Purgatorial flames... Is this good news?

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hellopeople said:
I would never send any person, no matter what they did, to eternal torment.
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From what I gather;

God is perfect and God detests sin. No one can enter heaven with sin stained on their soul. Gods only solution is to burn people in purgatory.

I would think that an all powerful and all knowing God could have thought of some other means of purification, other than pain…but that’s not the case.

At least this is what I’m learning in this thread.
 
Zatzat said:
What’s Hell meant to be?
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Eternal torment and torture our minds cannot comprehend and we could end up there because of one sin we did not confess when we otherwise lived a good life…that is the definition of compassion I guess, because God is so compassionate.
 
Zatzat said:
From what I gather;

God is perfect and God detests sin. No one can enter heaven with sin stained on their soul. Gods only solution is to burn people in purgatory.

I would think that an all powerful and all knowing God could have thought of some other means of purification, other than pain…but that’s not the case.

At least this is what I’m learning in this thread.
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Either God is not compassionate or hell and purgatory do not exist as they do according to many Christians.
 
Zatzat said:
What’s Hell meant to be?
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The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, “eternal fire.” The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs. - Catechism of the Catholic Church.
 
hellopeople said:
I am complaining because it doesn’t make any sense. Why does a loving God always have to be associated with unearthly pain?

God is compassionate. God is ever loving. No human on earth can comprehend God’s love…but YOU MUST BURN FIRST BEFORE YOU RECEIVE THIS LOVE!!!

Take your personal beliefs out of it for a second (or try to). Does a compassionate God send everyone to burn before you go to heaven? Does that seem compassionate? If every single person is not worthy of heaven, then why burn everyone instead of burning no one?

I would never send any person, no matter what they did, to eternal torment. Am I more compassionate than God, is God not actually that compassionate, or does God not send people to hell. And please don’t say that you send yourself to hell, because if it was up to the person, they would always choose heaven. God is the one that says they can’t get in.
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One could just as easily say that God’s offering eternal bliss to people who are so undeserving of it “doesn’t make any sense”.

As regards Hell, those that are sent there DESERVE it. And I would assume very many of those in Heaven or Purgatory also deserve Hell. But God in His great leniency rescued them from it when they repented and acted accordingly.

One ought to be thankful that God is lenient and gives us time to repent rather than striking us down on the spot the moment we commit a mortal sin for us to receive the torment we deserve.
 
hellopeople said:
This view rests on the Bible being inspired by God. Also, if God purifies us by burning us, why even have confession? If I commit sins from now on I will just heat up a wire hanger and burn myself…I mean its what God would do, right?
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Not only that, but if we can be made clean by going into the fire, Christ’s death on the cross was not necessary.

This whole idea of a loving God casting his children into fire is not good news and runs contrary to everything that the New Testament teaches about purification and forgiveness of sins. Furthermore, it diminishes the significance of what occurred of that cross 2000 years ago.

The Bible says that Christ provided the purification when he took on all of God’s wrath in our place on the cross:

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.” (Hebrews 1:3)
 
FiberZilla said:
Catholic writers have said that the suffering fires in purgatory burn hotter than the flames of hell. With no way to know how long one has to spend in purgatory (centuries perhaps?) where is the good news? Is anyone here looking forward to that kind of brutal suffering? Is this how God shows his love for us by throwing us into fire?
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This may be what some writers have written …but this is NOT the teaching of the Catholic Church.
 
Regarding those who die “in Christ” but who need a last purification by Christ before entering where nothing impure can enter…

"In the concrete choices of life, however, it is covered over by ever new compromises with evil—much filth covers purity, but the thirst for purity remains and it still constantly re-emerges from all that is base and remains present in the soul. What happens to such individuals when they appear before the Judge? Will all the impurity they have amassed through life suddenly cease to matter? What else might occur? Saint Paul, in his First Letter to the Corinthians, gives us an idea of the differing impact of God’s judgement according to each person’s particular circumstances. He does this using images which in some way try to express the invisible, without it being possible for us to conceptualize these images—simply because we can neither see into the world beyond death nor do we have any experience of it. Paul begins by saying that Christian life is built upon a common foundation: Jesus Christ. This foundation endures. If we have stood firm on this foundation and built our life upon it, we know that it cannot be taken away from us even in death. Then Paul continues: “Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire” (1 Cor 3:12-15). In this text, it is in any case evident that our salvation can take different forms, that some of what is built may be burned down, that in order to be saved we personally have to pass through “fire” so as to become fully open to receiving God and able to take our place at the table of the eternal marriage-feast.
  1. Some recent theologians are of the opinion that the fire which both burns and saves is Christ himself, the Judge and Saviour. The encounter with him is the decisive act of judgement. Before his gaze all falsehood melts away. This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ’s Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart’s time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ[39]."
Pope Benedict XVI Spe Salvi
 
Soler said:
One could just as easily say that God’s offering eternal bliss to people who are so undeserving of it “doesn’t make any sense”.

As regards Hell, those that are sent there DESERVE it. And I would assume very many of those in Heaven or Purgatory also deserve Hell. But God in His great leniency rescued them from it when they repented and acted accordingly.

One ought to be thankful that God is lenient and gives us time to repent rather than striking us down on the spot the moment we commit a mortal sin for us to receive the torment we deserve.
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Your default God is cruel. You are saying “well at least God doesn’t send up to hell.” You are just saying that he isn’t as cruel as you think he should be, so we should be thankful. I am comparing God to a God that doesn’t send anyone to hell…one that helps people to understand how to be a good person instead of one that gives up on people and sends them to eternal torment. Do you see the difference in our ways?
 
hellopeople said:
Your default God is cruel. You are saying “well at least God doesn’t send up to hell.” You are just saying that he isn’t as cruel as you think he should be, so we should be thankful. I am comparing God to a God that doesn’t send anyone to hell…one that helps people to understand how to be a good person instead of one that gives up on people and sends them to eternal torment. Do you see the difference in our ways?
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Do you believe in a God that doesn’t send anyone to hell? or for that matter, that hell does not exist?
 
This is good news. You can not expect an easy ride to heaven. You got to put in work. If i ever found out that i would be in purgatory I would do a backflip out of joy. It would mean that i am close to heaven. We will not be free until we pay back every penny in purgatory.
 
Vile_Servant said:
Not true. No fire burns hotter than the flames of hell.
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Indeed. And I’ve never heard Purgatory described as “hotter” than Hell. At worst, similar to it, but with the wondrous hope of being released therefrom.

Me, I just hope I can do my Purgatory in Colorado:):)🙂

ICXC NIKA
 
hellopeople said:
Your default God is cruel. You are saying “well at least God doesn’t send up to hell.” You are just saying that he isn’t as cruel as you think he should be, so we should be thankful. I am comparing God to a God that doesn’t send anyone to hell…one that helps people to understand how to be a good person instead of one that gives up on people and sends them to eternal torment. Do you see the difference in our ways?
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St. Thomas Aquinas states that “cruelty denotes excess in exacting punishment”. Now it is not excessive for God in exacting punishment to punish someone as they deserve. Yet as I have explained above God punishes the human race less than it deserves. Therefore God is not cruel. 😉
 
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