Indulgences: Luther, Catholicism, and the Imputation of Merit

by Mary C. Moorman

At the five-hundreth anniversary of Martin Luther's Ninety-Five Theses and the dawn of the Protestant movement, Indulgences: Luther, Catholicism, and the Imputation of Merit sets forth a revised theological interpretation of the Church's practice of indulgences. Author Mary C. Moorman argues that Luther's sola fide theology merely absolutized the very logic of indulgences which he sought to overthrow, while indulgences in their proper context remain an irreducible witness to the Church's corporate nuptial covenant with Christ, by which penitents are drawn into deeper fellowship with the Church and the Church's Lord. As Robert W. Shaffern, Professor of Medieval History at the University of Scranton, writes in his foreword to Indulgences, "Mary Moorman's book joins a number of recent scholarly studies that revise substantially the old convictions about indulgences. She is mostly interested in how theological thinking about indulgences should be done today, with of course the help that patristic, medieval, and early modern authorities might lend. She brings to bear a broad range of primary and secondary sources on the issue of indulgences and constructs an impressive series of covalent images with which to understand the role of indulgences in today's Christian Church."

Genres: Catholic

Paperback

Published July 1, 2017

Reviews

[Jarrett Vandiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Should be 6/5 stars - excellent scholarship that frames "indulgences" in the context of biblical covenant theology. Basically, if Jesus Christ established a Church, purchased it with his blood, and established a covenant with it, then indulgences are a logical outcome of this intimate community. Anyone who is interested in the Old Testament/covenant theology should let this book be food for thought. In many high school history classes, you are typically taught that indulgences are old Catholic practices which allowed people to buy time out of purgatory (or perhaps “earn” heaven through money) and Martin Luther rejected this and thus began the Reformation.

In correction to this common narrative, Moorman's central argument is this: forensic imputation was already common topic and belief in Catholic theology and was essential to indulgences. After all, indulgences are

"the remission of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven." (CCC 1471) In an indulgence, Jesus Christ through his church "imputes" legal forgiveness and blessing on a person in exchange for their faith after the sin has been "forgiven"(ontologically erased through the grace of baptism/confession). Indulgences are not "sacraments" which confer grace in themselves, they are legal declarations which apply/impute the merit of Jesus Christ as if the recipient possessed Christ's merit himself.

Luther isolated and absolutized the forensic aspect of salvation from its proper context in God's covenant with the church, creating a system in which infused grace was abandoned in favor of legal imputation alone. It is not as if Luther rejected indulgences; it is more like Luther wanted a *greater* indulgence: total imputation of Christ's righteousness which is totally separated from the Church or sanctification.

Essentially, Moorman argues that indulgences are best understood in the context of covenant theology (which Luther largely rejected in favor of individualism). In a biblical covenant, there is an exchange of persons in which a marriage-type relationship is formed. In this marriage, the goods of the spouses are shared in love, and they are inseparable as one flesh. When actors within a covenant show their assent and allegiance through acts of faith, benefits from that covenant are imputed to the person. For example, while the infusion of grace was not yet available to those in the OT, the faith manifest in their legal signs preemptively united them by faith to Christ who was to come. (12) Israel was in a true covenant with God, so their acts of faithfulness caused God to impute legal benefits to them.

Now that Christ has established the church, the church acts as the bride of Christ in an infinitely more beautiful and intimate covenant with God--on the basis that the hypostatic union has inextricably linked together God and man, Christ and the Church. Tertullian and St. Cyprian are clear, you cannot separate Christ from the actions of his church! "One cannot have God as his Father without the Church as his mother" (287) (The fact that Luther attempted to separate imputation from the context of the Church is why even Philip Melanchthon saw Martin Luther as having "Manichee" tendencies, since he followed the old Gnostic heresy that refused to acknowledge Christ as acting in and through the Church.)

As Moorman says, “In this way, the entire structure of the Church’s indulgences presumes that her members can receive Christ’s own merits for the remission of the temporal punishment that is due for their sins, not according to their own works or transactions with God, but according to the covenant which Christ has enacted with the whole Church.” (253) When Christ "purchased" our salvation according to Scripture, he atoned for our sins superabundantly, meaning that there are now an eternal supply of benefits available to believers who are part of God's covenant, which are the property of all who are united to the mystical body of Christ:

“In the logic of indulgences, the treasury of merit is replete with the heroic acts of the Church’s members, and the value of these actions becomes the common property of the corporate hole, to be distributed to those who otherwise lack the means of making offerings of their own. Throughout this covenantal framework, we see that for every divine promise, there is a binding symbolic act for the recipient to make in response, and these binding symbolic acts function to guarantee the benefits of God‘s provisions.” (293)

Moorman shows that indulgences should not be seen as the central dividing line between Catholics and Protestants. Properly understood, indulgences never claimed to justify sinners or replace God’s grace. Instead, they presupposed a communal covenant in which Christ’s merits were shared within the Church. Luther’s innovation was not the discovery of imputed righteousness, but its removal from that shared ecclesial context. By making imputation purely individual and absolute, Luther transformed a limited juridical concept into the foundation of Protestant justification.

[Gradywayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, Dr. Moorman is to be applauded for composing an eminently readable theological text, which not only dives deeply but also resurfaces with treasures that illuminate the chief topic, indulgences, as well as a core principle of Christian faith — covenantal fidelity. Her exposition of the nuptial character of covenant, including some of the ecclesiological implications of such, is excellent. The theological mechanics of indulgences are thoroughly treated, with keen historical emphasis and insights that draw from predominantly medieval thinkers, Catholic and Protestant alike.

Note well that this is not a how-to manual on obtaining indulgences, but rather, it is a patiently argued work of scholarship that proceeds point-by-point, laboring the pertinent details and repeating particular emphases where necessary. The footnotes ought to be read in-time rather than ignored until later. While this is not a guide to the spiritual practice of indulgences, it is nevertheless a profoundly faithful work, obviously the fruit of prayerful reflection. Indeed, Dr. Moorman manages to strike ecumenical notes alongside the more scientific points in her presentation, all along maintaining the persuasiveness of her argument without any sense of heavy-handed evangelism. I first saw this book while at SBL in Boston (2017). It will remain readily reachable on my shelf and will undoubtedly be referenced in future work of my own (whether on indulgences or not).

Even if one finds indulgences to be unappealing or meaningless, they would nevertheless benefit from reading the first couple of chapters which deal directly with covenant and its nuptial character. And after reading those chapters, one might even find themselves wanting to reconsider their reluctance to acknowledge the theological legitimacy of indulgences in the Catholic Church. In that case, reading the remainder of Dr. Moorman’s book would be of great value.

[Gradywayne · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of all, Dr. Moorman is to be applauded for composing an eminently readable theological text, which not only dives deeply but also resurfaces with treasures that illuminate the chief topic, indulgences, as well as a core principle of Christian faith — covenantal fidelity. Her exposition of the nuptial character of covenant, including some of the ecclesiological implications of such, is excellent. The theological mechanics of indulgences are thoroughly treated, with keen historical emphasis and insights that draw from predominantly medieval thinkers, Catholic and Protestant alike.

Note well that this is not a how-to manual on obtaining indulgences, but rather, it is a patiently argued work of scholarship that proceeds point-by-point, laboring the pertinent details and repeating particular emphases where necessary. The footnotes ought to be read in-time rather than ignored until later. While this is not a guide to the spiritual practice of indulgences, it is nevertheless a profoundly faithful work, obviously the fruit of prayerful reflection. Indeed, Dr. Moorman manages to strike ecumenical notes alongside the more scientific points in her presentation, all along maintaining the persuasiveness of her argument without any sense of heavy-handed evangelism. I first saw this book while at SBL in Boston (2017). It will remain readily reachable on my shelf and will undoubtedly be referenced in future work of my own (whether on indulgences or not).

Even if one finds indulgences to be unappealing or meaningless, they would nevertheless benefit from reading the first couple of chapters which deal directly with covenant and its nuptial character. And after reading those chapters, one might even find themselves wanting to reconsider their reluctance to acknowledge the theological legitimacy of indulgences in the Catholic Church. In that case, reading the remainder of Dr. Moorman’s book would be of great value.

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A remarkably well researched book. I would never have thought to consider that the quintessentially protestant doctrine of the forensic imputation of merit may actually derive from an absolutisation of the underlying catholic doctrine of merit, remedial punishment, and satisfaction to the exclusion of the ontological and didactic understanding.

But one confirming sign is the fact that penal substitution fits perfectly into protestant theology.

Whether this concept of indulgence maps *so* perfectly onto Lutheran soteriology, I have some doubts. But in some essential elements - absolutely.

[Kenneth Griswold · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an intriguing thesis! Luther was right about imputation, but wrong in where that idea should be applied. Luther took a Catholic idea that relates to indulgences, and falsely applied it to salvation while denying the doctrine of indulgences.

This book has changed my perspective about indulgences, and about their importance and especially how to think of them. I no longer think of them in a strictly legal way, but as a salve given to children by their mother (the Church) by virtue of the mother being the Bride of Christ.