Purgatory-the risks of teaching it to new Catholics

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Fauken said:
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. If you don’t want God, you get exactly what you want, which is Hell.
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I don’t think that my point has been answered. It seems to me that one example of sinful tendencies is having a will that is not totally devoted to pleasing God in every way, and at every moment.

If purgatory can’t bend or radically change the will, what reason is there to think that purgatory even exists?
 
nogames said:
If purgatory can’t bend or radically change the will, what reason is there to think that purgatory even exists?
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It cannot change or bend people’s wills because that’s not the purpose. When God said nothing unclean can enter Heaven, He meant nothing. For whatever reasons there may be, those suffering in purgatory have the stain of sin on their soul. The difference between them and the damned is that the damned do not want this purgation process because they do not want God, and those in purgatory do because they truly desire unity with God. One cannot purify one’s soul alone, only God can. We call this purification by God after death purgatory.
 
angel12 said:
A. Then why teach anything? You could say “what if it’s not true” about everything.

B. Some truths are unpleasant. Some, in fact, are downright horrifying. But I don’t see where that would apply to the certain knowledge that you’ll make it to Heaven.
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True, but most Catholic teachings do find support in the bible. I’m suggesting that purgatory might not be one of them.
 
This life involves a major choice, the choice for righteousness, the choice for God. We’re generally somewhere between there and the path Adam set us on, where we prefer ourselves to God, where we serve as our own gods with all that means, including the freedom to sin. God is patiently working with us here, and to the degree that we respond and cooperate, to the degree that we change, to the degree that we turn from sin and towards Him, we are just. But if we prefer sin that leads to death, grave offenses to God and neighbor, we demonstrate a lack of change, a lack of justice or righteousness in us. We turn from love IOW. And the Church, quoting St John of the Cross, teaches on this very thing:
"At the evening of life we shall be judged on our love."

And passages such as Matt 25:31-46 support this, giving a basis for God’s judgement. But until love is perfected in us we still aren’t fully pure of heart, fully sold out to God, fully free from sin. In the end God judges us based on what we did with what we were given, whether we’re destined for heaven or hell. The Parable of the Talents sheds much light on this.
 
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fhansen said:
This life involves a major choice, the choice for righteousness, the choice for God. We’re generally somewhere between there and the path Adam set us on, where we prefer ourselves to God, where we serve as our own gods with all that means, including the freedom to sin. God is patiently working with us here, and to the degree that we respond and cooperate, to the degree that we change, to the degree that we turn from sin and towards Him, we are just. But if we prefer sin that leads to death, grave offenses to God and neighbor, we demonstrate a lack of change, a lack of justice or righteousness in us. We turn from love IOW. And the Church, quoting St John of the Cross, teaches on this very thing:
"At the evening of life we shall be judged on our love."

And passages such as Matt 25:31-46 supports this, giving a basis for God’s judgement. But until love is perfected in us we still aren’t fully pure of heart, fully sold out to God
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Yes, life is all about preferences, choices, and change–at least here, in this life.
 
The teaching is vague in Scripture. And that’s the problem with the doctrine of Sola Scripture to begin with; Scripture was never intended to serve as some sort of catechism. Tradition has the same authority to inform us of God’s revelation to man. And, in fact, the Church, in both the east and west with centuries of isolation between them, has taught some form or state of final purification from the beginning.
 
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I would like to re-name this thread “Purgatory: The Risks of NOT Teaching It to New Catholics.”
 
fhansen said:
The teaching is vague in Scripture. And that’s the problem with the doctrine of Sola Scripture to begin with; Scripture was never intended to serve as some sort of catechism. Tradition has the same authority to inform us of God’s revelation to man. And, in fact, the Church, in both the east and west with centuries of isolation between them, has taught some form or state of final purification from the beginning.
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I’m not against the teaching of tradition. But tradition can be kind of hard to precisely define. In addition, if we humans frequently interpret scripture wrongly, then adding thousands of pages of church-approved tradition to the scriptures doesn’t reduce the possibility of wrong interpretation; it adds to it.
 
Brittany said:
Not at all. The teaching of Purgatory is not harmful unless the person teaching about it gets it wrong and gives the wrong impression of what Purgatory is.
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True. We are all human, and we can get many things wrong.
 
The possibility of purgatory offers hope. People who end up in purgatory are fortunate. They had not “paid back the last farthing” to divine justice, and God in his mercy has given them the opportunity to do just that.
 
ProdglArchitect said:
We must be completely clean from the effects of and inclinations towards sin.
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Yes, well stated. The Saints have talked about this a great deal. To stand in front of God with the stain of sin would cause us such agony, that we would have to flee.
 
Tradition is simply the lived experience of the Church. Ignoring it is like saying that nothing that happened from the beginning can inform us as to the truths of our faith. This can include resolving matters such as whether or not baptism regenerates, whether or not infants should be baptized, whether or not Jesus is really present in the Eucharist, how man is justified, whether or not Jesus is God. These and other truths can be argued plausibly either way by Scripture alone. But these matters were either non-issues from the beginning, in both the east and in the west, or were settled as questions arose. But they are all controversial among SS adherents. Scripture is just plain vague or seemingly contradictory on many things. One cannot pick up a bible 1500 years after the fact and expect to understand it in the same way that the Church that was established at the beginning and that wrote the NT can understand it. And many things were simply un-written, as Scripture, itself, attests. The Church received and proclaimed the faith before a word of the New Testament was written for that matter.
 
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Yes!
God wants us, simply, just- as He created us to be. God did not create us to be sinners after all. All sin is an anomaly of nature.
 
  1. If we know about purgatory we can more earnestly strive for perfection (that is, purge ourselves of sin and imperfection) in this life in order to avoid the purging “fire” of purgatory. 2. If we know about purgatory we can more earnestly pray for the souls in purgatory who can no longer gain any merit by their own efforts.
    The risks of not knowing about Purgatory are ignoring loved ones in purgatory so that their suffering is prolonged, and spending a long time there ourselves.
"From the Catechism: 1030 All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven.
1031 The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned.606 The Church formulated her doctrine of faith on Purgatory especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent. The tradition of the Church, by reference to certain texts of Scripture, speaks of a cleansing fire:607 [these numbers refer to footnotes in the Catechism]
As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come.608
1032 This teaching is also based on the practice of prayer for the dead, already mentioned in Sacred Scripture: "Therefore [Judas Maccabeus] made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.“609 From the beginning the Church has honored the memory of the dead and offered prayers in suffrage for them, above all the Eucharistic sacrifice, so that, thus purified, they may attain the beatific vision of God.610 The Church also commends almsgiving, indulgences, and works of penance undertaken on behalf of the dead:
Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.611”

Here are some writings from the saints and other church-approved writings about purgatory. I suggest you read up on it.
Read Me or Rue It http://www.turnbacktogod.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/How-To-Avoid-Purgatory.pdf
Purgatory: An Unpublished Manuscript Library : An Unpublished Manuscript on Purgatory | Catholic Culture (or listen to this one on youtube)
 
Coming from a Protestant that is fairly likely to become Catholic soon, I think it should be taught. Purgatory was one of the doctrines I had a lot of issues with, and while I am not entirely comfortable with it at present, it isn’t something I couldn’t submit to if I became Catholic. I think a healthy understanding of what Purgatory is, the language used around it (I know Protestant and Catholic uses of the same words can convey very different concepts), what Scripture passages talk about it, why Catholics believe in it, and the Church history surrounding the doctrine would be helpful for newer members of the faith.
Granted, this is just a Protestant perspective. Maybe people coming from other religious backgrounds will have less or different problems with it than I did, but this is just my thoughts on the matter.
 
Dear No Games:
It’s in Scripture. This has been pointed out several times.

Praying you will re-read the thread. God bless.
 
I think this is true. The doctrine involves more than just a difference in destination right after death. It involves Catholicism’s teachings on justification and salvation. Historical details and further clarifications can help flesh out the teaching-and the reason for it.
 
Purgatory is necessary to Catholic soteriology. If it is not included there becomes a great big unexplained void. The reverse is true for many protestants. Purgatory becomes redundant because of their initial premises.

It is therefore pointless beginning at purgatory, or taking it as a separate subject exclusively by itself. That I would say is the only risk.
 
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