Indulgences

[Paprika]

Quick Google search answers your question:

The view of purgatory is still more clearly expressed in rabbinical passages

Indeed, but I was wondering about second-Temple Judaism.

[robrecht]

Indeed, but I was wondering about second-Temple Judaism.

Read the whole entry. I only quoted the part that related to the followers of Hillel and Shammai, both of whom lived during the 2nd Temple, by the way, because you had asked about Hilllel earlier.

[Paprika]

Read the whole entry. I only quoted the part that related to the followers of Hillel and Shammai, both of whom lived during the 2nd Temple, by the way, because you had asked about Hilllel earlier.

I've read it. The only pre-rabbinic sources cited seem to be II Maccabees and Testament of Abraham. II Maccabees doesn't explictly talk about purgatory; Testament of Abraham's dating may be post-Second Temple.

[robrecht]

I've read it. The only pre-rabbinic sources cited seem to be II Maccabees and Testament of Abraham. II Maccabees doesn't explictly talk about purgatory; Testament of Abraham's dating may be post-Second Temple.

There's not much available for individual Jewish opinions during this time. For example, we hear of the opinions of the schools of Hillel and Shammai, but hardly anything from Hillel and Shammai themselves and the Talmud is, of course, very late. Rabbi Akiba was born prior to the destruction of the Temple and is quoted with a definite opinion on the matter. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not yet discovered when the Jewish Encyclopedia was written, but they don't help all that much since they may have belonged within the Sadducean stream of thought. They did have a copy of the Book of Tobit at Qumran, which has a vague reference that seems to relate to praying for the dead at the time of burial. Are you thinking that within the emerging Jewish belief in the afterlife, some sense of a transitional stage only occurred after the destruction of the Temple? I've never studied this question, but to do so, one has to deal with sources that are not always easy to date.

[Leonhard]

I sense a circle forming.

Those two quotes responded to two different things. In the first one he wanted to know presumable why a protestant would be treated differently than a Catholic, despite both of them being forgiven. And I explained that he had to take that within the context of the Catholic Church being true, I'm not sure the notion of indulgences make sense outside of it.

In the second, which was responding to something else, I explained that the notion of indulgence is derived from sacred tradition.

If you can see a circle let me know, but since these are two individual quotes, and one isn't used to in the defence of the other, there's no circle as far as I can see. To me the teaching is derived ultimately from sacred tradition which has been confirmed by the magisterium.

[Paprika]

If you can see a circle let me know, but since these are two individual quotes, and one isn't used to in the defence of the other, there's no circle as far as I can see. To me the teaching is derived ultimately from sacred tradition which has been confirmed by the magisterium.

Yeah, I misread your post. My apologies.

[Paprika]

There's not much available for individual Jewish opinions during this time. For example, we hear of the opinions of the schools of Hillel and Shammai, but hardly anything from Hillel and Shammai themselves and the Talmud is, of course, very late. Rabbi Akiba was born prior to the destruction of the Temple and is quoted with a definite opinion on the matter. The Dead Sea Scrolls were not yet discovered when the Jewish Encyclopedia was written, but they don't help all that much since they may have belonged within the Sadducean stream of thought. They did have a copy of the Book of Tobit at Qumran, which has a vague reference that seems to relate to praying for the dead at the time of burial. Are you thinking that within the emerging Jewish belief in the afterlife, some sense of a transitional stage only occurred after the destruction of the Temple?

I'm not sure what to think without taking a closer look at the sources. The answer to my question would be very useful in determining the origin of the Catholic doctrine of purgatory.

[Sparko]

I don't think this is fair analogy, because what I'm doing is not paying more than what I hurt. Actually a fairer comparison is "I forgive you for breaking every window in the Great Crystal Palace making sure it will never be built again. However I understand that you're sorry for having done this, so I'll forgive you out of my great love for you, but you'll have to spend some time in community prison before you can rejoin us. Though, if you help by gathering up twelve of the shards lying around, the time will be reduced a lot."

Which seems completely arbitrary. If someone is sorry for breaking the glass and they are willing to clean up the mess, then there is nothing you (being the church) have to offer them. You can give them no "indulgence" - The very concept of "indulgence" means it is something you can give or withhold. Yet your description is purely one of repentence and has nothing to do with the church. It is between God and the person who sinned.

I think that asking a person to spend half an hour reading the Bible, after having taken communion, and in general rejecting sin in his life, is not asking a person to do far more in reparation than what was hurt. That implies a very low view of how heinous sins really are.

What right do you as a third party have to impose a penalty upon me, a task to perform, in order to get out of some punishment that God has decreed for me? That makes no sense whatsoever. If God wants me to spend a year in purgatory as the penalty for some sin I committed, who are you to deny God what he has decreed? And if you do have that power, then you are saying that you know better than God whether I should be punished or not.

Of course he did, I'm not talking about sins not being forgiven.

Sure if you've got venial sins on your soul when you die, they can only be forgiven in purgatory. However indulgences make no sense except for a person who has been forgiven of mortal sins, and all that requires is either perfection contrition or the sacrament of penance. Any person who's truly contrite gets forgiven. All it takes for even venial sins to be forgiven, is to take communion. However I don't see anywhere in the Bible, that we go straight to Heaven. I do see however in the tradition of the church, that there's purgatory, and that penance can reduce or eliminate the need to spend time there.

1 Thessalonians 4:17
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

Philippians 1:23
I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;

And its only through Christ's merit, that anyone else can get merit "Without me you can do nothing." That's why, when a person commits a mortal sin, they lose all the merit they have, and until they're forgiven, they can gain no more merit. Natural merit, as in virtues and wordly goodness? Yes. Supernatural merit with God? No.



Where is the scripture for this?

You'll need to elaborate on this.

Indulgences only affect you in the afterlife. It is obvious that they don't get you out of the consequences of a sin in this life. Otherwise you could just walk up to a judge in court and say "well the church gave me this indulgence, so I don't have to go to jail after all. K?thanks, bye!"

I'm not sure about that, however even if it was true, so what? Where does it say in the Bible, that only the Bible is the sole authority? You won't find that. You'll find some edicts about "not going beyond what is said or written to you" in the epistles, but ultimately its only on the conjecture that the Bible exclusively contains that, and that there's no sacred tradition outside of it.

I won't argue against sola scriptura though as I'm not that sharp in it yet.

The problem is that nowhere do we have any evidence for purgatory or indulgences other than the word of the Catholic church. Which has abused the practice. What reason do we have to believe in purgatory or indulgences? None. Surely the bible would mention something about it??? After all it seems like a pretty important topic. Basically your argument is that the bible is not our only source of knowledge. But the problem with just saying that is then, how do you determine what claims are real and what claims are just made up crap? The mormons have a lot of stuff they claim is true but not in the bible too. why don't you believe THEM?

Why? I don't see that. You have to understand, that if all of this is true, then the Catholic Church is the Church Christ established. Then you would not be living in full communion with the Church. If you're truly contrite for your sins, you'll probably still be forgiven, but why should you benefit from the merit of the Church, since you've never asked for it, or participated in it?

You are assuming the Catholic Church IS the church Christ established and it has not become corrupted in some ways over the years. One Bad Pig will argue that the Orthodox Church is the original Church.

We'll either have to finish our punishment for the sins we've committed in this world, or the next. It says so in the Bible. We won't be let out until the last coin has been paid. We can pay for some of that in this world through penance, works of mercy, etc... and by joining in the indulgences granted through the ministry of the Church. Failing to do that, we have to go to purgatory.

Where does it say you can pay for your sins in the afterlife? Basically you die and you either go to be with Jesus until resurrected, or you go to hell. There is no limbo.

But my point was that if God did create a place for someone to pay for their sins, then he must want them to pay for their sins. Who is the church to give them a "get out of purgatory" card if God wants them there?

[One Bad Pig]

Well, you should probably stop your accusations of them being allowed to "do whatever they want" then. I've never heard of such an accusation, and I'd like some substantiation for it.

Perhaps you should get out more; it's what I've generally been taught (granted, that was when I was a Protestant). That doesn't mean it's right. Here's the first link Google proffered (University of Idaho):

Papal Indulgences
Urban II offered full indulgence to any Christian participating in the Crusade. This meant quite simply that any and all sins would be forgiven and the Crusader would enter heaven. As you can imagine, this only encouraged Crusaders to engage in the worst types of sin -- rape, robbery, murder -- during the Crusades. By the time of the Crusades, indulgences were already granted by the Church to Christians for various reasons -- a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could already buy one partial or full remission of sins, and those who died during the pilgrimage were believed to go directly to heaven, regardless of previous sins.

As for the Crusaders being "no choirboys", well, I never exactly said I agreed with the actions of 'every' Crusader, as there are unsavory members in every army. I already have in mind some of them the things you're going to bring up, but please, could you give me some examples?

Well, the sack of Constantinople and the slaughter in Jerusalem were low points reflecting on those armies as a whole. That you acknowledge there were some unsavory members is sufficient to prove the point I was making, though. Again, is there any evidence that anyone was excommunicated as a result of what he did during a Crusade?

I just don't want to derail the thread. There's already another thread on Purgatory, that was just created. I'll probably post anything I have there.

Okay. I can't make you post here.

[robrecht]

I don't think repentance should only be thought of in individualistic terms. We are a community of penitents who pray for each other and forgive each other and work together to reform ourselves, each other, and our community at large. The better theology of indulgences (which I quoted from earlier) sees them as (papal or episcopal) blessings, sort of like intercessionary prayer on behalf of those who are truly repentant and desirous of making amends, not just to God, but to our fellow man, through doing or supporting works of charity. An indulgence is not thought of as opposing God's intended punishment but as speaking to and for God of the benefits of repentance now, here on earth, when we can help each other directly. Where are the Lutherans when we need them?

[TimelessTheist]

Perhaps you should get out more; it's what I've generally been taught (granted, that was when I was a Protestant). That doesn't mean it's right. Here's the first link Google proffered (University of Idaho):

Papal Indulgences
Urban II offered full indulgence to any Christian participating in the Crusade. This meant quite simply that any and all sins would be forgiven and the Crusader would enter heaven. As you can imagine, this only encouraged Crusaders to engage in the worst types of sin -- rape, robbery, murder -- during the Crusades. By the time of the Crusades, indulgences were already granted by the Church to Christians for various reasons -- a pilgrimage to Jerusalem could already buy one partial or full remission of sins, and those who died during the pilgrimage were believed to go directly to heaven, regardless of previous sins.

Well, the author of this piece that you linked is either being dishonest, or has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. As I already explained, indulgences aren't capable of forgiving sins, and 'certainly' aren't capable of preventing judgement for future sins, or guaranteeing eternal salvation. That's a position unsupported by history, and...oh, yeah, the official teaching of the Catholic Church on what indulgences actually do. Even more so, the quote I listed contradicted the idea that Urban the Second was giving them a free pass to do whatever they wanted, so, once again, this piece you linked to is complete bunk.

Well, the sack of Constantinople

Well, yes, that's indeed one example. However, if you're trying to insinuate that the Crusaders went to Constantinople and attacked it with the initial intent to steal their wealth, that's a conclusion simply not supported by the evidence. It's a lot more complicated than that (If you want, I can start a new thread explaining the situation, in depth). They did have, what they thought, at least, was a good reason for doing it (although it really wasn't).

A couple other things you should keep in mind is that the decision was essentially split down the middle. Several large groups of Crusaders, when they were told they were to siege Constantinople, packed up and left, right there. Not to mention, that Pope Innocent the Third was completely against this, and threatened them with excommunication if they went through with it.

the slaughter in Jerusalem

That's pretty vague. They were invading the city, it was commonplace in times of invasion to have a significant number of civilian casualties, especially if the fighting got so brutal that the generals sometimes lost control of their troops.

Again, is there any evidence that anyone was excommunicated as a result of what he did during a Crusade?

Wow, and you're telling me I should "get out more"? Pope Innocent the Third excommunicated 'all' the Crusaders who chose to go ahead with the plan to siege Constantinople.

Okay. I can't make you post here.

Check the new thread on Purgatory if you want to talk about this.

[One Bad Pig]

Well, the author of this piece that you linked is either being dishonest, or has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. As I already explained, indulgences aren't capable of forgiving sins, and 'certainly' aren't capable of preventing judgement for future sins, or guaranteeing eternal salvation. That's a position unsupported by history, and...oh, yeah, the official teaching of the Catholic Church on what indulgences actually do. Even more so, the quote I listed contradicted the idea that Urban the Second was giving them a free pass to do whatever they wanted, so, once again, this piece you linked to is complete bunk.

Did I mention that it wasn't necessarily right? You could stand to be more charitable in your interactions here.

Well, yes, that's indeed one example. However, if you're trying to insinuate that the Crusaders went to Constantinople and attacked it with the initial intent to steal their wealth, that's a conclusion simply not supported by the evidence. It's a lot more complicated than that (If you want, I can start a new thread explaining the situation, in depth). They did have, what they thought, at least, was a good reason for doing it (although it really wasn't).

Nope, I wasn't trying to insinuate anything of the sort.

That's pretty vague. They were invading the city, it was commonplace in times of invasion to have a significant number of civilian casualties, especially if the fighting got so brutal that the generals sometimes lost control of their troops.

It is unusual that the city was so depopulated they couldn't fill a quarter of it afterward. They seem to have killed pretty much all the Jews and Muslims they could find (and didn't do so well at distinguishing Arab Christians from Muslims).

Wow, and you're telling me I should "get out more"? Pope Innocent the Third excommunicated 'all' the Crusaders who chose to go ahead with the plan to siege Constantinople.

Thanks.

Check the new thread on Purgatory if you want to talk about this.

Yep, I saw it.

If you get a chance, I'd appreciate information on when the council you previously mentioned on indulgences took place, as well as any early (pre-Reformation) language on the official position on ingulgences.

[TimelessTheist]

Did I mention that it wasn't necessarily right? You could stand to be more charitable in your interactions here.

I don't remember saying you didn't. I was just stating that the piece you linked to was bunk. It had nothing to do with an attack on you.

Nope, I wasn't trying to insinuate anything of the sort.

Oh, sorry, it's just that, that's what people normally insinuate when talking about the Fourth Crusade.

Thanks.

No problem.

Yep, I saw it.

If you get a chance, I'd appreciate information on when the council you previously mentioned on indulgences took place, as well as any early (pre-Reformation) language on the official position on ingulgences.

I'll try to find the specific sources on it again, but it'll take a little while.

[Leonhard]

Which seems completely arbitrary. If someone is sorry for breaking the glass and they are willing to clean up the mess, then there is nothing you (being the church) have to offer them. You can give them no "indulgence" - The very concept of "indulgence" means it is something you can give or withhold. Yet your description is purely one of repentence and has nothing to do with the church. It is between God and the person who sinned.

You keep bringing up small examples. I talk about a guy who purposely smashed a museum, you talk about someone accidentally breaking a glass of milk, which isn't even a sin to begin with. You'll need to talk about a serious example.

So if I smashed all the windows in your house, and out of Christian charity you forgave me, our friendship is completely restored? The early church did a lot of penance for their sins, they fasted, they prayed, and did corporal and spiritual works of mercy. All that's fitting with restoring and building a friendship with God, which they got back by baptism.

What right do you as a third party have to impose a penalty upon me, a task to perform,

Task is the right word, its not a penalty as such. Its an action you can voluntarily do in order to diminish the temporary spiritual consequences of your sins. If it was a penalty, then you'd be culpable for not following up on doing it.

in order to get out of some punishment that God has decreed for me?

God no more decreed that you should go to Purgatory, than he decrees that someone should go to Hell. They go there because they want to, or because its necessary.

And if you do have that power, then you are saying that you know better than God whether I should be punished or not.

The Church, and more precisely the pope has that power to bind and loose like that. Christ gave them the power to decide that, and blessed that office with the Holy Spirit. Obedience to them, is obedience to Christ. Disobedience to them, is no different than disobeying Christ. The popes have assigned indulgences to appropriate acts of penance, that give them extra worth. So instead of spending a hundred days fasting, it might be enough to visit the church you got baptised in on a special day and say the baptismal vows (one source of a plenary indulgence).

1 Thessalonians 4:17
After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.

As far as I know this is about the end times.

Philippians 1:23
I am torn between the two: I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far;

Its enough to say that Paul might not have expecting purgatory for himself. No devout person ought to expect, perhaps fear it as a possibility, but they should be trying to get to the point where if they died they'd go straight to Heaven.

Even if you did end up in Purgatory that's not an awful place to be. People in purgatory don't sin anymore, there's also no more physical suffering. They've died in the friendship of God. They've made, they're going to go to Heaven. They just need to be clean first.

They suffer spiritual because they're not currently with Christ, but they're getting closer all the time. The Church teaches that the pain while more intense than anything we know is also unlike anything we've experienced on Earth. If we could feel it, we'd want to experience it. I can't see why it wouldn't hurt to have all the stains on your being removed, as well as all attachments to sin if they still exist.

This is getting to the meat of the matter, because Catholics have a different understanding of what this passage means. They both have a different view on human nature, as well as a different view on how people are justified. If its justification by faith alone, then all I've said doesn't make much sense. Again I'm just explaining this from a Catholic perspective, I don't feel equipped to defend all of the Catholic Church's teachings here.

Indulgences only affect you in the afterlife. It is obvious that they don't get you out of the consequences of a sin in this life. Otherwise you could just walk up to a judge in court and say "well the church gave me this indulgence, so I don't have to go to jail after all. K?thanks, bye!"

Thanks for the clarifications, and I agree, the natural consequences of sin aren't dealt with by indulgences.

The problem is that nowhere do we have any evidence for purgatory or indulgences other than the word of the Catholic church. Which has abused the practice.

So what? The abuses were never condoned by the magisterium, or taught as dogma. They were simple the Church doing something wrong. Local parts of the Church even. In fact the specific abuses, where it actually went wrong, weren't even consistent with Catholic teaching at the time. So your objection isn't very strong. Its no stronger than if a Catholic would point to the racists in history who argued that the slavery they benefited from was found in the Bible, as a counterpoint to Sola Scriptura. "See were that got them". Both would be examples of poisoning the well fallacies.

What reason do we have to believe in purgatory or indulgences? None. Surely the bible would mention something about it???

Sacred tradition, and apostolic authority. Its defined as an infallible dogma by one of the councils. As well as some Biblical evidence, especially in the books the reformers conveniently left out.

After all it seems like a pretty important topic.

Its not necessary for salvation, and John ends his gospel by making it clear that while Jesus taught them many things, only the things which were necessary for the salvation of souls have been written down. The rest are found in the teaching of the apostles, whether in the letters or in their oral teachings. No where does it say that they managed to pen down everything.

Its not even necessary to avoid purgatory, since for instance being a martyr is considered sufficient penance for that. They go straight to Heaven. If you've done appropriate penance for your sins, then there's nothing left and there's no need.

Basically your argument is that the bible is not our only source of knowledge. But the problem with just saying that is then, how do you determine what claims are real and what claims are just made up crap? The mormons have a lot of stuff they claim is true but not in the bible too. why don't you believe THEM?

Do the Mormons have the correct apostolic succession that goes all the way back to the apostles? The answer is trivially easy to show to be no from history. That and their teachings are incoherent. You don't have to hang around tweb long to pick up a laundry list of external and internal incoherencies with Mormonism.

And there are contradictions between what they teach and what the Bible teaches. The simplest being "Hear o Israel the Lord our God, The Lord our God is One", where as in Mormonism there's multiple gods.

There are no contradictions between what the Catholic Church teaches and what the Bible says. At most someone can only say "Its not found in there."

You are assuming the Catholic Church IS the church Christ established and it has not become corrupted in some ways over the years. One Bad Pig will argue that the Orthodox Church is the original Church.

I don't assume it, I believe it genuinely best fits the historical evidence for how Christianity began and what kind of Church Christ established. As well as what the Bible teaches. He gave Peter the keys, and gave all the apostles the power to forgive sins and bind on doctrines. While the public revelation was closed with them, we know that they passed on these blessings to the bishops. The Church has never taught anything differently, and you'll have to look a long time to find Church Fathers saying that bishops didn't have the same authority.

The very first council, the one that decided that gentiles didn't have to become jews is depicted in the Bible.

Where does it say you can pay for your sins in the afterlife?

The Bible actually mentions this briefly, but the Church is explicit that this only counts for venial sins. Mortal sins will not be forgiven in this world, or the world to come.

"But nothing unclean shall enter [heaven]" (Rev. 21:27) [This is already in strong tension with imputed rightiousness teachings]

"And whoever says a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come (Matthew 12:32)" [Implies that there are at least some sins which can be forgiven in the afterlife, except for mortal sin for instance]

"Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny"

Basically you die and you either go to be with Jesus until resurrected, or you go to hell. There is no limbo.

Limbo isn't doctrine, its a postulation. Limbo also is no the same thing as purgatory. The souls in limbo will stay there and will never enter Heaven. Souls in purgatory will never be lost, they have to be there until either the end of time, or until they've paid the temporal consequences of sin and can enter Heaven, all them will at one point or another.

[TimelessTheist]

P.S. (Missed this point)

It is unusual that the city was so depopulated they couldn't fill a quarter of it afterward. They seem to have killed pretty much all the Jews and Muslims they could find (and didn't do so well at distinguishing Arab Christians from Muslims).

Yeah, that was bad, no doubting it. The history says that the Crusader princes lost control of their troops once they gained control of the wall and stormed the gates, and the troops were apparently already caught up in so much bloodshed and chaos, that they just attacked everything in sight that wasn't them. So, yeah, it was bad, but at least the commanding Crusader princes didn't command, or condone it.

I've never been in war, especially not a Medieval war, where all the troops are tightly packed together, and fighting against another tightly packed group right in front of their faces, so I can't really say whether all the killing was out of malice, or whether it was out of confusion or panic.