Bible Heaven/Bible Heaven.iso/misc/answers/answers.013

Text File | 1990-07-10 | 17KB | 306 lines

                            Purgatory

     In 1769 James Boswell had this exchange with Samuel Johnson:
     Boswell: "What do you think, Sir, of purgatory, as believed
by the Roman Catholicks?"
     Johnson: "Why, Sir, it is a very harmless doctrine.  They
are of the opinion that the generality of mankind are neither so
obstinately wicked as to deserve everlasting punishment, nor so
good as to merit being admitted into the society of blessed
spirits; and therefore that God is graciously pleased to allow a
middle state, where they may be purified by certain degrees of
suffering.  You see, Sir, there is nothing unreasonable in this."
     Boswell: "But then, Sir, their Masses for the dead?"
     Johnson: "Why, Sir, if it be at once established that there
are souls in purgatory, it is as proper to pray for them, as for
our brethren of mankind who are yet in this life."
     Although Johnson was no "Catholick," he recognized that the
doctrine of purgatory is not at odds with other tenets of
Christianity.  In fact, as he may have known, there is
considerable scriptural warrant for it, even if the doctrine is
not explicitly set out in the Bible.
     The doctrine can be stated briefly.  Purgatory is a state of
purification, where the soul which has fully repented of its
sins, but which has not fully expiated them, has removed from
itself the last elements of uncleanliness.  In purgatory all
remaining love of self is transformed into love of God.
     At death one's soul goes to heaven, if it is completely fit
for heaven; to purgatory, if it is not quite fit for heaven, but
not worthy of condemnation; or to hell, if it is completely unfit
for heaven.  But purgatory is a temporary state.  Everyone who
enters it will get to heaven, and, after the last soul leaves
purgatory for heaven, purgatory will cease to exist.  There will
remain only heaven and hell.
     When we die, we undergo what is called the particular, or
individual, judgment.  We are judged instantly and receive our
reward, for good or ill.  We know at once what our final destiny
will be.  At the end of time, though, when the last people have
died, there will come the general judgment which the Bible refers
to.  In it all ours sins will be revealed.  Augustine said, in
The City of God, that "temporary punishments are suffered by some
in this life only, by others after death, by others both now and
then; but all of them before that last and strictest judgment."
It is between the particular and general judgments, then, that
the soul expiates its sins: "I tell you, you will not get out
till you have paid the very last penny" (Luke 12:59).  And if
full expiation occurs before the general judgment, the soul is
released from purgatory and goes to heaven.
     Fundamentalists note that biblical references to the
judgment refer only to heaven and hell.  Quite true.  But that's
because most of the references are to the general judgment, when
all will be judged at once (which means, for those who died
earlier and already underwent an individual judgment, a kind of
re-judging, but one that's public).  It is at the general
judgment that the justice and mercy of God will be demonstrated
to all.
     Opponents of the Catholic position are generally silent
about what happens to the souls of people who die long before the
Last Day.  There is no hint from Scripture that these souls
remain in suspended animation.  No, "men die only once, and after
that comes judgment" (Heb. 9:27).  Judgment is immediate--which,
by the way, is one reason why reincarnation is impossible.  It is
here, between individual judgment and general judgment, that a
soul may find itself in purgatory.
     Fundamentalists are fond of saying the Catholic Church
"invented" the doctrine of purgatory, but they have lots of
trouble saying just when.  Most professional anti-Catholics--the
ones who make their living attacking "Romanism"--seem to place
the blame on Pope Gregory the Great, who reigned from 590-604.
     But that hardly accounts for the request of Monica, mother
of Augustine, who asked her son, in the fourth century, to
remember her soul in his Masses.  This would make no sense if she
thought her soul would not be able to be helped by prayers, if
she thought there was no possibility of being somewhere other
than heaven or hell.
     Still less does the ascription of the doctrine to Gregory
account for the graffiti in the catacombs, where the earliest
Christians, during the persecutions of the first three centuries,
recorded prayers for the dead.  Indeed, some of the earliest non-
inspired Christian writings, like the Acts of Paul and Thecla
(second century) refer to the Christian custom of praying for the
dead.  Such prayers would have been made only if Christians
believed in purgatory, even if they did not use that name for it.
     No, the historical argument breaks down.  Whenever a date is
set for the "invention" of purgatory, you can point to something
to show the doctrine was already old many years before that date.

Besides, if at some point the doctrine was pulled out of a
clerical hat, why does ecclesiastical history record no protest?
     A study of the history of doctrines shows that Christians in
the first centuries were up in arms (sometimes quite literally)
if anyone suggested the least change in beliefs.  They were
extremely conservative people, their test of the truth of a
doctrine being, Was this believed by our ancestors?  Surely
belief in purgatory would be considered a great change, if it had
not been believed from the first--so where are the records of
protests?
     Well, they don't exist, and they never existed.  There is no
hint at all, in the oldest writings available to us (or in later
ones, for that matter), that "true believers" in the immediate
post-apostolic years complained about purgatory as a novel
doctrine.  They must have understood that the oral teaching of
the apostles, what Catholics call Tradition, and the Bible not
only did not contradict the doctrine, but endorsed it.
     It is no wonder, then, that professional anti-Catholics
spend little time on the history of the belief.  (Who can blame
them for avoiding an unpleasant subject?)  They prefer to claim,
instead, that the Bible speaks only of heaven and hell.  Wrong
again.  It speaks quite plainly of a third place, where Christ
went after his death, the place commonly called the Limbo of the
Fathers, where the just who had died before the Redemption were
waiting for heaven to be opened to them (1 Pet. 3:19).  This
place was neither heaven nor hell.
     Even if the Limbo of the Fathers was not purgatory, its
existence shows that a temporary, intermediate state is not
contrary to Scripture.  Look at it this way.  If the Limbo of the
Fathers was purgatory, then this one verse directly teaches the
existence of purgatory.  If the Limbo of the Fathers was a
different temporary state, then the Bible at least says such a
state can exist.  It at least proves there can be more than just
heaven and hell.
     Some fundamentalists also say, "We can't find the word
purgatory in Scripture."  True, but that's hardly the point.  The
words Trinity and Incarnation aren't in Scripture either, yet
those doctrines are clearly taught in it.  Likewise, Scripture
teaches that purgatory exists, even if it doesn't use that word
and even if 1 Pet. 3:19 refers to a place other than purgatory.
     Christ refers to the sinner for whom "there is no
forgiveness, either in this world or in the world to come" (Matt.
12:32).  This implies expiation can occur after death.  Paul
tells us that at the day of judgment each man's work will be
tried.  This trial happens after death.  And what happens if a
man's work fails the test?  "He will be the loser; and yet he
himself will be saved, though only as men are saved by passing
through fire" (1 Cor. 3:15).  Now this loss, this penalty, can't
refer to consignment to hell, since no one is saved there; and
heaven can't be meant, since there is no suffering ("fire")
there.  Purgatory alone explains this passage.
     Then, of course, there is the Bible's approbation of prayers
for the dead: "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the
dead, that they might be loosed from their sins" (2 Macc. 12:46).

Prayers are not needed by those in heaven, and they can't help
those in hell.  That means some people must be in a third place,
at least temporarily.  (Protestants don't accept the two books of
Macchabees as inspired, of course, but they do accept them as
illustrating what Jews in the centuries immediately before Christ
believed.  These books prove belief in the efficacy of prayers
for the dead did not start late in the Christian era.)
     And why would anyone go to purgatory?  To be cleansed.
"Nothing unclean shall enter heaven" (Apoc. 21:27).  Anyone who
has not completely expiated his sins--that is, not just had them
forgiven, but "made up" for them, been punished for them--in this
life is, to some extent, "unclean."  Through repentance he may
have gained the grace needed to qualify for heaven (which is to
say his soul is spiritually alive), but that's not enough.  He
needs to be cleansed completely.  By not admitting the doctrine
of purgatory, one necessarily implies that even the slightest
defilement results in the loss of the soul, yet even here below
not every crime is a capital offense: "Not all sin is deadly" 1
John 5:17).
     Fundamentalists claim, as an article in Jimmy Swaggart's
magazine The Evangelist put it, that "Scripture clearly reveals
that all the demands of divine justice on the sinner have been
completely fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  It also reveals that
Christ has totally redeemed, or purchased back, that which was
lost.  The advocates of a purgatory (and the necessity of prayer
for the dead) say, in effect, that the redemption of Christ was
incomplete. ...  It has all been done for us by Jesus Christ,
there is nothing to be added or done by man."
     This presumes there is a contradiction between the
Redemption and our suffering in expiation for our sins.  There
isn't, whether that suffering is in this life or in the next.
Paul said he rejoices "in my sufferings for you, and [I] fill up
those things that are wanting in the suffering of Christ" (Col.
1:24).  Ronald Knox explained this passage by noting that "the
obvious meaning is that Christ's sufferings, although fully
satisfactory on behalf of our sins, leave us under a debt of
honour, as it were, to repay them by sufferings of our own."
     Paul didn't imply there was something lacking in the
Redemption, that Christ couldn't pull it off on his own, and no
fundamentalist misreads Col. 1:24 that way.  Analogously, it is
not contrary to the Redemption to say we must suffer for our
sins; it is a matter of justice.  We can suffer here, or
hereafter, or in both places, as Augustine wrote.
     But some say, "God doesn't demand expiation after having
forgiven sins."  Tell that to King David.  When he repented, God
sent Nathan with a message for him: "The Lord on his part has
forgiven your sin: you shall not die.  But since you have utterly
spurned the Lord by this deed, the child born to you must surely
die" (2 Sam. 12:14).  Even after David's sin was forgiven, he had
to undergo expiation.  Can we expect less?  Fundamentalists think
the answer is Yes, because Christ obviated the need for any
expiation on our part, but the Bible nowhere teaches that.
Having one's sins forgiven is not the same thing as having the
punishment for them wiped out.
     The main reason for such strong opposition to purgatory is
that it can't coexist with fundamentalism's notion of salvation.
For fundamentalists, salvation comes by "accepting Christ as
one's personal savior."  Aside from that one act of acceptance,
no acts--meaning no good deeds and no sins--make any difference
with respect to one's salvation.
     If you are "born again" in the fundamentalists' sense, you
are already saved, and nothing can keep you from heaven.  If you
are not "born again," you are damned.  In fundamentalism's scheme
of things, purgatory would be superfluous, since cleansing before
entering heaven would be unnecessary, on the notion that every
soul is unclean and that God ignores the uncleanliness by
"covering" the soul's sinfulness.
     Purgatory makes sense only if there is a requirement that a
soul not just be declared to be clean, but actually be clean.
After all, if a guilty soul is merely "covered," if its sinful
state still exists but is officially ignored, then, for all the
protestations that may be given, it is still a guilty soul.  It
is still unclean.  A man who has not bathed in a month is not
cleansed merely by putting on clean clothes; clean clothes won't
remove the dirt.  Likewise, "covering" a soul won't purify it;
its dirty state is merely hidden from view.
     Catholic theology takes literally the notion that "nothing
unclean shall enter heaven."  From this it is inferred that a
dirty soul, even if "covered," remains a dirty soul and isn't fit
for heaven.  It needs to be cleansed or "purged" of its
dirtiness.  The purging comes in purgatory.
     There is another argument commonly used against purgatory.
It's that the Catholic Church makes money off the doctrine.
Without purgatory, the claim goes, the Church would go broke.
Any number of anti-Catholic books, from the tamest to the most
bizarre, claim the Church owes the majority of its wealth to this
doctrine.  But the numbers don't add up.
     When a Catholic requests a memorial Mass for the dead--that
is, a Mass said for the benefit of someone in purgatory--it is
customary to give the parish a stipend, on the principle that the
laborer is worth his hire (Luke 10:7) and those who preside at
the altar share the altar's offerings (1 Cor. 9:13-14).  In the
United States, a stipend is commonly around five dollars, but the
indigent do not have to pay anything, and no parish maintains a
"schedule of fees."  A few people, of course, freely offer more.
On average, though, a parish can expect to receive something less
than five dollars by way of stipend for each memorial Mass said.
These Masses are usually said on weekdays.
     But look at what happens on a Sunday.  There are often
hundreds of people at Mass.  In a crowded parish, there may be
thousands.  Many families and individuals deposit five dollars or
more into the collection basket; others deposit less.  A few give
much more.  A parish might have four or five or six Masses on a
Sunday.  The total from the Sunday collections far outstrips the
paltry amount received from the memorial Masses.  The facts are
that no Catholic parish gets rich off Mass stipends--or even gets
much at all.
     In interpreting the Bible, in determining whether the
doctrine of purgatory contradicts or confirms what is found in
its pages, we come upon a recurring question: "Who is to decide?"

It hardly suffices to say, "Let the Bible itself decide," since
it is the interpretation of the Bible that is in question and no
book, not even the Bible, can be self-interpreting.  We either
interpret it ourselves, using our own resources, or we listen to
the word of a divinely-appointed interpreter, if one has been
established.
     Catholics hold that Christ empowered the Church to give
infallible interpretations of the Bible.  "I have still much to
say to you, but it is beyond your reach as yet.  It will be for
him, the truth-giving Spirit, when he comes, to guide you in all
truth" (John 16:12).  This Jesus said to the apostles.
     This takes us, of course, to the rule of faith--is it to be
found in the Bible alone or in the Bible and Tradition, as handed
down by the Church?  That is a theme that must be handled
elsewhere, but the reader should be aware that the controversy
about purgatory is really a controversy about much more than
purgatory.
     Purgatory has just been a convenient warring ground.  The
ultimate disagreement concerns the doctrine of sola scriptura.
If fundamentalists understood why that doctrine won't wash--why,
in fact, it's contrary to Scripture--they would have little
difficulty in accepting purgatory and other Catholic beliefs,
such as the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption, which are
not explicitly stated in the Bible.

                                        --Karl Keating
                                          Catholic Answers
                                          P.O. Box 17181
                                          San Diego, CA 92117