New objections to Purgatory

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In a sense it is, if you want to view it in those terms - though it’s more like a temporal consequence akin to bearing fruit.

Otherwise though, you’re not really avoiding the objection that God only forgives us half-heartedly.
 
I’ll answer the other stuff later, but regarding forgiveness and debt - imagine if you refused your dad’s forgiveness and instead just payed your debt to him. What difference does the forgiveness really make?
 
Say you have enough around at the moment to pay your debt - in that case your father couldn’t make you leave, even though you didn’t ask for forgiveness. And leaving the house would just be another way of paying the debt here.
 
In that case, the disposition seems to be something on your part - having a bad disposition means you are unwilling to change yourself or repent. So by deciding to pay the debt already you are also changing your disposition - forgiveness then doesn’t seem to make a difference, at least that’s what it looks like.
 
I agree that indemnifying me in some way for my loss that he caused would be beneficial to the kid in terms of character building. If I forgive him his debt — i.e. if I get the window fixed at my own expense — his dad might nevertheless insist that he make reparation of some kind, because it will be good for his character. But surely that is a separate consideration. It’s not directly connected with my forgiveness. In fact it runs contrary to forgiveness. We can have either forgiveness or reparation, but we can’t have both.
 
I thought there was a distinction here between eternal and temporal. So in this case, God does forgive you an eternal debt, but just doesn’t touch the temporal one. But it could then be argued that God doesn’t actually forgive us completely since we still have some forgivable debt to Him, and passages like Matthew 18: 21-27, 32 seem to indicate that God does forgive that debt as well in forgiveness.
 
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Yes, I’m just going through some objections to see what people think, or how they could be solved.
 
But in this example of the broken window, if the kid makes reparation, what is there left for me to forgive?
 
I’m sorry, that makes no sense to me. Causing damage was the act he committed.
 
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If his baseball had missed the window by an inch, there would have been no damage and nothing to forgive.
 
Regarding paying off throwing the ball, at least in that concrete situation it seems that it would be possible to pay that off as well, maybe by doing some good acts to the neighbor to counter the bad act? This might not apply to acts of sin to God though…
 
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In that case, there seem to be two aspects to the debt - the act and the damage. Good acts then are also composed of the act and the benefit they give, so a good act could repair the damage with the benefit, and since you advise the kid to do good things, it seems to also pay off the act aspect of the bad act with another, good act.

In that particular case of Baseball v. Window, forgiveness doesn’t seem to do much since both the act and damage can be payed off.
 
Doesn’t paying off the debt change the state? If not, what does forgiveness change? If forgiveness is meant to express regret and a promise of change - well, by repairing the window or paying for it the kid signals he’s sorry and doesn’t want to do it again. If forgiveness is a person even allowing the kid to pay for the debt; well if the kid doesn’t want forgiveness and the neighbor refuses payment of debt, that’s either a cancellation of the debt altogether or the kid will be made to pay a different way, say by punishment - which is also a form of paying the debt.
 
NormalBeliever said:
But there are strong indications against this interpretation - the end of Jonah says God cancelled the punishment out of compassion which is weird
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Why?

God does the same for us when we implore Him in this world with a proper disposition.

That’s what an “Indulgence” is.

Why would not God allow them
and teach us (who read Scripture) at the same time,
with a prefigurement of Indulgences?
 
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rex1946 said:
The simplest answer to Purgatory is one no one wants to hear. There is no such place.
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Selective bold mine for emphasis.

We don’t know if it is a “place” or a “state”.

But I think you are attempting to say Purgatory does not exist (please correct me if I am reading your statement wrong).

If so . . .

I disagree.

Since Purgatory is out of the realm of time and space (and into some other poorly understood realm), you are going to need revelation as evidence for your thesis.

What is your evidence for your conclusion?
 
rex1946 said:
There is no such place. It was invented to soothe believers who admitted to committing sin but felt Hell’s Eternal Punishment was a bit much for minor transgressions.
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When was Purgatory “invented”?

Who “invented” Purgatory"?

What “minor transgression” do you think results in eternal condemnation?
 
rex1946 said:
Catholic theologians have for centuries used Purgatory to lessen the fear believers had of Dante’s Hell and its Eternal Fires.
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You can’t blame Dante and his vision of Hell. He didn’t only write the Inferno, he wrote the Purgatorio as well, based on his careful study of the theologians. And not forgetting the Paradiso …
 
NormalBeliever said:
…
he still needs to pay a debt.
… It’s not like the neighbor can continue being angry or refuse to forgive after the child has payed or repaired it. …
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A person may still be angry after repairs.

There are consequences of sin that occur for which one may be culpable:
  • eternal - guilt of mortal sin
  • temporal - attachment to sin
  • disorders in the world
The eternal and temporal consequences, states the Catechism, follow from the very nature of sin not vengeance from without. Penance can remove the attachment to sin which the Nineve did. Jonah 3 “5 And the men of Ninive believed in God: and they proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth from the greatest to the least.”

Catechism of the Catholic Church
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
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About indulgences - yeah, that’s also what I thought, and it makes sense, since the Ninevites’ penance didn’t pay the whole debt (that would require a calamity as the book says).
 
This would be the consequences of sin - or reaping what you sow in the negative, and makes much more sense than external punishment. Thanks!
 
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