CHAPTER ONE: CHRISTIANITY
FAITH AND PRACTICE
Does faith include practice? Or is a sinner still a believer?
These are questions debated in Christian history. In Islamic history the
dispute between ‘Uthmān and ‘Alī raised the question whether the party “in the
wrong” is a Muslim or not. In Christian
history the context was different. This
chapter looks at the treatment of sinners in Christian history.[1]
1.1 New
Testament times
In New Testament times the shocking realization that
sin after baptism is possible and does occur raised the question what is the
status of such a person before God and the Church, and how he should be
pastorally dealt with. The question
also arose how even good Christians can fall short of or deviate from the
demands of their calling.
1.1.1 The
Gospels
Jesus demanded a whole-hearted conversion and did not
tolerate standing on the fence: Faith and baptism take away all sins (Mk
16:16); once your hand is on the plow don’t look back (Lk 9:62); choose father
and mother or me (Lk 14:25); seed is sown in different places with different
results (Mt 13:3ff).
Yet the Gospels also reflect the experience of the
Christian community that sin among the baptized is a fact. Forgiveness is possible, except in the case
of a “sin against the Holy Spirit” (Mt 12:31).
This is a sin against faith, not believing that Jesus (or God) can
forgive sin; in such a case a person cannot even desire, ask for or receive
forgiveness. The impossibility is on
the part of the person, not on the part of God who can forgive anything anyone
repents of. God, moreover, could intervene
from within and restore the gift of faith which the person rejected.
The fact of sin among Christians and the possibility
of repentance is presupposed in Mt 6:12 (forgive us our trespasses, in a daily
prayer), 7:11 (“as bad as you are”), 7:21ff (those who say “Lord, Lord”, but do
not act), 13:24ff (wheat and weeds together in the farm - the Church) 18:15-17
(if your brother sins against you try to be reconciled), 18:18 (binding and
loosing; cf Jn 20:21-23), 25:1-13 (the foolish virgins).
1.1.2 Paul
Paul likewise insists on a thorough-going conversion
in 1 Cor 5:7ff (Passover bread without yeast), Rom 6:2-12 & Gal 2:19ff (be
buried with Christ; sin should have no more power over you).
But sin is a constant danger for Christians: 1 Cor 4:4
(my conscience is clear, but that does not prove my innocence), 7:27 (the
athlete fearing disqualification), Phil 2:12 (work in fear and
trembling)). Paul warns Christians
against sin: Rom 6:12, 13:14, 1 Cor 6:18ff, Col 3:10, Eph 4:24. The lists of sins which exclude from the
kingdom of God (Gal 5:19ff, 1 Cor 6:9ff, Eph 5:3ff, Col 3:5) reflect actual
failings of believers, whom he sometimes rebukes for dissension (1 Cor 3:3ff,
11:18ff), idleness (2 Thes 3:6ff), sexual sins (2 Cor 12;21). “Some are sick and weak, and several have
died” (1 Cor 11:31). But for these sins
repentance and forgiveness is possible (2 Cor 7;10); Jesus pleads on our behalf
(Rom 8:34).
The pastoral treatment of such people requires first
admonition (Gal 6:1ff, 2 Tim 4:2, 2:25) and, if necessary, excommunication (1
Cor 3:3-5, 1 Tim 1;20, 2 Thes 3:14-15, 1 Tit 3:10 = Mt 18:15-17). The purpose of this treatment is to win the
person back to God and the Church (2 Cor 2;5-11). The Church goes no further than this; physical coercion is out of
the question.
1.1.3 The
other letters
Hebrews 5:4-6 raises the question of the possibility
of repentance: “How can those who abandon their faith be brought back to repent
again?.. It is impossible..” (See also 10:26,29). These passages envisage the same situation as Mt 12;31 etc.,
referring to “sin against the Holy Spirit”, the “sin which leads to death” of 1
Jn 5:16 and the “second death” of Rev 2:11.
This is the greatest sin.
As for the next category, sins “which exclude from the
Kingdom of God”, James rebukes those who have faith, but not the actions that
should accompany it (1:22ff, 2:14-26).
His famous conclusion is the “faith without actions is dead”
(2:26). A Christian should be perfect
and avoid sin altogether: Jam 1:4,18, 1 Jn 3:9ff (The child of God does not
continue to sin), 2:8-11 (hating one’s brother).
But forgiveness of these sins is still available (Jam
1:21, 5:19-20, 2 Pet 3:9, 1 Jn 2:1-2).
While Paul stressed the effect of sin upon the Church and the need for
pastoral attention to the sinner, other letters introduce the practice of
confession and prayer for the sinner: Jam 5:14-16 (with anointing), 1 Jn
5:14-17.
Yet another category is indicated by a number of other
passages referring to frequent or daily sins on the part of Christians, but not
in a way that cuts them off from the love of God or excludes from his kingdom:
James recognizes that “in many things we all offend” (3:2). 1 John 1:8-10 likewise notes that “if we say
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves..”
Revelation ch. 2-3 praises the bishops of seven churches for their good
work, but tells some of them to repent: the bishop of Ephesus for losing his
first fervour, the bishop of Pergamum for a “few matters”, the bishop of
Thyatira for tolerating a false prophetess, that of Sardis for being nearly
“dead”. Compare Mt 7:1-5 (the splinter
in your brother’s eye).
From all these passages we can see gradations of sin:
1) the most serious is “sin against the Holy Spirit” which, rejecting the gift
of faith, eliminates the ability of a person to turn to God in repentance. 2) Next are sins which exclude from the
kingdom of God, in Paul’s lists. These
are contrary to the love of God and neighbour.
3) Finally there are the “many things in which we all offend” which do
not kill the love of God in one’s heart, but do wound it.
The psychological basis for this last category of sin
is the fact that we do not always fully realize what we are doing or fully
intend to harm. Sin in Greek (¯:"DJ\") means missing the mark. Sometimes we can be close to it, sometimes far away. Our orientation to the ultimate good which
is God can remain even while we are sometimes distracted and move
erratically. We are not like angels who
are fully conscious of all that they know and see the full implications of
every choice; they cannot commit any sin without completely rejecting God.
On the other hand, we are not behaviouristically
determined so as to lose all responsibility for what we do, and we have to be
careful. Just as careless words and
neglect in small matters can build up and lead to a divorce, so our
relationship with God is threatened by any negligence, even if it does not
immediately make us his enemy.
1.2 The
early Church
The first three centuries are not well documented
because the persecutions resulted in the destruction of much Christian
literature. Nevertheless, in the Didache,
the letters of Ignatius and Clement and other early writings there are
references to fraternal correction, sometimes excommunication, and prayer for
sinners, including those excommunicated.
Prayers of repentance were said by all at the Eucharist, but those
guilty of more serious sins were to be excluded for a time until readmitted by
Church authorities, who forgave in God’s name.
Hermas (c. 150) is most significant at this time for
introducing the idea that there is only one opportunity for repentance and
reconciliation in the Church after baptism.
Anyone who sins after that, he says, “will attain life with
difficulty”. This does not mean that
God or the Church cannot forgive, but that the person does not have a sincere
spirit of repentance, without which penance is “unprofitable”.
As the Church spread, the pastoral treatment of
penitents became more varied. Soon
Montanism (beginning c. 172) arose as a rigorist movement opposed to what it
saw as laxism. The Old Testament was
said to be the era of the Father, the New Testament that of the Son, whereas Montanus
was the oracle of the Spirit beginning a new age. The Montanists also claimed for their prophets authority to
forgive sins, as opposed to the bishops of the Church, but wanted it to be used
only for lesser sins. Speaking as an
“oracle of the Spirit”, Montanus said: “The Church can forgive sins, but I will
not do so, lest others also commit sin.”
In Carthage Cyprian mentions that some bishops in North Africa would not
grant peace to adulterers.
Tertullian (c. 160-220) promoted
Montanist teaching in North Africa. He
took over Hermas’ teaching that reconciliation for sin is available only once
after baptism, but made it a dogma rather than simply a pastoral practice as it
was with Hermas. Tertullian also
introduced the novel idea of “unforgivable sins”, which included idolatry,
murder, adultery, fraud and false witness.
Although his teaching was rejected by the Church, it continued to
influence theological thinking about forgiveness of sin for some time to come.
Elsewhere at this time Irenaeus defended the
practice of forgiving any “who do penance and are converted”.
A new chapter in the development of this question came
with the treatment of the Christians who had lapsed during the persecution of Decius. In the immediate aftermath of the
persecution Cyprian (bishop of Carthage 249-258) tried to steer a moderate
course, allowing any lapsed Christian to be readmitted to the Church, but only
after a “full period” of penance, except for the dying who were to be
reconciled right away. Grounds for
mitigation were also to be considered in individual cases. Cyprian’s correspondence with Novatian in
Rome shows agreement in policy. Later
at the synod in Carthage at Easter 252 under the threat of a new persecution
Cyprian went along with the need to reconcile the penitents as quickly as
possible. Reconciliation took place in
a public ceremony concluding with the imposition of hands by the bishop and
clergy. Cyprian anticipated the
rigorism of Donatus in not recognizing baptism by heretics; in this he came
into conflict with Pope Stephen I.
Novatian (c. 200-258), in the meantime, was
disappointed in his bid to be elected Pope, and led a schismatic group accusing
the Catholic church of laxism for readmitting the lapsed. Cyprian pointed out that Novatian allowed
adulterers and cheats in his church; so later Novatianists expelled all grave
sinners. Novatianism lasted several
centuries and represented a strong rigorist tendency holding that the Church is
a Church of saints, and sinners have no part in it.
Clement of Alexandria (150- c.210) adopted Hermas’
idea of a single chance of reconciliation after baptism and contrasted the
difficulty of this reconciliation with the simple instantaneous forgiveness
given in baptism. For Clement,
repentance demands not just a change of mind, but also a painful process of
purification or healing. If it is not
finished in this life it will continue in the hereafter, but those who have not
repented in this life will have no chance of such purification in the next
life. The psychological and therapeutic
conception of reconciliation became a tradition in the Greek Church. A spiritual director is important in this
process, according to Clement.
Origen (185-254) was another theologian of Alexandria
who had a very fertile mind. Not all of
his ideas have been accepted by the Church.
One of these is the idea of apokatastasis or restoration, which
meant that purification for sins will continue in the next life to the extent
that even grave sins will be removed and hell will be emptied. Origen uses the term “sins unto death” in a
wider sense to include “idolatry, adultery, unchastity, deliberate murder and
any other similar serious sin”. These
the Church can forgive only once, but must impose a suitable penance which must
be performed for the forgiveness to be complete. A person must confess grave sins publicly, even if he committed
them in secret, and - Origen is the first to say it - such a person is barred
from any Church office for life. Apart
from public confession, Origen stresses the need for a spiritual director, a
holy man not necessarily a priest, to whom a person lays open his entire soul
and who guides the person on the way of spiritual growth and purification from
all selfishness.
Origen’s pupil, Dionysius (bishop of Alexandria
247-265) led the opposition to Novatian’s rigorism, and said that the lapsed
could be readmitted to the Church after three to ten years of penance.
Both in Carthage and in Alexandria martyrs,
that is, those who were imprisoned and suffered for their faith - but escaped
death, were highly venerated. Lapsed
Christians flocked to them to seek their intercession, and they took it upon
themselves to reconcile them to the Church by giving them a “certificate of
peace”. In Carthage this was done quite
indiscriminately, and Cyprian contested the practice, insisting on a period of
penance first. Yet in Alexandria, and
even in Carthage, the bishops gave weight to the intercession of the martyrs
and reckoned it as compensation for part of the penance required of the
sinner. For Origen, not only martyrs
but other “friends of God” can “help us and make us worthy to obtain
forgiveness.”
1.3 After
the peace of Constantine (4th-6th centuries
With the disappearance of persecutions, the way was
open for masses of people to join the Church at little cost to themselves. If there were moral problems among
Christians before, now the general standards tumbled. Public penance continued to be the norm for grave sins, but those
committed through “weakness and inadvertence” were forgiven by prayer and
almsgiving practiced in private, according to Augustine, Ambrose and
Pacian. The purpose of public penance
was not to humiliate the penitent, but to enlist the support of the faithful on
his behalf. This penance involved first
of all confession and being prayed over by the bishop, and secondly fasting,
vigils, sexual abstinence, kneeling in church, exclusion from communion etc. If the sin was committed in secret the
person still had to perform public penance, but was not required to mention the
specific sin before the congregation.
Reconciliation after the period of penance was performed by the bishop
or by a priest he delegated, usually on Holy Thursday. But it was given without delay in danger of
death or in time of war, according to the Council of Nicaea and St. Augustine.
The peace brought to the Church by Constantine was
disturbed in North Africa by the Donatist schism. While keeping in mind the political basis of this movement in
mobilizing the anti-establishment sentiment of the Berbers, we can note that
theologically Donatism was another expression of rigorism. Maintaining the rule that a lapsed cleric
could not be reinstated, Donatus and his followers contested the ordination of
Caecilian as bishop of Carthage in 311 because it was performed by Felix of
Aptonga, a bishop who had surrendered sacred books during the Diocletian
persecution. The Donatists would not
recognize the validity of any sacraments performed by reinstated clerics who
had once lapsed. They maintained,
moreover, that the holiness of the Church excludes the presence of any sinners.
Augustine (d. 430) wrote extensively against the
Donatists, distinguishing between Christians who had received the sacraments
only (baptism, and the first steps of repentance) and Christians who received
the sacraments and also had the holiness that the sacraments give. Donatism dwindled greatly through
Augustine’s efforts, but lasted until the Arab conquest. Then the Berbers who once were Donatists
became Khārijites in opposition to the Arab Muslims.
Augustine developed the theology of reconciliation in
his commentary on John 11: It is the direct work of God to awaken someone to
repentance, just as he raised Lazarus to life, but the Church, acting with the
power of the Holy Spirit, unbinds the person.
The rule still was that one chance of reconciliation
was allowed in a lifetime. Out of
caution, people gradually postponed this until they were dying, so that public
penance became rare in the 6th century and unheard of in the 8th. “Reception of penance” when dying then
became a normal practice for all Christians, whether they were great sinners or
not. The Church by this time had come
to a situation where it had no more pastoral programme for sinners who were in
good health and leading an active life.
Although St. John Chrysostom (349-407) was
accused of reconciling people to the Church more than once, the first general
breaking of ranks took place in Spain, where repeated reconciliation became
common in spite of the Third Synod of Toledo (589), which considered this an
abuse. Then Pope Leo I mitigated
the requirements of penance for those who had been reconciled in danger of
death but recovered; he allowed them to marry if they wished. Clerics and monks were not allowed public
reconciliation at all, but were debarred from exercise of any office in the
Church and made to do penance privately.
In fact, taking vows in religious or monastic life was considered
equivalent to a conversion.
Reconciliation and communion should be available to all the dying,
whether lay, clerics or religious. In
monasteries both in the West and in the East frequent confession to a spiritual
director, not necessarily a priest, became a common practice. This was not sacramental or an act of the
Church binding and loosing, but did affect medieval development of official
Church reconciliation.
1.4 The
early Middle Ages
Reformation of penitential practice came from the
Church in Ireland. There the “reception
of penance” consisted of confession, the acceptance of the satisfaction fixed
by the priest, and finally reconciliation.
It was available to all at any time, and there was no public exposure of
the penitent’s sins. Penances were
fixed in books by various authors according to the gravity of the sin. These were severe by today’s standards, such
as fasting, sexual abstinence etc. from 15 years down to one day, but were
lighter than those common in the Roman and African world where the penance might
last for life. The Irish penitential
system spread over Europe through the evangelizing activities of Columban and
other Irish monks, who revived the culture of Europe in the Dark Ages.
The concrete penalties for each sin paralleled the
civil law of the time and emphasized the need for repentance to be genuine, but
abuse came in through the practice of “redemption”. Initially this was for those who were unable to perform the
penance; they got someone to do it on their behalf. Soon big men began to hire people to do their penance for them by
proxy. Various synods in the
Carolingian period insisted on going back to the old discipline, but repetition
of reconciliation was not questioned, nor the axiom “public penance for public
sins, private penance for secret sins”.
Various synods, bishops and preachers urged the
faithful to make frequent use of “confession” (as the whole process of
reconciliation came to be called). The
Fourth Lateran Council (1215) made confession once in a year the general law of
the Church. There was some criticism of
this, but the practice of at least an annual confession became general. This was normally done to a priest, but
Bede, recognizing the therapeutic value of confession, urged confession of
“daily light sins” to any lay person the penitent may trust. This practice, reflecting monastic custom,
did not become very common.
The most noteworthy development of the early Middle
Ages is the joining of confession and reconciliation. Beforehand, penitents confessed their sins, were given a penance
lasting some time, and finally were reconciled and admitted to communion. By the year 1000, the giving of
reconciliation at the same time as the confession, with some penitential
practice following, became general.
At the same time the term “absolution” became common,
obscuring the concept of reconciliation.
The power of the keys to “bind” was understood as the imposition of a
penance, and to “loose” as the lifting of excommunication (when present), the
removal of sin and of the obligation to further penance. Some of the penances which became common in
this period were pilgrimage (to Jerusalem, or Rome, Santiago de Compostela,
Mont-St.-Michel and Tours), entry into a monastery (although the Gregorian
reformer Peter Damian greatly criticized this), and self-flagellation,
sometimes called “the discipline”.
1.5 Medieval
theology of penance
The practice of the Church had brought into evidence
several components of penance: sorrow for sin, confession, various penitential
practices, and absolution or reconciliation.
The interrelationship of these components gave rise to various
conflicting theories as scholastic theologians applied their minds to the
question.
Without discussing all the complicated theories, we
can note some of the view of Thomas Aquinas which gained wide acceptance. He presupposes the distinction between light
or indeliberate sin and serious sin.
The former can be forgiven in many different ways, such as prayer, acts
of penance, communion and even confession to a lay person. Serious sins, however, which cut a person
off from God and the Church, must first be repented of in the heart by an act
which turns away from sin and turns towards God in love. This act itself, he says, takes away sin and
restores a person to grace, but it must be joined with reconciliation to the
Church in the acts of confession and absolution. The action of the Church, in intercession, counseling, and most
particularly in the formal act of loosing from sin, reinforces the person’s
efforts to turn away from sin and towards God, lifting the person beyond his
own efforts by a divine strength to amend his life.
Alongside the Catholic concern with the proprieties of
reconciliation there was a widespread pre-Reformation Protestant movement of
Waldensians, Wycliffites and Hussites, who maintained that the Kingdom of
Christ was an assembly of saints and had no place for sinners. For them any procedures for penance and
reconciliation were totally irrelevant.
1.6 The
Reformation, Trent and after
The scholastic theologians differed greatly among
themselves as to the detailed interrelationship of the parts of penance. In particular, they looked on the
forgiveness of sins more as a personal matter than as something demanding
reconciliation with the Church. The
debates over the sufficiency of “attrition” (sorrow for sin because of fear of
hell) as opposed to “contrition” provided the Reformers with material to mock
the existing system.
Luther retained the practice of confessing one’s sins
to a pastor, but he denied the Church any real power of forgiveness. The Church, for him, simply “declared” the
person forgiven after he obtains forgiveness directly from God. Luther’s critique began circumstantially,
from abuses raging in the Church in Germany at that time, but his solution went
radically against Christian tradition as it had developed from Apostolic times.
Luther’s fundamental principle was the radical
corruption of human nature by sin. The
only divine quality remaining in man was faith. Good works naturally followed from faith, but were worthless in
themselves. Religion itself is a
worthless man-made product, the Church being just a corrupt human organization,
not enjoying any divine powers or guidance of the Spirit. All that is left is a fellowship of
believing sinners, who try to support one another in their individual faith
life.
In such a conception the Church has absolutely no role
to play in the forgiveness of sins except to preach repentance, nor is there
any need to talk about reconciliation with the Church as somehow embodying the
presence of Jesus on earth. The
Catholic Church looked on sin as so many movements of the human will
compromising or negating the life of grace (indwelling of the Trinity) and love
(an action stemming from the presence of the Spirit, and therefore divine in
quality). For Luther, sin was a
permanent condition or state of corruption that must coexist with faith (“simul
justus et peccator”)One is simultaneously just and
a sinner).
Luther was concerned with the danger of relying too
much on external practices, especially indulgences, to the neglect of interior
repentance. Yet in stressing faith to
the expense of works he fell into another kind of laxism, as he wrote to Malenchthon:
Be a sinner and sin boldly, but believe and rejoice
more strongly in Christ, who is the conqueror of sin, death and the world. As long as we are in this state we must sin;
this life is not a place for justice, but we wait, said Peter, for a new heaven
and a new earth in which justice will dwell.
It is enough for us, through the riches of God’s glory, to acknowledge
the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Sin will not take us away from him, even if we fornicate or kill
thousands upon thousands of times a day.[2]
The Council of Trent was held to answer the challenge
of Luther. It insisted that the
sacrament of penance does reconcile the penitent to God through the Church’s
use of the power of the keys.
1.7 Assurance
of salvation
Two questions are involved here: 1) Can we be sure
that we have the grace/love/friendship of God in our hearts? and 2) Can we be
sure we will continue to enjoy this to the end?
Regarding the first, the general Catholic teaching is
expressed by Thomas Aquinas,[3]
who admitted that someone could have certitude that he has the grace of God by
a special revelation, as Paul had.
Otherwise we cannot have absolute certitude, because grace comes from
and relates us to the very mystery of God which we cannot directly experience. Yet we can have a sufficient indication by
observing the fruits of grace: having joy in God, detachment from things of the
world, and not being conscious of any serious sin. This assurance is augmented by sacramental confession and
absolution.
As for the second question, Thomas takes a similar
approach. Our perseverance in grace in
this life depends on God’s gift. We do
not know his mind nor can we force his gift, but we can ask for it with the
knowledge that he answers our prayers.
The surest sign that we will persevere to the end is that we continue to
pray to be faithful to God.
In his commentary on Romans, Luther agreed with the
above positions, but in that on Galatians and later works he insisted that a
Christian can experience the Spirit within himself and be absolutely sure he is
in grace and that he will be saved in the end, because God protects his
own. The assurance gained from inner
experience replaced that offered by communion with the Church and its
sacraments.
Luther’s theory gave rise to the assurance that many
Christian groups seek in a conversion experience whereby they are “born again”
to be immune thereafter from all sin, with entry into heaven guaranteed.
1.8 The
question of purgatory
We have seen allusions to this question above, in
Clement of Alexandria, Origen etc. The
Protestant reformers challenged the concept of purgatory on the following
grounds: 1) that it denies the automatic sufficiency of an act of repentance or
conversion, meaning that a person could be forgiven and God would still hold
something against him. 2) It is contrary to the goodness of God to consign a
forgiven sinner to what was likened to a “temporary hell”, complete with fire
and every sort of torment. 3) It seems to imply the error of “justification by
works”, since the punishment due to sin can be reduced by doing good works. 4)
It was linked with the practice of “indulgences”, to be discussed below. On the other side of the question, we can
quote Pope Paul VI:[4]
Every sin effects a disturbance of the universal order
which God has disposed in his eneffable wisdom and infinite love. It also involves the destruction of immense
benefits with respect both to the sinner himself and to the community of
mankind. Christians of all ages have
clearly understood that sin is not merely a transgression of the divine law,
but also)though not always directly or openly)contempt
for or neglect of personal friendship between God and man. They have also seen it as a true and never
wholly measurable offence against God and, indeed, as an ungrateful rejection
of the love of God offered to us in Christ, who called his disciples friends
rather than servants.
The full remission of sin, therefore, and full
reparation, as it is called, require more than the restoration of friendship
with God by a sincere conversion of spirit, and more than the expiation of the
offenses against his goodness and bounty; it is also necessary that all those
values be fully repaired which had suffered destruction or damage as a result
of sin, whether they be personal or social values, or those involved in the
order of the universe. Such a process
may involve voluntary reparation, which will not be without its penal side, or
it may involve the acceptance of the penalties laid down by the just and most
holy wisdom of God, penalties by means of which the holiness and splendour of
the glory of God shine out over the entire world. The existence of such penalties and their gravity are an
indication of the malice and stupidity of sin and of its evil consequences.
The doctrine of purgatory shows clearly that even
after the guilt of sin has been forgiven the sinner can still retain)and
indeed frequently does retain)liability to punishments and
can remain in need of purification from the effects of sin. After death, souls which had died, truly
repentant, in God’s love, but without having done proper penance for their sins
of commission and omission are purified by purgatorial punishments. The same point is made by the liturgical
prayers which the Christian community has recited from antiquity as Mass,
praying: “May we who are justly punished for our sins be freed through your
mercy for the glory of your name.”
All men, however, commit small or “daily”, as they are
called, sins while they are on their earthly pilgrimage. For this reason, they are all in need of the
mercy of God so that they may be freed from the penal consequences of their
sins.
Thus remission of sins is not simply a matter of God’s
decreeing forgiveness, but it involves a human process: first the turning of
the will from sin to God (this is justification); secondly repairing the damage
of sin to the sinner, namely, habituation to sin and emotional disorder and
instability; thirdly the damage done to others, which the sinner is bound to
compensate. A sinner who dies after
completing only the first step is forgiven and will not go to hell, but still
needs purification from the after-effects of sin.
The Catholic Church has no defined teaching on the
length or nature of purgatory.
Essentially it is a delay in seeing God. This is very painful in the hereafter when there is no earthly
thing to distract the soul from longing for the object of its desire. It goes without saying that just as this
life is the only time for renouncing sin and being forgiven, it is best time to
repair the consequences of sin. That is
best done by a strong love of God and neighbour (living faith = faith + love),
as the Song of Songs 8:6-7 says:
Love
is as powerful as death; * passion is as strong as death itself.
It
bursts into flame * and burns like a raging fire.
Water
cannot put it out; * no flood can drown it.
1.9 Indulgences
Indulgences were popular in the past, when the
Reformers protested against them.
Because this historical question is sometimes still debated today, we
should present a short explanation. “An
indulgence is the remission in the sight of God of the temporal punishment due
to sins which have already been blotted out, so far as guilt is concerned”
(Paul VI). The practice goes back to
the “martyrs” who suffered in the Roman persecutions; penitents sought their
“intercession” to alleviate the public penance assigned to them. The penitents also enjoyed the intercession
of the priest and people in church services.
When public penance disappeared around the year 1000,
the penitents began to invoke the merits of the suffering of Jesus, the martyrs
and all the saints. In this way “the
faithful understand that they could not of their own unaided efforts make
expiation for the evil which they had brought on themselves and indeed on the
whole community by sinning. Thus they
learn a salutary humility” (Paul VI).
As a penitent takes steps to repair the harm his sin has done (by prayer
fasting etc.), his efforts are matched by the power of Christ and all the
saints. His enjoyment of their
solidarity is the essence of an indulgence.
In practice, indulgences have been relegated to a very
marginal position in the Catholic Church.
In his major document on penance, Reconciliatio et paenitentia
(Dec. 1984), John Paul II makes no mention of indulgences.
1.10 Summary
In Christian history there have been extreme rigorist
movements, such as Montanism, Novatianism and Donatism, which excluded sinners
from the Church and refused to forgive certain grave sins.
Besides this there was a fairly widespread rigorous
practice of public penance in the early centuries, which in some cases extended
to lifelong penalties. The Irish
penitential system brought about a general mitigation and privatization of penance.
The Reformation raised again the question of faith and
works, putting the emphasis on faith and subjective assurance of salvation,
taking the extremely lax position of demanding nothing of the penitent but
confession to God in his heart.
A contemporary problem is the widespread loss of
consciousness of sin. This is a result
of behaviourist thinking,[5]
or lack of consciousness of God, since many people think they have sinned only
if they are caught.
[1]Cf. B. Poschmann, Penance and the anointing of the
sick (Herder, 1964).
[2]Cf. Dictionnaire de théologie catholique, IX-I,
1247.
[3]Summa theologiae, I-II, q.112, a.5.
[4]Sacrarum indulgentiarum recognitio, 1967.
[5]Cf. the study by the psychologist, Karl Menninger, What
has become of sin? (New York, 1973).