One of the interesting things about running a blog are the statistics you get about the blogs performance. For instance, I can see which post is the most read, which websites refer readers here and how often, and how many visits I get each day (even each hour of each day).
One of the more useful things on the stats page – well, sometimes it’s actually more amusing than anything else – are the search strings that people use to find this place. Search strings are the things you type into Google or Yahoo when you’re looking for something. When you run your search and click on the link, the stats counter records your arrival and I can see it the next day. The amusing things are the folks that come here looking for information on white water rafting, or advice on dealing with a condescending priest.
Every now and then a real gem appears in the search strings. Here’s one that I found recently:
“Is an indulgence earning your own salvation?”
That’s an excellent question, and the person that asked it must have gone away empty handed. After all, I haven’t written a word about indulgences, so how could they have found anything. Well, I can remedy that now.
So, what is an indulgence, and will it earn you a place in heaven?
The short answer is no, an indulgence does not help you get into heaven. To explain indulgences we have to use, for the first time, the P-word: Purgatory. The book I have on Catholic Doctrine defines Purgatory as “a place of temporal penal purification.”
To a Catholic, not all sin is equally damning. A sin that truly condemns is called mortal. In such a case, the soul is mortally wounded by sin, stripped of Sanctifying Grace, and unable to exist in heaven. Any sin short of mortal is called venial. Venial sin is a lesser thing, the soul can be healed, and Sanctifying Grace remains (even if diminished). The Sacrament of Penance (a.k.a. Confession or Reconciliation) forgives these sins and reestablishes Sanctifying Grace in the soul. But even a sin that has been forgiven can still bear on the soul in the form of temporal punishment. This is the where Purgatory comes in.
Purgatory plays a part in two ways. First, a soul with Sanctifying Grace will go to heaven, but it must be perfectly clean before the trip can be completed. Purgatory gives the soul this perfect cleansing, stripping away all hint of past or present sin. Second, some sins, either because of their severity or because of an imperfect confession on the part of the penitent, may justly warrant punishment before heaven is attained. In such a case the penitent is forgiven through Confession, but is still subject to punishment.
Now, look back at the quote above, where Purgatory is called a “temporal” state. (Have you picked-up on the fact that it’s always referred to as a “state” rather than a “place”?) Given that it’s temporal, time exists in Purgatory. It is time itself that is the key to understanding indulgences.
An indulgence removes some amount of the time a soul must spend in Purgatory. Some indulgences are called Plenary, in which case the whole time in Purgation can be removed. In others, known as partial indulgences, only a part of the time in Purgatory is lifted. Either way, it’s the length of time in Purgatory that is in question, not the admission into heaven itself. It’s about the remission of temporal punishment only, not getting into heaven.
Now, how is this justified by the Church? After all, this was one of the biggest problems that Luther and Wycliffe had with the hierarchy? The power to grant indulgences comes from Christ himself. It’s tied directly into the Church’s ability to forgive sins – what is loosed on Earth is loosed in Heaven, what is retained on Earth, is retained in Heaven. The great mercy of Christ extends, therefore, beyond giving the Church the ability to forgive sins. It extends to lifting away punishment for sin as well.
At this point I should say that, contrary to popular Protestant opinion, indulgences aren’t just lying around at the end of every pew waiting for Catholics to snatch them up. Quite the contrary, the ability to grant or gain an indulgence is a highly regulated thing.
First, the legitimate powers to grant indulgences are the Pope, the Bishops, and the Cardinals. The Pope has an unlimited ability to grant indulgences. He can literally grant an indulgence to any Catholic that’s been baptized and is in full communion with the Church. The Bishops and Cardinals are more limited. The person requesting the indulgence must be subject to that Bishop or Cardinal. I could not, for example, request an indulgence from the Archbishop of Denver because I live in Dallas and am not subject to him directly.
Next, the person requesting the indulgence must be Catholic and baptized. They must also perform a good work sufficient to warrant the indulgence, and must be conscious of doing the work specifically for the purpose of being granted the indulgence. Finally, they must have been forgiven for the sin prior to attempting the work and thus have Sanctifying Grace in their soul.
Now you can see why the buying and selling of indulgences during the Middle Ages rightly earned the ire of Luther and the early Protestants. To pay for such a thing, and to sell it, is absolutely contrary to the intent. Seeking an indulgence should help the penitent grow in their love of God, not be transformed into a simple transaction of money for goods like buying a refrigerator. Selling something like this would seem, to me at least, a great evil – or at least, a potentially great evil – doomed to be misused. It ultimately subverts the philosophy behind the Sacrament of Penance.
But when taken with the proper intent, the doctrine on indulgences can actually be seen as a wondrous thing. Though it’s not a sacrament itself, it’s the logical completion of the Sacrament of Penance. Christ doesn’t just forgive the sin, but absolves the truly penitent of the punishment for the sin as well. In these terms, it is yet another tremendous example of God’s great love and mercy for us puny humans.
The Anglican 39 articles called purgatory a "Romish superstition" or something like that. However, the most famous of 20th century Anglicans, C.S. Lewis, thought that purgatory sounded like a good idea. If I remember right, he wrote that 'wouldn't one want to be cleaned up a bit before being led into the presense of God?'
In regards to mortal sin, it seems to fall in with Hebrews ch 6. At any rate, how else to read it?
In regard to venial sins, purgatory could be seen as a gift. The alternatives are what? Cheap grace on one hand and extreme legalisim on the other. Cheap grace as in the once-saved-always-saved mentality. Say this cute little prayer or whatever and bang--saved for ever! Leagalisim as in that some think that each and every sin or commission or ommision must be explicitly asked for forgiveness in prayer, or that one sin, no matter how small, would result in damnation.
I take it as non-controversial that most of us will die in a state of incomplete sanctification and require further cleansing after death -- purgatory, in other words. Nor is it foreign to at least the high-church Protestant mind that the departed may grow in grace, forever. (The old Episcopal prayerbook includes a prayer to that effect in the communion service.) Protestants do tend to think that our souls will be made righteous enough, grace-filled enough to be in the presence of God instantaneously after death, though -- which is to say that purgatory isn't a temporal state, in their view. As far as I can tell, the Bible doesn't say one way or another about that, and if you accept 2 Maccabees as part of the canon, there's no good reason not to pray for the dead.
It doesn't even seem all that outrageous to say that I can obtain an indulgence for myself -- the well-disposed pious acts I perform in order to obtain the indulgence work toward my sanctification in some way, it makes sense to say that this will lessen the purgatorial suffering my soul will need to undergo, and the formalization of that fact through indulgences proclaimed by the Church is sacramental in character.
The traditional characterization of purgatory as "temporal punishment" is problematic, though. If the Lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world, then what "punishment" remains? One could say that, as I discipline my son in order to correct him (and indeed if I failed to do so I would be showing him hatred rather than love) so also my soul will need to suffer in purgatory for the sake of its correction and cleansing. But that seems inconsistent with the Catholic doctrine that one may obtain an indulgence and apply it to a soul in purgatory -- that soul then escapes this "punishment" but is nevertheless sanctified sufficiently to enter the presence of God. So it's not strictly necessary that I suffer in order to be purged. And certainly if I could correct my son in this life without causing him to suffer, I would gladly do it.
So it's a passing odd kind of "punishment" -- my complete sanctification can be obtained without it, and the "penal" aspect isn't taken away by Christ's sacrifice on the Cross. So what is it, and what is it for?
Stay with me, RL. I'm working on a follow-up post that will help answer your question.
Is there is distinction between punishment to give justice, and punishment for the benefit of the person being punished? One would not (one hopes) punish their child to "restore harmony to the universe" or whatever, but one would beause they wanted their child to grow up properly.
Surely Christ's sacrifice would relieve the burden of justice, but does not God discipline those He loves? Or does purgatory also involve attonment for venial sins?
Purgatory seems like a plausible explaination, but where did the concept come from and when was it developed? It seems like the Greek Orthodox have a similar concept, for what it is worth. The Bible has no direct refence to Purgatory that I can find, but it has very little reference to the after life at all.
I Cor. 3 gets is about as direct a reference to purgatory as you'll see in Scripture, a basic idea of burning away works of the flesh, of being saved yet as through fire. It's not clear enough to convince most protestants, who don't understand purgatory anyway, but it is there.