Because sin not only causes offense or hurt to the person sinned againse it can also cause actual harm that along with asking for and receiving forgiveness must also be repaired. If I harm you, ask your forgiveness and you frogive me, you no longer hold it against me. However I must for Justice sake also repair any damage I may have in any way caused you.
We should remember the rest of the story – the son’s brother who was offended and hurt both by his brother’s actions and his father’s forgiveness. I think his part in the story best illustrates the idea of the temporal effects of sin. Our relationship with the Father is restored, but what about the damage we’ve caused to ourselves and others? I imagine the Prodigal Son had a lot of work to do repairing his relationship with his brother.
The “temporal punishment for sin” is also called the “remains of sin”.
If I steal money from you, I can repent of that sin and be forgiven by God by confessing the sin. But I would still owe to you the money that I stole from you, and God’s justice obligates me to make a serious effort to make restitution for my theft.
Suppose I was a very wealthy man and I stole Br. Rich’s retirement income through a dishonest investment scam. Is Br. Rich supposed to turn the other cheek and starve to death while I spent his money buying luxuries for myself?
“Thou shalt not steal.”
Depending on the sin, the sin can create problems with your body, your friends, family or the community you live in. If you steal, you place yourself in trouble legally and have to face the consequences for breaking the law, even if God forgives the sin of theft.
I guess Br. Rich would have to make that decision… If he did turn the other cheek, would he be on his way to becoming perfect?
Sometimes the consequences of sin are subtle or at least not clearly evident, and sometimes the consequences are painfully evident, even in the Bible. For example:
But what about the person who lives like Hitler did, and then accepts Jesus a few minutes before he dies.
It seems to me that you might be saying that temporal punishments exist to satisfy justice, otherwise the slow to repent sort you describe could get off scot-free, so to speak.
Of course he would. And if he needed his money to live, I would owe him the money that I stole from him. If I had to work for the rest of my life to make restitution for my crime against Br. Rich, it would be a just punishment for me to do that.
the prodigal son still had to face facts the next day after the party. He had no inheritance, because the property had been split between the two sons when he left, so his father could not give him anything more. He still had to reconcile with the older brother. He still had to re-establish his relationships with others on the family and estate. He still had to find his place and role in the family business. He still had to recover from the physical effects of his ordeal, starvation, addictions, STDs or whatever he contracted as the result of his sins and loose living. His father’s forgiveness did not remove the bad effects of his actions.
I do not believe the Church teaches that. You will have to provide official documentation.
Hmm. Okay, working on it. As a shortcut, here is a quote from the Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott p355:
I am assuming you didn’t mean the bus part. Of course that isn’t in there. Also, I was assuming baptism validly and worthily received with the accompanying renunciation of sin. Okay, the next easiest is the CCC:
The bolding is mine. The reference is to the coucil of Florence, I think. (the 66) Of course, concupiscense remains, death remains, some of the consequences from the fall, but these don’t impede entry into the kingdom. These are not the same as temporal punishments for our personal sins. It is temporal punishments for our personal sins that get us a trip through purgatory.
If you look at the context (1472) it clearly includes temporal punishments from personal sins.
Also, the Prodigal Son had already squandered all of his father’s estate that would come to him. He would have either had to do without (remember that the Father said to the Older Son,“All that I have is yours”) or work to rebuild what he threw away. This is also a temporal consequence.
), the temporal consequence is that my health will eventually be impaired. God isn’t going to bail me out of that, more than likely, though I throw myself on His mercy and ask His forgiveness for the sin involved).