Hell, Purgatory, Afterlife Questions

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Hello Catholics and other peeps,

I recently got into an argument over Hell, Purgatory, and Indulgences. If you all could better help me explain the Catholic position and even continue the debate I would appreciate it. I started to ask questions after explaining the Faith to a protestant friend. If you can reply to each as they are all very similar.
  1. Man through original sin is on the path to Hell. Through repentance, acceptance of Christ, and living a sacramental life we can avoid Hell and be with the Holy Trinity in Heaven. Now my protestant friend claimed that those who were non-believers would go to Hell. I agreed to an extent but I said that we could not really say those who are ignorant of Christ (some tribe in Africa for example) are not really at fault and not necessarily going straight to Hell because they never heard the Gospel or know of the Holy Trinity. They claimed that according to the OT an ignorant non-believer of today is paining for the sinfulness of his parents who did not teach them the faith or learn of the faith therefore, it is fine that they will go to Hell. The question ended up being if God says this in the OT (parents sins pass down), then why would it be wrong for african tribal people to go to Hell? They did not cite this at all with me but told me so. Are we really to comment on who will go to heaven or hell based on ignorance of the Gospels?
  2. My protestant friend believes only in a heaven and hell while I imposed that there is a purgatory. I said it wasn’t so much a place of focus as is the process that is the main focus…a purifying of the soul to enter heaven. My protestant friend claimed that Jesus then died for nothing. I was confused but understood later what he meant…that Jesus died for all sins so a purifying of the soul would be pointless if Christ had already paid for the sins. I told him Christ did die for our sins but that humanity was redeemed allowing us to have our sins forgiven and washed away but that we could still sin. Was this a correct response?
  3. Lastly I became confused with myself in the teaching of indulgences. While I know they deal with temporal punishment as does purgatory how does the Church KNOW that such an indulgence rids a man of punishment for so many days or years? Doesn’t it seem too legalistic? How can the Church even know this?
Thank you in advance for all your thoughts and helpings.
 
On your second paragraph, this is the protestant statement, “Saved by grace” or “Saved by faith” or “Once saved, always saved” - (But never saved by works).

For all the changing of words, and reciting of Scripture, the protestant salvation process is fundamentally the same thing as Catholics.

Protestants talk about the salvation process being one way - centered on Jesus’ sacrifice - that nothing a person does or doesn’t do will grant him or her entry into heaven.

Catholics also believe that this is true however we in addition believe in an organized way to have sins confessed and absolved prior to receiving the Eucharist. Conversion and confession makes salvation a two way street. Christ gives and we are capable of either accepting or rejecting His gift.

In addition, Catholic’s believe that Reconciliation is a Sacrament administered by Christ’s priest. And Catholic morality is guided by the Magisterium. We have a guideline on mortal sins and venial sins that is both ancient and yet is also capable of being modernized to fit our century (embroyonic stem cell, in vitro fertilization) .

Each Protestant denominations and in some instances each church have a shifting base
on which morality is determined. This is why today, various protestant churches allow contraception, abortion, non celibate homosexual unions, non celibate partnered homosexual priesthood, etc.

The selling of indulgences was one of Luther’s discontentions - which ending in the Reformation. Some Catholic parishes allowed people to believe that they could buy position shifts of souls from purgatory to heaven.

However, what goes around, is also capable of coming back around.

In our generation, we hear much the same (selling God’s grace) from protestant televangelists preaching the prosperity gospel, who say that God’s grace will flood the lives of those viewers who donate money to their program.
 
Explanation of Indulgences from the Cathechism of the Catholic Church:

vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P4G.HTM

X. Indulgences

1471 The doctrine and practice of indulgences in the Church are closely linked to the effects of the sacrament of Penance.

What is an indulgence?

"An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."81
"An indulgence is partial or plenary according as it removes either part or all of the temporal punishment due to sin."82 Indulgences may be applied to the living or the dead.

The punishments of sin

1472 To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of communion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the privation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures, which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “temporal punishment” of sin. These two punishments must not be conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but as following from the very nature of sin. A conversion which proceeds from a fervent charity can attain the complete purification of the sinner in such a way that no punishment would remain.83

1473 The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of penance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the "new man."84

In the Communion of Saints

1474 The Christian who seeks to purify himself of his sin and to become holy with the help of God’s grace is not alone. "The life of each of God’s children is joined in Christ and through Christ in a wonderful way to the life of all the other Christian brethren in the supernatural unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, as in a single mystical person."85

1475 In the communion of saints, "a perennial link of charity exists between the faithful who have already reached their heavenly home, those who are expiating their sins in purgatory and those who are still pilgrims on earth. between them there is, too, an abundant exchange of all good things."86 In this wonderful exchange, the holiness of one profits others, well beyond the harm that the sin of one could cause others. Thus recourse to the communion of saints lets the contrite sinner be more promptly and efficaciously purified of the punishments for sin.

1476 We also call these spiritual goods of the communion of saints the Church’s treasury, which is "not the sum total of the material goods which have accumulated during the course of the centuries. On the contrary the ‘treasury of the Church’ is the infinite value, which can never be exhausted, which Christ’s merits have before God. They were offered so that the whole of mankind could be set free from sin and attain communion with the Father. In Christ, the Redeemer himself, the satisfactions and merits of his Redemption exist and find their effficacy."87

1477 "This treasury includes as well the prayers and good works of the Blessed Virgin Mary. They are truly immense, unfathomable, and even pristine in their value before God. In the treasury, too, are the prayers and good works of all the saints, all those who have followed in the footsteps of Christ the Lord and by his grace have made their lives holy and carried out the mission the Father entrusted to them. In this way they attained their own salvation and at the same time cooperated in saving their brothers in the unity of the Mystical Body."88

Obtaining indulgence from God through the Church

1478 An indulgence is obtained through the Church who, by virtue of the power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus, intervenes in favor of individual Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the temporal punishments due for their sins. Thus the Church does not want simply to come to the aid of these Christians, but also to spur them to works of devotion, penance, and charity.89

1479 Since the faithful departed now being purified are also members of the same communion of saints, one way we can help them is to obtain indulgences for them, so that the temporal punishments due for their sins may be remitted.
 
The Catechism has an entire section explaining sin and the Sacrament of Reconciliation.
 
If I am not mistake this topic is brought on by the Lake of Fire, correct? E.A.Wallis Budge wrote a book called osiris and the egyptian ressurection. In the first volume there is a picture of the egyptian lake of fire, which I have no doubt the writters of the bible stole for their own purposes.

In the link I have provided I have linked the reason behind this photo. It is based on the Holliday Junction (DNA), and magnetic currents (Coral Catle Code). The Lake of fire is life itself. Most ignore this one reality, the second coming of Christ. How else could christ return if not through ressurection. Or perhaps you have fogotten being born unto the waters? The gates of Heaven. Birth.

flickr.com/photos/sacred_geometry/3827553514/
flickr.com/photos/sacred_geometry/5304106113/
 
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