What an Indulgence Is
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, “‘An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints.’ ‘An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin.’ The faithful can gain indulgences for themselves or apply them to the dead.” (CCC, 1471)
To back up a little, the Catholic Church teaches that when one is justified (usually occurring through the means of either baptism or penance), the eternal punishment of sin is wiped away– hell is not in your future. However, there are still temporal punishments for sins that must be metted out either in this life or in purgatory– ultimately with heaven as the final goal.
However, the Church can grant indulgences for the removal of these temporal punishments for the truly repentant. An indulgence requires certain acts (a more recent indulgence granted required as one of its conditions that the one seeking an indulgence follow the Pope on Twitter–http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/07/what-the-pope-really-meant-in-his-twitter-indulgences-announcement/277909/ ) from the one seeking it, and can be either full (plenary) or partial.* It cannot be stated forcefully enough that the Roman Catholic Church of today forcefully rejects the selling of indulgences and other such corruptions that sparked Luther to write his 95 Theses.
Contemporary Understandings
The Catholic Church of today has backed off from speaking of indulgences in terms of “time off of purgatory,” which was the most common way they were thought of in centuries past. Many contemporary Catholic theologians have argued that perhaps in the afterlife time does not have the same qualities that it has here, so that this type of language might be misleading and should be avoided.
In an Apostolic Constitution of Pope Paul VI entitled Indulgentiarum Doctrina, it is ordered that, “a partial indulgence will henceforth be designated only with the words ‘partial indulgence’ without any determination of days or years” (ID, Norm no. 4). Pope Paul did not here say that indulgences do not in fact have a tensed (time-based) quality, only that they should not be spoken of as such. In fact, elsewhere in the same document he seems to refer to purgatory as tensed:
“For this reason there certainly exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth a perennial link of charity and an abundant exchange of all the goods by which, with the expiation of all the sins of the entire Mystical Body, divine justice is placated” (ID, Chapter 2).
Another contemporary shift in how Catholics think of temporal punishments has to do with the claim that we should not think of indulgences as God intentionally punishing the subject, but as the necessary consequence of immoral actions:
“To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.” (CCC, 1472)
Inconsistencies
If the Catechism means to say that temporal punishments (either in this life or in purgatory) should not be viewed as vengeance coming from God (which is certainly what the word “punishment” suggests), but merely the negative consequences of sin, they say something that protestants could almost agree with. Certainly our sins carry negative consequences, even if God does forgive them. However, this understanding of temporal punishment as mere consequences is inconsistent with what the Catholic Church teaches elsewhere. Doesn’t the very existence of indulgences– a remission of punishment due to sin– contradict the claim that temporal punishments are merely natural consequences that must come to pass as a result of sin? If punishment can be remitted through indulgences, whose desire to punish is being satiated? Furthermore, even this passage teaches that one can be so purified by his charitable works that he can expiate the punishment that was due him. This is inconsistent with the idea of necessary consequences arising from sin, and instead strongly suggests that we must satisfy God’s wrath either by outweighing our bad behavior with good or by suffering what is due to us (at least partially– hell is also due to us, after all).
There are other problems with this declaration. First of all, it seems to claim that only some kinds of sins separate us from God and others require some lesser punishment (only “grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life”). The protestant position (and I would argue the biblical position) is that ALL sin separates us from God. That’s why Jesus paid the penalty for all of our sins, and why we can claim to no longer be at enmity with God. To claim that there is still a chasm between us and God because of sins that have yet to be punished or atoned for is to de facto claim that we are still at enmity with God. You cannot claim to have forgiven a man whom you still demand payment from or punishment of.
This section of the Catechism also seems to use obfuscating langauge. Instead of speaking of purgatory AS the temporal punishment of sin, it claims that this “purification frees one from what is called the ‘temporal punishment’ of sin.'” The Roman Catholic Council of Trent used very different language indeed:
“If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be discharged either in this world of in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema.”
(Council of Trent, Sixth Session, Chapter XVI, Canon 30)
The Role of the Magisterium in Expiating Sins
Indulgentiarum Doctrina speaks of the mediating role of the church and of indulgences as, “helping the faithful to expiate the punishment due sin.” In contrast, 1 John 4:10 tells us that, “in this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins” (RSV Catholic Edition).
Paul says it another way:
“Since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies him who has faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:23-26, RSVCE).
The teaching of indulgences not only undermines the ministry of Christ because it teaches that there are sins Christ doesn’t atone for and that we must work off ourselves or else be punished for (albeit by the grace of Christ), but it also undermines the efficacy of His sacrifice by claiming that over-abundant good works of saints can be used to atone for the temporal punishments of others:
“The ‘treasury of the Church’ is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God… This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are 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. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body.” (CCC, 1476-7)
Put more succinctly, “in an indulgence in fact, the Church, making use of its power as minister of the Redemption of Christ, not only prays but by an authoritative intervention dispenses to the faithful suitably disposed the treasury of satisfaction which Christ and the saints won for the remission of temporal punishment” (ID, Chapter 4). While the claim is indeed that these good works are done in Christ by His grace, they are still the works of others and not the finished work of Christ on the cross.
The Apostolic Constitution Indulgentiarum Doctrina says of the supposed great benefits of indulgences, “the Church also in our days then invites all its sons to ponder and meditate well on how the use of indulgences benefits their lives and indeed all Christian society” (Chapter 4). I struggle to see how rationing the grace afforded us by Christ’s sacrifice is of more benefit to Christian society than the free, full, and efficacious gift of His grace. Indulgentiarum Doctrina also claims that indulgences provide “not only full and abundant forgiveness, but the most complete forgiveness for [our] sins possible” (Chapter 4). For the most complete forgiveness of my sins possible, I’ll stick with the finished atoning work of Christ.
*Indulgentiarum Doctrina also makes clear that indulgences can be won for the dead:
“And if the faithful offer indulgences in suffrage for the dead, they cultivate charity in an excellent way and while raising their minds to heaven, they bring a wiser order into the things of this world” (Chapter 4).
“Partial as well as plenary indulgences can always be applied to the dead by way of suffrage” (Norm no. 3).