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!!”
_______
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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
Points made on the Mary thing. Let’s leave that alone please. It’s off topic and was from the outset.
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.
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”.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!”
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.
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.
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)”
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
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.
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.
So do Catholics also have a cage phase like Calvinists? Just a question.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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)
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
Ah, well: tomorrow is the Feast of All Saints. May all the holy men and women of God pray for us in our necessities
“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.
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.
“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?
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!