Examining Orthodox Theology

[dvdjs]

Just to add a little more on thoughts about torments, jurisprudence, etc.

An Online Orthodox Catechism

adopted from ‘The Mystery of Faith’ by Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev
orthodoxeurope.org/page/10/1.aspx

DEATH AND RESURRECTION

The human person was created for eternity; in Paradise he was fed from the ‘tree of life’ and was immortal. After the fall, however, the way to the ‘tree of life’ was blocked, and he became mortal and temporal. According to some church writers, humanity was sentenced to death because God’s commandment was broken. Other authors hold the opinion that death was imposed in order to liberate humans from sin and through death open the way to immortality.

What happens to souls after death? …
With the passing of three days the souls of the departed ascend to the Judge in order to undergo their personal trial. Righteous souls are then taken by the angels and brought to the threshold of Paradise, which is called ‘Abraham’s bosom’: there they remain waiting for the Last Judgment. Sinners, on the other hand, find themselves ‘in Hell’, ‘in torments’ (cf. Luke 16:22-23). … Before the Last Judgment, the righteous souls anticipate the joy of Paradise, while the souls of sinners anticipate the torments of Gehenna. …

Immediately after the common resurrection, will be the Last Judgment at which the final decision is taken as to who is worthy of the Kingdom of heaven and who should be sentenced to the torments of Hell. Before this event, however, there exists the possibility for the person in Hell to gain release; after the Last Judgment this possibility no longer remains. …

THE LAST JUDGMENT

… Immediately after the common resurrection, will be the Last Judgment at which the final decision is taken as to who is worthy of the Kingdom of heaven and who should be sentenced to the torments of Hell. Before this event, however, there exists the possibility for the person in Hell to gain release; after the Last Judgment this possibility no longer remains. …

 

[dvdjs]

from the Confession of Dositheus

Decree 18

We believe that the souls of those that have fallen asleep are either at rest or in torment, according to what each has done; — for when they are separated from their bodies, they depart immediately either to joy, or to sorrow and lamentation; though confessedly neither their enjoyment nor condemnation are complete. For after the common resurrection, when the soul shall be united with the body, with which it had behaved itself well or ill, each shall receive the completion of either enjoyment or of condemnation.

And the souls of those involved in mortal sins, who have not departed in despair but while still living in the body, though without bringing forth any fruits of repentance, have repented — by pouring forth tears, by kneeling while watching in prayers, by afflicting themselves, by relieving the poor, and finally by showing forth by their works their love towards God and their neighbor, and which the Catholic Church has from the beginning rightly called satisfaction — [their souls] depart into Hades, and there endure the punishment due to the sins they have committed. But they are aware of their future release from there, and are delivered by the Supreme Goodness, through the prayers of the Priests, and the good works which the relatives of each do for their Departed; especially the unbloody Sacrifice benefiting the most; which each offers particularly for his relatives that have fallen asleep, and which the Catholic and Apostolic Church offers daily for all alike. Of course, it is understood that we do not know the time of their release. We know and believe that there is deliverance for such from their direful condition, and that before the common resurrection and judgment, but when we know not.

 

[Cavaradossi]

I again ask is there is some documentation to support the idea that “*t is precisely this understanding of the temporal punishment of sin that was rejected by St Mark of Ephesus” at Florence or even after. I would also like to know when the idea of remission of sin (vide supra) was rejected by the Orthodox.

I suppose that we can all agree on the medicinal model. We might even have agreement on the modern pain-free modern medicinal model - although I think that on reflection there might be some second thought on this - and I really wonder about its traction outside of the Eastern Orthodox West.

Perhaps we might also agree that other models exist, and that there are clearly not heretical since they, whatever the thinking of moderns, they have been in the church, the united church, from the earliest times, and that even Orthodox thinking has, apparently, developed on this matter.

Perhaps we should start a thread with these documents.*

I don’t think anybody is arguing the therapeutic model is necessarily pain free. The bone of contention is, if there is a painful period of cleansing after death, what purpose would it serve? We reject satisfaction based theories, which posit that God must punish sins even after forgiving them.

 

[joe370]

I would like to know what the most important thing is for someone examining Orthodoxy to consider.

I had a really great experience at a local Orthodox Church this past Sunday and am very intrigued.

As my name on here suggests “Come Home to Rome”, I am very partial to my Catholic Church.

After my shockingly positive experience, at the very least I will examine the Orthodox Churches.

In the process, don’t want to leave a single rock unturned.

What was it that moved you so much?

 

[dvdjs]

I don’t think anybody is arguing the therapeutic model is necessarily pain free. The bone of contention is, if there is a painful period of cleansing after death, what purpose would it serve? We reject satisfaction based theories, which posit that God must punish sins even after forgiving them.

1. It sounds as though you are arguing for pain free therapy.
2. Look above at the discussion of satisfaction theories in the Confession of Dositheus.
3. Again, the key point is to get over this false dichotomy between therapy and punishment.

 

[FrKimel]

I again ask is there is some documentation to support the idea that “*t is precisely this understanding of the temporal punishment of sin that was rejected by St Mark of Ephesus” at Florence or even after. I would also like to know when the idea of remission of sin (vide supra) was rejected by the Orthodox. *

I cited Constantine Tsirpanlis earlier in this thread, who devotes several pages of his book Introduction to Eastern Patristic Thought and Orthodox Theology to St Mark of Ephesus and the Council of Florence. (Tsirpanlis also has published a book on St Mark and the Council of Florence, but I have not read it. Some quotations from it, though, can be found here.) But perhaps this quotation from St Mark’s “First Homily: Refutation of the Latin Chapters Concerning Purgatorial Fire” (included in Seraphim Rose’s book The Soul After Death) would be more persuasive:

And finally you say: “The above-mentioned truth is evident from the Divine Justice which does not leave unpunished anything that was done amiss, and from this it necessarily follows that for those who have not undergone punishment here, and cannot pay it off either in heaven or in hell, it remains to suppose the existence of a different, a third place in which this cleansing is accomplished, thanks to which each one, becoming cleansed, is immediately led up to heavenly enjoyment.”

 

[FrKimel]

from the Confession of Dositheus

It must be conceded that in the Confession of Dositheus, along with the Confession of Peter Moghila, Orthodoxy certainly came close to something like the Latin construal of purgatory (minus the fire). But consider also Met Kallistos Ware’s comment upon these two confessions:

It should be remarked, however, that even in the seventeenth century there were many Orthodox who rejected the Roman teaching on Purgatory. The statements on the departed in Moghila’s Orthodox Confession were carefully changed by Meletius Syrigos, while in later life Dositheus specifically retracted what he had written on the subject in his Confession. (The Orthodox Church [1997 edition], p. 255, n. 1)

Ware acknowledges the diversity of belief in Orthodoxy regarding the intermediate state:

Orthodox are convinced that Christians here on earth have a duty to pray for the departed, and they are confident that the dead are helped by such prayers. But precisely in what way do our prayers help the dead? What exactly is the condition of souls in the period between death and the Resurrection of the Body at the Last Day? Here Orthodox teaching is not entirely clear, and has varied somewhat at different times. In the seventeenth century a number of Orthodox writers — most notably Peter of Moghila and Dositheus in his Confession — upheld the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory, or something very close to it. (According to the normal Roman teaching, souls in Purgatory undergo expiatory suffering, and so render ‘satisfaction’ for their sins.) Today most if not all Orthodox theologians reject the idea of Purgatory, at any rate in this form. The majority would be inclined to say that the faithful departed do not suffer at all. Another school holds that perhaps they suffer, but, if so, their suffering is of a purificatory but not an expiatory character; for when a man dies in the grace of God, then God freely forgives him all his sins and demands no expiatory penalties: Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, is our only atonement and satisfaction. Yet a third group would prefer to leave the whole question entirely open: let us avoid detailed formulation about the life after death, they say, and preserve instead a reverent and agnostic reticence.

So while a diversity of belief exists within Orthodoxy regarding the intermediate state, contemporary Orthodoxy is united in its rejection of a satisfaction or expiatory model of purgatory.

 

[Cavaradossi]

1. It sounds as though you are arguing for pain free therapy.
2. Look above at the discussion of satisfaction theories in the Confession of Dositheus.
3. Again, the key point is to get over this false dichotomy between therapy and punishment.

Yes, if God punishes man to reform him, that is perfectly orthodox. Again, what are not Orthodox are satisfaction theories, which posit that God punishes man not to heal him but because he is perfectly just (or in Anselm’s theory, perfectly honorable) and must punish on those grounds.

 

[GaryTaylor]

O-Kay so we are here: “Orthodoxy rejects any notion of post-mortem punishment for the sake of satisfaction, penance, or retribution.”

Heres resides the issue. This thinking IMO is off center and I’ll explain why. Think first of the Souls who take their purgatory/purification on Earth. Was St Paul, Peter. Mark etc etc being punished for the sake of satisfaction, penace, or retribution thus sanctification? Yet we read with St Paul the doubt, the negative self-evaluation, the true understanding of exactly his immediate state which is finite. We see the contrition, the will to push foward regardless of the trial and the coming to terms with the self. This is not punishment, this is love, justice and authority correctly understood. This is the giving up of the self that Gods Will be done, true Faith in God is often a Blind step in faith.

An Apostle chosen by the Lord, predestined from that moment, a murderer. Now look at the path of Paul in his walk to martyrdom. Was it punishment for the sake of satisfaction, penance, or retribution? Teresa of Avila was right when she stated: “We always find that those who walk closest to the Lord, bear the most trials.” What trial are they given? Is it not what they indeed are asking for…the Cross? Is this not Love?

Thus if are to correctly say that the path, is One Path to the Lord, then the process is One Path also be it purification or the reward of the Communion of Saints.

Also I believe we all need to contemplate the abyss which stands between Heaven and hell and how this relates to mankind today or in the past. Yes we see sinner’s and we see Saint’s and they are the examples be it negative or postive. So we can agree that through the process of purification not all choose to chase Sainthood in this physical realm. If hell is a minus One on the scale, and Heaven is a +10 there remain the other steps of purification. We all see these Souls and we all to some degree see the dilemma. So too we see the Souls who take their purgatory on earth. They choose Communion with God through the realization that the only possible way for this to occur in the now is to give it all to God whatever the cost. And this cost could well be everything, or a long continued process which may well be a constant trial, and this should be understood.

Purification is a purifying contrition inside the Soul thus a emotional hurt/pain, a deep remorse for one’s thoughts/actions which resulted in sin. This is not punishment but a comprehension of the self set in motion through Grace be it in this world or the next.

Heres Pope Benedicts 2011 address on this topic…

Purgatory is like a purifying fire burning inside a person, a painful experience of regret for one’s sins, Pope Benedict XVI said.

“A soul stained by sin cannot present itself to God,” the pope said Jan. 12 at his weekly general audience.

The pope spoke about purgatory in an audience talk dedicated to the life and mystical writings of St. Catherine of Genoa, a 15th-century married woman who ran Genoa’s largest hospital.

Married at age 16 to an older man with a gambling problem, she initially lived a very worldly life, the pope said, but after about 10 years, she was struck by the emptiness of her life, especially in comparison to the greatness of God’s love.

She began a “life of purification, which, for a long time, made her experience constant pain for the sins she committed and pushed her to impose penances and sacrifices on herself to demonstrate her love to God,” the pope said.

Although she is the author of a “Treatise on Purgatory,” Pope Benedict said, “she never received specific revelations about purgatory or the souls that are being purified there.”

Rather, her deep prayer and focus on the conflict between human sin and God’s love led her to understand how logically a person who has sinned would not be worthy to be in the presence of an all-loving, all-perfect God, the pope said.

Unlike most Catholics of her day, he said, she was convinced purgatory was not a place, but a process.

“The soul that is aware of the immense love and perfect justice of God consequently suffers for not having responded correctly and perfectly to that love,” the pope said, adding that the suffering is purgatory.

Just as St Pauls suffering in this world was his purification/purgatory.

Here is the Saints work…

google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&frm=1&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CEMQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.catholictreasury.info%2Fbooks%2Ftreatise_on_purgatory%2F&ei=wB4qUMq7C8jJ6wGQ7YGQAQ&usg=AFQjCNFKVT5YBgGCYQaaVnWVTXAMROtjdA&sig2=Bb9yKZhYhLgwj2MnfMXXBg

 

[GaryTaylor]

Heres the words of Mark of Ephesus again.

“But if souls have departed this life in faith and love, while nevertheless carrying away with themselves certain faults, whether small ones [what Catholics call “venial sins”] over which they have not repented at all, or greater ones for which - even though they have repented over them - they did not undertake to show fruits of repentance: such souls, we believe, must be cleansed from this kind of sins but not by means of some purgatorial fire or a definite punishment in some place.”

So fire and place are not of issue.

However punishment if also mistaken for the Cross be it this world or the next. The correct understanding of suffering is misunderstood IMHO.

The connection must be those who take there purification on earth which gives us correct understanding of the purification in the next world.

Thoughts?

 

[FrKimel]

O-Kay so we are here: “Orthodoxy rejects any notion of post-mortem punishment for the sake of satisfaction, penance, or retribution.”

Heres resides the issue. This thinking IMO is off center and I’ll explain why. Think first of the Souls who take their purgatory/purification on Earth. Was St Paul, Peter. Mark etc etc being punished for the sake of satisfaction, penace, or retribution thus sanctification? Yet we read with St Paul the doubt, the negative self-evaluation, the true understanding of exactly his immediate state which is finite. We see the contrition, the will to push foward regardless of the trial and the coming to terms with the self. This is not punishment, this is love, justice and authority correctly understood. This is the giving up of the self that Gods Will be done, true Faith in God is often a Blind step in faith.

Gary, as I said, I think we have hit a point of stubborn disagreement between Orthodoxy and traditional Catholicism. Many Orthodox believe that in the intermediate state God continues to minister to sinners and to summon them to himself. Perhaps this will involve suffering on their part. In this life alteration of will and abandonment of creaturely attachments involves suffering, so it makes sense to think that an analogous suffering takes place in the intermediate state (see the recently published book by the Methodist philosopher Jerry Walls, Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation). St Mark of Ephesus certainly seems to have believed that this was the case, as did Dositheus and the bishops of the 17th century Council of Jerusalem. However, contemporary Orthodoxy emphatically rejects the traditional Latin notion of the temporal punishment of sin and the satisfaction model of purgatory. No only do we see no need to invoke the demands of justice when thinking about the purgatorial state, but we believe that such invocation compromises the unmerited mercy and compassion of God.

But while we reject the satisfaction model of purgatory, we do not necessarily oppose the sanctification model that has become dominant in Catholic reflection over the past half century. I have quoted Martin Jugie and Phillip Quinn’s exegesis of Aquinas on satisfaction and the temporal punishment of sin and have alluded to Paul VI’s constitution on indulgences. Do you not see important differences between them and what we find in the Catholic Catechism, the writings of Pope Benedict and most contemporary Catholic theologians (see Zachary Hayes discussion of Catholic eschatology in his book Visions of a Future), as well as his discussion of hell and purgatory in his contribution to the book Four Views on Hell)? I can tell you one thing, Catholic theologians have certainly observed the decisive change that has occurred in Catholic eschatology. They do not hesitate to speak of a development of doctrine. I am not suggesting that we do not find expressions of the sanctification model in the writings of some of the Latin saints, like St Catherine of Genoa; but until recently the satisfaction model has ruled Catholic theology (see M. F. Egan, “The Two Theories of Purgatory,” Irish Theological Quarterly 17 [1922]: 24-34). But that is for you Catholics to sort out, just as it is for us Orthodox to sort out what we believe and teach.

 

[Fone_Bone_2001]

This is one of the key pieces of evidence for the claim that a sanctification model of purgatory has become normative in the Catholic Church. But has this always been the case? Compare, e.g., this passage from the great Catholic Byzantinist, Martin Jugie:

Jugie’s satisfaction construal of purgatory appears to be supported by Philip Quinn’s exegesis of St Thomas Aquinas:

It is precisely this understanding of the temporal punishment of sin that was rejected by St Mark of Ephesus and continues to be rejected by Orthodox theologians today. If the Catholic Church has now moved beyond this and fully embraced a medicinal, therapeutic model, then the Orthodox will rejoice. I fully support, for example, this statement by Peter Kreeft:

What this does mean is that Orthodox critics of the Catholic Church’s presentation of purgatory need to change their tune. Whatever may have been the case in the past, the simple fact is that many Catholic theologians (supported by the Catholic Catechism) are now advancing a construal of purgatory that appears to be compatible with the Orthodox understanding of the intermediate state and sanctification after death.

But I still agree with David Hart that a problem with indulgences remains. All one needs to do is to compare the respective documents on indulgences published by Pope Paul VI and Pope John Paul II.

Thank you, Father, for providing these quotes, some context, and your reflections.

I think one conspicuous truth in this discussion is that proposed a page or two ago by an eastern Catholic poster and echoed by me: namely, that there is no sharp, un-crossable dichotomy between a “retributive” and a “therapeutic” model of sanctification after death. Facing the natural consequences of our actions is clearly in some sense punishment, especially since being disentangled from our “unhealthy attachment” to things of this world is not a pleasant experience.

But if we conceive of “temporal punishment” the way the CCC describes it as quoted above, then the very undergoing itself of such punishment can become a grace-filled, spiritually therapeutic disentangling from our unhealthy attachments to things of this world.

Thus my instinct is that both these models for post-mortem sanctification are two sides of the same coin.

If the Roman Catholic Church has, of late, moved away from speaking of purgatory with the more juridical, retributive model, I think that’s only because people in western society no longer conceive of punishment as a natural, organic consequence of wrongdoing, one that undergoing helps to make amends - but rather now generally see it as an externally applied - and often arbitrary - penalty inflicted upon the wrongdoer by a higher authority.

Whether that is a healthy societal shift or not, I think that’s the reason Catholic theologians have adjusted their presentation when teaching on sanctification after death. It’s useful to think of it as punishment only if punishment itself is conceived as therapeutic.

I believe these citations from St Isaac the Syrian speak for all (or at least most of) Orthodoxy

What a beautiful reflection!

Saint Isaac the Syrian, pray for us.

Yes, if God punishes man to reform him, that is perfectly orthodox. Again, what are not Orthodox are satisfaction theories, which posit that God punishes man not to heal him but because he is perfectly just (or in Anselm’s theory, perfectly honorable) and must punish on those grounds.

Well, I could be wrong - I’m no expert, theologian, or historian - but I’ve always understood Latin teaching on “temporal punishment” (in this life or the next) in the first way you describe: “God punishes man to reform him.”

The alternative makes no sense to me. After all, souls in purgatory have already been forgiven. That’s why they’re there. If they still carried the guilt of their sins, they’d be in hell, not on their way to heavenly glory.

Gary, as I said, I think we have hit a point of stubborn disagreement between Orthodoxy and traditional Catholicism.

Are we sure about that? As I said, I’m definitely no expert, and to be fair I admit I am younger than Vatican II, but my genuine impression of the traditional Latin approach to purgatory really has been that even this “punishment” is organically incurred and therapeutic, or as Cavaradossi said: “God punishes man to reform him.” Or, as I said above, we can find healing by facing the consequences of our actions to whatever extent we are capable.

Many Orthodox believe that in the intermediate state God continues to minister to sinners and to summon them to himself. Perhaps this will involve suffering on their part.

I do admit that, in my understanding, some suffering is considered an integral part of the doctrine. In other words, it would *not *be heretical to deny what you guys are here calling “the satisfaction model,” but it would be heretical according to Catholic teaching to deny that this post-mortem sanctification - however it is conceived - involves suffering (CCC 1031).

In this life alteration of will and abandonment of creaturely attachments involves suffering, so it makes sense to think that an analogous suffering takes place in the intermediate state (see the recently published book by the Methodist philosopher Jerry Walls, Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation). St Mark of Ephesus certainly seems to have believed that this was the case, as did Dositheus and the bishops of the 17th century Council of Jerusalem.

That perfectly describes my belief about purgatory, too.

However, contemporary Orthodoxy emphatically rejects the traditional Latin notion of the temporal punishment of sin and the satisfaction model of purgatory. No only do we see no need to invoke the demands of justice when thinking about the purgatorial state, but we believe that such invocation compromises the unmerited mercy and compassion of God.

As I said above, I think the Catholic Church has moved away from the older Latin way of describing purgatory precisely because many people today now view punishment as something extrinsic to rehabilitation and mercy. I’m not convinced that was the case in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, when Florence and Trent dealt with purgatory.

 

[GaryTaylor]

As I said above, I think the Catholic Church has moved away from the older Latin way of describing purgatory precisely because many people today now view punishment as something extrinsic to rehabilitation and mercy. I’m not convinced that was the case in the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries, when Florence and Trent dealt with purgatory.

Asceticism would have been a known, yet the connection to a continued path may not have been well contemplated. By Trent, Catherine of Sienas, The Dialogue, would have been out * she was Canonized in 1461. Still no mass communication though.

Nevertheless the concept of; Suffering is Grace and redemptive, is much more widely understood today. I would hope.

Certainly those Souls being purified need Grace, what better way by the Lord?*

 

[Marybeloved]

. Remission is given in three forms and at different times: (1) during Baptism; **(2) after Baptism, through conversion and sorrow and making up (for sins) **by good works in the present life; and (3) after death, through prayers and good deeds and thanks to whatever else the Church does for the dead. …

This is from the second paragraph of the quotation of Mark of Ephesus given by Fr Kimel in post 226 page 18. What does he mean by making up for sin with works after speaking conversion and sorrow? Is this not satisfaction plain and simple? So it appears the objection is not about the notion of satisfaction but rather which realm it can be given. Otherwise would not the conversion and sorrow be enough for God? What is the converted and sorrowful sinner making up for with his good works in the present life?

 

[GaryTaylor]

I think part of the issue is a double consequence for sin, and the relationship between indulgence and purification.

Purgatory, is the rectifier of injustice in which the sinner must provide restitution for injustices he/she had committed [and not made restitution for in life] through suffering at the hand of God prior to entrance to Heaven or whichever room that is in the mansion.

Surely we all see a difference from those who live a life of chasity, poverty and obedience as opposed to John Doe who attends Church “only as required” and views his watch during the entire process. Struggled with a bit of mortal sin, much venial sin. Yet passed on from this world with all the Sacraments of the Church.

So how does this play out in the Kingdom of God? The man who died with all the sacraments of the Church yet was a lukewarm Christian goes to hell? All in heaven are Saints Period! Certainly he doesn’t go straight to Sainthood? So how does this very common Christian compare to those who honestly and truly are seeking the Kingdom and pick up their Cross daily?

Surely you are not coasting into heaven? I missed that page of Scripture.

Now lets look at…

“Plenary Indulgence”, I have to tell you I’m not sure how much all read on this, but this is “not” an easy path. Lets say for example you chose the Rosary as your Indulgence

1] You must recite the Rosary daily out loud while meditating on the mysteries. 5-decades without stopping and starting.

Now get this…

2] And you must fulfill the following three conditions: Sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer for the intention of the Sovereign Pontiff. It is further required that all attachment to sin, even venial sin, be absent."

Thus you cannot start step one, till step two is complete. And if you plan to “indulge” yourself in step one? Better get right with the Church.

You do just step Two “without the indulgence” I assure you, your a good Christian. So what does the Indulgence in fact do? Its draws you deeper into a Christian Life.

Listen, I really get the concern that Christians have with confused Catholic’s and devotions. Truth is there’s no shortcut but in the minds of those deceived.

 

[FrKimel]

Purgatory, is the rectifier of injustice in which the sinner must provide restitution for injustices he/she had committed [and not made restitution for in life] through suffering at the hand of God prior to entrance to Heaven or whichever room that is in the mansion.

Gary, I suspect that every Orthodox who reads this sentence will throw up his hands and yell “No!” I refer you back to the Evdokimov citation I provided earlier in this thread, as well as the quotations from St Isaac of Ninevah. Speaking only for myself, I find the above statement not only wrong but profoundly wrong. The gospel is precisely good news. It is the announcement of Jubilee. It is the thrilling declaration that in Christ mercy triumphs over justice. It most certainly is not the promise that even after we are forgiven and reconciled to God, even after we have shared in the Body and Blood of Christ, we still must be retributively punished in order to fulfill the order of justice.

But I do not want to be contentious. I am a non-Catholic guest on this board. I have tried to present the Orthodox view(s) of the intermediate state as well as I can. As stated above, I see hope for reconciliation between Orthodox and Catholic on purgatory if purification is understood as healing, deliverance, liberation. Within this context it makes sense to think of the sufferings that accompany the sanctifying therapy of purgatory as a form of punishment (see Tolkien’s wonderful short story “Leaf by Niggle”). But this has nothing to do with retribution and the balancing of the scales of justice–at least not according to the Orthodox Church. For Orthodoxy, purgatory is simply theosis in its early stages.

 

[fnr]

The evidence from Orthodox history is that filioque in not inherently contrary to Orthodox theology; its addition was early - prior to the idea of a “base” text - spread organically, and was ultimately accepted in an ecumencial council, albeit one that was disavowed after the Ottomans conquered Constan(name removed by moderator)ole.

The is plenty of room for discussion about certain theological interpretations that may depart from Orthodox theology, and even ones that are in contradiction with it, but the rest is quibbling.

It’s my understanding that the “double procession” of the filioque was the result of St. Augustine’s logic, which was accepted in the Western Roman Empire, but not the Eastern Roman Empire. That disagreement persisted until the Great Schism in 1054. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

 

[fnr]

The gospel is precisely good news. It is the announcement of Jubilee. It is the thrilling declaration that in Christ mercy triumphs over justice. It most certainly is not the promise that even after we are forgiven and reconciled to God, even after we have shared in the Body and Blood of Christ, we still must be retributively punished in order to fulfill the order of justice.

But this has nothing to do with retribution and the balancing of the scales of justice–at least not according to the Orthodox Church. For Orthodoxy, purgatory is simply theosis in its early stages.

I’m going to attempt to wade into this issue with discussion of resurrection of the dead, plus a little reasoning inspired by St. Thomas Aquinas. Western Theology, east-west problem.

First, the physical, bodily resurrection of the dead seems to be an utterly central part of biblical eschatology. 1 Corinthians 15:35-38:
“But someone may say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?” You fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind; but God gives it a body as he chooses, and to each of the seeds its own body.”
In terms of our ultimate “end state,” we’re not going to be in heaven. We’ll be on earth, united with heaven (as created in Genesis), living with God in our resurrected bodies. For reference, in the end of Revelation (Rev 21:2-3), we don’t see believers rising up to heaven, but the holy city coming down from God to earth:
"I also saw the holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them (as their God).”

Given that our salvation ultimately is a physical and bodily one, what does that mean about the soul? The Bible holds few clues. It’s certainly not the image we get from pop culture, where someone dies and then their soul rises up looking just like them with little angel wings, rising up to heaven.

Matthew 10:28 tells us that the body and soul are distinct, and that the soul can live beyond the body:
“And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather, be afraid of the one who can destroy both soul and body in Gehenna.”
Matthew 22:37 describes heart, soul, and mind as three distinct and separate things:
“You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.”
Acts 2:27 tells us that after death, the soul without a resurrected body is “abandoned”:
*Therefore my heart has been glad and my tongue has exulted; my flesh, too, will dwell in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to the netherworld, nor will you suffer your holy one to see corruption. *
1 Thessalonians 2:23 tells us that God can preserve us blamelessly in spirit, soul, and body:
“May the God of peace himself make you perfectly holy and may you entirely, spirit, soul, and body, be preserved blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Beyond this, we can use our reason.

With apologies to our Orthodox friends, at 363, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says that “soul” signifies the “spiritual principle in man” (original emphases). At 365, it says,
"the unity of soul and body is so profound that one has to consider the soul to be the “form’ of the body, i.e., it is because of its spiritual soul that the body made of matter becomes a living, human body; spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather their union forms a single nature.”
With further apologies to our Orthodox friends, St. Thomas Aquinas, in Question 78 of Summa Theologica addresses the powers of the soul:
“There exists, therefore, an operation of the soul which so far exceeds the corporeal nature that it is not even performed by any corporeal organ; and such is the operation of the “rational soul.” Below this, there is another operation of the soul, which is indeed performed through a corporeal organ, but not through a corporeal quality, and this is the operation of the “sensitive soul”; for though hot and cold, wet and dry, and other such corporeal qualities are required for the work of the senses, yet they are not required in such a way that the operation of the senses takes place by virtue of such qualities; but only for the proper disposition of the organ. The lowest of the operations of the soul is that which is performed by a corporeal organ, and by virtue of a corporeal quality. Yet this transcends the operation of the corporeal nature; because the movements of bodies are caused by an extrinsic principle, while these operations are from an intrinsic principle; for this is common to all the operations of the soul; since every animate thing, in some way, moves itself. Such is the operation of the “vegetative soul”; for digestion, and what follows, is caused instrumentally by the action of heat, as the Philosopher says (De Anima ii, 4)”
So according to Aquinas, the three “operations” of the soul are “rational,” “sensitive,” and “vegetative.” In essence, the “sensible soul” can sense the world – through our bodily organs, the “vegetative soul” moves our bodies, and “rational soul” is not performed by any organ of the body. For someone writing in the 13th century he did a bang-up job to thinking this through. Key to this reasoning is that for the “sensitive soul,” “corporeal qualities are required for the work of the senses.” Here, Aquinas is referring to Aristotle as “the Philosopher.”

Now, Aquinas was writing in the 13th century, before modern biological understanding of the body. He recognized that the senses operate through our sensory organs. Therefore, separated from the body, the soul does not have the faculties of sensation. The soul can’t see anything, hear anything, taste anything, smell anything, and most importantly, feel anything. These are phenomena of the body and the human nervous system.

Stepping beyond 13th century biology, we also know that cognition, emotion, memory, and motor function are also phenomena of the body (specifically the brain). From traumatic head injuries and strokes, we know that people can get amnesia (permanent or temporary), undergo personality change, experience swings in emotion, and lose coordination and use of some or all of their body. If cognition, memory, emotion, and motor function are phenomena of the body, the soul, separated from the body after death, doesn’t have memory, emotion, or probably even a sense of identity.

If that’s the case, absent our bodies, the soul is senseless, without memory, emotion, or identity. Our final resurrection is into bodies that are glorified as Christ’s resurrection body (won’t that be cool?). In that case, if there is a purgatory, the soul doesn’t feel anything. In a way, it could be thought of as God wiping our souls clean, which won’t hurt!

 

[mardukm]

Dearest Father Kimel,

Permit me to inject something into the conversation as an Oriental. As you might know, the doctrine of Divine Justice is part of the Oriental Patrimony, not just the Latin. So I hope I can shed some light on the matter from an Oriental perspective that might not come across that well from a Latin perspective.

Gary, I suspect that every Orthodox who reads this sentence will throw up his hands and yell “No!” I refer you back to the Evdokimov citation I provided earlier in this thread, as well as the quotations from St Isaac of Ninevah. Speaking only for myself, I find the above statement not only wrong but profoundly wrong. The gospel is precisely good news. It is the announcement of Jubilee. It is the thrilling declaration that in Christ mercy triumphs over justice. It most certainly is not the promise that even after we are forgiven and reconciled to God, even after we have shared in the Body and Blood of Christ, we still must be retributively punished in order to fulfill the order of justice.

I must strongly disagree with your statement that “Christ’s mercy triumphs over justice” for the very reason that Christ is the source of both mercy and justice. It is only secular society that makes a false dichotomy between the virtues of mercy and justice, as if they were opposed to each other. This, I believe, is an unfortunate side-effect of Protestant society wherein the term “Justice” is equated with retribution and vengeance (“Sinners in the hands of an angry God” lore). But “Justice” in the divine order is not about retribution or vengeance - satisfaction and penance, yes, but not retribution and vengeance.

JUSTICE taken as such refers to nothing more nor less than this - a quality which renders what is due. The question is, what is it that is due? Here we need to delve into the notion of ORIGINAL JUSTICE. According to Catholic thought, Original Justice consists of the possession of the Sanctifying Grace with which God created our first parents (this is not a modern Catholic interpretation by the way, but has ALWAYS been the Catholic teaching).

So when Catholic scholars speak of God’s Justice being met, from St. Anselm down to today, they are not referring to some sort of sheer legal requirement, but of the essence of deification - acquiring (or rather, re-acquiring) the holiness that God intends FOR US. This is what was lost, and this is what is due - the Sanctifying Grace. God’s justice is not about retribution or vengeance, but the means by which we BECOME HOLY. This is exactly what Scripture tells us, is it not - if we were not His Sons, we would not be chastised. Father, you need to study the essence of the difference between what the Catholic Church taught at Trent regarding Divine Justice over and against what the Reformers taught. EO often criticize the Catholic Church for its legalism regarding its doctrine of Divine Justice, but the EO criticism is utterly misplaced for it is constantly mistaking the Protestant doctrine of pure legal satisfaction for the true Catholic doctrine of deification/sanctification.

But I do not want to be contentious. I am a non-Catholic guest on this board. I have tried to present the Orthodox view(s) of the intermediate state as well as I can. As stated above, I see hope for reconciliation between Orthodox and Catholic on purgatory if purification is understood as healing, deliverance, liberation. Within this context it makes sense to think of the sufferings that accompany the sanctifying therapy of purgatory as a form of punishment (see Tolkien’s wonderful short story “Leaf by Niggle”). But this has nothing to do with retribution and the balancing of the scales of justice–at least not according to the Orthodox Church. For Orthodoxy, purgatory is simply theosis in its early stages.

I don’t think you are being contentious at all, but I do believe you (as do many EO) misunderstand what “DIvine Justice” is.

As far as brother Gary’s statement (“Purgatory, is the rectifier of injustice in which the sinner must provide restitution for injustices he/she had committed [and not made restitution for in life] through suffering at the hand of God prior to entrance to Heaven or whichever room that is in the mansion.”, which you criticized, I actually agree with your criticism. Perhaps it was a slip of his pen, but what he stated is not Catholic doctrine.

A sinner cannot provide restitution in Purgatory for any injustices he/she committed. The restitution that occurs in Purgatory is as much due to the MERCY of GOD (because we can do nothing on our own at that point to provide restitution, and any restitution to be had is truly from God’s Grace), as to His JUSTICE (God Himself is making up for what we lost in our lifetime through the infinite Merits that Christ obtained on the cross). And remember that this notion of Justice (“making up for what is due”) - both its ends and means - is ALWAYS and EVER geared towards the sanctification of the sinner according to Catholic doctrine.

It is true that the legalese of the Latin Catholic theological system can often be mistaken for the sheer forensic justification that was taught by the Protestants (as is evident even from brother Gary’s statement). It might take years to see the confluence of Eastern and Western thought on these matters. I hope I have helped to shed some light on the matter.

Humbly,
Marduk

 

[GaryTaylor]

I have tried to present the Orthodox view(s) of the intermediate state as well as I can. As stated above, I see hope for reconciliation between Orthodox and Catholic on purgatory if purification is understood as healing, deliverance, liberation.

FrKimel

You have in very charitable way. I see hope also, in fact I honesty believe the only issue is for the Pope to define the authority of the Primacy. I believe the Church’s dialogue is more advanced than we are lead to believe through threads here. Seemed to be this way from Pope Benedicts 2010 book Light of the World and the ecumencial dialogue that year. Unfortunate that so much chaos has occured in the years since, between Islam and the social/political area which has caused the focus to change. Dominus Iesus, came up as an issue, yet the exact reasons where not stated. Nevertheless, Pope Benedict wrote the Bull and stated he wanted to study it closely.

I read the context of Florence and I have to say I get the distinct impression the Council didn’t actually go as stated.

Nevertheless purgatory didn’t come up in the 2010 dialogue as an issue. The final statement from the West was that both East and West were researching the Schism closely also to affirm there was nothing they overlooked.

I agree with Pope Benedict in that he also believed the greatest obstacle was for interaction of the Church’s since true love is contingent on the inter-personal relationships. In this sense the gap has become large in a thousand years.