T
Tannhauser_1509
Guest
I’ve been reading one of N. T. Wright’s great books, Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church (New York: HarperCollins, 2008). His teaching is refreshing to hear, and I encounter very little contention with what he’s been saying. That obviously implies, however, that there are ruts where I don’t ride smoothly on his mystagogical pathway. These ruts deal, in particular, with Wright’s views on the invocation of saints and on purgatory. Can someone provide responses to these (which have become my concerns, in turn)?
I don’t need to provide much for your information beyond quotes from his book, specifically from the chapter “Purgatory, Paradise, Heaven.” I’ll try not to quote too much so as not to infringe on the author’s copyright (Forum moderators, have mercy!).
The first quote comes from page 166:
Purgatory is basically a Roman Catholic doctrine. It is not held as such in the Eastern Orthodox church, and it was decisively rejected, on biblical and theological grounds and not merely because of an antipathy to particular abuses, at the Reformation. The main statements on purgatory come from Aquinas in the thirteenth century and Dante in the fourteenth century, but the notion became woven deeply into the entire psyche of the whole period.
Wright then proceeds to note the apparently dissenting opinions against purgatory of theologians Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, the latter of which views final purgation as occurring at the final judgment. Wright says, on page 167:
Building on 1 Corinthians 3, he [Ratzinger] argued that the Lord himself is the fire of judgment, which transforms us as he conforms us to his glorious, resurrected body. This happens not during a long, drawn-out process but in the moment of final judgment itself. By thus linking purgatory to Jesus Christ himself as the eschatological fire, Ratzinger detached the doctrine of purgatory from the concept of an intermediate state and broke the link that in the Middle Ages gave rise to the idea of indulgences and so provided a soft target for Protestant polemic.
He also takes issue with the feast of All Souls as a distinct commemoration from the feast of All Saints, calling the former “a tenth-century Benedictine innovation.” On page 168, the author states: “This commemoration [All Souls’] assumes a sharp distinction between the ‘saints,’ who are already in heaven, and the ‘souls,’ who aren’t and who are therefore still less than completely happy and need our help (as we say today) to ‘move on.’ It is this [distinction] that I …] challenge.”
He goes on to say on the next page:
…] [T]here is no reason in the New Testament to suppose that there are any category distinctions between different Christians in heaven as they await the resurrection. In the early Christian writings all Christians are “saints,” including the muddled and sinful Corinthians. …] The only passage in the New Testament that makes any kind of distinction at this point is 1 Corinthians 3, which speaks of Christian workers who build with gold, silver, and precious stones and others who build with wood, hay, and stubble. But Paul doesn’t say that the one group will go straight to heaven while the others go to purgatory. …] [A]s the pope [Benedict XVI] now appears to acknowledge, it doesn’t indicate that there is a difference of status or of celestial geography or of temporal progression between one category of Christians after death and another. …] [T]here is no reason whatever to say, for instance, that Peter or Paul, …] or even, dare I say, the mother of Jesus herself is more advanced, closer to God, has achieved more spiritual growth, or whatever, than those Christians who have been martyred in our own day or indeed those who have died quietly in their beds.
He then gives this view:
…] Paul makes it clear here [Romans 8] and elsewhere that it’s the present life that is meant to function as a purgatory. The sufferings of the present time, not of some postmortem state, are the valley through which we have to pass in order to reach the glorious future. I think I know why purgatory became so popular, why Dante’s middle volume is the one people most easily relate to. The myth of purgatory is an allegory, a projection from the present onto the future.
Now, to move on to his issue with the invocation of saints’ prayers. He does share, as an Anglican, the Catholic sense of the “communion of saints.” On page 172, he says: “When we celebrate the Eucharist they [the saints] are there with us, along with the angels and archangels. Why then should we not pray for and with them?”
He does proceed to acknowledge the logic of invoking the prayers of saints. Nevertheless, he concludes, on page 173:
But—and this is very important for those who, like me, believe that it’s vital to ground one’s beliefs in scripture itself—I see no evidence in the early Christian writings to suggest that the Christian dead are in fact engaged in work of that sort, still less any suggestion that presently alive Christians should, so to speak, encourage them to do it by invoking them specifically.
In particular, we should be very suspicious of the medieval idea that the saints function as friends at court so that while we might be shy of approaching the King ourselves, we know someone who is, as it were, one of us, to whom we can talk freely and who will maybe put in a good word for us. The practice seems to call into question, and even actually to deny by implication, the immediacy of access to God through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit, promised again and again in the New Testament. …] Explicit invocation of saints may be, in fact—I do not say it always is, but it may be—a step toward that semipaganism of which the Reformers were rightly afraid.
I don’t need to provide much for your information beyond quotes from his book, specifically from the chapter “Purgatory, Paradise, Heaven.” I’ll try not to quote too much so as not to infringe on the author’s copyright (Forum moderators, have mercy!).
The first quote comes from page 166:
Purgatory is basically a Roman Catholic doctrine. It is not held as such in the Eastern Orthodox church, and it was decisively rejected, on biblical and theological grounds and not merely because of an antipathy to particular abuses, at the Reformation. The main statements on purgatory come from Aquinas in the thirteenth century and Dante in the fourteenth century, but the notion became woven deeply into the entire psyche of the whole period.
Wright then proceeds to note the apparently dissenting opinions against purgatory of theologians Karl Rahner and Joseph Ratzinger, the latter of which views final purgation as occurring at the final judgment. Wright says, on page 167:
Building on 1 Corinthians 3, he [Ratzinger] argued that the Lord himself is the fire of judgment, which transforms us as he conforms us to his glorious, resurrected body. This happens not during a long, drawn-out process but in the moment of final judgment itself. By thus linking purgatory to Jesus Christ himself as the eschatological fire, Ratzinger detached the doctrine of purgatory from the concept of an intermediate state and broke the link that in the Middle Ages gave rise to the idea of indulgences and so provided a soft target for Protestant polemic.
He also takes issue with the feast of All Souls as a distinct commemoration from the feast of All Saints, calling the former “a tenth-century Benedictine innovation.” On page 168, the author states: “This commemoration [All Souls’] assumes a sharp distinction between the ‘saints,’ who are already in heaven, and the ‘souls,’ who aren’t and who are therefore still less than completely happy and need our help (as we say today) to ‘move on.’ It is this [distinction] that I …] challenge.”
He goes on to say on the next page:
…] [T]here is no reason in the New Testament to suppose that there are any category distinctions between different Christians in heaven as they await the resurrection. In the early Christian writings all Christians are “saints,” including the muddled and sinful Corinthians. …] The only passage in the New Testament that makes any kind of distinction at this point is 1 Corinthians 3, which speaks of Christian workers who build with gold, silver, and precious stones and others who build with wood, hay, and stubble. But Paul doesn’t say that the one group will go straight to heaven while the others go to purgatory. …] [A]s the pope [Benedict XVI] now appears to acknowledge, it doesn’t indicate that there is a difference of status or of celestial geography or of temporal progression between one category of Christians after death and another. …] [T]here is no reason whatever to say, for instance, that Peter or Paul, …] or even, dare I say, the mother of Jesus herself is more advanced, closer to God, has achieved more spiritual growth, or whatever, than those Christians who have been martyred in our own day or indeed those who have died quietly in their beds.
He then gives this view:
…] Paul makes it clear here [Romans 8] and elsewhere that it’s the present life that is meant to function as a purgatory. The sufferings of the present time, not of some postmortem state, are the valley through which we have to pass in order to reach the glorious future. I think I know why purgatory became so popular, why Dante’s middle volume is the one people most easily relate to. The myth of purgatory is an allegory, a projection from the present onto the future.
Now, to move on to his issue with the invocation of saints’ prayers. He does share, as an Anglican, the Catholic sense of the “communion of saints.” On page 172, he says: “When we celebrate the Eucharist they [the saints] are there with us, along with the angels and archangels. Why then should we not pray for and with them?”
He does proceed to acknowledge the logic of invoking the prayers of saints. Nevertheless, he concludes, on page 173:
But—and this is very important for those who, like me, believe that it’s vital to ground one’s beliefs in scripture itself—I see no evidence in the early Christian writings to suggest that the Christian dead are in fact engaged in work of that sort, still less any suggestion that presently alive Christians should, so to speak, encourage them to do it by invoking them specifically.
In particular, we should be very suspicious of the medieval idea that the saints function as friends at court so that while we might be shy of approaching the King ourselves, we know someone who is, as it were, one of us, to whom we can talk freely and who will maybe put in a good word for us. The practice seems to call into question, and even actually to deny by implication, the immediacy of access to God through Jesus Christ and in the Spirit, promised again and again in the New Testament. …] Explicit invocation of saints may be, in fact—I do not say it always is, but it may be—a step toward that semipaganism of which the Reformers were rightly afraid.