Indulgences
In the
days leading up to, and on, Oct. 31st indulgences were center stage
in many Protestant articles. The major
problem was, not one I read got indulgences right. To be fair, most Catholics couldn’t tell you
what an indulgence is and admittedly, at the time of the Reformation, Catholics
were not well educated about their faith, including Martin Luther, especially
about indulgences. So, what are they?
It
might be helpful to start with what they are not. One Protestant video stated that indulgences
were where the Catholic Church “bought and sold salvation.”[1] Another video implied indulgences were giving
money to a priest who then “promised a better heaven.”[2] Most commonly, even among poorly catechized
Catholics, I have heard that indulgences were purchased as a “get out of
sinning free” card. These are all false.
To
begin to understand indulgences we must first explore the consequences of
sin. All Christians would agree there is
an eternal consequence to sin (Well, ok, all Christians who believe in sin and
hell, which is a decreasing number these days).
The Catholic Church teaches unequivocally, drawing from Scripture, only
God can forgive the eternal consequences due to sin.[3] Protestants and Catholics might disagree on
the method or medium He has chosen to use, but that is a topic for another day.
Recognizing
what Scripture and reason show us, there are more than just the eternal
consequences due to sin: there are also temporal consequences. Many Protestants might be tempted to balk at
this, but it might be helpful to know that even anti-Catholic groups agree.[4]
We all
understand what the Catholic Church means by an eternal consequence: hurting or
killing our relationship with God. But
what about “temporal consequence?” Another
way to say this is “temporal punishment” or punishment resulting from our sin
that we experience in this life. So is
the Catholic Church saying that even though we are forgiven of the eternal
consequences due to our sin we might still be punished? Yup and I think we all agree with this when
we take time to think about it.
How does this work? Let’s say I steal $1,000.00 from you. Later I have a change of heart and I ask God
for forgiveness. For the sake of
argument let us say I am completely sincere.
Then I come and ask you for forgiveness.
I presume, being a Christian, you would forgive me. Is that it?
Is everything all done? No, of
course not. I must give back the money
and even if I do there are also legal consequences to face regardless of the
forgiveness I received from you and God.
Another example – one that
shows the error in that previously cited anti-Catholic website’s thinking –
would our parents still punish us by making us clean up a broken window even
after forgiving us for breaking it? As a
father I say, oh heck yeah! Why? Because parents understand there is benefit for
the child in it.
Wait what? Did you just say there’s value in punishment
and suffering??
The Catholic Church
recognizes there is great value to suffering, as there was for Christ. Christ’s suffering is what lead to our redemption
and salvation being offered to all. We
have Christ living in us, so His power can make our suffering redemptive, in a
much smaller but very real sense. I
don’t want to get lost in a fuller explanation of redemptive suffering so I’m
going to skip a lot. Sometimes God still
lets us experience the punishment due to our sin to help us, among other
things, realize the seriousness of our sins, to teach us not to do it again, to make reparations for our actions and
thereby continue us down the path of sanctification.
So how
about Scripture? Where is any of this in
Scripture? There are numerous examples
of sin having both eternal and temporal consequences. A good start is in the beginning of the
Bible: Genesis 3:16-24. This is after
Adam and Eve disobeyed God. We can see
both consequences at play. Listed first
is all the temporal punishments that both Adam and Eve will experience because
of their sin. At the end of the passage
is the eternal consequence: they’re kicked out of Eden, or their perfect
relationship with God.
Another
example is King David. King David
committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband, Uri’ah (1 Sam
11:2-22). After Nathan confronts David –
including one temporal consequence: “Now therefore the sword shall never depart
from your house, because you have despised me…” (1 Sam 11:10) – we see the
eternal consequence dealt with and another temporal consequence: “David said to
Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” And Nathan said to David, “The Lord
also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this
deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall
die.” (1 Sam 11:13-14). We see that God
forgives David’s sin but he still must suffer punishment.
So…
what is an indulgence? “An indulgence is
a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has
already been forgiven…”[5]
I want
to point out something: “…whose guilt has already been forgiven…” An indulgence cannot be “buying forgiveness”
because one must be forgiven before one can obtain an indulgence.
How
does someone get an indulgence? First it
is helpful to say that an indulgence is granted only through Christ’s power of
binding and loosing given to the Church and specifically Peter.[6] Someone obtains an indulgence through holy
practices, prayers and disposition. Two
types of indulgences can be obtained: partial and plenary. Plenary means all temporal punishment yet due
to our sin has been removed. Partial is
exactly as it sounds: only a part of the temporal punishment is removed; how much
is known by God alone.
Why
wouldn’t everyone just get a plenary indulgence? Because it may not be possible for them: one
of the conditions is to be free from the desire and attachment to all sin. If someone attempts to obtain a plenary
indulgence but does not meet all the conditions a partial may still be
obtained.
So, what
is all this about selling indulgences? I
hope you can see that the sale of indulgences isn’t possible. As a matter of fact abusing the granting of
indulgences is, and always has been, considered sinful by the Catholic
Church. It is well known that these
abuses have happened throughout Catholic Church history by individuals – the
Church’s teaching on them has never changed, only become more detailed. In some cases, Catholic clergy were saying if
you donated money to the Church you could obtain an indulgence. Giving alms (donating money) was one of the
practices one could do to obtain an indulgence.
What the abuse seemed to be was ignoring the rest of the conditions
(confession, prayers and freedom from all attachment to sin) in favor of just
giving money. This was misunderstood by
some, like Martin Luther, to be “buying” an indulgence. Bad catechesis existed back then too, and
Martin Luther seems to have believed that indulgences were about forgiving
eternal consequences, hence “buying salvation.”
If this was the intent of some of the Catholic clergy at the time –
which I do not doubt – those “indulgences” were not real, did not do anything
and were a sin on the part of those clergy.
There
is more that could be said but I feel we’ve gone over enough information to see
there is a whole bunch of misinformation out there about Catholic indulgences
and most of what you’ve heard is probably wrong.
Now
what questions do you have that we can discuss?
[1]
YouTube video “Why TODAY is a Big Deal (Oct 31, 2017)” Warrior Poets Rally
Point
[2] www.lightunshackled.com Intro
video. There is much more incorrect
information in this video. Some of which
I will address in future items of discussion.
[3]
Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) paragraph 1441
[4] www.justforcatholics.org “Temporal
Punishment”, “We readily affirm that sin has temporal and eternal consequences…”
[5]
CCC 1471
[6]
CCC 1478 cf Mt 16:16-18, 18:15-18.
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