What is your objection to the Catholic doctrine of Indulgences?

[Victor_Claveau]

Part One
The sacrifice of Jesus attoned for the sins of man. But this does not mean that because of His sacrifice all believers will automaticly enter heaven at the time of their death. Only Saints enter heaven. Each of us are responsible for our own sins and will be held accountable before God.

Jews celebrate a liturgical calendar that begins on Rosh Ha-Shanah. As a matter of fact, Rosh Ha-Shanah literally means ‘head of the year.’ The Jewish High Holy Days are celebrated from Rosh Ha-Shanah to Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is celebrated on the tenth day of the year as the most important day in the Jewish calendar. This period is also referred to as the ‘Days of Awe’, or the ‘High Holy Days’.

According to ancient belief, Jews believe that God keeps a record book of our actions, both good and evil. It is during the High Holy Days that God determines who shall live and who shall die in the coming year. During these first days of the New Year, God opens the book and writes therein the names of those who will live through the coming year. Orthodox Jewish belief is that the final judgment is but the culmination of a series of these annual judgments, which take place on Yom Kippur.

The central theme of the Days of Awe is repentance, or teshuvah, literally meaning ‘returning to one’s self.’ The preceding Hebrew month of Elul is set aside as a time for reflection and soul-searching, so the Days of Awe might be entered into in the proper spirit. According to Jewish tradition, there are conditions necessary for teshuvah — regret for past negative behavior, willingness to confess sins before God, and a resolve to amend wicked behavior. In the song of the Psalmist it states, ‘depart from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it’ (Psalm 37:27). The opportunity to repent extends until the end of the tenth Holy Day, the Day of Atonement, when Jews fast as a sign of contrition.

Jews will visit the graves of their loved ones just prior to the Days of Awe in the belief that the righteous in heaven, whether relatives or the holy ones of old, can and will intercede in heaven on their behalf.

They would ask their ancestors to intercede for them before God and beg God to apply the merit of the righteous to those about to be judged.

This concept is analogous to the Catholic belief in the Communion of Saints and also the doctrine of Indulgences.

In order to fully understand the doctrine of Indulgences, it would be helpful to have a handle on the concept of grace as taught by the Catholic Church, so please bear with me as I explain.

We have been made to know, love, and serve God here on earth, and after our death to be happy with Him forever in heaven. But we are utterly unable *by our own natural powers *to do these things, or to reach our goal. It is by God’s grace alone we can expect to gain eternal life. Without God’s help, or grace, we cannot avoid evil or do anything good. ‘Apart from me,’ Jesus says, ‘you can do nothing’. ‘No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit’. ‘No one can come to me,’ Jesus says, ‘unless the Father who sent me draws him’. Saint Paul says, ‘Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God’. And again, he says: ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’.

Grace is a ‘supernatural gift of God to an intelligent creature, bestowed to enable us to merit eternal life. There are two kinds of grace, actual and sanctifying (also called habitual). Actual grace is a supernatural help given to us by God to avoid evil and to do good, it affects the faculties of will and intellect. Actual grace operates in the soul by illuminating it, so that a person can differentiate between good and evil and choose to do good. Saint Augustine explained grace as the ‘will and performance.’ He explained that we cannot take credit for any beneficial act we perform as it is, in actuality, God working in and through us to accomplish His will.

Our actions, no matter how good in themselves, can have no merit in the eyes of God, unless they are elevated by His grace. For our works become meritorious only through the merits of Christ, and Christ’s merits cannot be applied to us without grace.

God gives everyone, even the most hardened and blinded sinners, a sufficiency of grace to work out their salvation. The words, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness,’ apply to all. ‘As I live, says the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live.’

But grace was given to each of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. God does not give every person the same amount of grace; some get more, some less, yet all receive sufficient grace. God expects us to respond to the grace that He gives us; otherwise we can lose or forfeit our salvation. God does not look forward to anyone rejecting His graces and woe to him that does so.

When a sinner repeatedly rejects the grace of God, then God will withdraw His most powerful graces (though He does not withdraw all), and the sinner becomes hardened and blinded. Paul’s letter to the Romans says, ‘Do you presume upon the riches of His kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not know that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed’ (Romans 2:3-5). We will be held accountable by God not only for all the graces we have received from Him, but also for all the other graces, which He would have showered upon us had we not put obstacles in His way.

 

[Victor_Claveau]

Part Two
As we have free will, we may put up an obstacle to grace. Grace does not do anything that would take away our free will, nor does it force us to do anything contrary to our will. Grace enables us to will and to do that, which we could neither will nor do without grace. Grace in no way interferes with free will. Our experience should, only too well, teach us how often we have resisted the action of God’s grace in our lives. ‘Who has been tested by it and been found perfect? Let it be for him a ground for boasting. Who has had the power to transgress and did not transgress, and to do evil and did not do it?’ Grace, therefore, does not destroy our free will, but it strengthens, corrects, and perfects it.

Sanctifying grace is that grace which purifies and sanctifies the soul and makes it pleasing to God. It also has an absolutely supernatural quality, essentially and permanently dwelling in the soul, by which we are made sons and daughters of God. The moment we receive the precious gift of sanctifying grace we pass from the state of sin to the state of grace. ‘The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin’ (1 John 1:7). God will turn again and have mercy on us; He will put away our sins and remember them no more. ‘Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord’ (Acts 3:19).

Sanctifying grace gives us a title as heirs to the kingdom of heaven, makes us temples of the Holy Spirit, gives a merit to all our good works, beautifies the soul, and clothes it with the habit of the virtues of faith, hope, and charity. Saint Paul says that sanctifying grace is ‘God’s love…poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’ (Romans 5:5). A soul in a state of grace enjoys a perpetual feast, for it enjoys the peace of God, which passes all understanding. By grace, Christ communicates to us the same splendor, which He received from God: ‘The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one’ (John 17:5). The full beauty of the Blessed Trinity dwells in a soul in the state of grace. ‘If a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him’ (John 14:23).

The grace of God is an immense treasure. Nothing, not all the riches in the world, can remotely compare with it. It is a powerful and necessary instrument of our salvation; for it is by grace we are delivered from our past sins, and preserved from sins in the time to come. Let us, then, frequently pray to God, and always through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, for an increase of sanctifying grace. Prayer is the key to the treasury of God’s grace. ‘Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full’ (John 16:24).

We Catholics would never miss Sunday Mass (except for a very serious reason) and make use of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (confession) as often as possible, for these are the divinely instituted channels through which God ordained that His graces should flow into our souls. It is by this means we can keep ourselves from falling into pride, and all other sins to which we are subject. It is by prayer and the sacraments that we can obtain that clear light of grace by which we can see ourselves as we really are, so that we may say as Saint Paul said: ‘By the grace of God I am what I am’ (1 Corinthians 15:10).

To recap, whenever we do a good deed, with the right motivation – and by this I mean that if we are in total submission to the will of God and we do this deed only out of love of God and not for personal gain – we gain merit in God’s sight. This merit is tangible and offsets, or atones, for one’s sins.

Since the righteous men and women of old lived such holy lives, it is believed that they gained more merit than what was required to atone for their own sins. This excess, or surplus, merit was stored in the ‘Treasury of Merit’ and could be applied by God to benefit the living.

The Jews would ask their ancestors to beg God to apply this excess of merit to the living.

The only basic difference between Jewish belief and Catholic belief is that Catholics believe that the Treasury of Merit (also called the Treasury of the Church) ‘is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God’ (CCC § 476). The Treasury is considered to be inexhaustible because of the merits gained by Christ Jesus. 'This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary…the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by His grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them’ (CCC §1477). It is through the application of the super-abundant merits of Christ and the saints that indulgences are granted through the exercise of the power of the keys given to Blessed Peter and Peter’s successors.

Please keep in mind that this is not ‘working your way into heaven’. Catholic belief is that salvation is a free gift, which we receive at the time of our baptism. We cannot earn a free gift. We can lose our salvation by rejecting the gift. We do this when we reject baptism or commit serious sin with the full consent of the will, and die in a state of un-repentance.”

 

[KathleenGee]

Excellent post, especially drawing on our Jewish roots.

I am also reflecting as well on how our Bible only goes up to the Book of Revelations.

Because of Christ, we are a new creation and He is incarnated in us. And all the more people who are nourished by His Body and Blood are much more liable for judgment than those who love Christ but do not partake in the nourishment of His Blood that brings us eternal life. (I am spending this time reflecting on the works of my patron saint Catherine.)

Christ said the apostles would do much more than He --the Lord our God – and that He would leave us His Spirit, the Comforter, Who would teach us many things.

Revelation ends with Jesus Christ. But now the kingdom of Christ is here. The final image in Revelations is that of the Mass. The Mass is the first step into heaven here on earth. And through the blessings of the Church, we can draw fruit from the Mass and the sacraments through sacramentals, and in union with Christ, through the rock of Peter, we are given new means for our salvation that extend beyond the Word of God.

We are given new avenues to enrichen our walk with the sacramentals Lord that comes from the Church, in the mystical and sacramental and teaching sense in conjunction with its believers, the kingdom of Christ on earth.

And if we are members of the Church of St. Peter, we are drawing on a more mystical, universal church that in turns has that much more benefits.

Where the Bible ends – with the image of the Mass, the Church is beginning…and what is bound on earth through Peter is bound in heaven.

 

[KathleenGee]

The other thing I noted, and I was very tired when I first came to this post, was some of the sources the posters shared on this thread. I briefed them but needed to rest. I reviewed my catechism, retaining some phrases while I read the parts of the catechism thinking it didn’t say anything wrong.

The next day someone clarified with me their sources were from the catechism…I looked at them and then i could see a Catholic reads his catechism differently and draws on different meanings vs those who are not. But bless them for looking at our sources!

Which makes me think, as indulgences really aren’t understood until you are drawn to them because of your own sinfulness, that we can never explain them adequately if they do not have the experience.

 

[SSTeacher]

Please keep in mind that this is not ‘working your way into heaven’. Catholic belief is that salvation is a free gift, which we receive at the time of our baptism.

I feel fairly sure it’s being kept in mind. Indeed, I daresay it’s to the forefront of the mind of every poster on this thread who has declared difficulty in aligning the doctrine of Indulgences with the Catholic assertion that salvation is by grace since Indulgences have to be earned.

You do agree that Indulgences have to be earned, don’t you?

Cordially,
Mick

 

[KathleenGee]

Heaven is not being earned.

When we pray, ‘it is Lord, forgive the punishment I have earned through my own sins’.

You have a filter, SST, that is projecting its take.

 

[SSTeacher]

Heaven is not being earned.

When we pray, ‘it is Lord, forgive the punishment I have earned through my own sins’.

You have a filter, SST, that is projecting its take.

You appear to be evading the question. Do you agree that Indulgences have to be earned?

Curiously,
Mick

 

[Victor_Claveau]

Yes, indulgences have to be earned in the sense that there are specific actions required by the Christian faithful who performs a work to which an indulgence is attached.

There are three external conditions necessary to gain a plenary indulgence: sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the intentions of the Pope. If these conditions are not satisfied, an otherwise plenary indulgence becomes only partial.

Implicit in this extraordinary grant is the person’s intention, at least habitual, to gain such a final remission of all temporal punishment due to sin.

A partial indulgence is granted to any of Christ’s faithful who, led by the spirit of faith, with a kindly heart expends himself or some of his possessions in the service of his brethren who are in need.

The doctrine of indulgences is supported by biblical texts to show how readily and almost constantly we can “offer up” to God in reparation for our sins. Faith tells us that anything in life that costs us any sacrifice is an effective means of making satisfaction. Experience tells us that there are few things in life that do not call for some self-surrender. The Church’s hope is that, by enriching these myriad acts of self-denial from the treasury of the communion of saints, what are called indulgences will become divinely fruitful instruments of sanctification. After all, in the providence of God, one reason he permits sin is that repentant sinners might be sanctified.

 

[SSTeacher]

Yes, indulgences have to be earned in the sense that there are specific actions required by the Christian faithful who performs a work to which an indulgence is attached.

Many thanks.

Appreciatively,
Mick

 

[Contarini]

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

f. It assumes that the forgiveness of sins (admittedly only in terms of temporal punishment) works like transferring a balance from one account to another, when in fact the orthodox Christian doctrine of salvation is about our transformation by the Holy Spirit.

This distortion in late medieval Western theology led directly to the Lutheran doctrine of forensic justification. This is both a worse aberration than indulgences (since it relates to eternal and not only temporal salvation) and a much more defensible one (since it is based on Christ’s merits received through faith–if you are going to start talking about transference of merits at all, the Lutheran view makes a lot of sense).

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

To me, it seems to denigrate the sufficiency of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Without agreeing to differentiating between mortal and venial sin or between eternal and temporal punishment, it would mean that Jesus’ sacrifice was not enough to remove all the punishment for sin and we can and must remit part of the punishment ourselves. It does not fit with God’s promise that He will no longer remember our sins if He is still going to punish us for them.

I agree with this if we are speaking of a strictly legal understanding of punishment. But I don’t primarily think of the punishment of sin in those terms anyway.

Temporal punishment makes sense if it is simply the consequences of our sins. There’s abundant evidence in Scripture that people still face consequences for what they do even after they have repented and been forgiven.

In addition, the granting of indulgences depends on the Church having a treasury of merits. Part of this treasury supposed arises from the excess merits of the saints. To have an excess of something is to suggest that there is a minimum of that something required. In other words it implies that there is some minimum level of good works that is required and there can be an excess of good works for which God owes recompense.

I agree with this objection.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

T
Without these indulgences, I believe, as a Catholic, that my ancestors and relatives who have not been, are not and never were members of the Catholic Church let alone practicing Christians may not make it to heaven and may be saved or their sins remitted by my practice of indulgences in the form of the Rosary and other means of indulgence

Wait a minute. Indulgences are only about temporal punishment, right? So they have nothing to do with whether someone “makes it to heaven,” although they might hasten/smooth the path.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

If this is true then what is the difference between what you have described and the baptism for the dead as the followers of Mormonism describe to?

Also Paul in 1 Cor. 15. Many Protestants suggest that Paul is referring to a practice of which he does not approve, but there’s no hint of this in the text.

Edwin

 

[Contarini]

Excellent observations, Mick. Indeed, the Catholic concept of purgatory and satisfaction essentially has God punishing people for sins which are already paid for. i.e. punishing people who are innocent in the sight of God. It is indeed true that God must punish sin, since He is just. The entire point of Christianity, however, and of the gospel itself, is that Christ was punished in our place.

I wouldn’t call this the entire point of Christianity. It’s one way of understanding Jesus’ atoning work.

Like Mick, I question the assumption of many Western Christians that God must punish sin. (Actually Anselm didn’t think this–he argued that God must punish sin if satisfaction is not made. So according to Anselm, Jesus was not punished in our place–Jesus made satisfaction by perfect obedience, which meant that punishment doesn’t have to happen at all.)

Catholics will usually insist that purgatory is not a punishment for sin, but is a cleansing from sin. However, this was certainly not the medieval view of the doctrine.

Agreed.

Even if it is a cleansing, it is still God requiring something from us which has already been forgiven in Christ.

Why think of it in terms of what God requires? Why not in terms of what God desires for us–perfect conformity to His likeness?

Why be content with being forgiven, even if that was possible? God wants to transform us. Unfortunately this may, in part, be a painful process.

Edwin

 

[Stylteralmaldo]

(No analogy, of course, is perfect.)

I appreciate you giving your perspective. I think the emphasis on who the key person is in our stories has immense importance in understanding the differences in theology between Catholic and Protestant. For example, the hero in your story is Mr. Johnson’s son. In my story it is Charlie & Ben’s mother. The hero in your story is Christ himself. The hero in mine is someone acting in Christ.

 

[Contarini]

Since this thread is such a romp through the woods, I have to ask my protesting friends if they have ever read the epistle of James in the New Testament?

They’re foaming at the mouth, again, about a “works” gospel, but my Bible says that faith without words IS DEAD.

You’re missing the point. What most of us (including not just Protestant but Orthodox posters–and myself, an Anglican who accepts the authority of the Seven Councils and the united Church of East and West generally) are objecting to is not the concept of “works” itself but the legal/accounting approach to works implicit in the doctrine of indulgences. Works, as I understand them as a Wesleyan/Catholic Anglican, are about our transformation by the Holy Spirit. As we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives, we become more like Christ, and each act of obedience to/cooperation with the Holy Spirit furthers this process.

That is what I take James to be talking about.

The language of “treasury of merits” does not make any sense in this theological context. You can reword everything so it’s not about legal punishment at all but about the mystical union of the Body, and I can accept that. But I still don’t think that the traditional apparatus of indulgences is justified by such a view.

The only version of indulgences which I think is justified by Scripture and Tradition would be:

1. Every increase in holiness on my part benefits the Body as a whole, living and dead, just as the holiness of the glorified saints benefits me in a mystical and indescribable way; and
2. The Church helpfully tells me that certain devotional practices and charitable acts will tend to make me holy.

However, the traditional language and definitions go well beyond this.

Edwin

 

[TriuneUnity]

I wouldn’t call this the entire point of Christianity. It’s one way of understanding Jesus’ atoning work.

It is the entire point of Christianity as compared to other religions. Christianity shares in common with other theistic systems a code of morality, transformation of the human into unity with the divine, personal holiness, etc. What it doesn’t share, is God taking on human flesh, living a perfect life on our behalf and dying a substitutionary death on our behalf. I agree that Christianity cannot be reduced to the atonement; it is, however, an indispensable part of it.

Like Mick, I question the assumption of many Western Christians that God must punish sin. (Actually Anselm didn’t think this–he argued that God must punish sin if satisfaction is not made. So according to Anselm, Jesus was not punished in our place–Jesus made satisfaction by perfect obedience, which meant that punishment doesn’t have to happen at all.)

I half agree with that. Jesus did keep God’s law on our behalf perfectly. However, the negative consequences of our guilt must be dealt with. Scripture teaches that God must punish sin because He is perfectly just.

Why think of it in terms of what God requires? Why not in terms of what God desires for us–perfect conformity to His likeness?

Why be content with being forgiven, even if that was possible? God wants to transform us. Unfortunately this may, in part, be a painful process.

Edwin

It is not an either/or. It’s a both/and. God does desire us to conform perfectly to His image. This cannot happen, however, until we are in a right standing before Him. In an earlier post you stated that salvation is transformation by the Holy Spirit. This is certainly a part of salvation and cannot be separated from it. The legal aspects of our guilt or innocence before God are part of that salvation as well. We do not deny a transformation by the Holy Spirit. It happens in Baptism and regeneration. It happens during the course of our pilgrimage on earth. We just don’t call it justification.

 

[Contarini]

Crumpy,

Thanks for the historical summary, which is correct as far as I’m aware. I don’t think it justifies indulgences, but it does help us understand that indulgences arose as a relaxation of the penitential system. When I teach church history to Protestants, they typically assume that the Catholic Church added indulgences as some kind of burdensome requirement and find the language of the late medieval bulls (which speak of indulgences as stemming from the Church’s desire to show forth Christ’s grace and mercy) quite bewildering. I try to explain the context, but they typically aren’t very impressed:shrug:

I don’t have a conceptual or historical understanding of indulgences that “touches bottom” on the idea. I accept them on the basis of an encouragement to pray or to perform spiritual good works.

On that level I have no problem with them. I actually find collections of indulgenced prayers and practices to be handy, because typically they are good things for Christians to do.

Certainly the logical starting point is that there is a temporal punishment due to sins,

Yes. And that this can be seen in legal and not simply purgative/transformational terms. That is what both Protestants and Orthodox address.

much as our Savior had to suffer a real, temporal punishment of atonement.

I’m not quite sure where you are going with this. Certainly Jesus bore the eternal as well as temporal consequences of our sin. The fact that Jesus’ death happened in time does not mean that it simply applies to what Catholics call “temporal punishment.”

Now, where all this originated and is documented, I cannot say.

Plenty of places. We have bulls by 14th-century popes laying out the theology; earlier on we have a well-developed theology of satisfaction in Aquinas and many other places; and earlier still we have penitential manuals. There’s quite a bit of documentation, actually.

The protestors don’t deny all this, they simply say it’s instantaneous when somebody repents (I surmise). Now, I admit what I am about to say is a bit of a stretch, but anyway, this may be connected to what has been called “easy grace.” One just says “the sinner’s prayer” and BLINK it’s all gone. For Catholics, it’s not that easy.

Actually, the objection to indulgences is that they *are *“easy grace.” Protestant versions of “easy grace” stem from the doctrine of indulgences. Luther simply took the logical (and in many ways justifiable, given the premises of late medieval Western theology) next step. If the Church can remit selected bits of people’s temporal punishment as an act of mercy and grace, isn’t it far more orthodox to say that God remits everyone’s eternal and temporal punishment based on the merits of Christ received through faith? I think it is. But since I think the legalistic approach to salvation which gave Luther his starting point was wrong in the first place, I think Luther’s cure was itself seriously flawed.

Edwin

 

[Victor_Claveau]

As I mentioned earlier, the doctrine of indulgences is a legitimate outgrowth of Jewish spirituality, not a medieval invention as is supposed by many. Certainly there have been abuses, but that does not negate to doctrine.
What has not been mentioned is the authority of the Catholic Church to grant indulgences through the power of the Keys. Jesus gave the power to remit or to retain sins to the Keeper of the Keys and to the other Apostles. (John 20:23, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.”
That power was passed down to their successors.

 

[Contarini]

It is the entire point of Christianity as compared to other religions. Christianity shares in common with other theistic systems a code of morality, transformation of the human into unity with the divine, personal holiness, etc. What it doesn’t share, is God taking on human flesh, living a perfect life on our behalf and dying a substitutionary death on our behalf. I agree that Christianity cannot be reduced to the atonement; it is, however, an indispensable part of it.

I agree as well. But I think Athanasius’s doctrine of the atonement is better than later Western versions.

I think there’s a subtle difference between saying that Jesus bore the punishment of our sins (which, as you pointed out earlier, is explicitly stated in Isaiah 53, if we follow universal Christian tradition and the New Testament in applying Isaiah 53 to Jesus) and saying that Jesus was punished on our behalf. The difference is that the latter requires us to say that God somehow legally considered Jesus to be guilty when He was really innocent. That entire forensic approach to salvation is deeply flawed, in my opinion, and not supported by either Scripture or the teachings of the early Church.

I half agree with that. Jesus did keep God’s law on our behalf perfectly. However, the negative consequences of our guilt must be dealt with.

I was describing Anselm’s view, not my own, and I was doing so because people on both sides of this issue typically assume that Anselm taught penal substitution. It was probably an unnecessary remark, but I figured Anselm was going to come up eventually!

Scripture teaches that God must punish sin because He is perfectly just.

I do not find this in Scripture. This is one of several suggestions Christians have made to explain why the death of Jesus was necessary. As far as I’m concerned it’s an explanation that undercuts the very concept of forgiveness. It’s rather odd to say that your religion is distinguished by a belief in God’s forgiveness (as most Christians do) and then lay down as a basic premise that God cannot actually forgive anyone.

This has the odd (and “inconvenient” in the medieval sense) consequence that when human beings forgive each other, we are demonstrating our human imperfection, since if we were perfectly just like God (in your view) we would be unable to do so unless an innocent person volunteered to bear the consequences of the offense.

I suppose you could say that we forgive one another because Jesus has borne everyone’s punishment and so it isn’t imperfectly just for us not to demand punishment. But inconvenient consequences still follow, since people who are not Christians frequently do forgive one another. Such people don’t know about or accept the idea that Jesus was punished, so we would still have to say that based on what they believe to be true they are acting with imperfect justice.

My point is that on a human level we do not think that justice requires punishment in the abstract. We certainly don’t think that forgiveness requires the punishment of an innocent person. Penal substitution thus makes Christianity, ironically, into a uniquely unforgiving religion (at least uniquely among Western monotheistic religions–since the Eastern religions typically think of punishment in terms of impersonal karma, the issues are very different). Jews and Muslims both believe in a God who can choose to forgive freely, without anyone being punished at all.

I do think that God’s justice is involved. But I don’t think this is an internal compulsion to punish. I think that the early Christian idea that God does not rob even Satan by violence, while not free from flaws, is a much better explanation than the one that has dominated in the modern West.

It is not an either/or. It’s a both/and.

I understand that. But in that case there is room for a cleansing “purgation” as the completion of the process of sanctification, and your objection to such a cleansing falls through.

Edwin