvation is over now that His sacrifice is complete. I can see that point of view, although I think it means that His part is complete: we still need to seek Him.
I base that on the fact that not everyone makes it. The parables of the unprepared virgins the sheep and goats, the wedding feast all point to our cooperation with grace. I expect Protestants will say Baptism and repentance fills this role. However I would add this one part of scripture that states nothing that is imperfect will enter into Heaven. So Catholics take this and our our observation of the world to say: we are not yet perfect and need to complete our spiritual development. Do Protestants believe that Baptism has rendered them perfect? I doubt it – so how does a Protestant reconcile the concept that Christ has already done everything for us and we are entirely passive with take up your cross and follow me? or work in the vineyard? or the requirement to remain in Him? Doesn’t that imply that we can mess up and that therefore we are not yet perfect? If we are not yet perfect, how will be perfected? Now I can imagine Protestant explanations that do not invoke Purgatory or insist that Christ will cleanse us like He washed he Apostles feet. I just don’t get the notion of the passivity of the Bride of Christ. Did I misread that? Surely you don’t believe that once justified by faith and grace there’s nothing left to do?
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When I think indulgences, I think Naaman bathing in the Jordan seven times. He’s told: Humble yourself, do this little thing out of obedience to God’s spokesman, and you will be healed. I’m like Naaman: I can’t see how the Jordan can possibly cure leprosy, or how an indulgence *really* cures the effects of sin. None of us can.
But why is that a hindrance? Didn’t He say, “Did I not tell you that if you believed, you will see the glory of God?” Faith is required to see. No ‘seeing’ without believing. I’ve always said Catholics have greater faith than Protestants (no offense to anyone here) because they are asked to believe in a Church so massively influential with her Groom, God Himself, that she commands time and eternity, this life and the afterlife, even the Heavens (didn’t He also say, “Whatever you bind in Heaven”? How do you interpret that one?). It is impossible to have faith like that. It’s a grace that must be asked for. Which is probably why many Catholics don’t have it.
Someone asked, Why doesn’t the pope do this or that? Why is he stingy?, etc. I would ask in return: Why did Naaman have to dip seven times in the Jordan? Why the repetition of the act? Why not once-and-for-all, and be healed? Why the Jordan in the first place? Hadn’t he come all the way from Syria on faith, believing Elisha could, in fact, effect a cure for him? Why the ‘stinginess’ of God? All to test, purge, and remake us into more humble, better men, and more like Christ. Everything and all things to remake us in His image–hence the purpose of indulgences.
Another person says that indulgences negate Jesus’ atoning grace. Not at all! They are made possible by His atoning grace! Indulgences are possible not because Christ’s atoning work isn’t sufficient–because it is, always–but because *we* get in the way of that atoning work. Catholics believe Mother Church when She says,
Your sinfulness is incalculable. And His mercy is boundless. But your will is your own: He won’t trump it, ever, not even to save your soul. And because sin is *so* infectious, you will, more than likely, be waaay too attached to your old sinful self to give yourself up entirely and let The-Old-Man-in-you be consumed by ALL of the grace His Blood has to offer you when it is applied to your soul at your request for forgiveness. You will want forgiveness, which you will receive. You will also want to be made holy, no doubt, so that you sin no more, but, being fallen, you will *simultaneously* be wanting to hold on to at least a little bit of The Old Man too. Well, you can’t have both. Being ‘made holy’ cost Him far too much to cheapen it by forcing it on you when you hardly know how much holiness costs. “You don’t know what you ask” and all that. However, where sin abounded, grace abounded all the more. So: God, in His infinite mercy, will indulge you if you will humble yourself and do this repetitious, seemingly inane thing, out of obedience. He will apply grace-upon-grace to His already sufficient grace given to you, and you will be indulged like a child who begs his Father for more when he’s received more than enough already. And your Father will accommodate you: He will free you as much as you allow Him to from your attachment to the Old Man with either a complete or a partial indulgence. Oh–and He will only ‘indulge’ you now; after death, it’s holiness by fire. For none but the holy see God.
You want indulgences in the Prodigal Son story? Well, there they are–the grace upon grace–the Father not only reinstates his son but indulges him with the ring, the fattened calf, and a new cloak, when the reprobate prostrates himself and says, humbly, “I am not worthy!” ALL grace is an indulgence, and ALL indulgences are a grace.
One more thing about Naaman and indulgences:
The saints have taught that plenary indulgences are extremely hard to obtain, for the simple reason that they require a complete detachment from sin on the part of the sinner, something all of us would agree is an incredibly difficult thing for a soul to achieve. I remember reading that a saint was preaching an indulgence once, only to have it revealed to him by Our Lord later that only two people out of the hundreds he preached to received the plenary indulgence. Why?, he asked. Because they wouldn’t allow me to indulge them as much as I would have liked, Our Lord told the saint.
They were too attached to the old self, you see, and thought–as many do here–that the plenary indulgence is gained “when the coin in the coffer rings”. What does that have to do with Naaman? Well, Our Lord said the same: “There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.” (Lk 4:27) He was indulged. And healed. And it was a foolish thing he did, dipping in the Jordan seven times.
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I remembered another way that sometimes explain indulgences. If I may…
I think maybe we could all agree that prayer, adoration and reading Scripture are acts through which God works his grace for our sanctification. If this is true, then indulgences can be seen as ways that the Church encourages her children to sanctification, by saying something like (and forgive the mathematical analogy), “OK, normally God would give you x units of grace for your sanctification through this particular good act; I’ll throw in y units of the grace with which God has endowed me on top of that, to help you along the way.”
Yes, prayer, adoration and reading scripture are all indulgenced acts, which you can do every day. And yes, the analogy limps in certain ways. But I do think that, viewed in this light, it undercuts at least some of the claims I have seen above. Such as that the Church is being stingy in restricting where she helps people. Well, no. She’s helping you. Such as that this is somehow akin to buying salvation. Well…no. It’s just the Church encouraging you and helping you (who are already a justified Christian) to grow in holiness.
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Sure, the “cage phase” is pretty basic human nature. I personally try to combat that sort of tendency in myself, but it would be a lie to deny it’s existence.
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So do Catholics also have a cage phase like Calvinists? Just a question.
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Just a thought.
It seems to me that the Protestant end of the discussion is asking “How do you find forgiveness with God?” and the Catholics are answering “Here’s how you become divinized and fully conformed to the image and likeness of Christ so that you will one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would (as Lewis says) be strongly tempted to worship it.”
The parable of the prodigal son is a story about somebody who just begins that process by returning home. It’s the beginning of the story, but not the end. George MacDonald said “God is easy to please, but hard to satisfy.” The parable of the Prodigal Son emphasizes the “easy to please” aspect of God.
Other teachings of Jesus (“Be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect”) emphasize the other aspect. Forgiveness is the gateway to divinization and fully partaking in the divine nature, not the end of the story. One very minor tributary in the process of divinization is indulgences. Sacraments are immeasurably more important aids in the process.
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iMonk:
You (and I imagine most Protestant readers) are troubled by Fr. Smith’s suggestion that God “sends misfortune” if we are half-hearted in our repentance. Then a Nav guy writes:
Chronically, we Christians have got it wrong. We speak with forked tongue . . . when God looks at us he sees the righteousness of Christ. Yet, at the same time, we live like we think when God looks at us, he sees our inadequacies, it really pisses Him off and He’s going to eventually pay us back. But we can’t have it both ways can we?
Now I *think* what he’s getting at it is the notion that God *isn’t* angered by half-hearted repentance and won’t “pay us back”. And I think he pretty obviously half-right and half-wrong. Yes, it’s true that God is not itching to damn us but is rather entirely laboring for our salvation. So we are not in the position of children who are trying to perpetually please an abusive and mentally ill parent who beats for minor infractions.
But I also think it is obvious from Scripture that we are judged “according to what we have done” as Roman 2 say. And (getting back to the parable of the unmerciful servant) there is not the slightest hint in that parable that the servant, having throttled the flunkey who owed him 10 bucks, was met by a king who said, “I’m not angry at your squandering my mercy. My all sufficient grace forgives all sins, past, present and future. So don’t worry about how you just treated that guy.”
In short, it would appear that Hebrews is on to something when it tells us that sometimes God punishes us precisely *because* we are his children and that the punishment is pain unto life, not damnation unto death.
Now if we are going to grant a universe where God punishes the children that he loves, I can’t for the life of me see why Fr. Smith is out of line for suggesting that might “send you a little misfortune” as a discipline. If we refuse to grant that, then I think we are pretty much forced to say that all the crap that comes our way in life as Christians is just stuff that accidently happens apart from God’s Providence and that he is more or less like the hand-wringing but helpless god of Rabbi Kushner’s _When Bad Things Happen to Good People_: well-meaning but not all-powerful.
I think the reason the Evangelicals the Nav Guy is complaining about fret about God’s little judgments and disciplines happening is because a) Scripture is really quite clear that they do happen and b) they do, in fact, happen all the time, just as Hebrews 12 says they should. You can try to distance God from them by calling them the consequences of sin which God allows. Fine and dandy. But since God is the author of the whole cosmic setup and his Providence extends to the numbers of your head and the fall of the sparrow, it’s sort of a pointless gesture.
So, once again, I remain puzzled at why Fr. Smith’s God sending us a little misfortune as a discipline is a thing so terrible as to make splitting the Church still a tragic neccessity, but Jesus’ God hammering the unmerciful servant and the author of Hebrews’ God punishing the children he loves both get a pass.
See my problem? This is what I don’t get.
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Martha:
1) Fr. Smith doesn’t think of indulgences as a method of prayer. He thinks of it as a work- quite possibly including alms- that may (or may not) avert a divinely intended “little misfortune” left over after absolution. If you want to argue that such an item doesn’t have implications far beyond “a little prayer,” help yourself. But all you are doing is this:
You are demonstrating the ability of Roman Catholics in wrapping their minds around whatever their Church says must be believed.
Martha, there is no way to retread Fr. Smith’s view of indulgences into a “little prayer.” It’s a transaction- which many of us Reformation Christians eject even as a category when talking about God’s grace- that averts something like my kid getting run over by a car.
We’ve had some fine explanations by good RCs like my good brother Alan, but all of you might as well be wearing a shirt that says “If you make yourself think hard enough, you can eventually see the obvious truth of anything.” Well and good. But I wouldn’t haul that out in a discussion. That’s for a debate on the whole nature of Catholicism.
2) As to the prodigal son…. you said:
>The Prodigal expresses repentance.
Correct. And pretty pathetically. He tries to negotiate a legal removal from the family. He asks his dad to stop being his dad. He asks for a pathetic caricature of justice. It’s insufficient. He repays nothing. He makes nothing right, and his father had no reason to forgive, throw a party and honor him as royalty. Except that’s the way THIS father is. He’s overflowing with grace. And there is not one word in that story that supports the idea that in the morning, his dad could come in and visit a little misfortune on him if he didn’t clean up the breakfast dishes.
Repentance doesn’t earn anything. Grace is what creates repentance, but forgiveness precedes it all.
peace
MS
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Ah, Michael, come on: in a previous post, the Osteens message was compared to indulgences – and not favourably, but as a method of ‘buying salvation’ and misleading people that by doing this/reading this/attending here (and of course buying all the paraphenalia involved), salvation could be achieved by works and money.
The Prodigal’s father completely forgives his son, clothes him, puts a ring on his finger, gives him a feast.
The Prodigal expresses repentance.
There remains the Elder Brother to be dealt with. Now, it’s easy to pile on him for being unloving, rigid, punitive and the rest of it. Indeed he was, and that’s all part of it.
But what happens after Junior comes home? When the memory of being a swineherd wears off, and he gets used to being the son of a rich man once more?
If Junior is to demonstrate that he’s learned anything, and that he is sincere in his repentance (and not just saying “Sorry” so he’ll get board and lodgings), he has to change his behaviour. This is where penance comes in.
And the forgiveness that the Elder Brother should have extended, the love that he should have had towards his brother – that’s the ‘treasury of merits of the saints.’
Just wrap up this by saying that honestly, indulgences are not that big a thing in the minds of Catholics. There’s no need for money to change hands, and there are chockfull of ways to get partial and plenary indulgences. For example, with November (the month of the Holy Souls) coming up, a partial indulgence for the Souls in Purgatory can be obtained by visiting a graveyard and praying for the dead.
Most people think of indulgences, if they think of them at all, as just another method of prayer. And it’s important to remember that this is not compulsory. You can be a good Catholic and never obtain an indulgence in your life, just as you never need to say the Rosary, have any devotion to Marian apparitions, or the like.
The Catechism explains:
“[I]t is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.
The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.” (1472, 1473)”
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I want to return back to the original question that Michael posed regarding indulgences and the Reformation.
The historian Roland Bainton wrote that indulgences were first used to excuse soldiers going to the Crusades their penitential duties. Next, those who could not or would not go could offer money for Church projects.
The theory here was that Christ and the saints had more merits than needed for salvation. The excess were placed in a treasury for Papal use.
Even then the debate raged about how far these indulgences could go, from cutting time off purgatory to eliminating it entirely, to forgiving sins. The forgiving of sins was considered an extreme position.
Bainton goes on to say that the Popes in Avignon succeeded in collecting an income three times that of the king of France.
That is the kind of system Luther protested. Not what the RCC has today. The best thing about this dialogue is that it could not have happened in any format 50 years ago.
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I never heard anything in here about money for salvation.
My concern is what this story says about as compared to the story of the prodigal’s Father.
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To finish beating the analogy to death: maybe I didn’t just smash a vase belonging to my friend. Maybe I took a sledgehammer to her car. My friend may have forgiven me, and not pressed charges and had me hauled off to jail, but nonetheless, I owe her.
Okay, I need to pay for the car to be fixed. But maybe I don’t have all the money myself. My family may be willing to help me out here. They loan me the money. They may even make a free gift of it to me, since I genuinely am ashamed and am going to amend my life and work on my rotten temper.
That’s the part the saints play – they are our family, who love us and want to help us.
And this all probably sounds even worse to all you Protestants: “Dear lord above, Catholics think sin is like a family row!” 🙂
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To continue the analogy; maybe my friend says “Don’t buy me a new vase, but say a prayer for me. Or make a donation to charity.”
That’s how indulgences grew out of the public penances that used to be given, where someone had to (perhaps) wear sackcloth and ashes, or fast, or give alms, or refrain from hearing the whole of Mass, or the like. Instead of having to make satisfaction by performing these kinds of public penances, an indulgence would remit or shorten the period of penance.
That’s the main part to be hammered home: it is a remission of the temporal punishment due to offended justice. The guilt and eternal punishment due to sin is absolved by God, but there remains a worldly (if you like) element.
And since we are bodies as well as souls, penance is a medicine for our bodies and our souls. And since God is gracious, and the communion of saints delights in the love of God, then the power of binding and loosing may be exercised. This is what is meant by the ‘treasury of merits’; all depends upon and is based in and comes from God’s grace and His giving to us, which is unmerited and can never be deserved, or bought, or earned. But those who love the Lord and confirm their wills to His and do all they can to please Him share in the Divine Love, not because they have ‘earned’ it but because the overflowing generosity of God spills over like the waters of a fountain into the bowls. The saints are like mirrors reflecting the light of God and they shine that light onto us in the darkness below.
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Okay, the notion seems to be that indulgences are a way of buying salvation.
That’s wrong. And if someone thinks that they can ‘buy’ their way into heaven, they’re completely mistaken. No Catholic – however ignorant – would say that you can buy an indulgence and get out of hell. Indulgences are for the people on earth and the saved but undergoing purification in purgatory.
The broader question involves the role of penance. The misunderstanding about indulgences hinges on the effects of sin on the soul (and the will, and the reason, and the heart). I genuinely repent of my sins, I have a firm purpose of amendment, I make a good confession, I am absolved, I am totally and completely forgiven my sins by the grace of God. That part is over and done with.
However, the habits I have formed, the cast of mind I have gotten into, the people I have affected, the damage I have done to myself and to others by my sins – those remain. That’s what indulgences – which grew out of the public penances of the church – address. It’s like, say, I indulge my bad temper, get into a row with a friend or family member, and smash a vase.
Later, I’m sorry. I realise my anger is out of control. I repent the sin of wrath, and God forgives me.
What about my friend? Most people, I think, would agree that as a sign of my committment to changing my ways, and to make up for the physical damage I’ve done, I should apologise and buy a replacement vase. Most people, I imagine, would agree that merely saying “Hey, God forgives me, that’s all I need!” is not enough to repair the broken relationship.
My friend may forgive me completely and say I don’t need to buy her a new vase. That’s an indulgence: forgiving me the penal aspects of my bad deed.
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I just failed to post the first comment I’ve disallowed in this discussion. (Not a problem comment, but it was aimed at my own spiritual journey and somewhat criticized the discussion itself. I don’t post those, but I do read them. Thanks.) Pretty cool.
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Good topic and discussion.
as a protestant looking into the catholic world Im having a hard time seeing what is so different about the two worlds here.
It seems that the motive of a indulgence is to set one free from the law of sin and death so that they can walk in the law of the spirit of life in Christ in a more liberating way.
Surely when James said to confess your sins one to another and be healed he wasnt talking about being born again but rather being healed in a deeper way by the humility of confession.
If one has a hard time with porn it can help to overcome by confessing to someone and spending some extra time in prayer at church or serving others in some way. One usually hears this preached at some point. If someone stole something and they confessed isnt it still good to make some type of reparation?
I do see this as a grace, as paul says if we build with the wrong motives we are as yet saved as by fire. It seems that the purifying effect of purging is a gift to be conformed into the image of Christ.
Peter talking about being partakers of the devine nature through great and precous promises seems to be all about the process of the finishe work of Christ being infused and experienced as a reality in times of suffering.
St. John of the Cross said that the purifying nature of trials of this life and the dark night of the soul is the same nature as pergatory.
James said to count it all joy because the trial of your faith is more precous than gold.
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Wow, great discussion . . . too much said to comment on, but to add a few words. In my humble opinion there is only a mouse’s eyelash that separates the medieval church from the American Evangelical church when it comes to penitence, and even indulgences. There is more than similarities between a monastery hidden away the Italian Dolomites in 1200 and a Navigator training center in Kentucky in the 1980s (which I experienced) save maybe the use of whips for the mortification of the flesh. Didn’t I hear something recently about putting lipstick on a pig . . . but it’s still a pig?
As good Navigators we didn’t buy less punishment, but we did buy Shaklee Vitamins, give money to support various staff in order to win the pleasure of our leaders (thus the smile of God).
Chronically, we Christians have got it wrong. We speak with forked tongue . . . when God looks at us he sees the righteousness of Christ. Yet, at the same time, we live like we think when God looks at us, he sees our inadequacies, it really pisses Him off and He’s going to eventually pay us back. But we can’t have it both ways can we?
I’ve written on my site about how a non-Dualist should look at justification, and God’s gift of the law for quality living . . . not winning his pleasure or reducing our punishment.
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Well Mark, my hat’s off to you. You laid it out there as plain as I’ve ever heard it, and that saves a lot of time.
You’re a good egg 🙂
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iMonk:
See, that’s probably part of it. As I said to the great frustration of Scott Hahn the other day, the whole of the Reformation controversy about justification has never made any sense to me at all. I suspect that this is due to a) my Arminian Evangelical background that’s always had tons of room for things like “Please be patient, God is not finished with me yet” (which was and remains an expression of pure Christian common sense as far as I can see), and the fact that C.S. Lewis more or less immunized me from such (I think) false dichotomies when he pointed out that asking whether we are saved by faith or works is like asking which blade does the cutting on the scissors. So the Catholic account of salvation has never given me any trouble, while statements like “sins are forgiven in total and righteousness is the gift of God by grace through faith apart from works” are unintelligible to me.
As I say, the sins of the unmerciful servant do not at all seem to me to have been forgiven “in total”. It appears to me that we are responsible to work out our salvation in fear and trembling (blade two of the scissors) because it is God who works in us (blade one of the scissors). I get the righteousness is a gift of God thing. I can make nothing of the “apart from works” business. I can grasp that you can’t earn the love of God. I can’t conceive how you can be saved without incarnating the love of God in concrete acts.
That’s probably why I don’t see the big deal with indulgences. They’re just one minor way grace is incarnated, as far as I can see. And since, when we aren’t talking about indulgences, it appears to me that Protestants (including Lutherans) basically seem to live in a way better described by Catholic theology than by their own, I’ve more or less chalked much of the disagreement up to eupocrisy (which is a good thing, by the way). I figure, if Protestants want to avoid indulgences: fine. They still tend to believe and live out the parable of the sheep and the goats, by and large. And the big takeaway from that parable is emphatically not “sins are forgiven in total and righteousness is the gift of God by grace through faith apart from works”.
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john, EASY THERE, hoss.
Nobody threatened you.
But if you were so deleriously catechized that you tried to worship Mary and didn’t notice that -nobody- else was talking or thinking the way you were, then you may actually qualify for a parochial school refund.
One behalf of all Catholics everywhere, I apologize that you were duped into Mariolatry…?
I’m assuming you’re not a Catholic today. Which means that you probably never talked to a priest about your errors and misconceptions about Catholicism while you were one of us. I don’t know what to tell you about that.
As a former little-kid, I can tell you honestly that I never thought Catholics worshipped Mary, and I remember the first time I heard about it, I couldn’t even conceive that anybody could think that Catholics worshipped Mary. I was told like this: “There are other churches out there that don’t have crosses on them. Those are Protestant churches. If you ever meet one of them, they’ll try to tell you we worship Mary, and that the Pope is the anti-Christ. Don’t listen to them.”
I don’t want to derail this great discussion any further with this tangent (Indulgences > Mary), but maybe the next time that issue comes up here, I’ll watch for a post from you on it? I’ve never in my life met somebody who claimed to have worshipped Mary. Sorry if I jumped on you too rough.
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Points made on the Mary thing. Let’s leave that alone please. It’s off topic and was from the outset.
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C’mon Mark.
You know that Josh S, myself and others are all talking about justification in Lutheran terms, i.e. sins are forgiven in total and righteousness is the gift of God by grace through faith apart from works.
That’s spelled “tragic necessity,” and it’s not just going on in my head.
It’s commendable that anyone in your position would say it shouldn’t have happened. I lament that it had to happen, and I wish that events and personalities on both sides (per Vat II) would have made the entire matter something more reasonable. But Trent found the Lutheran view of justification wrong, and we believe that’s the heart of the matter, Prodigal Son and elsewhere.
Tim Keller, The Prodigal God, explains it a lot better than I do.
MS
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I grew up Catholic and was taught to worship Mary. We worshiped Mary with little emphasis on a relationship with the Trinitarian God. So I would disagree with his statement.
The RCC’s inability to catechize its people is well known….hence the worship of Mary.
Soooooo… You were or weren’t catechized to worship Mary?
I don’t see the need to warn me about Catholics and Priests. Please tell me what you all might do to me??? seriously.
Eye roll.
My only point is that ‘error’ can occur with Mary and has frequently in the recent history of the RCC.
This claim is a marvel of vagueness!
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And Patrick, if you read what I wrote, you can see that I never said that my church worshipped Mary. I said I worshipped Mary. I am comfortable with admitting that I was wrong in that worship. But, does it really matter??? I participated in the sacrament of confession monthly, and attended mass every week without fail.
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iMonk:
I’m really not trying to be polemical. And I’m aware of the tenor of pre-V2 popular apologetics. It can be very off-putting. It’s just that I’m still trying to get a grasp on exactly what in the Church’s teaching on indulgences constitutes a departure from the gospel at all, let alone one so grave that the Reformation remain a tragic necessity. I’m really not seeing it. The theology is not anti-biblical, so far as I can see. The praxis is of such negligible import in the everyday lives of Catholics that, biblical or not, it’s hardly a blip on the radar. And yet, for reasons that still elude me, you find it critical–and refer me to something some guy wrote 50 years ago.
I’m still not tracking what you are trying to say. That Catholics vary in how they analogize about indulgences when you compare 50 years ago to today? Okay. That indulgences don’t seem to be implied by the parable of the prodigal son? Granted. Likewise, a lot of other gospel stuff is not implied by the parable. That Fr. Smith is offputting in his legal mechanical analogies and snotty to Protestants? I haven’t read him fully, but I wouldn’t be surprised, given the period in which he’s writing. That analogies that depend on financial and legal imagery limp? True. But Jesus still uses them and, in any case, I don’t think Purgatory and Indulgence always require such imagery.
It’s how you get from these observations to “the Reformation remains a tragic necessity” that I’m just not following. Somewhere in what you write you are doing the math in your head (perhaps out of long habit) and not showing your work. I’m not seeing how you get from point a to point b.
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I don’t see the need to warn me about Catholics and Priests. Please tell me what you all might do to me??? seriously.
My only point is that ‘error’ can occur with Mary and has frequently in the recent history of the RCC. The RCC’s inability to catechize its people is well known….hence the worship of Mary.
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john, because I laughed at your post, I feel the need to warn you that this blog is absolutely full of Catholics (some of whom are priests, even), and you’re never going to convince any of us that you were part of the RCC if your church “worshipped” Mary. Sorry, bro.
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Mr Shea said, “All the Protestant terror that Mary is another god for Catholics is totally and completely phantasmal. I’ve never met a soul who thinks this despite all the bogeyman terrors of her I encountered in Evangelicalism.”
I grew up Catholic and was taught to worship Mary. We worshiped Mary with little emphasis on a relationship with the Trinitarian God. So I would disagree with his statement.
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Mark:
I can say with reasonable certainty that the Fr. Smith book casts complete doubt on the possibility of Protestant salvation. I won’t quote it out of good taste, but you can read it and decide for yourself.
On the other hand, this is really a complete distortion, taking two phrases and making them say what you wanted and what I never intended:
> If, as you say, Fr. Smith’s God (and apparently the God of all Catholics since “the Reformation remains a tragic necessity”) is “not the God of Jesus”, then it necessarily follows that you think all Catholics are going to hell, which you obviously don’t think.
Frankly, Mark, your attitude towards these issues seems primarily polemical and defensive. I printed the Fr. Smith piece entire, without comment and with only a few sentences indicating that it was on a topic where we differ.
I then stated plainly that Fr. Smith’s DESCRIPTION of God and my own reading of the GOD of the story of the Prodigal Son story don’t harmonize. Taking that and turning me into a polemicist attacking the salvation of all Catholics seems off track.
No one, not in all the months I’ve blogged on these issues, ever accused me of saying anything resembling “Catholics aren’t Christians.” But a basically polemical approach takes any statement of disagreement and multiplies it by whatever is necessary to make it, by implication, exactly that.
I’ll say that’s unfair. It’s not in any way similar to what Fr. Smith says, which is typical pre-Vat II polemics.
MS
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Michael,
…
I don’t have any answers, I just a single woman struggling to be person God wants me to be.
I don’t put any weight on indulgences, and yet a bank of holiness that can be shared by all those who are called by His Name makes intuitive sense. I just hope that I am depositing so that others can withdraw on my account.
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One other thought I’d like to add in relation to Reformation Day tomorrow:
I’d like to express my sincere thanks to God and to the many Evangelical believers in Christ whom I have learned from over the course of my life as a believer.
In addition, many of the ministries that I have been involved in as a Catholic (National Evangelization Teams, Catholic Christian Outreach, Charismatic Renewal, the Companions of the Cross) have benefited greatly from your insights, wisdom, and zeal for sharing the Gospel in our modern world and inviting others to encounter Christ.
May the Lord continue to do great things in you and through you for His glory.
Fr. Terry Donahue, CC
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Well, if you want a post-Vatican II Magisterial look at the topic, Paul VI encyclical “INDULGENTIARUM DOCTRINA” is worth a look: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19670101_indulgentiarum-doctrina_en.html
For what it’s worth, the only difference I see between Father Smith and Father Donahue is one of empasis rather than belief. The later might put the doctrine in a more nuanced, approachable way, but the doctrine remains.
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iMonk,
I do appreciate what you’re saying about the diversity of expressions of the Catholic faith, and I do feel the pain of situations such as yours.
As a director of Lay Formation for our community, I place a high value on accuracy, clarity and proper balance of emphasis when doing evangelization, catechesis or apologetics.
Regarding the above text from Father Smith, I find that it emphasizes the mechanical aspects of the teaching to the detriment of the relational. Also, while I agree with the technical points he makes on how indulgences work (many of which are straightforward restatements of the Catechism), I disagree with his characterization of God’s attitude and action towards the repentant sinner (the very same part that you highlighted): “But if your sorrow was not as earnest and intense as God would have from you, He would possibly show His displeasure by sending you a little misfortune”
As Alan clearly pointed out above, the problem with this is that temporal punishment “must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin†(CCC 1472).
Vatican II and recent Popes have gone a long way towards representing the Catholic faith in a way that accurately expresses both the heart-level relationship with God as well as the head-level doctrinal content.
For example, my heart soared when I was at World Youth Day in Toronto in 2002 and heard Pope John Paul II’s words ring out:
“Although I have lived through much darkness, under harsh totalitarian regimes, I have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of the young… Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father’s love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.” (http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/homilies/2002/documents/hf_jp-ii_hom_20020728_xvii-wyd_en.html)
But there is still much to be done to address your dilemma, as the Church is in constant need of reform. I think we can both work towards a solution (each from our own vantage points) by exploring recent Magisterial expressions of the Catholic faith, discussing them openly, critically but respectfully (at both heart and head levels), and encouraging others to do the same. Then the other expressions of Catholic teaching can be understood in light of the best and most authoritative formulations.
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If Fr. Smith’s articulation and yours are so different, and the answer is “The RCC is so vast and diverse that there are all these various articulations†then what is the difference when compared with the diversity of Protestantism?
It seems to me you’re majoring in minors here. Different images are used to try to describe the theology of purgatory and indulgences. But all the people doing the explaining agree that indulgence and purgatory are real. It’s just the analogies being employed to point to them that vary. Complaining that the analogies vary while overlooking the fact that they all agree there is something real being described seems to me like saying “The Resurrection accounts all differ widely, so I can’t believe in the Resurrection.”
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I reading Vatican II on ecumenism and my wife reading Fr. Smith who clearly believes I am going to hell.
This seems to be drawing nearer to the nub of the issue.
a) How do you know Fr. Smith thinks you are going to hell?
b) Even if he did (which I doubt), why does it matter what Fr. Smith thinks?
c) If, as you say, Fr. Smith’s God (and apparently the God of all Catholics since “the Reformation remains a tragic necessity”) is “not the God of Jesus”, then it necessarily follows that you think all Catholics are going to hell, which you obviously don’t think.
d) That’s why I don’t think you’ve really figured out what you are saying. You seem to be writing under the lash of terror. I honestly feel bad for you for that. Whatever the cause, I’m skeptical that it’s really from the Holy Spirit and I hope you can find your way to peace on this. You’ll be in my prayers.
e) Meanwhile, consider this: if you can say things which make it sound as though you think Catholics are all going to Hell, even though you don’t think that, consider the possibility of extending to Fr. Smith the same slack and supposing that he is not so judgmental as all that.
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To make the Trinity on the same level as purgatory and indulgences makes me laugh, cry, and almost curse.
I never said they were “on the same level”. I said they are both doctrines which spring from apostolic tradition, which is both written and unwritten. You, because of historical accidents, have retained enough apostolic tradition allow you to see that aspect of the Tradition called “Trinitarianism” in Scripture. By similiar historical accidents, you have not retained that aspect of Tradition that allows you to see the Church’s faith in the communion of saints, redemptive suffering and various other truths which are also reflected in Scripture. This might help explain what I’m getting at.
Purgatory and Indulgences are completely foreign to the text of Scripture.
No. They are not. They are reflected in Scripture, in fact, for *more* clearly than stuff like “salvation by faith alone” or the human tradition of sola scriptura.
The issue is not that the Bible cannot support either doctrine. It’s that you don’t have the glasses on that allow you to see what the Bible says that supports it. Certainly passages are mysteriously opaque to you because you are trapped in a paradigm that forbids you from seeing that they might, in fact, be read as Catholics read them and might, indeed, be intended to be read that way by the authors.
Indulgences and Purgatory are not on the same level at all. They cannot be found, either implicitly or explicitly in the New Testament.
Wrong. All the basic building blocks for these doctrines are already reflected in the Scriptures, as I point out. However, your system forbids you from acknowledging that.
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iMonk,
I echo your appreciation of Fr. Terry’s participation. Actually, his explaination is the way I tend to look at the issue, hich is why in my comments I put the qualifier of the ecclesiastically quantifiable nature be what’s problematic to me. The acts themselves are fine. And the stuff I find problematic is really nitpicky areas of ecclesiology for me, not deal breakers.
But, hey, I’ve come to be pretty dang ecumenical in my almost-30’s. Denominational diversity among my family and friends has led to that.
What we really need on both sides of the Tiber are clergy, scholars, and other leaders who champion the old addage “In essentials unity, in non-essentials diversity, and in all things charity” rather than being so dogmatic about the non-essentials. Wasn’t that part of the reason for Vatican II?
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Holy goodness, Batman! I wonder if it deserves saying here at the bottom of the comment pit that (not as I’m aware – and I’m pretty sure about this) The Catholic Church does not hold or teach that any indulgences are required for anyone to be “saved” – not even for anyone to be fully and completely transformed/sanctified, any of that. There are a few pieces of comments above that seem to hint that this is what the Church may be handing out, “if you don’t pray this novena standing on your head for 9 hours, you cannot enter heaven.” Not AT ALL. Not at all.
Someone else said that indulgences aren’t about justification but sanctification. I think this is right. And yes, I know the language is all mixed up between both sides of the aisle here (justification, sanctification, salvation). I’ll add that indulgences aren’t even taught as necessary for one to “get out of” purgatory. They are simply offered as a part of the way to help with the process of sanctification. You can take them or not.
Confused, I’m glad anything I said was helpful in some way. I almost mentioned that we could probably use a good dose of theologically hanging out with the Orthodox on things like this. I’m no big expert, but I do see a move toward this kind of relational understanding of the purgation process. It may have always been the heart of it, but our Western theological language has evolved to explain it in a way quite different from our Eastern siblings. Anyway, I think it’s possible to see and talk about these things in new (perhaps very old) ways despite the language used to describe them.
And I do realize that legal language is used in Scripture, a lot. There are good times to use it. But it’s not the only language used, nor is it probably the majority. It’s a part, for sure, but in the end, they are human analogies used by God to speak His unfathomable Truth to broken humans. Even the more commonly used family/relational analogy is still just that and we’ll run into its limitations here and there. Ah, for a full and complete understanding of God and all His bitniss. One day, one day. Peace.
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Fr. Terry,
I appreciate your participation.
Once again, we Protestants are faced with two voices. Fr. Smith whose book continues to articulate the faith of millions of Catholic clergy and laity, and your far more articulate eloquence. You are not presenting two different ideas, but the differences are profound.
In Protestantism we are quite used to this. John Macarthur is not Tim Keller. TBN is not IVP. But coming from your side, it’s incredibly confusing because of your constant claims to unity. (See Mr. Cross’s blog for details.)
If Fr. Smith’s articulation and yours are so different, and the answer is “The RCC is so vast and diverse that there are all these various articulations” then what is the difference when compared with the diversity of Protestantism?
You see, I can simply say that Fr. Smith’s God who would send someone a small misfortune unless they get to a new church or some other nonsense, is just WRONG. It’s not the God of Jesus, who forgives and forgives to the point of embarassment and tells us to do the same, 70 X 70. The God who is watching to see if I read the Bible 26 minutes or 30 in order to get a full Indulgence is more terrifying to me than Allah.
But this kind of diversity isn’t supposed to come from your side. Yet here we sit in my house, I reading Vatican II on ecumenism and my wife reading Fr. Smith who clearly believes I am going to hell.
And here are my RC friends telling me I’m just not broad minded enough.
Can you feel the pain over here, Fr.?
Peace
MS
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I think this portion of the interview strikes the deepest chord with me – that is, regarding my understanding of the divide:
“By your good confession, the guilt of the mortal sin was removed, and also the eternal punishment, which you deserved. But if your sorrow was not as earnest and intense as God would have from you, He would possibly show His displeasure by sending you a little misfortune, or, if you died after your confession you might be punished for a brief period in Purgatory. This would be the temporal punishment deserved for your sin. The temporal punishment may be removed by the performance of penances, good works, prayers, etc., but by an “Indulgence,†the Church applies to your soul the merits of Christ for the complete expiation of your fault.”
What is the gist I get from this? That, operationally, this is a works emphasized faith being described here. Putting the indulgence issue aside and any potential Protestant misconceptions, the underlying root of the divide rests on origins of saving faith. It seems that when issues like indulgences, veneration, liturgy, views on communion, etc. come up and are discussed they all boil down to a view which either supports a reliance on a faith which is ignited by works or a faith ignited by grace. That is…with this description it’s works then faith then grace, not grace then faith then works.
Brad
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Josh S writes: Will God grant you pardon even if you did something the pope didn’t attach an indulgence to, or if you performed the conditions after the expiration date?
Every act of prayer or charity done with faith in Christ and motivated by love open us to the grace and mercy of God, regardless of whether there is an indulgence attached. The hand of God’s mercy, made available through the infinite merits of Christ’s death and resurrection, is in no way limited by particular conditions for indulgences.
Indulgences are one small way to point to God’s mercy. They are a recognition that we can receive help from the Body of Christ in that process of healing and purification that Christ is bringing about in us. And we can offer that help to others who after death are having the “wood, hay and straw” (1 Cor 3:12) of impure works “burned up” as they “suffer loss” but are “saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:15), through the purifying love of God who is like “the refiner’s fire” (Mal 3:3).
Indulgences are not the only way that expresses this spiritual communion in the Body of Christ, but it is one way. This strengthens unity in the body of Christ. That’s why I agree with the commenters above who emphasize the relational (not mechanical) aspect of indulgences.
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Patrick,
I intend no argument, as I am not even Orthodox, but I have heard several Orthodoxy refer to the few centuries prior to the 20th as the “Western Captivity,” where, due to various political realities, the Eastern Church temporarily because very influenced by the Western Church. I followed one of the footnotes from the Wikipedia article you referenced, and the article it led to seems to confirm this theory (or at least that it is a theory). From the first paragraph:
“In the 16th—18th centuries the Greek Church, even though limited in its contacts with the outer world to the borders of the Ottoman Empire, came under a great influence of Western Christianity—greater than did the Russian Church. Here Catholic propaganda worked more effectively, especially with the foundation in 1622 of the Sacred Congregation of the Propaganda of the Faith, for both Greek scholars and theologians had increasing contacts with the West and most of them studied there. These and other factors led to the Greek Church in great part undergoing a Western metamorphosis, according to the expression of Father George Florowsky.”
http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/7185.htm#3
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Mr. Shea
To make the Trinity on the same level as purgatory and indulgences makes me laugh, cry, and almost curse.
Purgatory and Indulgences are completely foreign to the text of Scripture. The Trinity is present all throughout. The complex doctrines of the Trinity were not formally expressed until later councils, but the fact that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Spirit is God were all held by the Apostles. That is manifestly evident in their writings
Indulgences and Purgatory are not on the same level at all. They cannot be found, either implicitly or explicitly in the New Testament.
It is not my intention to be offensive, but we obviously come from different perspectives. From your perspective, the RCC has the authority to tell you what the text of Scripture means. I don’t see the RCC as having the authority to tell me what a passage in 1 Cor. 3 means…
I don’t think any clear reading of the Apostles on their own terms allows for a doctrine of indulgences.
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Patrick Lynch wrote:
Obed, you should write a blog post or something about how a priesthood of all believers should “ecclesiastically†deal with the need of purification and repair for spiritual damage (short of re-baptism, what is there?). It’d probably be out of place in this thread, but that’s an extremely interesting thing to think about.
I guess the whole point is that I don’t think it really needs to be dealt with ecclesiastically. It seems to me that this is more the sort of thing to be dealt with on an individual or family basis. Granted, teachers, mentors, pastors, and brethren to whom one is accountable can help, but it doesn’t need to necessarily be something that’s dealt with ecclesiastically.
For example, I usually know when I need some extra time in the various Spiritual disciplines for the sake of cleaning out some of the junk in my life. And if I’m less aware of it, family and family-like friends are usually more aware and keep me in check.
I really think that the Christian life as established in the NT is a lot less quantifiable than our religious traditions want to make it. It’s not so black-and-white. That’s part of the Law being written on our hearts. That’s part of walking in the Spirit.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that our religious traditions are bad or anything. It just means that they can get too heavy handed in unnecessary areas. I really do think that one of the big weaknesses of the RCC is that it doesn’t allow growth in Christian Liberty. On the other hand, a weakness of much of Evangelicalism is a total disconnect to the historical reality and context of the Church.
That’s the short answer from my POV, at any rate.
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Josh S writes:
Why have partial indulgences at all? Why doesn’t the pope attach plenary indulgences to everything, since this is in his power? It seems rather stingy to not offer as many means out of purgatory as possible…
I’ve noticed that many plenary indulgences have an expiration date… Why put an expiration date on grace?
Indulgences are connected to certain expressions of prayer and devotion in order to draw the attention of the faithful to their value in the spiritual life. Attaching plenary indulgences to literally everything (or making every partial indulgence into a plenary one) would mean that nothing was highlighted.
Some indulgences are given on a particular date or time: visiting a church on the feast day of its consecration, indulgences offered on All Souls day, or renewing one’s baptismal promises on the vigil of Easter or one’s anniversary of baptism. This is also done for pedagogical reasons, to teach the meaning and importance of particular feast days and to make the connection between our expressions of devotion and the rhythms of the liturgical prayer of the Church throughout the year.
But the most important and most central spiritual practices have plenary indulgences attached to them with no restrictions of time or place. For example:
“50. Reading of Sacred Scripture – A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful, who with the veneration due the divine word make a spiritual reading from Sacred Scripture. A plenary indulgence is granted, if this reading is continued for at least one half an hour.†(Sacred Apostolic Penitentiary, Enchiridion of Indulgences – Norms and Grants, 1968)
There are many others like this (connected to adoration of Jesus in the Eucharist, praying the way of the Cross, etc.). For those interested in reading about it directly, here’s the link: http://www.hismercy.ca/content/ebooks/The.Enchiridion.of.Indulgences.pdf
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Patrick…you needn’t bow out on account of me.
As the discussion progresses I think I notice a trend:
Catholics and Protestants have the same questions/anxieties/thoughts as Protestants do…so there is unity at least in the striving towards some sort of holiness/spirituality.
Of course, how we get there is what the debate is all about.
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terri, Rob C nailed it. Excuse me, I’m going to go retire my jersey. I’m out of the game.
Obed, you should write a blog post or something about how a priesthood of all believers should “ecclesiastically” deal with the need of purification and repair for spiritual damage (short of re-baptism, what is there?). It’d probably be out of place in this thread, but that’s an extremely interesting thing to think about.
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Let me re-phrase something for clarity. If we can agree that the Parable of the Prodigal Son (PPS) is a vibrant picture of God’s gratuitous gift of love, culminating in a restored relationship, in a word, justification…[pause for breath]…then we are by default admitting that the parable is not about other aspects of our relationship with the Father, things like sanctification. Indulgences are not about justification. They are about sanctification. And therefore the PPS does not reflect the reality of indulgences.
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terri, I don’t think I know enough off the top of my head to answer you any further… I fear botching the details about this thing in Scriptural and theological terms, and I know I’ll screw up the historical and sociological breakdown I’m trying to make if I keep rambling.. Sorry!
There are good answers to your questions out there (I’m probably the most skeptical onetime-indulgence-receiver ever, and I heard some great ones at the Shrine), but I can’t recreate ’em for you. Maybe somebody else can ballast my explanation or just give you a more comprehensive one.
Confused, as far as I understand, they did, but in a different style, owing in part to their different idea of what salvation is. From the ‘Indulgence’ entry on Wikipedia:
” Because of differences in the underlying doctrine of salvation, indulgences for the remission of temporal punishment of sin do not exist in Eastern Orthodoxy, but until the twentieth century there existed in some places a practice of absolution certificates (συγχωÏοχάÏτια – synchorochartia). While some of these certificates were connected with any patriarch’s decrees lifting for the living or the dead some serious ecclesiastical penalty, including excommunication, the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, with the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, had the sole privilege, because of the expense of maintaining the Holy Places and paying the many taxes levied on them, of distributing such documents in large numbers to pilgrims or sending them elsewhere, sometimes with a blank space for the name of the beneficiary, living or dead, an individual or a whole family, for whom the prayers would be read.
Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Dositheos Notaras (1641-1707) wrote: “It is an established custom and ancient tradition, known to all, that the Most Holy Patriarchs give the absolution certificate (συγχωÏοχάÏτιον – synchorochartion) to the faithful people … they have granted them from the beginning and still do.”[40]”
I think I’ve done the best I can do at this point, if I’m quoting Wikipedia.
I’ll bow out here. Feel free to determine that I’ve missed the point. My feelings won’t be hurt.
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Mamphis Aggie,
What were offensive about my comments on Mary? That I said she was a sinner? That I said she tried to stand in the way of Christ and his ministry?
Sorry, but then you must find scripture offensive.
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Good discussion. I agree with whoever said that much of this discussion is really an outgrowth of different views of “Church”. I also think Eric (the non-apologist) made a great point at 11:40 am.
Indulgences aren’t really about the sufficiency of Christ. Here’s why. Indulgences, as the Catechism points out, can only be “applied” to sins “already forgiven” by Christ. They are not about “forgiveness”. They are about healing. When we sin, damage is done to us, deep down. That some of this damage (consequences of sin) remains after we have been forgiven seems obvious. Is this because the merits of Christ’s death are insufficient? Not in Catholic teaching, anyway, as she teaches that his merits are “super-abundant”. But it certainly seems that, though his merits are super-abundant, he still leaves some effects of our sins (though not the sins themselves) behind. We can speculate as to why that might be (to help us learn, to humble us etc; see Hebrews 12). But the point of indulgences is to help in that process of healing, to help us overcome the consequences of our sins by increasing our sanctification.
As to how all this can tie into the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I guess don’t get the question. Mark Shea makes the good point that one parable is not exhaustive of the full Gospel, and there are plenty of other parables that play up the monetary analogy to salvation. A Catholic could just as easily observe, I just don’t see how the Protestant Gospel of Faith Alone does justice to the Face of God revealed to me in the Parable of the Unjust Servant. A Protestant would be fully justified in replying that, with all due respect, one parable does not the Gospel make.
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Memphis Aggie wrote:
The Catholic view is that Protestant confidence is presumption and thus dangerous because it weakens the fear of God, which is the beginning of Wisdom. Holy fear is not viewing God as an IRS agent but rather, holy fear is fear of the loss of Him through our own failings.
This MAY be the real crux of much of the disagreement. Rather than being presumption, Protestant confidence is the fruit of complete faith that when Jesus said “it is finished,” it is indeed finished. That doesn’t make us any less unworthy. But the whole idea that because of Jesus God isn’t mad at us anymore is the whole basis for the Gospel. That may sometimes lead to us taking grace for granted, but more often it should lead to a joy that such a scary God is so good. Like the Beaver in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe said regarding Aslan, He’s not safe, but He’s good.
All that to say, if Jesus is who the Scriptures say He is and if His sacrifice did what they say it did, we shouldn’t have fear of losing God “through our own failings.” Jesus’ sacrifice and righteousness before God trumps our failings.
By the way, I can dig the idea of doing things to help “cleanse” or “purify” our souls on a temporal level. Sometimes our sin gunks us up spiritually in a way that isn’t about Salvation. But the quantification of such things via indulgences or whatever is problematic to me. But to me, that’s an issue of the preisthood of all believers vs. an ecclesiastical preisthood. If we’re all preists before Him, then having a quantifiable proscribed method of such purification doesn’t make sense.
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Sorry to beat a dead horse, but on the “tradition” issue, I don’t think most Evangelicals realize how differently tradition developed in the West and the East. I know that, for years, I thought Orthodox and Roman Catholics were basically the same. Imonk, if you don’t mind, I’d like to post a link to this very brief summary. Indulgences are hit on in section 11:
http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/reading/ortho_cath.html
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Mark S:
Your well known trump card on tradition. We can’t know the Trinity, etc from the Bible.
To which Protestants say that if we accept your view, that still doesn’t lead us to any number of things the RCC claims for itself, and the Protestant view of tradition as articulated by any number of non-ignoramuses will yield all the tradition necessary to have orthodoxy and then some.
peace
MS
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I totally don’t get how you can say that indulgences don’t feed insecurity about one’s eternal fate. Didn’t the priest quoted in the article say that the indulgence doesn’t work if one’s heart/motivations aren’t right? How is that any different from a protestant wondering if he really believed in Jesus enough when he converted?
So….indulgences are a way to soothe one’s anxiety over one’s eternal fate….as long as you’re sure you really mean it.
That’s not very different at all anxiety-wise.
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I have heard comments about how Indulgences are part of the “Apostolic teaching of the church,” etc. My question then is, setting all the problems of Protestants aside, why did such teaching not develop in the East? And, I don’t think it’s fair to bring up “Toll Houses,” since that’s something of a minority view held mainly ultra-Orthodox Russians.
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Josh S, that’s begging the question. An indulgence, like other parts of the liturgical life and the sacraments, are things you attend and participate in, not things you affirm. It’s not Christmas every weekend, and we don’t have Indulgences every Sunday, and you can’t hit up your parish and bring yourself home some Eucharists to eat throughout the day, but just because we’ve got practices we stick to doesn’t mean our idea of grace is “stingy”. If you miss a plenary indulgence and you really want one, survive until the next one is offered in your diocese, or make a pilgrimage. That’s just the way things are in our tribe.
“So the pope puts expiration dates on pardon and limits your ways of getting out of your purgatorial punishment because of liturgical considerations. It still doesn’t make sense out of the stinginess of grace. You also never answered whether or not God observes the pope’s expiration dates.”
Indulgences aren’t rare. Somebody here mentioned that saying the Rosary is a type of indulgence.
As for Luther’s beliefs, I’m not very familiar with them, but I do think that post-Luther, Christians started constructing their beliefs on an ontology that the early Church wouldn’t have recognized. Which was my general point, and why I said this:
“The Indulgence, plenary or otherwise, with the requisite pilgrmage, calls to prayer, and timeliness of its offering, makes no sense if you believe that faith in Jesus is emphatic, persevering on some doctrine of personal holiness or particular redemption, predestined, or maintain any other modified view of the nature of grace such as would lead you in another direction entirely – to the inevitable either/or dichotomy of “am I saved?â€
The “am I saved?” question (and it’s follow-up, “am I SURE I’m saved?”) haunts a lot of people, and while it doesn’t stalk Lutherans nearly as much as others (Evangelicals?), I do think that the agony of that kind of anxiety (which, I think is natural, but I can’t say if it’s natural to Christian life..) is alleviated in large part by Indulgences similarly but more coherently than the twice-a-year Revival thing that lots of Christians find themselves participating in.
Feel free to school me on what Luther’s deal with the church was. All I (think I) know is, there was rampant corruption around his diocese, that he was logical and angry about it, and that he left the church because of it and took a lot of people with him, and that within a surprisingly short time, there were a LOT of people who left the church to do their own Christian thing.
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+Alan,
your comments below sound very much like what I understand to be the Eastern Orthodox view of sin and redemption, and this is why, although still a rather dissatisfied Evangelical, I find myself still drawn to that system. If I wanted math equations, scientific theories, etc., I would just become a confessional Presbyterian. I want so badly for my heart to be healed. I am a miserable sinner, but if I only want forgiveness, how much do I love God? THAT’s my problem with much of Evangelicalism– only being justification focused (or, if sanctification focused, often in a “Holiness” boot strap sort of way). However, little of what I’ve heard from Catholics sounds much less legalistic. What you say in your comments is wonderful, and if that’s a sign of where Catholic theology is headed, then I offer a hearty “Amen!” Maybe it’s really just a return to early Patristic theology? Maybe this could be a great sign for relations between Rome and Constantinople? But, to agree some with the Imonk, I don’t see how two churches who basically cannot admit that they are wrong can ever really reach a compromise.
“Personally, I find the extremely legal (penal) language used even in the Catechism now, unfortunate. Trying to explain the kind of damage done by sin to our spiritual/soulish insides with terms like temporal punishment due to sin is problematic. Even using the word punishment doesn’t help things. I say that because once the sin is forgiven, we’re really not talking about punishment for sin any more. Some theologians came up with that term trying to explain something once upon a time. I’ll put in my vote for an update.
It’s really about fully healing inner damage that sin has done to us – not about guilt or punishment. The guilt is forgiven – that’s done. After that we should be talking about the fact that when we act sinfully, some real metaphysical damage is done to our insides. It’s not just about we did a bad thing, God doesn’t like it, put a black X on our record, we said we’re sorry, he took the X off and it’s all good. Sin is kind of organic, I guess you could say – it’s a part of our life and as we act “in it,†it acts in us, twisting and damaging us (some things more than others) and even when we’re forgiven of any guilt, some of the damage may remain and we’re weaker for it – like having a “spiritual bad knee†or something.”
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Josh
Thanks for the clarification on Reformation Day.
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Some of the confusion is my use of language I think. Catholics hold that justification (not salvation) is given as a gift, sanctification takes a lifetime or longer and we have a role to play in it (we are said to cooperate with grace) and salvation is the end result.
Back to obeying the Church and God: to me there is no conflict and if there is an apparent conflict that is generally a misunderstanding on my part. Whenever I perceived an apparent conflict I have looked deeper and found either that the Church is flexible on the point or that my reasoning is faulty. Some doctrines are just articles of faith and if you don’t share that belief you simply pray about it, confess it and in time I find I believe. Catholicism is in part a Faith in the Church as the literal Body of Christ and as such it’s incumbent on the faithful to remain in Him. I don’t separate my belief in Christ from my Faith in the Church just like you probably could not separate your faith in Christ from the your faith in the Bible.
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Reading many of the comments here reinforces my thought that this more about one’s definition of “the church” and the related question of authority than it is about indulgences and The Reformation.
The controversy about indulgences and Luther are more symptoms of that divide. Coming to read this post with a narrow definition of “church” as an institution with full authority will lead to specific answers to the questions/issues presented.
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By the way, that fact that “Reformation Day†displaces All Saints day is worthy of an argument in and of itself.
Reformation day is Oct 31. All Saints’ Day is Nov 1. Lutherans observe both.
and realized that the answer isn’t one of ‘generosity’ but of liturgical time and the rhythms of a living church.
So the pope puts expiration dates on pardon and limits your ways of getting out of your purgatorial punishment because of liturgical considerations. It still doesn’t make sense out of the stinginess of grace. You also never answered whether or not God observes the pope’s expiration dates.
You seem to have very little understanding of the Reformation and Luther’s theology. I don’t see my beliefs or Luther’s anywhere in what you said.
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Patrick Lynch:
“If somebody feels the need to crawl on their hands and knees in earnest prayer to God for joy or forgiveness, I’m pretty sure I’d be a Biblically unsound jackass to discourage them. Different strokes for different folks, right?”
Really? Where does that stop? Should I get out my whip, or razor blades? I’m pretty sure that I’d be a Biblically unsound jackass to not remind people that Jesus’ yoke is easy and his burden is light.
I understand that Marian devotions and Indulgences are not the same, but they are related in that they both seem point to an understanding of the Christian life where Christ and his sacrifice was insufficient for full justification, sanctification, and mediation. So, from a Protestant perspective, Indulgences, and Marian devotions are a way of compensating for the perceived shortcomings of Christ.
I won’t respond again. Others have argued the point more articulately than I, and I’m supposed to be working right now. 🙂
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Many Saints failed in their reforms at first and persisted for years through whatever means available – except that of leaving the Church. When time comes to acknowledge the authority of the Church it is not optional. If Luther as an ordained Catholic priest took an oath of obedience to his Bishop, as all priests do today, then he would have broken his vow before God. Maybe someone out there knows if Luther did take such a vow.
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Wow. This is depressing. I am going to break away again.
Foundation day, see acts 2:38.
If given the choice to disobey a “church” or disobey my God as He has taught me, I don’t need much time to think.
I was not saved in a church, I was saved at the bumper of a ’67 chevy. I was not saved by a preacher, I was saved by the Holy Spirit. I wasn’t in a body of believers, I was alone. I wasn’t saved by a theology, I hadn’t been in a church in years, I was a happy agnostic. I just asked why all snowflakes are different, or at least all not alike, and I was flooded with a presence that convicted me of the deapth of my sin and the height of His love. The most real moment in my life. He has never left me, though I have walked away from him.
People here think I care not about sanctification? I’m not where I’m headed, but I’m not where I’ve been. He will cleanse me.
As I needed no church to save me I need no church to Apply anything to my soul, intervene for me or pray for me. Jesus did it all. If you need something else go for it, but know that you are going beyond Him.
Thanks for reminding me why scripture is so important as a source of common ground and a hub of thought. The further we stray the odder we get.
I’m gonna go read Mark.
I feel the way Monk’s picture looks.
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terri, you write:
“to me….I view singing/praying/venerating/looking for guidance from, as worship.
To me….I see attaching a donation to mitigating temporal punishment for a sin as “buying†forgiveness.
For either of those doctrines to be practiced according to the information presented in Michael’s post, everything is dependent on a person’s motivation and correctness in how the indulgence is approached.”
This is kind of near the heart of my earlier post to Josh S. In the Catholic view, there isn’t much of this ‘to me…’ business that can comfortably fit into a life of faith. This isn’t because they want to direct everybody’s thoughts and behavior, but because culture and experience equip different peoples differently, and we tend to fight or hang for our private judgments and speculations more than we ever would for a real faith – and most of the time, we’re not honest enough with ourselves to look inside and know the difference. The church assumes (and with some good sense) that an excessively personal religiosity is one whose sense of religious allegory and instruction is limited to whatever metaphors people find most culturally appealing, and criticism is reserved for those culturally-dissonant meanings of allegory and instruction that cause us discomfort. The Catholic Church has a different view on the human capacity for sincerity and belief than the Protestants do, and for a historical reason: the church came of age in a post-philosophical age among a bunch of Jews, and the Reformation jumped off at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Different assumptions have been in play ever since, and that’s part of the lensing effect that causes American Protestantism to have this distorted vision of worldwide Catholicism from the first.
The idea of “God as an IRS agent” is viewed negatively by some of us because, lets face it, nobody likes taxes and we think they’re unfair, so we emphasize a dialectic of forgiveness and fairness instead of one of, to put it in the parlance of our times, “Jesus coming to tax that ass” ; therefore, we cut ourselves off reflexively from the full interpenetration of metaphor in the words of Jesus, such as “Give to Caesar what is Caesars, and Give to God what is God’s”. Which is in large part, the sad affirmation of the paradox that in righteousness, we don’t ultimately get to keep ANYTHING to ourselves. Even, I think, our supposedly-precious ‘right to an opinion’.
The Catholic church’s position is, there’s a definite distinction, and that worship of God (to say nothing of God among other gods!) and intercessory prayer are two different things. If you persistently imagine otherwise, says the Church, you’re out of sync with what people are doing, and furthermore, you don’t really know what you’re talking about, and ideally, you should look at your short life of fervor, failure, misunderstanding and limited experience and conclude as much. And if you were a preacher and taking money for misconstruing Catholic teaching, you’d be teaching error, making baby Jesus cry, etc. The church doesn’t want you to just form your own Opinions about what other people are and aren’t doing and start a club for people who agree with you.
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Well then…the question becomes “Who is the keeper of a man’s conscience?”
If Luther, as a Catholic priest, tried to reform what he saw as God’s Church, of which he was a member and leader, what else could he have done?
Recant, indeed.
Recant of something he felt led by God to declare. What sort of choice is that?
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Well I wasn’t there but I’m sure he was given a chance to recant before they tossed him. That’s the way it’s generally done.
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memphis aggie….correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a while since I studied this, but wasn’t it the RCC that gave Martin Luther the boot, rather than him leaving to start his own church?
My understanding is that Luther never meant to actually split the church by nailing those 95 these to the door, but was simply trying to get the attention of the church of which he was a part.
Am I remembering incorrectly?
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that should be “responding to God’s pull”
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I would also add that formally breaking from the Church places whatever cause above unity and obedience. So the reasons must really be important. Sanctification as I understand it, is conforming your will to Christs through submission to Him and to His Church. Obedience to the Church is a practice that helps by developing humility. Yes I fully appreciate how alien that is to modern ears (eyes?). I like the example St Francis De Sales gave of a horse that is so well trained it responds immediately to the slightest tug of it’s rein by his master. I seek to be like that horse, responding to Gods.
Protestants began with disobedience and a formal break. In my view “Reformation” as a term is inherantly false in that Protestant Churches are newly founded entities rather than reformed Catholic Churches. St Francis of Assisi reformed the Church. Luther founded a new Church. “Foundation Day” or even “Independence Day” would be more accurate.
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anthony, you wrote:
““Yes; unless remitted through the APPLICATION of Christ’s merits to the soul BY THE CHURCH, by the grant of an Indulgence.â€
“No; the CHURCH ATTACHES Indulgences to certain prayers, or good works, which BECOME EFFECTIVE…â€
“since the CHURCH MAKES most Indulgences APPLICABLE to them.â€
Who is this “church†the father describes as having this type of authority?”
This is a real honest way of asking this question, to which, if you do a little non-wikipedia reading on apostolic succession, you’ll find some direct answers to.
As for all this “CHURCH” business, it may help you to understand that the Catholic church views people who believe in Jesus but refuse to participate in the actual church his successors established (which the Catholic Church identifies itself as) are called “separated brethren”, and whose leaders, however good and faithful they might be, aren’t mandated teachers of the faith. The CHURCH (RCC), as you put it, thus differentiates itself from ANY IDIOT WITH A BIBLE (AIWaB) – but, like, formally.
In other words, it’s Toootally an ego thing.
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The Catholic view is that Protestant confidence is presumption and thus dangerous because it weakens the fear of God, which is the beginning of Wisdom. Holy fear is not viewing God as an IRS agent but rather, holy fear is fear of the loss of Him through our own failings.
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Bror,
You sum up most of the differences well. I agree with the salvation by faith alone, but Protestants don’t get/believe in sanctification.
Your comments about Mary are offensive; I hope that was not your intent.
I apologize if you found my comments offensive, I can be abrasive at times (just ask Mark Shea).
Rob,
The recognized Saints are closer to God than you or me and we do believe in a hierarchy in Heaven. What do you make of the “take the lowest place” parable? I certainly don’t expect the treatment and respect a Maximilian Kolbe deserves and since God is both just and merciful I expect He will give greater honor to those that deserve it after He has shown mercy by saving us at all. It’s not some democracy. Christ is King and Apostles have Thrones we are privileged beyond measure to be subjects at any level. I expect to serve.
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I am sorry if this harsh, but ALL I am still reading is that indulgences=self-guilt relief… what has happen to learning to forgive self as God has forgiven. Eph. 4:32 Christ has either paid for all sins and makes way for a clear conscience if we truly seek to be healed or He has not! Sola Fida; Sola Gratia; Sola Christus!!! Let be forever and ever!
I believe we make more out of something that is nto really not there, so my hearts cry is that we embrace what is true in Scripture, not make laws that are not even applied within it.
If any laws we are to obtain would be that of Judism, for it through them God estabilsh the Law, not through Gentiles. (food for thought)
Be Blessed by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ..
Mike W.
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Eric R, Marian devotions aren’t the same as indulgences. Actually, the broadness of folk Catholicism is, in my opinion, one of the coolest things about the faith. Remember, the early church recognized a saint who hung out on a pillar for 30 years, as well as guys who moved out into the desert and ate locusts and give advice. People are not going to act “theologically-prudent” and stick to some of our regional sensibilities, but that doesn’t mean that their actions aren’t grounded in firm faith or buttressed by Catholic teaching in one form or another. If somebody feels the need to crawl on their hands and knees in earnest prayer to God for joy or forgiveness, I’m pretty sure I’d be a Biblically unsound jackass to discourage them. Different strokes for different folks, right?
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I realize I’m coming in late with this observation, but I can’t help but think that what happens in American religious life (for both Catholics and Protestants) is quite different than what happens in the rest of the world. iMonk conceded Mark Shea’s point that Catholics don’t lose much sleep over indulgences. I have no problem conceding this point either, at least in the United States and Europe. However, I’ve been to the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City. I’ve seen the mothers carrying their babies as they crawl, on bloody knees, the several hundred yards to the altar.
I would humbly submit that while American Catholics don’t view God as the IRS agent, many in world wide Catholicism still do. I have no idea what part indulgences play in all that, but how one views God is at issue. From where I’m sitting, this is a systemic problem, and the Reformation still stands.
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Rob Lofland, the RCC uses the word “saints” to refer to those believers whose exemplary faith is a teaching example of what a life-pervading faith in Jesus Christ looks like. It’s not a ‘compliment’ reserved to the high scorers in a religious arcade game, but an instance of the discipling Church standing up and saying to the rest of us, “this is what Christ looks like in people”. Saints aren’t ‘declared’ in the sense that property is declared, but in the sense that the Church is exposing their miraculous and extraordinary testimonies to the rest of us. They are histories of “what God is doing in our lives”. It’s not exclusive.
By that usage of the word, “saint” clearly doesn’t apply to most of us faithful.
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Memphis Aggie,
What keeps me separate from Rome and the Eastern is the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, with which Paul confronted Peter. What keeps me separate is the idea that works of the law do not justify. That forgiveness of sins is given freely in the Eucharist, which is the New Testament in His Blood given for the Forgiveness of Sins. So it does not need to be earned by me at all, not through an indulgence (Free or not I don’t care) or by praying the rosary, or what ever other contraption you might come up with. Jesus did it for me, all of it. Therefore neither do I need allies in the form of dead saints. For died they did, though they live in Christ, as do I and all the saints still living, because Christ died for us, and we died in him (Rom. 6:4). Christ died for Mary, had to, she was a sinner too. In fact she tried to stand in the way of Christ!(Matthew 12:46-48) She was a sinner, not quite the pillar of faith everyone makes her out to be, but she was a saint also, on account of Christ.
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Any reading of Romans for example it is clear that Paul considered all believers to be saints.
Happy All Saints Day. It’s a Catholic feast.
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The bride of Christ is passive.
I suspect that when Christ tells the disciples “Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven” he was not saying, “Go into all the earth and be passive.” And indeed, neither the Council of Jerusalem in Acts 15 nor Paul in Galatians sound like they think they have no right to command or legislate. Indeed, Paul even seems to think that his successor bishops have that right and authority, since he tells Timothy to “command” others.
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My friend Memphis Aggie says:
“Catholics view the Saints as allies who, as ordinary men and women understand us well, and who stand closer to God and are more pleasing to Him than our lowly selves.”
Which is it? ordinary men and women or closer to God?
The RCC is emphasising Paul this year? Any reading of Romans for example it is clear that Paul considered all believers to be saints.
It is this divisive caste system that in large part I see the Reformation as a reaction and rebellion against.
Fr. Smith does nothing to diminish this perception.
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The response of “Hey, it’s no biggee to us!†is the problem. This is the heart of the reformation divide for many of us. Many of us can nuance and leverage and rethink a lot of things…..but this doctrine insists that God be imaged not as the Father of the Prodigal as much as some sort of cosmic IRS agent.
I know. Which is why I’m talking about the interior life of Catholics as they live it, because, at the end of the day, what you are doing is not really talking about the doctrine, but about your emotional reaction to a particular way of expounding the doctrine.
Wolf complains that I’m not discussing the theology of the thing. I do that in the link I provided in my first post. Theologically, the thing is perfectly consonant with Scripture. If it comes to that, the image of an IRS agent is not terribly far off from many of Jesus’ parables. His language is *full* of kings settling monetary accounts with people who owe him a bunch of money (and exactly penalties far more terrible than the IRS when they don’t pony up (see “Talents, Parable of the”).
What really seems to be happening, as far as I can tell, is that you are saying, “I have a particularly strong emotional reaction to *this* image of how grace works in the world and I would like some assurance that Catholics don’t really have this image dominant in their minds.”
Well, they don’t. So I said so. Now the issue is morphing into the question of whether the Church “really” teaches this particular image and Catholics are just ignorant of it. To be sure, most Catholics are ignorant of indulgences. And, to be sure the Church still teaches that they exist. That is, the Church still teaches that there is a communion of saints, that our charisms are meant to help one another, that she is entrusted with (among other charisms) the gift of mercy, and that one minor way in which you can receive the gift of mercy is an indulgence. She also still teaches the obvious-whether-you-are-Catholic-or-Protestant fact that sin continues to have consequences even after its forgiven and that sometimes the gift of mercy is ordered toward mitigating those consequences and/or strengthening us to bear them and grow in grace from them.
I see nothing in all that which is unbiblical. So I see nothing in that which justifies the statement that the Reformation “remains” a tragic necessity.
So it seems to me we come down to the real puzzle of what you are asking: which I would tentatively sum up as, “Why do I have such a powerful reaction to this issue and Catholics don’t?” I can’t answer that. I can only observe that a) I see nothing anti-biblical in indulgences and b) I see nothing in the lived experience of Catholics concerning indulgence that remotely justifies the statement that the Reformation “remains” a tragic necessity.
Splitting the Church because some guy in a book fifty years ago used imagery you don’t like makes no sense to me, particularly since Jesus used the same sort of imagery all the time. His parables are chock full of masters settling accounts with servants and people who demand interest on their investment and guys who buy and even cheat their way into heaven (see “Unjust Steward, Parable of the”). And when you have something like the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant sitting out there bold as brass in the New Testament, I’d be mighty cautious about saying that grace makes it impossible for God to punish post-justification sin with something that looks a whole lot like Purgatory. Looks to me like the guy had all his sins forgiven and then committed a sin so grave it either sent him to hell or Purgatory (“where he will not be released till he has paid the last farthing”). That’s a problem for Calvinists and once-saved-always-saved guys. It’s not a problem for Catholics, who have room for either reading of the parable. The one thing that parable does not suggest to us is that all-sufficient grace of the king takes away the sin of mercilessness.
Now I’m not saying the parable is proof text of Purgatory. I’m saying that Protestants set themselves an impossible task in trying to declare definitively that Purgatory and Indulgences are anti-biblical. Typically, the game relies on extensive use of the ambiguous word “unbiblical” and a “ball’s in your court” demand that the Church “prove” that Purgatory and Indulgences are commanded by Scripture.
Of course, nobody makes such demands when the extra-biblical doctrine in question is something Protestants approve of. Prolifers never ask “show me abortion is sinful from the moment of conception”. Dr. Dobson never says “establish that monogamy is the only legit form of Christian marriage”. Bible Christians never say “show me that public revelation is closed”. In that case, the Bible Answer Man habitually replies (to the various fringe types that ask these things) that these things are consonant with Scripture and the unbroken teaching of “Historic Christianity”. In short, they aren’t anti-biblical and Sacred Tradition bears witness to them.
But with Indulgences and Purgatory (or whatever the contested doctrine is) the shift is always to “Definitively *prove* this from the text alone or I refuse to believe it.” And such proof (of anything, including Trinitarianism) is impossible.
So we’re left with this: I can’t, for the life of me, find anything anti-biblical about Purgatory and Indulgences. Does the development of the doctrine take place in the centuries after the Bible is written. Yeah. And yeah, the doctrines are often illustrated with monetary language–just like a huge number of Jesus’ parables. And yeah, they teach that even after you are forgiven consequences spring from your actions. Is that even contestable? If not, then every born again murderer should be immediately released from jail. Likewise, they teach that the ministry of grace has been entrusted to the Church, just as Paul did. This is a problem how?
You complain about the penal language used to describe indulgences. It’s not the only language you can use, but it’s also, heaven knows, not unbiblical language. Hebrews 12 does, after all, tell us that God punishes us precisely *because* we are sons (i.e., justified). Like it or not, that’s penal language and it’s the same concept that undergirds the notion of indulgences. He humbles and he exalts according to his will about what’s best for us. He punishes and he has mercy.
So, in the end, I think we’re left with this: There is nothing in the doctrine that is anti-biblical. What there is, is fear and an emotional reaction to a particular sort of explication of the doctrine. That’s why I focused on the vanishingly small role the doctrine actually plays in real Catholic life, because iMonk seems to me to be saying that if the Reformation were somehow to be over, then he would find himself imprisoned in this terrible doctrine that shackles the spiritual lives of Catholics from encountering the living and true God. I’m saying “I’m not meeting the shackled Catholics he’s afraid of reuniting with. I’m encountering the living and true God in the Catholic communion. I’m even meeting the Father of the prodigal son. He keeps pouring out mercy on me through the Church. One minor tributary in that great river of grace is indulgences, which (contrary to many fears) cost nothing. Another minor tributary is Christian music, which costs more and more every year.” 🙂
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“temporal punishment=natural consequences of our sinful actions?”
That’s exactly it Terri. This is why I say the term “temporal punishment” is unfortunate. It leads to all manner of misunderstanding both within and from without. And I think what Eric said is very helpful too – about the damage done to the prodigal son in his separation from the Father. Yes, the Father loves, accepts and forgives the son, but the damage that was done, is still done. It needs to be healed and that takes time. It takes participating in the Life of Christ – prayer, loving people, giving, whatever.
I thought of an example I was using once to explain this concept – my son, Conor, and I were in the back yard throwing the baseball. He got on the trampoline and I was standing next to the house (with windows) and said to him, “do not throw the ball to me now” – of course that’s just what he did (and he wasn’t a tiny kid who didn’t understand) and yes, the ball went right into the window and broke it. Holy crap! Now, he said he was sorry and did I forgive him? Yes, but the window is still broken and I could well, in my Fatherly love, have made him pay for it’s replacement. I know, I know, this gets into the paying language again – not the best thing. But anyway, I didn’t do that either. I sort of “gave him an indulgence” – I said, don’t worry about it – just don’t throw balls toward windows any more. Of course, that’s an imperfect story and analogy but it might be kind of helpful.
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Josh S, I asked myself the same question re: “why not make them all plenary?”, and realized that the answer isn’t one of ‘generosity’ but of liturgical time and the rhythms of a living church. Indulgences are, alongside the regular sacrament of confession, part of a life of prayer, whose entire existence is evidence of a very much more ancient ontological idea than that which Protestants begin with by default. Where the Reformation begins, declaring the possibility of man and God together with the Bible and the Holy Spirit as the only mediaton, it rejects the notion out of hand that the Church could or should be an observant community (no sacraments), a consecrated community (individual piety) and an authoritative community (a plurality of warring Christologies, a faith that assents to exegetical finesse rather than traditional understanding).
The Indulgence, plenary or otherwise, with the requisite pilgrmage, calls to prayer, and timeliness of its offering, makes no sense if you believe that faith in Jesus is emphatic, persevering on some doctrine of personal holiness or particular redemption, predestined, or maintain any other modified view of the nature of grace such as would lead you in another direction entirely – to the inevitable either/or dichotomy of “am I saved?”
I think the Catholic church bases its rationale for things like Indulgences on the notion that people, in our sinful lives and marching along in our particular times, need them as part of life.
Somebody who’s a decent Catholic will probably clown me out for saying this, but I think Indulgences work a lot like (poorly attended, quiet) Revivals do in Protestant churches in what they offer to sinners who need to pray for their salvation and are worried about their times. Catholic culture is really, really, that wide.
I could go on and on about how the vastness of Catholicism (it being both old, international, and unfolding from the most unlikely event that ever happened) makes it impossible for a casual person to make sense, or even conceive of, let alone “believe with all your heart”, everything she teaches all at once, and how the Protestant alternative is to believe that where you are, belief-wise, is all that’s possible and and anything else is probably unholy – but I won’t, and we’ll say I did.
Catholic faith in Christ is a ridiculously huge country with a variety of elevations (and the occasional sundials and stonehenges), while the Protestant faith in Christ is a like a pocketwatch full of powerful, technical theological intricacies. We use both use what we have and everybody knows what time it is, but our beliefs and the ideas of belief that power them do different kinds of things, and thus generate different kinds of culture.
So much for indulgences?
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Eric,
I think you hit on something that I had already been thinking:
In Catholic thought, temporal punishment=natural consequences of our sinful actions?
Many protestants hold to the idea that repentance puts us in good standing with God, but that doesn’t mean we don;t face the consequences of our former sin. So if someone commits adultery and repents…..he/she is square with God, but that doesn’t mean their marriage is going to survive.
In such a case, I don’t think most Protestants would view the break-up of the marriage as punishment from God…..just chickens coming home to roost.
In that, I think there is a common theme between us. The difference lies in the fact that Protestants might view this as the natural working out of our actions in a broken world, but not as something keeping us from heaven.
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I’m just a Catholic. I’m not even an apologist so this is how I personally understand this, spun to fit your need to see this in the parable of the prodigal son.
The prodigal son likely would have lost weight and perhaps caught diseases while living his profligate then poor life.
When the father welcomed him back and fed him, were all diseases healed? Was he back to a healthy weight? Were all the fleas gone? Did he still feel the desire for the prostitutes?
These are temporal punishments that can be dealt with now after the Father has forgiven and only through his grace (indulgence).
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willoh,
The bride of Christ is passive. Christ has done it all.
But you don’t actually believe that, unless you think we are not called to preach the gospel. People seem to pick and choose arbitrarily what “it is finished” applies to. They laugh at those who say “it is finished” applies to more than they think, and they deride those who think “it is finished” applies to less than they think. But just appealing to “it is finished” begs the question, because it does not deal with how we determine to what “it is finished” does and does not extend.
If we really went all the way with “it is finished”, then it raises the following question: Why in the world are we [believers] still here? Just twiddling our thumbs waiting to die or be raptured? This is monergism’s reductio.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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more thoughts…
Can almsgiving for indulgences, in order to be released from temporal punishments, be compared with giving God a “seed gift” so that He will bless us?
Are the two concepts kissing cousins?
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Bror
So arguments over creatures are what keeps you separate? We don’t buy indulgences, although some involve almsgiving, many are free. Praying the rosary is one such example.
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Jenny,
In the Lutheran Church, like the Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox the Eucharist is at the center of our worship. (Well, we had a bout of pietism that ruined that for a while, but…) The Eucharist, which we also really to believe really is the body and blood of Jesus Christ, is central to us also. Yet we manage to keep this central without praying to Mary or any other saint, singing songs to her, or buying indulgences.
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Wolf Paul, as usual makes a good point- it doesn’t matter if indulgences are not controversial in the Church. If they are the reason others have left then it’s important, and since Christ wants us to be united it’s crucial to examine what divides us.
I’m no expert on theology but it is clear that indulgences are a distillation of a set of beliefs about Purgatory, temporal punishment, and sanctification as opposed to salvation alone. In other words it’s the product of a whole series of disagreements. So just because it doesn’t phase me in the least doesn’t me I should ignore it. I have to be honest here though, I don’t get why this is such a sore point, at least in the modern practice of indulgences.
I think in this the year of St Paul we can can all safely agree with Ephesians 2:8-9 that salvation is a unearned gift, unachievable through works. Where we part is the idea of sanctification – further spiritual development following salvation that does include works and earnestly striving for perfection. Again while recognizing our own insufficiency, we seek to grow ever closer to God, seeking His face in part by emulating Him in works of charity.
Maybe another way to look at it is that by contrast Catholics rarely share the confidence in salvation many Protestants do – we retain a sense or our guilt our unworthiness to receive so great a gift. I think there is some value in retaining that sense of unworthiness, it opens a door to gratitude and humility and sustains us in the fear of God.
Indulgences are a way the Church has supplied to alleviate that residue of guilt and to provide a deliberately partial assurance.
By the way, that fact that “Reformation Day” displaces All Saints day is worthy of an argument in and of itself. Catholics view the Saints as allies who, as ordinary men and women understand us well, and who stand closer to God and are more pleasing to Him than our lowly selves. Sometimes God in His full glory is intimidating and we seek the more familiar modest guidance of a creature who has found the way to God to pray for us and show us how it’s done. Protestants are confident in Christ and see no need for the support, just as Protestants are confident in salvation and do not see works as sanctifying (Please let me know if I have that wrong).
I see many questions tangled up in Indulgences as they are a product of deep divides and not really an easily separable issue.
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I live in the same world as Dave D. What is said, and what is done,is in conflict. I do not live in a catholic free zone. I am the only white guy in my church who did not grow up catholic. This is a catholic area, my wife is a former [I did’t do it, she quit before I found her, don’t blame me], my cousins are, my neighbors are. Most funerals I go to are catholic. You couldn’t buy red meat in a diner around here on a Friday. This post hits home.
Read the words of father S. “The church applies,” “the church attaches”, “the church makes”, There is my objection. The bride of Christ is passive. Christ has done it all. When the Savior said “It is finished” I believe he meant it. The church need only worship in thanks.
How much time did the thief on the cross spend in…..Oh, that wasn’t mentioned.
I am not really a dispensationalist but PLEASE do not compare David’s relationship with the Lord to mine! There is a Christ of a difference.
While we are on it, That phrase “no properly instructed Catholic” keeps popping up. Our Diocese has a book store in Scranton where you can buy a “house for sale” kit. It is a statue of Joseph which is to be buried upside down in the back yard anointed with holy water, guaranteed to sell your house quickly.
The Diocese owns this store. The Diocese is in charge of instruction.
The part about Leo X needs a history book. History isn’t what you say happened, it is what really happened. Was all of Europe improperly instructed?
I love you all, I feel the pain of our seperation, but yes it was unfortunately
necessary.
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Jenny…I do understand that’s what is taught. Thus my question and the tie-in to indulgences. What is “technically” spelled out in a complicated doctrine is not always understood or practiced by many people….or maybe it just seems that way to me because I am not Catholic/Orthodox.
To me….I view singing/praying/venerating/looking for guidance from, as worship.
To me….I see attaching a donation to mitigating temporal punishment for a sin as “buying” forgiveness.
For either of those doctrines to be practiced according to the information presented in Michael’s post, everything is dependent on a person’s motivation and correctness in how the indulgence is approached.
How can that be measured? And if that is the most important factor….the state of one’s heart…..then why does a donation or a specific act need to be tied to the forgiveness of a particular sin? If one does everything right, but the heart is not right, it seems that one is no better off. So if thedoing is not the important part, then what is the point of an indulgence?
Why have them if they are so easily negated by an imperfect attitude?
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The fine distinctions between being “wholly forgiven” and “pardoned of punishment” are kind of weird. I’ve always thought so, and no amount of insistence that it’s really quite obvious has ever convinced me otherwise.
Issues with scholastic theology aside, I sometimes ask, “Why so stingy?” Two examples:
Partial Indulgences are usually attached to prayers, whilst for a Plenary Indulgence it is nearly always required that the person receive Holy Communion and pay a visit to the church, where he must say more prayers for the success of God’s interests on earth, especially as they are in the mind of the Pope.
Why have partial indulgences at all? Why doesn’t the pope attach plenary indulgences to everything, since this is in his power? It seems rather stingy to not offer as many means out of purgatory as possible. Also, having studied indulgences for a while, I’ve noticed that many plenary indulgences have an expiration date, i.e. if you have to meet the conditions before a certain date in order to get your soul released from punishment. Why put an expiration date on grace? I would think that if the pope really wanted to grant people pardon and release them from purgatory, he wouldn’t put expiration dates on indulgences. I also wonder how closely God sticks to the pope’s rules. Will God grant you pardon even if you did something the pope didn’t attach an indulgence to, or if you performed the conditions after the expiration date?
We cannot gain Indulgences for other living persons, but we can gain them for the souls in Purgatory, since the Church makes most Indulgences applicable to them.
Why “most” and not “all?” Why doesn’t the pope make indulgences applicable to other living persons? Since he makes the rules, why is he so restrictive with them?
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But if millions of people pray to, sing to, proclaim she has special powers, is Co-Redemptrix with Christ, and dedicate things to Mary…how is that not worship
Of topic aside (sorry Michael…)
Terri,
Our concept of worship is centered in the sacrifice of the mass in particular. Our worship finds its heart in the center of Eucharist, offered to GOD alone.
In Catholic and Orthodox Christian teaching over the last 2000 years, the Eucharist has ALWAYS been the center of Christian worship; Google that phrase and it may serve a helpful in bridge in understanding Who we worship.
Peace,
Jenny
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Some direct quotes, that should make any Protestant a nauseous feeling in his stomach: (emphasis added)
“Yes; unless remitted through the APPLICATION of Christ’s merits to the soul BY THE CHURCH, by the grant of an Indulgence.”
“No; the CHURCH ATTACHES Indulgences to certain prayers, or good works, which BECOME EFFECTIVE…”
“since the CHURCH MAKES most Indulgences APPLICABLE to them.”
Who is this “church” the father describes as having this type of authority?
And how does this glorify Christ and make his work on the cross central?
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I’m sorry that was something you had to go through Dave. That’s unfortunate. Two things though…
One – “the RCC very clearly” didn’t do anything there. To equate what went on at the wake of one Catholic man at one Catholic parish as what THE RCC clearly did, isn’t accurate. I don’t doubt it happened there. I’m just saying, logically, it doesn’t go that far. Everything a parish does is not equal to the whole Roman Catholic Church doing something, not by a long shot.
Two – The fact that someone was using “to pay for his sins” language is just too bad, and it says to me that they don’t understand Purgatory very well. Honestly, it’s not talked about a lot, or taught about enough, so that’s not surprising.
Also, as a doctrine, it’s one of the least defined. It should be (I say should) fairly clear anyway, that the Church is not talking about anyone paying for anything that Jesus has already paid for, in Purgatory (if we can say “in” as if it’s a literal demarcated “place”). The fact that one is in a purgative state is saying that one is already “in Heaven” albeit in the foyer getting their dirty shoes off.
And that ticking off time business is very difficult to square with the fact that any state of Purgatory (as with Heaven in fullness) is outside of time, in eternity, so what are we ticking off here? Our present Pope mentioned something about this recently I think.
So, I admit that what you experienced is confusing and would be upsetting. But it’s not a universal experience of Catholicism or it’s teaching. May your respected friend pray for us – purgatory or no, he has a bigger clue than us at this point. Peace.
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It seems there are many discrepancies, in my protestant opinion, between what some Catholic doctrines “technically” mean, and how they are actually practiced.
So the Church teaches you can’t “buy” indulgences, but that’s the opposite of what it seems many people believed during the time of the Reformation.
Is promoting a doctrine that is so complicated it is bound to be misunderstood, or practiced in a way inconsistent with how it is meant to be practiced, a good idea?
That’s how my protestant eyes see this issue and others, such as Marian devotion.
Technically the RCC says Mary is not worshipped, merely “venerated”. But if millions of people pray to, sing to, proclaim she has special powers, is Co-Redemptrix with Christ, and dedicate things to Mary…how is that not worship? How is the average person in a Catholic church expected to know the difference and practice accordingly?
Not trying to RCC bash, just seriously wondering.
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About twenty years ago my next door neighbor, a good Catholic, died. I loved him, he was like a grandfather to me. At his visitation/funeral there was a box of sorts. When I asked about the box I was told that Frank was now in Purgatory (to pay for his sins) and that I could donate $5 and fill out a slip of paper and get him one point/tick/minute closer to getting out of Purgatory.
Some things jump out from this. First: did Jesus pay for our sins on the Cross or not? The Bible states that he did. The teaching of an intermediate place where the “good” pay for their sins is just not in line with a Scapegoat who took all of our sins.
Second: contrary to those denying it here, the RCC very clearly asked friends and family of this man to donate money in order to get him out of punishment. Peter tells Simon the sorcerer ““May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money!
Acts 8:20 (ESV)” In the text it directly applies to the Holy Spirit and the gifts thereof. However, it seems to apply just as well to the idea that you, or your family, can buy you out of punishment.
I think the most striking thing said so far was the one commenter who said essentially that he saw no scriptural foundation for the idea that church teachings should have a scriptural foundation so the lack of scriptural foundation for the Church’s teachings didn’t bother him. If the Bible doesn’t really matter, where are we? I think THAT is the heart of the divide between Protestants and Catholics. All the other differences boil down to which has final authority, the book we both claim to be inspired by God or a man or a council of men?
DD
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“Behave.” Ha! You’ve got to be kidding, right? 🙂
Once again into the breech! Every way that the concept of indulgences has ever been taught, understood and laid out there by Catholic teachers over the ages is on some mythical equal plane of Magisterial authority. There is a running reference to this level plane of authority in the Church in these discussions – inevitably, there always is. To be fair, I hear this among some Catholics too, so it’s understandable. But, there simply is no one, level and same plane of authority for all teachings, even from Councils, even from Popes, in the Catholic Church.
So, this “the church is the Gospel” business is a bit blown out of proportion. “Why don’t you tell us we can have sex before marriage Holy Father?” said the youth of Europe to John Paul II years ago. Basically, his response was (as I remember this), “I couldn’t if I wanted to children.” Why? This is God’s law, not ours, clearly put down in Holy Scripture. I just thought of that as a small example.
Every teaching does not hold the same weight. Every doctrine isn’t as central as some other doctrines. Is there a level of acceptance that we should have for all these things? Sure, but are different levels of acceptance, some of which have a LOT of room for questions and thinking about “how is it that this works exactly?” Our answer may be something like, “hmm, I don’t really know – there’s probably something to it but it’s not that central, so I’m good with concentrating on that which is.”
Sure, there some Catholics who just don’t give a damn about this or that, or anything really. There are plenty of Christians of all stripes who are like that. But perhaps, there are many Catholics who sort of understand that everything’s not on an equal plane and live there just fine. The understanding of doctrine develops (daggone Newman – pray for us, please, Cardinal), things change (look around, seriously). Maybe if we could try to get a common grasp on this deal – that everything’s not the same – things might go a little farther in the understanding department. Miracles happen. Peace.
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I am taking off comment moderation for a few hours.
Behave.
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Mark:
It’s not an exhaustive doctrinal statement. It is a true presentation of what God is like. Father in that story or Cosmic accountant never quite giving you full forgiveness till you do some good works to show you’re serious.
Wolf Paul is right on the money. The response of “Hey, it’s no biggee to us!” is the problem. This is the heart of the reformation divide for many of us. Many of us can nuance and leverage and rethink a lot of things…..but this doctrine insists that God be imaged not as the Father of the Prodigal as much as some sort of cosmic IRS agent.
I said something no one answered: The Vatican II statement on ecumenism NEVER MENTIONS the word indulgence. Then here a discussion on how Indulgences could possibly clearly represent the God of the Gospel (as seen in Jesus’ teaching) starts out with “We don’t think about it.”
For many of us Protestants, it appears that when the teaching of Mother Church and the teaching of scripture ever differ, the choice is to not think about those things. Small matters for the serious Catholic because they are matters of authority. the Church IS the Gospel. Repent and believe the Church.
Say what you want about Protestants and evangelicals ( and I do) we don’t fail to attempt to think about what the scriptures say. In fact, in another Fr. Smith lesson, he faults Protestants precisely for always looking things up in their Bible instead of believing the Church, Bible or not.
I’ve been told by my Catholic friend now, multiple times, that it’s not a “doctrinal thing” but it is a “take the whole teaching of the church” thing. Well, in that system, there are a lot of matters that we’ll have to choose to not think about.
peace
MS
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Mark and +Alan:
From my perspective as a former Catholic turned Evangelical over 30 years ago, the fact that most Catholics don’t think about indulgences (and several of the other dividing issues) is not very significant. There are a host of other teachings of the Church which most Catholics don’t think about either — and we all lament that.
The important thing is that there IS that teaching, and that IF you want to be a thinking, faithful Catholic you have to deal with it in some intellectually and spiritually honest manner. One thing I appreciate about Benedict XVI is that he seems to understand and appreciate the role of the mind in faith, and I cannot imagine him telling us Prots to just ignore these issues that are serious stumbling blocks to our acceptance of the Catholic Church.
And it won’t do to tell us that most Catholic teachers today don’t present indulgences in this way, or that the Catechism puts things differently, and that therefore we should not get so worked up about this particular book (or any other book which presents Catholic teaching in a way particularly offensive to Protestants). That would be a very Protestant argument; but precisely because the Catholic Church claims not only an infallible magisterium but also a centralized jurisdiction over all its parts the existence of books like this one, by a high-ranking prelate of the Church, published and still distributed by a respected part of the American Catholic Establishment, renders all claims that it doesn’t present Catholic teaching fairly and accurately ineffective.
Most of us also don’t buy the argument of the book that the (very grudgingly granted) abuse of indulgences by Tetzel does not implicate the church, nor does the admission of abuse by Tetzel go far enough. The Catholic Encyclopedia comments on Tetzel’s offering indulgences for the dead thus:
“By the teaching he laid himself open to just censure and reproach. To condition a plenary indulgence for the dead on the mere gift of money, without contrition on the part of the giver, was as repugnant to the teaching of the Church, as it violated every principle of elementary justice.”
(http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14539a.htm)
While censoring Tetzel it still gives the impression that indulgences for the dead would be o.k. if the one who obtained them displayed appropriate contrition.
None of this, of course, touches on the fundamental point: the Evangelical conviction, derived from our reading of the Scriptures, that Christ’s death paid the FULL price of our sin and guilt, and that whatever expectations we have of a changed life on the part of the Christian, that FULL FORGIVENESS is obtained by GRACE through FAITH, and without any individual or institutional human mediation.
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antinomianism
Sounds good to me.
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To IMonk: not too long ago you had a post that again discussed C.S. Lewis and Purgatory. You said, †But as to purgatory, I think many Christians can find common ground between Ratzinger, Wright and Lewis.†Implying some reasonableness to the concept. This would seem quite a leap for most Protestants 60 years ago, especially if reading the legalistic Catholic language in use back then.
As for the prodigal son, the real indulgence is needed by the good son… He is the one sitting on the doorstep of heaven and refusing to go in and sit at table with his “sinner” brother. He cannot accept the depth of the love of his father – it just isn’t fair. For the good brother to shorten his time on the doorstep and finally go in (and be able to live with his brother in peace), he may benefit from fasting and prayer and introspection. And for all his good work over the years his father gives him extra graces to convince him to come in and join his brother at the table. Is this purgatory and indulgences?
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Mark,
As a Catholic I’d have to say I’m not really sure you are helping here. You’re not answering the question. You’re blowing it off by saying that “Eh, most Catholics don’t care about that,” (which, incidentally, does not speak well of the seriousness of Catholics regarding the teachings of their Church)which is not IM’s issue. The issue is – how does the teaching on indulgences – taught for a long time by the Church – fit in wit/flow out of/not contradict the Gospel?
Not that I can answer that, not being a theologian.
Didn’t Fr. Kimel write a lot on this?
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Michael,
Thanks for your compliment. I read both your blogs as well. And JSS comes closer, in a way, to what drives me, because it is an attempt to find the heart of Jesus. And I think that the love that seeks unity with the beloved is the heart of Jesus (John 17). I find common ground with you there, even though we disagree in important respects with respect to what that looks like (although I did enjoy your Taize review).
If I may say something about the rest of your comment, a Catholic doesn’t think we have to go “beyond” the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, or “beyond” the righteousness of Christ infused in us. We believe that God wants us to live out Christ’s life in us, that He wants us to be so united to Christ that we live His life as His Spirit lives in us. This is why we meditate on the various events in the life of Christ. We don’t think sanctification is secondary or superfluous to salvation, but is essential to it. And we don’t think that sanctification is something that ordinarily happens automatically apart from our own choices. We believe that it is a great and ennobling gift that we get to participate in our salvation by working it out in fear and trembling. But we cannot possibly go beyond Christ’s righteousness, because the effect can never exceed the cause, and it is Christ that lives in and through us. Apart from Him we can do nothing; with Him and in Him we can do all things.
Lastly, maybe part of what keeps you and me apart is not that the Catholic theological system is not what you are shopping for, but simply that you are shopping.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Only one God is presented in that story and those who heard that story and believed in the God Jesus presented in it didn’t hear about Indulgences and a lot of other things.
With respect: so what? Is the parable of the prodigal son an exhaustive compendium of all there is to say about the gospel?
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Every objection I have to Roman Catholicism always seems to come down to a fundamental difference in understanding how the gap between sinful man and holy God is closed. We may both claim that Jesus is the one who closes that gap, but the RCC then goes on to describe the many novel systems (including indulgences) by which that is effected or completed on our end. The resulting interconnected tangle of philosophical construction and religious bureaucracy that is stuffed into that gap is not something that I can accept at the diminishment of grace and the sufficiency of Christ. The curtain is torn but some people are desperate to sew it back together.
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Where to start on such a topic. I am not a Reformed Christian that does not embrace Brethen of Roman Cathloic Church. I believe we can learn much for each other if we are willing to lay down our pride and our personal convictions and take up the Word of God and honestly ask if our theologies really match God’s precepts and standards for His beloved.
With that being said, I am having a hard time to understand why and from what sciptural stance does it come from. For the cited passage from Bekah, does not equate in context of what has been defined as an indulgences.
Another note is that the suffientcy of Christ in the comments above have been placed into a box of only guranteeing an enterance ticket through the heavenly gates. So basiclly, the grace that flows from the cross and the grace that gives believers victory over sin and forgivness of sin that comes form the power of the resurrection is only limted to certain applications of the death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior. How can this be explained when the writer of Hebrews (Heb. 4:14-5:1-10) testifies that Jesus life, death and resurrestion was made to in similar manner to man to know of sin and sin not. More than that, He is the only mediator that bore our sin past, present and future. So, in doing indulgences where does this show believer’s that thier guilt is lifted, if indeed it has been already?
This leads me to another point, self-guilt. God forgives for what His begotten Son did for all mankind being the sacrfice for all sin, of all time. Scipture states that God remembers are sin no more as we repent and walk in obedenice with Him. (Ps. 103:10-13) Also in this passage God is shown as a God that does not punish His children anymore than the conquence of their has handed them. So why do believer’s need to seek more guilt free consciences? Is it more of an issue that we as people do not let go of issues, for we can not truly forgive ourselves of a sin that our Lord Himself has already done?
If I am missing the point, please correct my misunderstanding.
Be Blessed in our Lord as we seek Him to unite us under His name and in His Body, for His Kingdom’s Glory!
Mike
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Only one God is presented in that story and those who heard that story and believed in the God Jesus presented in it didn’t hear about Indulgences and a lot of other things.
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Bryan,
Let’s get this right.
>I’m a lot closer to universalism and antinomianism than I am what you described as the RC view of the purpose of Christ’s death
I didn’t say I was an antinomian.
Bryan, I read your blog all the time. You’re very eloquent and you are probably the best apologist possible to a particular kind of Protestant….who’s the polar opposite of me. Your foundational belief is that the only way any of these things make sense is from the assumption that the RCC is all that it claims to be. You’ll win many Protestants that way, but those of us with a more Lutheran soteriology aren’t really shopping for a system that says we must become holy BEYOND Christ’s righteousness given to us freely by imputation.
MS
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Lots of things have no clear scriptural basis (emphasis on clear, I’m not saying indulgences have no scriptural basis by a long shot), such as the idea that anything in the life of the Church needs to have a clear scriptural basis. Not really a huge concern for me anymore, and I see no reason why it should be. The doctrine of indulgences is part of the Apostolic teachings of the Church, just as the Bible itself is, and as such I accept it. That it also makes sense within the framework of Catholic Theology is a nice bonus.
I see no reason why indulgences should be illustrated in the Prodigal Son parable anymore than Baptism is present in the story. It is, after all, a parable, part of the teaching of Jesus illustrating a principle, rather than laying out a complete map for life. Not every principle is going to be present in every story.
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I received an Indulgence last Winter at the Marian Shrine at Stockbridge.
I’ll be interested to read the varying accounts of what you all think happened to me..
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Michael,
My point wasn’t to talk about your salvation (sorry), but to try to find some common ground for understanding the “sufficiency” of Christ’s work from a Catholic point of view. If you’re an antinomian, then there isn’t as much common ground as I had hoped.
I think it is not possible to understand the Catholic view of indulgences apart from understanding the Catholic notion of the sacrament of penance, and the sacraments in general. The whole theological system is a package deal, and has to be approached and understood that way. Of course the Catholic view of indulgences is not going to fit with an antinomian view of the atonement. What puzzles me is how antinomians can admit being *not* pure of heart, and admit that only the pure in heart shall see God, and then deny some purgatorial process on the ground that Christ’s death is sufficient. If Christ’s death is sufficient in that sense, then logically either we are already pure in heart, or we don’t need to be pure in heart in order to see God, or we won’t be seeing God.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Obviously both of us have systems that allow us to defend anything that is part of the system. It won’t be long before we’ll be hearing that the RCC is so vast and diverse that one shouldn’t focus too much on an individual teaching like indulgences that, as you eloquently stated, doesn’t have a clear scriptural basis. (When you prove the whole system, of course you get everything proved in scripture as a bonus.)
If you want this to rise above the usual anti-anti polemics, then talk about how indulgences represent the Father in the story of a prodigal son. Otherwise, we’ll just find new ways to say “It’s all proven once you accept my system.”
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In answer to the bolded question: Absolutely, yes. This is the way of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as revealed to the Church through Jesus Christ, and the Law and the Prophets, and the Saints and the Martyrs. The language “Father Smith” uses might be a bit heavy-handed, but that doesn’t mean that it is wrong, any more than the Catechism is when it talks about indulgences. That it makes Protestants uncomfortable, or that there isn’t a silver bullet scriptural defense, does not prove whether Indulgences are part of the reality of God’s plan for salvation or not. I’m not going to present an argument for Indulgences here, as others have already done so, but I will say that the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences is very much an organic part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Bryan,
I bailed on the limited atonement mindset a long time ago. What I believe isn’t really of interest to anyone. I’m a lot closer to universalism and antinomianism than I am what you described as the RC view of the purpose of Christ’s death. If your view of salvation applies, I’m hopelessly doomed. No contest. I won’t be holy anytime soon.
But as I said, my salvation is not of any interest here. We’re discussing indulgences. You’ve done a fine job describing a system where Fr. Smith’s teaching is appropriate.
MS
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Michael,
So the idea is that our need to do penance (or be made to suffer in some way) is incompatible with the sufficiency of Christ’s work. But I’m guessing (seriously) that you don’t think that you can sin with impunity, even though Christ died for you. Nor do you think (I suppose) that since Christ died for you, therefore you never need to ask for forgiveness for sins for the rest of your life. You agree, I take it, that Christ’s sacrifice is not sufficient in that respect. So likewise, Catholics don’t believe that Christ’s death guarantees heaven for anyone. His death was sufficient for what it was intended to do. But Christ’s death doesn’t guarantee that a Christian is, at the moment of his death, pure of heart (perfect in charity) so that he can see God. Hence the need for cleansing. Just as Christ’s sacrifice was not intended to guarantee that we don’t have sickness in this life (contra Benny Hinn and Kenneth Hagin), and therefore sickness in this life does not take away from the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice, so likewise temporal punishment doesn’t take anything away from Christ’s sacrifice because that’s not what Christ’s sacrifice was intended to accomplish.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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One problem I see with Fr. Smith’s words quoted above, versus words that the Church uses now are as follows:
Fr. Smith: “But if your sorrow was not as earnest and intense as God would have from you, He would possibly show His displeasure by sending you a little misfortune, or, if you died after your confession you might be punished for a brief period in Purgatory.”
The Catechism 1472: “This purification frees one from what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin.”
There are two different concepts working here, it seems. In the first, God is actively punishing by sending this or that misfortune into a life. And that idea of purgatorial “punishment” rather than “purification” is definitely and “old” vs. “new” Catholic way of thinking about things.
I can agree with what Mark said about indulgences being scarcely thought of by most Catholics. It’s just not an issue for the most part. There seem to be some very traditionalist Catholics who want to re-emphasize these things again, but it’s a pretty significant minority.
Personally, I find the extremely legal (penal) language used even in the Catechism now, unfortunate. Trying to explain the kind of damage done by sin to our spiritual/soulish insides with terms like temporal punishment due to sin is problematic. Even using the word punishment doesn’t help things. I say that because once the sin is forgiven, we’re really not talking about punishment for sin any more. Some theologians came up with that term trying to explain something once upon a time. I’ll put in my vote for an update.
It’s really about fully healing inner damage that sin has done to us – not about guilt or punishment. The guilt is forgiven – that’s done. After that we should be talking about the fact that when we act sinfully, some real metaphysical damage is done to our insides. It’s not just about we did a bad thing, God doesn’t like it, put a black X on our record, we said we’re sorry, he took the X off and it’s all good. Sin is kind of organic, I guess you could say – it’s a part of our life and as we act “in it,” it acts in us, twisting and damaging us (some things more than others) and even when we’re forgiven of any guilt, some of the damage may remain and we’re weaker for it – like having a “spiritual bad knee” or something.
I agree that as they have been talked about and explained, Michael, indulgences are a difficult proposition. Like I said – if we perhaps move a little father from the legal language and more toward the organic/relational language, the idea of indulgences might also come into a new light – ways the Church gives us to help heal the damage – just some thoughts.
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I think perhaps the difference is that as a protestant, I have the ability to look my spiritual leader in the eye and say “you are completely wrong.” I ought to do it respectfully, and there’s no guarantee he will take it well, but I still can and ought to say it. In Protestantism there is no infallible authority today, because even if you say “the bible is infallible” (which I do), someone can easily remind you that there can be a difference between “the bible” and “your current understanding of the bible”. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not, it is a difference. And if I am misrepresenting the Catholic perspective I hope someone will graciously say “Mike, you are completely wrong!”
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The important thing here is to stick with the formal doctrine of the Roman Church, which is very clearly presented in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The individual opinions, experiences and observations of Roman Catholics, while interesting, are really beside the point.
Study the CCC for what it teaches about indulgences. While far more nuanced, the same errors pertain.
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MS:
I believe it! I’m certainly not saying that sort of thing doesn’t happen among protestants! For that matter, what is the difference between a caricatured (I’m not arguing the history of the thing because I don’t know enough) “indulgences for sale” cart on the street corner and the huge numbers of people who call themselves protestants and say that as soon as you “accept Jesus into your heart, you can do whatever you want”? But I’m getting off topic.
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Bryan:
I have no idea what the younger son did after his father’s acceptance. He appears to be a loser like me. I’d guess he continued to be kind of pathetic. In this story, he didn’t have to do anything. He just showed up and the Father did the rest. As Dad said, he was dead and now he’s alive.
I don’t deny there are things he should have done, but they aren’t in this story.
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Mike:
The first real trouble I ever got into in ministry was over taking exception to an evangelist who promised “family salvations” for various kinds of contributions.
MS
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“To me this instance is much the same as the frequent announcements from Protestant pulpits that Almighty God will grant special favors and blessings to those who contribute for home or foreign missionary work.”
I’m going to admit up front I know only a little about the Catholic Church and practically nothing about indulgences. But with reference to the above statement, I personally would walk out on a pastor that stood up and said “God has ‘special favors’ to give those of you who fill up the offering plate today for such and such a project.” So I’m against that philosophy, whether in Catholic form or Protestant form. The difference that I see is this: if a pastor says those words, he represents at most a single church, one which I can just as easily not attend any more. But for the “Church” to say such a thing seems much more serious to me because it is a lot bigger deal to leave the Catholic Church and become a protestant or orthodox than it is to leave the First Baptist Church of Pasadena and go to the Second Baptist Church of Pasadena. In some ways that’s a point in favor of the Catholic way of doing things! Anyways, my point is that a protestant pastor making a statement at the end of a service is not the same as the Church making a statement, whether that’s a good thing or bad thing.
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I don’t believe in perfect repentance. That’s the heart of the sufficiency of the righteousness of Christ offered in the Gospel.
The younger son had a nice plan, but he didn’t get to say much. The father was too busy raising him from the dead at the expense of the calf who made the party possible.
Meanwhile, there is an accountant in that story, for whom Father Smith’s idea that some “misfortune” is in the works would make perfect sense.
BTW- I’m going to go ahead and admit Mark’s point. RC friends don’t worry about this at all. And Protestants do have a concern about it. 100% agreement Mark.
But on the reasons why we each respond differently…well that’s another matter. You see nothing that puts the Gospel at stake. I see the face of God in the glory of the finished work turned into something rather gamey.
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I didn’t mean to suggest you were caricaturing. I’m simply getting at the fact that what looms enormously large for you and many Protestants as a crushing burden of Catholic life is actually, well, basically non-existent as a fact of Catholic life. Yeah, the Church still offers indulgences. They are, as I point, extremely minor exercises of the charism of mercy in the life of the Church.
Yet, by a sort of historical accident, they still constitute a sort of monstrous bogeyman for many non-Catholic Christians. Fear inflates their significance to grotesque proportions that are really quite funny to somebody who is actually living the ordinary life of a Catholic. And that spells confusion when attempting dialogue with Catholics because on the one hand you have somebody saying, “Indulgence make the Reformation *remain* a tragic necessity” while the Catholic generally saying something like “Indulgences? Do we even do that anymore?”
You wind up with somebody saying on the one hand, “Because of this horror, I must saw off an arm!” while the other person is saying, “What? What horror?”
It’s a massive exercise in talking past each other till you’ve really figured out what you both are talking about.
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Excuse me, in my haste to get out the door to a meeting, I completely screwed up the verse citation. That should be Colossians 1:10-24. I think there’s a little dyslexia in there. LOL
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The prodigal son would be an example of perfect contrition, which would not correlate with the examples given of imperfect contrition for which indulgences are granted.
Say the prodigal son came to the Father and said, “Pops, I know you love me. Where I found myself was really disgusting and revolting. I’d rather not stay there, so give me back my sonship status.”
This is what the Church means by imperfect contrition. There is realization of wrongdoing, but not for the right reasons, not to the depths of the soul. And therefore, she teaches, that more is needed to bring the soul back to full union with God. The indulgences are not effective if not done with full intent, awareness and effort. What the Christian is doing, when they seek an indulgence, is admitting that he or she has not been adequately remorseful or adequately turned from sin. So, he or she seeks closer union with God. The Church lays out, pragmatically, that these are means of drawing closer to God, praying, serving others, giving for the benefit of the Kingdom, this sort of thing that all Christians agree work to bring the person closer to God.
Again, the prodigal learned through the temporal punishment of his sins, that the Father’s way was right. The Father allowed him to suffer these things, and by the time he came in perfect contrition to the Father, he was fully repentant and fully turned from his sin. The Church agrees. There is no need for further temporal “consequences”, though this world is harsh and we may still suffer regardless of our state in God’s grace.
The effect of our indulgence for those in purgatory is another lengthy point of discussion, for which I will only give cursory reply. The Church consistently teaches that we are mystically united to all Christians through the Body of Christ Himself, so completely that what affects one of us, affects all, whether we see it, feel it or not. This mystical union makes possible for us to pray for one another, etc. So that, in some mysterious way, by drawing our own soul closer to God we can effect other souls. Scriptural support for this concept is found in 1 Colossians 10:24, esp. v. 24.
I’m not good at keeping up with comments, so I’ll apologize in advance if there are any replies I don’t see or answer. If you *really* want my attention, email.
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By the way, in case you are interested, what occupies much of the discussion inside the Church is not indulgences (“What? Do we still have those?”) but endless quarrels about liturgy, a topic that is not even on the Protestant radar so far as I can tell.
Another big discovery: All the Protestant terror that Mary is another god for Catholics is totally and completely phantasmal. I’ve never met a soul who thinks this despite all the bogeyman terrors of her I encountered in Evangelicalism.
Instead, what I have encountered is twofold:
1. Catholics with a strong and well-formed Marian devotion also tend to be very serious and orthodox in their faith in Jesus. No confusion between Creator and creature for those dudes any more than there was for the highly Marian Martin Luther.
2. A small group of enthusiasts for miracles and special effects who tend to think, not that Mary is another god, but that she’s another Pope. In this, they resemble nothing so much as Protestant Endtimes Enthusiasts with their theories and scenarios concocted in fevered brains. Same pathologies, different dress.
The main difference is that Protestant Endtimes Enthusiasts have, basically, nothing to rein them (and if they happen to get the support of Dr. Dobson or some other semi-magisterial authority in Evangelicalism they might be accorded a serious audience (see, LaHaye and Lindsey). Meanwhile Catholics have a Magisterium that says things like, “No. You don’t have to bother your head about what some seer in Poughkeepsie says Mary is commanding you to do and there is no Bible Prophecy Endtimes Roadmap so chill.”
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Michael,
You’re saying, I take it, that the father didn’t tell the prodigal to go do penance. But there are many things that the father didn’t tell the prodigal, but that the prodigal should do. He should be baptized. He should pray daily. He should not forsake the assembling of himself together with other believers. He should receive the Eucharist. So it seems that we shouldn’t read too much sacramental theology from an argument from silence based on a parable.
The gist of your concern, it seems, is that confession, penance, and indulgences are somehow not consonant with the heart of the father revealed in the parable. Catholics don’t see confession, penance or indulgences as restrictions on God’s mercy, but as expressions of His mercy. It is good for us to confess our sins. It is good for us to make some kind of reparation for the wrongs we have done. And an indulgence is a gift to us, a pardon from temporal punishment. So these are all expressions of mercy and love from a merciful Father.
I guess I’m not fully understanding your concern.
In the peace of Christ,
– Bryan
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Mark: I’m happy to have you here. Honest. But I’m going to ask you to leave the caricature claims out until they appear on this thread or in this discussion.
As to your question, we obviously agree on the God of Abraham, etc. and you know that even as you ask me. Father Smith claims to be representing Jesus but my own study of Jesus doesn’t ring true with this “visit a church for complete remission” thing.
As I said, there’s no sarcasm here and I want to keep it that way please. My request.
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The book was extremely popular in the Pre VII era. Over 3 million copies in print and it is still sold. Google it.
My wife brought home a copy. Fifty years old and looked like it was printed yesterday. I actually urged her not to read it because it was pre-VII. (You people who think I’m the beast have no idea how much I support my wife in her journey.) But I got to reading it and this chapter just captures for me the essence of what divides us.
Agree? Disagree?
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For what it’s worth, my take on indulgences is here.
One of the most striking experiences of becoming Catholic was the startling discover that bogeymen that loomed so incredibly large outside the Church dwindled to almost complete insignificance inside it, while things Protestants almost completely overlook grew to Great Big Central Issues in Catholic life.
I can’t think of a Catholic I know who spends 10 seconds a day thinking about indulgences. The vision often conjured up in Protestant circles of Catholics pouring over enchiridions and toting up days knocked off Purgatory, or sweating over various penances in an anxious fear that they have not earned their salvation yet is so fantastically remote from actual Catholic life, I’m amazed there’s still life in that caricature. The notion that they are worth keeping the Church divided is surreal to me.
As to your question, it would help if I knew what sort of God you fear the Church worships. I’ve always been under the impression we worship the God of Abraham revealed in Jesus Christ. If there’s another one and we worship him, we have the most misleading believe system on earth. For the life of me, I can’t see what in Fr. Smith’s explication of indulgences necessitates splitting the Church.
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Before I say anything about the actual subject matter – just where do you GET this stuff? I mean, where did you dig this up? Did somebody send it to you or what? OK, now excuse me while I go buy me some Alprazolam.
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I’ll start. All I can think about is how the Father treated the prodigal.
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Rules for this discussion:
1) No naming calling, insults or personal attacks. I will moderate actively.
2) Stating that a position is wrong is not an attack or an insult.
2a) Stay DIRECTLY on topic: Indulgences and the Reformation.
3) If the source material misrepresents the RCC, please demonstrate how specifically.
4) No long citations. I am not going to print them, so don’t waste your time. Link them.
5) It’s a given that some in the RCC no longer presents themselves in the “Father Smith” mode. I don’t need to be convinced that the church has changed since the 1950’s. But I do need to be convinced that the kind of God described in this material is not the God required by the RC sacramental system. Hence, the reformation is a valid, though tragic, response.
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