What is your objection to the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences?

[to_seek]

Like others have already said, indulgences would take away the work that Christ died on the Cross. It is through His Blood that we are cleansed, nothing else.To even think more has to be done after we die is almost blasphemy against what Jesus Himself said many times. I would like to know where this practise originated from and why .I was brought up Catholic myself and swallowed a lot of this sort of teaching because its what I first knew. That doesnt mean it is true. It is a teaching of the catholic church and thats where it stands for me.I do not think that it makes any kind of sense, if you believe what Jesus said and did. The church is not equal to Jesus, no church is whether Catholic or Protestant. My suggestion is to go to His Word alone to read just what Jesus said, taught, and preached about. Humans are great at building organisations and sometimes that distracts totally from what The Lord said and did, with the resulting confusions and fears that abound today. Second thing is pray, pray for God Himself to direct your readings, ask Him and surely He will guide you. To seek.

 

[KathleenGee]

We Catholics do not believe in the Word alone…We believe in the Word Made Flesh…that means there is a body of believers incarnating the Word of God through the Apostles…Christ established His Church and He invited us to the Banquet Table…He did not tell the Apostles to go and make bibles. There is a reason for that and it is evident in many, many threads why Christ did establish His church and chose those to guide it.

It doesn’t mean that those chosen to become shepherds are as perfect as Christ. We are all in need of Christ’s redeeming, saving power every day in our lives.

And the works Catholics do in their parishes is no different than the works done in Protestant churches. You don’t have the sacraments and the universal prayer, the Mass, and all the merits and works of Jesus Christ and the administration of His Body and Blood are provided for us, and further incarnated into the life of the Church, and the daily life of Catholics for us to draw on…all from Jesus Christ Who promised to remain with us.

So we also have to work at understanding and knowing more about our own faith to make better use for a deeper and richer relationship with Jesus Christ through the Word of God that is incarnated into the life of the Church. The symbolism and use of the Word of God permeates our churches and practices…not just using Bibles…there is more to our faith.

 

[to_seek]

We Catholics do not believe in the Word alone…We believe in the Word Made Flesh…that means there is a body of believers incarnating the Word of God through the Apostles…Christ established His Church and He invited us to the Banquet Table…He did not tell the Apostles to go and make bibles. There is a reason for that and it is evident in many, many threads why Christ did establish His church and chose those to guide it.
Politely I really believe you and all catholics need to step outside of the square and start believing in His Word, first, before all else. Having grown up a catholic and know that all catholics are trained from early age to believe without question in the traditions etc, I encourage you if you havent already done so, check out the history of how these traditions came to be via internet, and see also why so many people today strongly believe that the Bible is the true and only source we really have to hold onto.
It doesn’t mean that those chosen to become shepherds are as perfect as Christ. We are all in need of Christ’s redeeming, saving power every day in our lives.

And the works Catholics do in their parishes is no different than the works done in Protestant churches. You don’t have the sacraments and the universal prayer, the Mass, and all the merits and works of Jesus Christ and the administration of His Body and Blood are provided for us, and further incarnated into the life of the Church, and the daily life of Catholics for us to draw on…all from Jesus Christ Who promised to remain with us.
Christ said He would stay with the church of believers for all time. He never said that it was with a particular church which didnt really form as such till Constantine and the Emperor together brought about the roman church.
So we also have to work at understanding and knowing more about our own faith to make better use for a deeper and richer relationship with Jesus Christ through the Word of God that is incarnated into the life of the Church. The symbolism and use of the Word of God permeates our churches and practices…not just using Bibles…there is more to our faith.

What do you mean by the Word being incarnated into the life of The Church? To me The Holy Spirit is available through prayer and The Word to all believers. It is offered to Catholics, and all other churches faithful to true teachings of Christ. There is no need for any christian church to proclaim itself as the True Church, as The Church was never an institution. It refers to the body of believers only. I speak as a christian and dont proclaim to be a particular denomination. Im just challenging you to think about what Ive written and not just knock it back as anti-catholic. Im pro getting Truth out. Sincerely to seek.

 

[KathleenGee]

Incarnated means Word Made Flesh…We have the Liturgy of the Word…it takes us 3 years to go through the complete Bible at Mass…and then we have the Liturgy of the Eucharist…The Word Made Flesh…

We are nourished by the Lord’s soul and divinity, body and blood…and all I can say is that the response makes us ready at the end of Mass to go out to serve others…the other grace of the Eucharist is that He gives me strength not to get mad at people most of the time…provided I stop myself from my own occasion to sin in anger.

 

[KathleenGee]

Really, after a person is drawn to the life of the universal church, lives it out for awhile, draws on the prayers of the communion of saints, until then nobody would understand the benefits of indulgences…

We do not pay God to get into heaven, we don’t add up the hours as there is no linear time, as God is, and we cannot manipulate the Lord…

so that in mind, there is something about indulgences that is for real and a great benefit…for devout Catholics who are mature in faith.

 

[Bluegoat]

Really, after a person is drawn to the life of the universal church, lives it out for awhile, draws on the prayers of the communion of saints, until then nobody would understand the benefits of indulgences…

We do not pay God to get into heaven, we don’t add up the hours as there is no linear time, as God is, and we cannot manipulate the Lord…

so that in mind, there is something about indulgences that is for real and a great benefit…for devout Catholics who are mature in faith.

This sounds a lot like what the Mormon missionaries that stopped by this week said to me.

 

[KathleenGee]

Bluegoat, simply put, Christ’s resurrection broke not only the power of sin but linear time…meaning each day in the Lord is a new life in Him.

This thread is about indulgences and the filter of reading parts of the catechism through money and earning and purchasing one’s place in heaven…indulgences do no such thing, but if you are not participating fully in the life of the Church, no explanation will suffice…

 

[Victor_Claveau]

this thread is about indulgences and the filter of reading parts of the catechism through money and earning and purchasing one’s place in heaven…indulgences do no such thing, but if you are not participating fully in the life of the church, no explanation will suffice…

bravo!

 

[to_seek]

Im not getting any real answers to challenges I sincerely put to equally sincere practising catholics. Most of catholicism is tradition taught from an early age. I dont pose questions to annoy, but rather to challenge types of thinking that sound like institution answers that the Church has taught millions of people to think, without questioning why. In the 60s and 70s as catholics growing up then it was even worse. No one dared question at all. Indulgences is a belief that if one is extra good or prays certain prays , time can be taken off the time one spends in Purgatory, an equally dubious and questionable belief system. These beliefs sound close to a kind of witchcraft pagan system that has no place in a Christ centred Church. Why? Well I think that it is a form of controlling a population of believers instituted centuries ago to give catholics some hope that if they followed certain rules, they would be rewarded in the after life.I simply do not believe Christ ever taught about indulgences or purgatory at all. However that doesnt make everything invalid by any means. My hope is that people and the Church will take away these sort of practices for the sake of all who would otherwise be happy to be part of the Church. I am not a theologian but a normal thinking christian who would like to go back to the RC Church, but not as a puppet that is controlled by traditions that cannot be substantiated by anyone outside the Hierachy of the Church, and I would like answers to some challenges I raise in different forums. It is a healthy Church that can stand, debate, agree to disagree. It isnt healthy when a Church spouts rhetoric based on traditions that supposedly came down from Christ Himself.

 

[Bluegoat]

Bluegoat, simply put, Christ’s resurrection broke not only the power of sin but linear time…meaning each day in the Lord is a new life in Him.

This thread is about indulgences and the filter of reading parts of the catechism through money and earning and purchasing one’s place in heaven…indulgences do no such thing, but if you are not participating fully in the life of the Church, no explanation will suffice…

 

[Victor_Claveau]

I am not a theologian but a normal thinking christian who would like to go back to the RC Church, but not as a puppet that is controlled by traditions that cannot be substantiated by anyone outside the Hierachy of the Church, and I would like answers to some challenges I raise in different forums. It is a healthy Church that can stand, debate, agree to disagree. It isnt healthy when a Church spouts rhetoric based on traditions that supposedly came down from Christ Himself.

I am a theologian and am a long-time member of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. I have been studying the Catholic religion for almost 25 years, and as God is my witness, I have never found even one contradiction between what the Catholic Church teaches today and what Jesus and His Apostles taught 2,000 years ago. In other words, I have done my homework.
During these years I have amassed a considerable library and have numerous resources that have helped me to understand the teachings of Jesus as promulgated by the successors of the Apostles.
Have you read my post explaining the origin of the doctrines of indulgences and purgatory? There is a solid foundation for these and all other Catholic doctrines.
I believe that if these doctrines were false, Jesus would have had a moral obligation to correct them as he corrected the Jewish view of divorce and the eternal punishment of Gehenna. There is no repudiation of these teachings in Scripture.
The bottom line is always authority. Jesus established His Church and stated that the gates of hades would not prevail against it. Jesus empowered the Apostles and told them that He would send the Holy Spirit to guide and instruct them. He did not promise this to each and every person, but only to the Apostles.
I would suggest that you continue to study, using Catholic resources. I would also like to suggest that you visit www.evangelizationstation.com. There you will find many resources to help you understand the truth of Catholicism. Pray for faith.

 

[KathleenGee]

to seek,

The church is constantly reforming itself. What people don’t realize is that there were many dioceses in different geographical locations that were not involved with the corruption like those during the time of the Reformation.

I bet you have many traditions you personally practice, that you integrate into daily life drawn from values you hold dear.

Your attitude and responses are so typical of people who are deliberately indoctrinated to oppose the Catholic Church. You are being taught we are a man made religion. You are looking at a certain segment of a particular ethnic Catholics who had scruples you described. These issues were addressed and resolved in the Church through Vatican II…

Reform does not happen overnight in secular institutions…the same with the Church --it is a human institution, and the clergy administrators are not the intentional, bible warping monsters people idealize. There was a little book out years ago that looked like it was a children’s book…it was called ‘T…T…T’…-- not tradition–, but a little book reflecting on wisdom for every day life. 'T…T…T… meant:
Things Take Time

 

[Contarini]

You’re not an Aquinas fan? Wow! I’m a little fuzzy on what you said toward the end. You, as a strict practicing Catholic and student of Catholic education buy into the Eastern Orthodox view of Original Sin over the Augustinian view? Maybe I misunderstood you there?

Gurney,

I could be wrong, but I think one can hold the Orthodox view and be a Catholic. I wonder if you entirely understand the Orthodox view? They do believe that Adam’s sin affected human nature–they just don’t believe in inherited guilt. I think that the theology of the Cappadocians and Maximus the Confessor is generally better than that of Augustine–equivalent depth and more balance. But I still love many things about Augustine, of course.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Well…Guerny…It seems like we Catholics are just lightweights lately on CAF…Frankly, I don’t let Augustine prevent me from drawing on the life of Christ in my faith either…Interesting posts by Edwin…but again, when you participate in the life the church…meaning Catholic there is quite a bit to it, including many saints…

I don’t think I have a problem with how you understand and practice indulgences. It just seems to me that the official teachings are far more explicit about a legal understanding of indulgences.

One of the things that does appeal to me about contemporary Catholicism is that many Catholics seem to be interpreting their faith far more along the lines of the Eastern Church than along “traditional” second-millennium Western lines (and admittedly the more truly traditional approach of the Fathers was never as entirely replaced by scholasticism and juridicalism as the Orthodox often claim). However, the doctrines and structures of your Communion are still shaped by these second-millennium developments in what I find troublesome ways. And the history of post-Vatican-II Catholicism seems to indicate that Catholic ressourcement has had some of the same unfortunate side effects as Protestant (including Anglo-Catholic) attempts to return to ancient tradition, though not as radically. It remains to be seen whether the current conservative turn in your Communion will succeed in reviving a genuinely Catholic Tradition (as in breathing with two lungs) rather than simply renewing the juridical and authoritarian tendencies that have led to so much trouble in Western Christianity over the past millennium.

I’m just not sure that one can recover Tradition once lost, and I’m not sure that any of us Western Christians have preserved Tradition in its entirety. I’m not entirely sure that anyone has, which is why I remain Anglican even though I know we haven’t!

And I don’t like ST. Thomas that much either…he may have had a certain IQ, but he was still a dumb ox when it came to women…thinking we all have defective genes

Aquinas wasn’t unique in this respect (“genes” is of course an anachronistic way of putting it, but I know what you mean), and shouldn’t be blamed individually, I think. This was the “best” scientific opinion of his day.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

n
Analogously, one who claims that Aquinas denied the Immaculate Conception is making a very superficial and misleading statement. The following would be far more accurate and less misleading: If the Blessed Virgin had not contracted original sin, then (so thought Aquinas) this would detract from the dignity of Christ, who is the Redeemer of all men, including the Virgin. Aquinas never denied the Immaculate Conception as defined by the Church. He simply did not see how the universality of Christ’s salvation would have been preserved in the case of the Virgin. The so called “immaculate conception” that Aquinas could not accept is an unredeemed immaculate conception, an opinion that all Catholics, not just Aquinas, have to reject, especially after the true meaning of the Immaculate Conception has been infallibly defined by the Church.

To be fair to St. Thomas, the most we can say is that he did not see how two facts could be reconciled-that Christ is the true Redeemer of all mankind and that a particular human being, the Virgin, was conceived without sin. The concept of “anticipated redemption” or “preservation” from original sin by the merits of Christ simply did not occur to him. If Aquinas had been presented with this solution to his dilemma, no one could seriously doubt that he would have been the first to teach the Virgin’s privilege.

Aquinas (and for that matter Anselm, Bonaventure, Albertus Magnus, Bernard of Clairvaux, Alexander of Hales (and several other theological heavyweights of the Middle Ages) did not so much deny the Immaculate Conception as simply assert the universality of Christ’s Redemption, a clear and undisputed dogma of Christianity which they could not intellectually reconcile with a human being conceived free from original sin.
%between%

Sorry, but this is sheer spin. Aquinas obviously did deny the Immaculate Conception because he didn’t see how this could be justified with the universality of Redemption. It’s playing dishonest word games to say that he didn’t deny the IC just because no one had suggested to him certain later ways of reconciling the IC with the truth he wanted to defend.

Now it’s perfectly reasonable to say that Aquinas’s denial of the IC doesn’t put him outside Catholic Tradition *or *make the later dogma of the IC illegitimate. But claiming that he didn’t deny the IC is simply dishonest.

For me the bigger question is whether Augustine’s doctrine of Original Sin was correct in the first place. I tend to think that the Orthodox have a better approach, which makes the whole IC issue moot.

Edwin

 

[Bluegoat]

(and admittedly the more truly traditional approach of the Fathers was never as entirely replaced by scholasticism and juridicalism as the Orthodox often claim).

Edwin

Indeed, I have heard it argued that Aquinas approach draws on Augustine far more than is normally acknowledged.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hi Edwin,

No disrespect intended, but why do you assume I don’t understand the Orthodox view? Why make the assumption I’m not learned in their theology? It’s a tad offensive honestly. I realize the difference. If I didn’t, I’d quickly admit it. There’s much about Orthodoxy I still have to learn, their view of O.S. I understand. I disagree with their view and accept the Augustinian view myself. I don’t like their view of the atonement in relation to their view of O.S. Your last point is one of individual opinion of course. I respect your view. I am not very familiar with Maximus the Confessor so I cannot speak to him. I am more familiar with Augustine and greatly admire his works, viewpoint, and theological stances.

Gurney,

I could be wrong, but I think one can hold the Orthodox view and be a Catholic. I wonder if you entirely understand the Orthodox view? They do believe that Adam’s sin affected human nature–they just don’t believe in inherited guilt. I think that the theology of the Cappadocians and Maximus the Confessor is generally better than that of Augustine–equivalent depth and more balance. But I still love many things about Augustine, of course.

Edwin

 

[grannymh]

What is your objection to the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences?
a) That it isn’t in the Bible?
b) That it renders confession of sins pointless?
c) That it assumes there’s a place called purgatory?
d) That it portrays God as some sort of celestial Shylock?
e) That it effectively turned Western Christianity into a religion of works?
f) Other?
Curiously,
Mick

I’m just dropping in and am confused by the posts referring to Original Sin. Indulgence refers to remission of temporal punishment and practices of penance.

Did I miss the connection of Indulgences to Adam? Or is the confusion over the reality of Adam? In any case, Catholic teaching is that Adam is a true, fully complete human person with the same human nature as you and me. The effects of Original Sin are transmitted by procreation of human nature. For us, Original Sin is a contracted state and not a committed action.

Personal sin is another ball game.

The tradition of Indulgences dates back to the early practices of penance for personal sins. I mean way back to the time when the term “sack cloth and ashes” had meaning. These practices were based on Catholic doctrines about sin. Are those the doctrines, you are thinking about? Which ones?

Blessings,
granny

The human person is worthy of profound respect from the moment of conception.

 

[jimmy]

Another facet of indulgences I have issues with is the idea of a plenary indulgence. The main requirement to get a plenary indulgence is that one must have NO attachment to even VENIAL SIN!??

This smacks of Pelagianism to me. How can a person not have ANY attachment to venial sin? No attachment to venial sin would seem to make a person god-like, wouldn’t it? I can’t imagine anyone I’ve ever met, known, or seen who has NO attachment to ANY venial sins at all? How?

gurney, that statement is a problem to me as well, but for a different reason. If a man has no attachment to even venial sin, what is the purpose of getting an indulgence? It seems to point to purgatory as a necessary punishment for sins, even after they have been forgiven. It ruin the concept of purgatory as cleansing and turns it into a place of punishment.

Indulgences seem to indicate purgatory as a place in time where we suffer the punishments of our sins. Why even speak of an indulgence in relation to numbers of days or years if this isn’t the case?

 

[grannymh]

gurney, that statement is a problem to me as well, but for a different reason. If a man has no attachment to even venial sin, what is the purpose of getting an indulgence? It seems to point to purgatory as a necessary punishment for sins, even after they have been forgiven. It ruin the concept of purgatory as cleansing and turns it into a place of punishment.

Indulgences seem to indicate purgatory as a place in time where we suffer the punishments of our sins. Why even speak of an indulgence in relation to numbers of days or years if this isn’t the case?

The problems here and the post quoted center on confusion about human nature, triple concupiscence, what it takes to sin, and the ancient relationship of time and penance performed on earth.