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December 14, 2006
Sola...ti do?
I'm sitting here, supposed to be writing frantically to get a chapter turned in before Christmas (won't happen...), and thought I'd put up one last post about our trip to Rome. I've been interacting with a lot of Roman Catholic scholarship from various periods of church history and it's been good for me to come to grips with some of the thought there. But one result of visiting Rome as a Protestant was a realization of the causes of the Reformation. Often it is put into terms of 'abuse': the Reformation was chiefly caused by the abuse of what is otherwise fine or acceptable theology. Well, such is no doubt a part of the case; but the differences run straight through theology and life and that to me was nowhere more evident than in the "doors of forgiveness" . There is a set at the Vatican (pictures below - inside and outside) and another at San Giovanni de Laterano (where the Lateran councils were held; the old papal seat). The idea is that every 100 years - which became 50, then 25 and now is more or less whenever the pope decides, the last in 2000 - there is a 'Jubilee Year' where the pope bangs on the door, which then opens and everyone who passes through has their sins forgiven. Now, I understand that this can be simply a matter of another sacramental aspect of the church, linked to the power that "whose sins you forgive shall be forgiven...": in the R.C. view participating in the sacraments is drawing on the merit earned by Christ in his death, and so one can still hold some (albeit semi-Pelagian) form of "Christ alone" whose grace is necessary for forgiveness. But this seems to me only a half-step away from the classic idea of indulgences; only instead of the church making money by requiring it to "get grace", they make their money by the enormous numbers of folk who come and spend their money as tourists.
What it gave me was an appreciation for the Reformation doctrine of "sola fide". Obtaining forgiveness - which is tied necessarily to being made right before God (justification) - by virtue of your walking through a set of doors, with no reference to faith in any substantial (i.e. biblical) sense, is in my mind a bit problematic... There aren't any easy answers here, but there are bad ones.
The picture on top is, I hope, not overly sacreligious: the pillars are supposed to be the height of Jesus. They're in one of the many cloisters. Clearly I've got him by at least a couple of inches...
| By j and b | 10:35 AM
Comments
The doors are beautiful, and on my last visit I just sat and stared for a while. I did not know the story you relate here though, thanks for the learning!
Posted by: Otter at December 14, 2006 04:53 PM