Purgatorio

[seichu kaisho]

While trying to find out more about the Catholic doctrine of purgatory, I found this on the Internet - what is you guys's take on it?

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Purgatory is not a middle destiny!

First, you should explain that purgatory is not a middle state between heaven and hell. This encourages the Protestant to think of it as not only a distinct region of the afterlife (something the Church does not teach) but, even worse, that purgatory is a middle destiny between heaven and hell. This it totally false, and you should emphasize quite strenuously to the Protestant that everyone who goes to purgatory goes to heaven. In fact, the reason one goes to purgatory is so that one can be fitted for life in heaven. Purgatory thus constitutes the cloakroom of heaven, the place you go to get spiffed up before being ushered into the Throne Room.

For this reason, you should totally avoid any language like, "Purgatory is where you go when you aren't bad enough for hell but not good enough for heaven." This language, besides sounding legalistic, is also going to get a Protestant thinking that purgatory is some kind of middle destiny rather than a temporary phenomenon. Instead, use the language the Church uses:

"All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven" (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1030).

Thus one should put the emphasis where it belongs, on the incomplete purification of the person rather than saying, "not good enough," which implies (at least to Protestant ears) a legalistic earning of heaven.
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(James Akin, How to Explain Purgatory to Protestants)

[seichu kaisho]

The same author also writes this:

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But beyond Protestants like Lewis, who openly admit their belief in purgatory, it may be said that Protestants in general believe in purgatory, they just don't call it that. For every historic Protestant will admit that our sinning in this life does not continue into heaven. In fact, they will be quite insistent that although our sanctification is not complete in this life, it will be completed (instantaneously, they say) as soon as this life is over. But that is what purgatory is! -- the final sanctification, the purification. Thus it is permissible to say that many Protestants believe in purgatory without even realizing it.
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(James Akin, How to Explain Purgatory to Protestants

Keep in mind I'm not trying to sell any beliefs to anyone, but I'm just interested in finding out what other people think about this subject, so I can compare it to how I think and what the Bible says.

If you want to read more of his article, the webpage is www.cin.org/users/james/files/how2purg.htm

God bless,
seichu

[charl]

Wow what a way to finesse it. I am no expert, (I know little about Purgatory) but I do see a few problems with this argument.

Most protestants I would think are well aware what purgatory is/isn't (I know I never thought of it as a 'third option') We still oppose it.
It doesn't matter how it's worded, in the end the exception we take with the doctrine is that Christ's sacrifice on the cross was not enough to cover our sins completely. We need to co-operate with Christ for our salvation, and are not declared righteous by God until we've done something to help him to do so-in purgatory.

I think that an understanding of the Catholic view of Justification and sanctification is in order to realize what is really being said. They are very different than the protestant doctrines of the same. So yeah Catholics will say 'oh no we're not taking away from the sacrifice of Christ', but they start out with a different idea of what the sacrifice is.

I think this is very telling:

His sufferings paid the price for us to be sanctified, and his sufferings paid the price for the whole of our sanctification -- both the initial and final parts. Thus it is because of Christ's sacrifice that we receive the final sanctification in the first place! If he had not suffered, we would not be given the final sanctification (or the glorification to which it leads), but would go straight to hell. Thus purgatory does not imply Christ's sufferings were insufficient; rather it is because of Christ's sufferings that we are given the final sanctification of purgatory in the first place!

(emphasis mine) his sacrifice didn't have us declareed righteous before God but only prepared the way for us to do it.

Oh and how could someone need less 'sanctification' by their earthly relatives paying the church money...no matter what the reason (this is apperently still done occasionally, BTW)

Why did the reformers cry 'Sola Fide' 'Sola Gratia' 'Solus Christus'? Because the doctrines of the church-including purgatory-went against this. Trent declared they were anathema for that-why, if they don't 'disagree'? why are they still anathema to this day?

[nacman]

The real problem biblically with purgatory is that this doctrine says that in some way Christ's sacrifice on the cross was not enough to save us from our sins, but that to enter heaven we must do some work-endure purgatory-to enter heaven. The reallity is that Christ did it all and we do nothing.

[seichu kaisho]

I agree totally, nacman.

Yet, Akin seems to say in this article that what Catholics believe purgatory is is different from what what Protestants think Catholics believe it is. According to him, Protestants wrongly tend to think that the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory is this unbiblical idea of a P.O.W. camp for souls that are "not bad enough for hell, but not good enough for heaven." Akin's definition of "Purgatory" virtually the same thing as what we refer to as the "Judgement Day." Maybe it's just another word for the Judgement / Bema, I dunno.

It does make sense that, after our bodies die, our souls need to be purified from all our natural sinfulness and blemishes before we can enter heaven, since God will never allow anything unholy into heaven. I believe that's true, and I'm sure all of us believe that's true.

But how exactly this purification process goes, we can't know. We don't know what anything in the afterlife is gonna be like (even though we have very slight clues from the Bible). The purification might be instantaneous, I dunno. That's what Akin seemed to say in his article - God might take our impurities away in what seems like just a split second. That's what I've thought over the years, and honestly, that's what I hope.

A friend of mine who led a college Bible study stated once that he thought this whole purgatory thing could be one of those God-sized questions (something we don't have to know until after we die) - what do you think?

Kami bless,
seisho

[charl]

His version of purgatory strikes me as a sanitized one. It was not what many people who themselves believed fervently in Pugatory through history thought of. Come on-how do indulgences make the purification easier? Why were certain people supposedly able to by-pass purgatory? 'All men are destined to die once and then judgement-oh unless you were a very pious monk or high up in the church or gave lots of money to it.' That doesn't sound synonymous with the day of Judgement to me.

Whether purgatory is or isn't I suppose is not the issue (to me) as much as Justification-the central issue of the split of course. Catholic doctrine has a different view of justification, one that purgatory fits with quite nicely. Protestant belief-well historic protestant belief-less so (go here to read about the concept of imputation).
Go back again to the section I quoted. It seems it is trying hard to sound like protestant language, while actually advocating something very different.

I have seen people use this author's works before and I find he has made strawmen of certain protestant beliefs-this leads me to be wary of the arguments he makes.