Indulgences

[TimelessTheist]

4. Why doesn't the church alleviate all punishment that it has the power to for all of the sins that people owe temporal punishment for as long as they are repentant of those sins? Why dole it out bit by bit as an "indulgence"?

'Tis not how it works. You have to do something to prove that you're worthy of being granted amnesty. I know that the Crusaders were granted indulgences, as fighting and potentially dying for the good of all of Christendom tends to be the aforementioned proof of worth.

[Leonhard]

It all sounds to me like a way to say "yes, you are forgiven for your sins, but not really. You still have to be punished. But luckily we have the solution to that if you do what we want you to. Isn't that lucky?"

If I smash your window, and afterward said I was sorry, and you knew I meant it, you wouldn't mind forgiving me I assume. However I'm sure you'd ask me to put up a window again, or at least help you doing it.

Now there's nothing we can do at all, to merit in a strict way a repair for our crimes. However it is a teaching of the Catholic Church that we can have condign merit. In some sense we have to do this for our crimes, since even if the relationship to God is restored, there's still temporal punishment for the crime. I don't see the problem with this, even in terms of God's grace.

And yes isn't it a good thing, that the world being like that, that God would allow the Church to deal out these indulgences based upon the merit of the Church? So that by performing some actions in this world, God joins it with Christ's merit, and allows the person to be partially or fully remitted depending on how earnestly they've worked for it?

[robrecht]

Si ergo venie secundum spiritum et mentem Pape predicarentur, facile illa omnia solverentur, immo non essent.

[robrecht]

Jeeze, Louise, where are the Lutherans when you need them?

[Cow Poke]

Jeeze, Louise, where are the Lutherans when you need them?

It's happy hour!

[robrecht]

It's happy hour!

Oh, right, thanks for the reminder. This thread will reconvene in 5 minutes while I go down to the local pub to round up some good Lutherans.

[robrecht]

And I promise not to burn any of them at the stake.

[Cow Poke]

Oh, right, thanks for the reminder. This thread will reconvene in 5 minutes while I go down to the local pub to round up some good Lutherans.

I have a Lutheran Pastor friend who LOVES to offer me a cold beer when I visit his office. (And, no, I politely decline)

[TimelessTheist]

I thought Cow Poke 'was' a Lutherean?

[Cow Poke]

I thought Cow Poke 'was' a Lutherean?

Not quite sure what a Lutherean is, but I'm a Baptist.... or a Bible Church Pastor, depending on the Church.

[robrecht]

No he's an ornery Southern Baptist, unlike me, an honorary Southern Baptist.

[TimelessTheist]

Si ergo venie secundum spiritum et mentem Pape predicarentur, facile illa omnia solverentur, immo non essent.

I feel ashamed that I don't know any Latin.....which wouldn't be a problem if my dang school didn't cut the Latin classes. (Though I do know a bit of Syrian, due to the Shrine in my town reciting liturgies in Syrian.)

[Cow Poke]

No he's an ornery Southern Baptist, unlike me, an honorary Southern Baptist.

Yeah!

[TimelessTheist]

No he's an ornery Southern Baptist, unlike me, an honorary Southern Baptist.

Isn't that a Protestant denomination?

[Cow Poke]

Isn't that a Protestant denomination?

That's a whole 'nuther thread.