www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Indulgences, purgatory, & prayer for the dead?

Greetings Apotheoun,


Well if this were true, then it would be tantamount to saying that the East and West in their "authentic voice" speak of different salvations, and fundamentally a different Gospel. I know there are partisans on both sides who triumphalistically want this to be the case, who want to believe we will all only be praying together once again if one side or another is utterly crushed and humiliated beneath the heel of the other.

Well, I'm not one of those people, because I am quite convinced the basic assumptions of that sectarian perspective are dead wrong.

Given this, I don't believe an integrally "Byzantine Christian" perspective is utterly alien from that of the "Latin Christian", when both are correctly understood (and not judged by the excesses of sinners within those traditions.) So, I am immediately suspicious of interpretations of medieval Greek Teachers which go out of their way to make their theological content as bizarre and utterly different from that of the Latins as possible.


Only the Eastern Fathers held this view? If that's so, what would that say of the catholicity or authority of such an idea? So what is it...a universal belief (even if expressed in different forms), or a provincial belief lacking catholic authority?


Yes, not to be confused with something talking about the same thing but in different lingo...yes, never, never, otherwise sectarianism will be put to shame!

If the energy/essence distinction of the Eastern Tradition is (authentically understood) primarily a subjective distinction born of the limitations of the human mind in struggling to comprehend the unity of God and the multiplicity of creatures. Energies refer to God's dynamism in engaging the circumscribed, the created. Essence refers to God "as He is", considered without reference to ourselves. It cannot but be a mental affair - and this btw. would do nothing at all to diminish the conviction of the reality of the Holy Light (which has been experienced by ALL SAINTS, whatever their particular tradition or whereabouts in time.)


According to the revisionistic reading of the Eastern Tradition (pre and post schism) given by much of the so called "Neo-Palamite" movement within Orthodoxy, this would be correct. Of course, they even neglect St.Gregory himself, who clearly taught that Christ died (in part) to restore justice to the cosmos and to repair the supreme offence against God.

Besides, the contrast you're making isn't truthful - the Western Tradition fully acknolwedges that we are saved "because He loved us first". However, part of God's love is His love of justice, hence why God's hand moves to level as well as to build up.

So, insofar as the merits of Christ's Members (which is subsidiary to His own Merit) can make repair for the harm caused to the integrity of the cosmos, they can be invoked for our own cause. All of this is the integration of the dogma of the communion of the Saints into the disciplinary and soteriological discussions of the Church.


I'm aware that schismatics who want to desperately find justifications for their alienation from the Holy See will try to put the two completely at odds. However I know of Eastern Orthodox who are not nearly so harsh (even if they are still weary), nor can I imagine how any Catholic of the Eastern Church could hold such views; certainly none of their pro-union Saints did.

Your questioning of my familiarity with the Eastern Theological Tradition is cute, but unnecessary. I however have grave reason to suspect what you really know about Thomism, and the larger western theological tradition since your characterization of Thomism and broader western traditions of theology like scholasticism, is very very off.

Further, all too few fail to appreciate just how strongly the Angelic Doctor draws on similar sources as his Byzantine contemporaries - for example, the profound effect of Pseudo-Dionysius on St.Thomas' theology is impossible to ignore.

Historically the biggest problem for Thomism and chaste scholastic theology in general, have been it's poor students and exponents at various points in history. There is a world between their chutzpah and what the likes of St.Thomas or St.Anselm actually taught. It kind of reminds me of the misrepresentations and liberties taken by later/modern Greek Orthodox theologians and canonists with the ancient and medieval Eastern dogmatic sources. You don't look to the poorest representatives of an intellectual tradition, and use them as the measure.

As for the filioque, I believe it as the Church teaches it. While you're right it's a subject which goes largely undiscussed in the ancient Greek language Fathers, it is wishful thinking to deny that it is not consistently taught in the writings of the Western Fathers. Your reading of this chooses to believe the only real Fathers are those of the East - I choose to kneel before the feet of both. It's a choice between Catholicity or provincialism.


What the above admits is not in contradiction to what the Catholic Church confesses in full - that God the Son receives the procession of the Holy Spirit from God the Father in eternity, but that God the Father remains the "arch" of the Holy Trinity, for He alone is "neither begotten nor spirated."

Much of the supposed discord between Western and Eastern ways of theology has to do with the fact that very often they are speaking past one another but about the same basic things. It's well accepted that "filioque" has a different significance in Latin (as does "procession" in general) than it does in the original Greek language Creed. If one can get past this, then they will be pleasently surprised at how much discord just disappears. This is why St.Maximos the Confessor cautioned his Eastern brothers, that when the Latins say "filioque" they essentially "mean what we mean" when we say "through the Son."

What is unacceptable, however, is the imprecision of claiming that the Procession of the Holy Spirit through the Son is a temporal affair. That is rejected outright by several Fathers, and wasn't accepted by St.Gregory Palamas either.


I refuse to live in a mental ghetto. Truth is truth! The Church is one, all of the Fathers and Saints belong to everyone. It seems too many folks are interested in "sounding Eastern" while utterly lacking any real comprehension of the actual dogmas of the Eastern Church (which at their heart are dogmas of the Catholic Church.) It's been my observation that people who "go out of their way to sound eastern" are generally converts, or themselves anti-Latin scholastics of a modernistic bend. This is why so many self styled "neo-Palamites" have nothing good to say about the Eastern Fathers of recent centuries, whethery they were in communion with Rome or not - they're all "too western" for them. Of course, the other possibility is that it is they who are in the wrong and misrepresent "eastern theology", by trying to make it into some kitchy kind of esotericism which will be valid only in so far as it is utterly unrecognizable as a relative of the Western Tradition.

Well, if you have the wrong idea of what they are talking about, you will end up with a wrong evaluation of what they are saying

The idea of purgatory stems from the facts that 1. nothing unclean can enter the gates of Heaven, and 2. some sins are to death; others are not.

If a person commits a mortal sin (full knowledge, full consent, and grave matter) and dies without confessing it, showing repentance, or in any way asking for God's forgiveness (because perfect repentance can suffice without Confession), then he has turned his back on God in such a way that he wouldn't even want to be in God's Presence, and is not permitted in God's Presence (ie, Heaven). That person goes to hell (a place most Catholics assume Hitler is, but since the Church has never ruled that any particular person is in hell, we cannot say for sure).

If a person has some uncleanness in his soul--attachment to sin, venial sin (lacking one of the elements of mortal sin above)--then he has not separated himself from God and yet is not "clean" and so cannot enter Heaven.

This situation must be rectified. The Western Church has developed a certain way of describing what happens after death, but this is of necessity by way of analogy. So, we see a place of purification, where the chaff is burned away.

In the same way that on earth we can pray for the physical health of others, we can also pray for the spiritual health of others, as when we pray for the conversion of others or that they receive strength to go through some event, so can we pray for the spiritual health of those who have died.

Now, obviously our prayers would do nothing for someone who had ended up dying either a saint or in mortal sin, so it is quite apparent that God must dispose of the grace generated (so to speak) by the prayers and penetential practices devoted to the souls in purgatory.

A saint, someone who dies with a completely clean soul, would go directly to Heaven. A mortal sinner would go straight to hell. To say that everyone is standing in a line to "get a spanking" is to show a lack of understanding of what is happening, because first of all, not all are standing in the line (which does not exist as there is no time in the purely spiritual realm), and secondly we are not "getting a spanking"--we ahve already been forgiven--but our souls are being cleaned or "purged" of venial sin or restitution being made.

Utter nonsense, but I don't blame you for repeating it since so many others who ought to know better do.

Was St.Gregory Palamas a "scholastic" as you call it when he wrote...

" �Man was led into his captivity when he experienced God�s wrath, this wrath being the good God�s just abandonment of man. God had to be reconciled with the human race, for otherwise mankind could not be set free from the servitude.

A sacrifice was needed to reconcile the Father on high with us and to sanctify us, since we had been soiled by fellowship with the evil one. There had to be a sacrifice which both cleansed and was clean, and a purified, sinless priest�. God overturned the devil through suffering and His Flesh which He offered as a sacrifice to God the Father, as a pure and altogether holy victim � how great is His gift! � and reconciled God to the human race�

�Since He gave His Blood, which was sinless and therefore guiltless, as a ransom for us who were liable to punishment because of our sins, He redeemed us from our guilt. He forgave us our sins, tore up the record of them on the Cross and delivered us from the devil�s tyranny. The devil was caught by the bait. It was as if he opened his mouth and hastened to pour out for himself our ransom, the Master�s Blood, which was not only guiltless but full of divine power. Then instead of being enriched by it he was strongly bound and made an example in the Cross of Christ. So we were rescued from his slavery and transformed into the kingdom of the Son of God. Before we had been vessels of wrath, but we were made vessels of mercy by Him Who bound the one who was strong compared to us, and seized his goods.� (St. Gregory Palamas, Homily 16, 21, 24, 31; in Christopher Veniamin (ed.), The Homilies of Saint Gregory Palamas, South Canaan, PA: Saint Tikhon�s Seminary Press, 2002, pp. 193, 195, 201.)


Nice assertion, I'd love for you to prove it. The Eastern Church regardes the Canons of the Council of Carthage (419 A.D.) as being authoritatively endorsed by the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Said Council said...

�He who denies the need for young children and those just born from their mother�s womb to be baptized, or who says that although they are baptized for the remission of sins they inherit nothing from the forefathers� sin that would necessitate the bath of regeneration [from which it would follow that the form of baptism for the remission of sins would be used on them not in a true, but in a false sense], let him be anathema. For the word of the apostle: �By one man sin came into the world and death entered all men by sin, for in him all have sinned� (Romans 5.12), must be understood in no other way than it has always been understood by the Catholic Church, which has been poured out and spread everywhere. For in accordance with this rule of faith children, too, who are themselves not yet able to commit any sin, are truly baptized for the remission of sins, that through regeneration they may be cleansed of everything that they have acquired from the old birth� (cf. Canons 114, 115 and 116)"

Now I think my head will explode!

Where's that duct tape when ya really need it...

The end is near...I can feel the rapture...

Gordo,

The relationship to OT Jubilee makes sense. I don't necessarily have a problem with the notion of purgatory as a way of expressing the fact that our sanctification and growth continues after our death. I also believe, and think that this is a shared belief among Orthodox and Catholics, that our prayers certainly help the dead (if they didn't, then why would we pray for them?).

For me, as for Orthodox generally I think, it is the legalistic and defined "doctrines" that are the problem. Also, I do think that the notion of indulgences needs to be scrapped. I just don't see how it could ever be acceptable to the Orthodox. God bless.

Joe

Gordo,

I agree that we should presume that Christian theologians have acted with the best of intentions in trying to define and decide these particular doctrines (indeed, we should even presume that Arius and the ancient heretics had good intentions). I do think, though, that social and political realities do color the direction that the Churches have followed. There is no doubt that the Roman Church, as the center and effective United Nations, of the medieval world did theology with the social context in mind. If the theology of the ancient Church was fundamentally based on the Pauline view that we are "in the world but not of the world" and that Christ was coming at any time (this is the end of the age), then it is also true that, in large part, the medieval western Church, worked with the general model of the Church as the soul of a worldwide Christian society that encompassed the secular realm as well as the sacred. The fact that the medieval popes asserted temporal power and claimed the right to enthrone and depose kings shows that the church had the, quite understandable, goal and task of ordering society and controlling it. So, the medieval presentation of purgatory, indulgences (actually the whole of salvation), is rooted in the fuedal social system and is an extension of how things were to work in the visible world. The vision was of one cosmic, harmonious order. Really, it is quite an impressive vision, even if flawed in many ways. God bless.

Joe

In case of rapture, this user I.D. will be empty :P

Yes how true, interesting thread

Correction.

An indulgence cannot be sought for another living person. It can only be applied to the person performing the indulged act or for a departed soul.

Dear Friends,

The Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church certainly has and does make use of indulgences (although I'm hard pressed to find a contemporary UGCC prayerbook that mentions them any more) and also prays for the dead.

Apart from that, we're again like the Anglicans. The "Eastern" UGCCers make no mention of purgatory or indulgences whatever and this has become the norm. We pray for the dead assiduously. In fact, an Orthodox council has defined the Orthodox eschatology on the after-life - something we've discussed here before.

As for indulgences, Eastern Christians see ongoing penances as "medicinal" and I don't want to know what RC's say about what indulgences do these days . . . I'm sure it is something that can be construed to be identical!

We need to do penance to be "cured" of our sinful inclinations that lead us into specific sins. Eastern penitential spirituality is quite severe and is also quite beneficial. (I'm not into wearing heavy chains with a large bronze Cross next to my skin, but I've one at the ready, when the time of strong inspiration strikes!)

This is also why the Orthodox Church mentions the need for penance after confession. But this is an ongoing thing that is necessary for us.

IF indulgences are there to "exempt" us from doing the ongoing, necessary penances, then indulgences are simply bad for our spiritual life.

We can never know, in this life, whether the requisite dispositions in us are met for plenary indulgences (especially the condition of being totally free of attachment to sin - a real impossibility unless we're saints). We can never know if the indulgences free us from anything that we should be about doing for our own spiritual good.

If someone can explain how indulgences REALLY work and how they do not hinder our "spiritual ambition" to do works of repentance and how being "freed" from doing them through indulgences is a good thing . . .

So there's no disagreement on the need to do works of repentance (which is not the same thing as the epitimia or penance given in confession) between East and West.

I just don't know why indulgences (and both East and West have used and do use them) are necessary to exempt us from these.

We can also never know the amount of Grace God bestows on us for our works of repentance and conversion of life on an ongoing basis.

So why do indulgences appear as a way of trying to know this?

Again, the "Latin Scholastic" element is what the East sees is a rationalistic and all too human desire to know about what in fact we cannot know.

The point is - is it not better to do works of repentance than concern ourselves with "free tickets" that exempt us from doing them?

In addition, I always wondered about the wisdom of the later Church approving the Scapular devotion as something that helps us get into Heaven etc. Again, a dangerous thing is it contributes to spiritual sloth!

I've no problem reading the Scriptures for half an hour and applying an indulgence to the souls of the reposed. Or saying the Rosary in Church etc. But why do I myself need to concern myself with indulgences when I need to be about doing works of repentance?

When can we ever "relax" in this regard in this life? I used to come home after receiving Holy Communion and strain to receive a plenary indulgence. After performing the requisite acts, I repeated them a few more times "just to be sure" and then started to offer them for the souls in purgatory etc. Perhaps I had a bad understanding of indulgences, but I was certainly glad to be rid of it, good or bad.

Alex