Purgatory view

[Matt16_18]

Fr. Ambrose

• The Orthodox on the list here will immediately recognise that you have highlighted one of the things which divide Roman Catholicism from Orthodoxy - the Catholic seeks logic and needs to understand, the Orthodox bow down in obedience before the Almighty and say, “Yes, Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief.”*

I have been told by members of the Orthodox Church that the reason that I can’t understand Orthodox beliefs is because Orthodox beliefs are irrational!

• We pray for the dead because our fathers in the faith since the first generations have prayed for the dead. We pray for the dead because the Spirit has inspired the Saints to compose church services for the dead. We also pray for the dead because the human heart feels the compulsion to do so - it is such a profound need that only the Creator could have implanted it within our souls.*

It seems to me all that you are really saying is that you really don’t know if there is a purgatory or if their isn’t a purgatory – but praying for the dead is a good idea and not just a waste of time. Why you pray for the dead, you can’t explain.

• In your estimation does the Catholic teaching on uncreated grace equate to the Orthodox teaching?*

Give me the Orthodox definition of uncreated grace and let’s see how it compares to the Catholic definition that I just gave.

• It [the Orthodox definitions of Essence and Energies] is just as incomprehensible to the ordinary Orthodox.*

If the ordinary Orthodox finds the Orthodox definitions of Energies and Essenses to be incomprehensible, I would think that an ordinary Catholic would find the definitions even more incomprehensible.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

I have been told by members of the Orthodox Church that the reason that I can’t understand Orthodox beliefs is because Orthodox beliefs are irrational!

If I may borrow a Catholic term for a minute…? “Suprarational” would be a better term. Many Christian beliefs are beyond and above the limits of human reason. For example, St. Gregory Nazianzen was forced to reject the attempts made to define the mode of the divine procession. “You ask,” he says, “what is the procession of the Holy Spirit? Do you tell me first what is the unbegottenness of the Father, and I will then explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son, and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be stricken with madness for prying into the mystery of God.”

We pray for the dead because our fathers in the faith since the first generations have prayed for the dead. We pray for the dead because the Spirit has inspired the Saints to compose church services for the dead. We also pray for the dead because the human heart feels the compulsion to do so - it is such a profound need that only the Creator could have implanted it within our souls.

It seems to me all that you are really saying is that you really don’t know if there is a purgatory or if their isn’t a purgatory

The Orthodox know that there is no purgatory. It’s one of our best proselytizing tools

– but praying for the dead is a good idea and not just a waste of time. Why you pray for the dead, you can’t explain.

I thought that I had explained it somewhat. God said it. We do it. Tradition confirms it. What more do we need. Together, Scripture and Tradition are quite sufficient to justify praying for the dead.

If the ordinary Orthodox finds the Orthodox definitions of Energies and Essenses to be incomprehensible, I would think that an ordinary Catholic would find the definitions even more incomprehensible.

To go back to the words above from Saint Gregory… explain the difference between unbegottenness and generation and procession in the Trinity and then we shall pass on to other weighty matters.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr. Ambrose

*Many Christian beliefs are beyond and above the limits of human reason. *

Which is exactly what the Catholic Church teaches:

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

234 ** The mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is the central mystery of Christian faith and life. It is the mystery of God in himself. It is therefore the source of all the other mysteries of faith, the light that enlightens them. It is the most fundamental and essential teaching in the “hierarchy of the truths of faith”.

237 The Trinity is a mystery of faith in the strict sense, one of the “mysteries that are hidden in God, which can never be known unless they are revealed by God”. To be sure, God has left traces of his Trinitarian being in his work of creation and in his Revelation throughout the Old Testament. But his inmost Being as Holy Trinity is a mystery that is inaccessible to reason alone …

The Orthodox know that there is no purgatory.

How do they know this?

*I thought that I had explained it somewhat. God said it. We do it. Tradition confirms it. *

IOW, as an Orthodox, you don’t know why God would have you pray for the dead, because that is yet one more incomprehensible Orthodox belief. I will accept that as the best explanation that you can give me.

Can you at least give me the Orthodox definition of uncreated grace? The Orthodox are so sure that the Catholics have their definition wrong, and I am curious to know why they believe that. That should probably answered on a different thead though, so that we don’t take this thread off on a tangent.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

*I thought that I had explained it somewhat. God said it. We do it. Tradition confirms it. *

IOW, as an Orthodox, you don’t know why God would have you pray for the dead, because that is yet one more incomprehensible Orthodox belief. I will accept that as the best explanation that you can give me.

It will have to do you until you experience the power and beauty of an Orthodox requiem for the dead, at the cemetery or in the church. Once that has touched your soul you won’t need any futher explanation. Orthodoxy is very much a taste-and-see faith, an experiential faith.

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
"God is the one loveable who is always rejoicing without end in infinite happiness."
(St. Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, died 395)

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

It will have to do you until you experience the power and beauty of an Orthodox requiem for the dead, at the cemetery or in the church. Once that has touched your soul you won’t need any futher explanation. Orthodoxy is very much a taste-and-see faith, an experiential faith.

The Mormon’s try to convince me of their beliefs with the same type of arguement.

Sorry, touchy-feely explanations have never convinced me of anything …

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

The Mormon’s try to convince me of their beliefs with the same type of arguement.

Sorry, touchy-feely explanations have never convinced me of anything …

Don’t the Mormons ask you to pray and see if their beliefs are true or not? Or is that the JWs?

If the Russian emissaries sent to find a religion for Russia had been as immune as you want to be, to any spiritual impact of the Church’s services then Russia may not have become Christian. Don’t underestimate the presence of God in the Church’s services and what He can do to a non-believer attending. Many many converts of today are brought into the Faith through an initial contact with the Liturgy.

Do you remember how Russia chose Orthodoxy?

“King Vladimir sent a group of ten “good and wise men” to each of the four religions at first hand - Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy. Most of the worship they saw was without glory until they came to the cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Overwhelmed by the incense, singing, the numinous presence of God, they came back to Russia reporting that “We knew not whether we were in Heaven or on earth.” Thus Russia came to the Orthodox faith.”

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

The Orthodox know that there is no purgatory.

How do they know this?

I suspect that given a bit more time and you yourself will know this. Purgatory will go the way of Limbo.

Only 40 years ago every Catholic school in the world and every Catholic catechism taught that Limbo was a state and a place where babies who died unbaptized and without personal sin existed forever in a state of natural happiness, unable to see God (the Beatific Vision) because Original Sin had not been cleansed from their souls by Baptism.

Today that teaching is vigorously rejected. People are embarrassed to remember it. They will claim that it was merely a “pious belief” taught by uneducated nuns and unsophisticated priests. But if you are over 50 years old then you know that this is not true - it was taught with the approval of the Magisterium and the local bishops and the seminaries, etc.

Now we see something similar happening with purgatory. What is being written on this Forum about purgatory shows that there is a rapid retreat taking place and the older teachings are being discarded. “Softer” ones, avoiding all mention of any real and temporary purgatorial fire, are being introduced.

Give it time and the doctrine of purgatory will become so attenuated that you may finish up with something similar to an Orthodox belief. It is because people can see this already in process that they can claim that the Orthodox belief and the Catholic belief are coterminous on this matter. They are not, but the fact that people can say this demonstrates the radical changes underway in the Catholic belief about purgatory since Vatican II. As an Orthodox Christian I can only praise this process and wish it well - when purgatory is relegated to Limbo (so to speak ) we shall have one less doctrine impeding the unity which we seek.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr. Ambrose

• Give it time and the doctrine of purgatory will become so attenuated that you may finish up with something similar to an Orthodox belief.*

And the Orthodox belief is what? You claim that the Orthodox pray for the dead but they don’t know why they pray for the dead. I hardly think that this is where Catholicism is headed.

The Catholic doctrine of purgatory is supported by scriptures and attested to by the Fathers of the Church (see: The Roots of Purgatory). Neither source is going to disappear into a cloud of incense.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

The Catholic doctrine of purgatory is supported by scriptures and attested to by the Fathers of the Church (see: The Roots of Purgatory). Neither source is going to disappear into a cloud of incense.

Limbo went poof and disappeared.

But the former teaching of 40 years ago, now discarded, went like this…

"Limbo of the Children" (the “limbus infantium” or “puerorum”)., of those children who die without Baptism, without grievous personal sin, and are excluded from the beatific vision on account of original sin alone.
The New Testament contains no definite statement of a positive kind regarding the lot of those who die in original sin without being burdened with grievous personal guilt and without Baptism.

But, by insisting on the absolute necessity of being "born again of water and the Holy Ghost" (John 3:5) for entry into the kingdom of Heaven, Christ clearly enough implies that men are born into this world in a state of sin, and St. Paul's teaching to the same effect is quite explicit (Rom. 5:12 sqq). 

On the other hand, it is clear from Scripture that the means of regeneration provided for this life do not remain available after death, so that those dying unregenerate are eternally excluded from the supernatural happiness of the beatific vision (John 9:4, Lk.12:40-48, 2Cor.5:10). 

The question therefore arises as to what we ought to believe regarding the eternal lot of such persons in the absence of a clear positive revelation on the subject. Now it may confidently be said that, as the result of centuries of speculation on the subject, we ought to believe that these souls enjoy and will eternally enjoy a state of perfect natural happiness, and this is what Catholics usually mean when they speak of the limbus infantium, the "children's limbo." 

[newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm](http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09256a.htm)

If Catholics can discard the longstanding but erroneous belief in Limbo, who knows what else may be put aside - and indeed *must *be put aside to achieve the unity of West and East which the Pope so desires.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

You claim that the Orthodox pray for the dead but they don’t know why they pray for the dead.

I did not claim that the Orthodox do not know why they pray for the departed. In fact I said that we pray for the dead

1. on the basis of God’s revelation in Scripture - "it is a good and wholesome thing to pray for the dead (2 Maccabees 12) and
2. on the basis of an uninterrupted tradition which includes both the old and the new Israel, Judaism and the Church.

That seems a compelling enough reason to me - both Scripture and Tradition. What more do you want really?

What you are wanting, I think, is to try and push Orthodoxy into a scheme of purgatory, of sin and of temporal punishment not remitted by Christ. Apart from these factors you probably see not much point in praying for the dead?

But both the Synagogue and the Church have always prayed for the dead, - without holding to any belief in purgatory. I know that you may make an attempt to prove purgatory from a few passages in the New Testament and a few unclear passages in the Fathers. But it is true that none of the most ancient Churches of the East have such a belief. If it had been there from the beginning then the belief would still be there today, among the Orthodox, the Greeks, the Copts, the Ethiopians, the Syrians - but it isn’t there. It is a creation of the Western Middle Ages.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr. Ambrose

• That seems a compelling enough reason to me - both Scripture and Tradition. What more do you want really?*

I wouldn’t mind an explanation of why you pray for the dead. Catholics understand that both Scriptures and Tradition teach that we should pray for the dead, but for Catholics, it is not an incomprehensible mystery why God would want us to do that.

The doctrine of purgatory, or the final purification, has been part of the true faith since before the time of Christ. The Jews already believed it before the coming of the Messiah, as revealed in the Old Testament (2 Macc. 12:41–45) as well as in other pre-Christian Jewish works, such as one which records that Adam will be in mourning “until the day of dispensing punishment in the last years, when I will turn his sorrow into joy” (The Life of Adam and Eve 46–7). Orthodox Jews to this day believe in the final purification, and for eleven months after the death of a loved one, they pray a prayer called the Mourner’s Kaddish for their loved one’s purification.

Jews, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox have always historically proclaimed the reality of the final purification. It was not until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century that anyone denied this doctrine. …

Some imagine that the Catholic Church has an elaborate doctrine of purgatory worked out, but there are only three essential components of the doctrine: (1) that a purification after death exists, (2) that it involves some kind of pain, and (3) that the purification can be assisted by the prayers and offerings by the living to God. Other ideas, such that purgatory is a particular “place” in the afterlife or that it takes time to accomplish, are speculations rather than doctrines.

The Roots of Purgatory

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr. Ambrose

Limbo went poof and disappeared.

Unlike the doctrine of purgatory, which is de fide, the question of whether unbaptized infants are eternally consigned to the Limbo of the Infants has always been a matter of legitimate theological debate within the Catholic Church.

There is a common, but unfounded, opinion among many Christians that aborted infants go straight to heaven. That would make abortion a sacrament of salvation, a belief which the Catholic Church rightly condemns. The souls of aborted infants go somewhere, but not straight to heaven. The question is this: do the prayers of the Church Militant for the dead have beneficial effects for infants murdered by abortion?

**Catechism of the Catholic Church

1261** As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus’ tenderness toward children which caused him to say: “Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,” allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism.

Do the Orthodox consider abortion to be a sacrament of salvation?

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Fr. Ambrose

That seems a compelling enough reason to me - both Scripture and Tradition. What more do you want really?

I wouldn’t mind an explanation of why you pray for the dead.

Dear Matt16,

God says it is good and wholesome, the tradition of the Church has never been without it, the human heart cries out for it. This is enough for the Eastern Christian. Why pry too deeply into things which God has left behind a dark mirror and has not been pleased to reveal to us in any clarity.

The problem from your side is, I think, that you are not asking why, but you are asking: what is the point of praying for the dead if there is no purgatory?

I have in front me me a little service “The Akathist to Christ the Lord for a Loved One who has Fallen Asleep.” A parishioner just lost her father in Russia and she came and we prayed the akathist in front of the holy icons.

I glanced at the intro, and here is a partial answer to your question…

"How do our prayers for those who have departed affect their state in eternity? We do not know, and we should not be afraid to admit that we do not know. Our Lord has given us more than enough assurance for the salvation of our souls. All the petty details which usually surface out of our curiosity are not so important in regard to the ultimate state of our existence. What matters is that God has promised us Life Everlasting and by His Resurrection He has destroyed the gates of hell. Knowing how curious human nature is, St. Paul gave an answer to the Church is Thessalonica, saying: * “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.”* (1 Thess 4:13-14)

Pub by Saint Paisius Monastery, Safford, Arizona, in 2002, with the blessing of Bishop Jovan, Western American diocese, Serbian Orthodox Church.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

There is a common, but unfounded, opinion among many Christians that aborted infants go straight to heaven. That would make abortion a sacrament of salvation, a belief which the Catholic Church rightly condemns. The souls of aborted infants go somewhere, but not straight to heaven. The question is this: do the prayers of the Church Militant for the dead have beneficial effects for infants murdered by abortion?

Do the Orthodox consider abortion to be a sacrament of salvation?

This is, as I see it, the kind of artificial and convoluted argument which Catholics love to set up and then try to solve by applying human reason. It is a bit repugnant to the Orthodox mind which prefers to leave things in the hands of the merciful Lord who desires that all should be saved.

 

[RNRobert]

Matt16_18:

There is a common, but unfounded, opinion among many Christians that aborted infants go straight to heaven. That would make abortion a sacrament of salvation, a belief which the Catholic Church rightly condemns.

Perhaps they could be considered martyrs, like the Holy Innocents who were slaughtered by King Herod?

 

[atenciom]

Fr Ambrose:

Dear Matt16,

God says it is good and wholesome, the tradition of the Church has never been without it, the human heart cries out for it. This is enough for the Eastern Christian. Why pry too deeply into things which God has left behind a dark mirror and has not been pleased to reveal to us in any clarity.

The problem from your side is, I think, that you are not asking why, but you are asking: what is the point of praying for the dead if there is no purgatory?

I have in front me me a little service “The Akathist to Christ the Lord for a Loved One who has Fallen Asleep.” A parishioner just lost her father in Russia and she came and we prayed the akathist in front of the holy icons.

I glanced at the intro, and here is a partial answer to your question…

"How do our prayers for those who have departed affect their state in eternity? We do not know, and we should not be afraid to admit that we do not know. . . .
-snip-.

Fr Ambrose,
I’ve been reading the conversation between you and Mat16 and I’m not sure he’s getting through to you his point.

Mat16’s point (as I see it): Once God ordains certain things, they become neccessary. For example, God didn’t have to make this universe and us in it. But once he did, he neccessitates (?) certain things. If we have freewill, now he must ordain a heaven and a hell. How it works out that an omnipotent being MUST do something is a mystery. But once the “system” is ordained, we can understand it because it has order. One of those things is the concept of praying for the dead. Praying for someone in every other case meets some sort of need. It is not logical for God to suspend the order he has established for the case of praying for the dead.

You might argue that catholics need logic in matters of God while the orthodox do not. RO’s simply do what they’re told. Catholics do too. But that is not all there is to the story.

The next question is “Why?”. You say, “we cannot know God’s ways.” But you are painting this issue with the it’s-a-mystery-just-do-what-you’re-told brush when you don’t have to.

With all due respect, I think that you have a false understanding of what a mystery is. A mystery is like an endless museum. We can explore it but we will never fully understand it because we’ll never get to the end. But what we do explore, we can know and there will be order to it. We can’t know the whole story, but we can know, with certainty, some of it because God has revealed that much of it. And there is logic and order to what he has revealed because God is a God of order. (Just one look at the universe should convince you of that) As CS Lewis once said, “We can expect miracles from God, not nonsense from God.” God created our capacity for logic and order, therefore he has that same capacity within Him.

And so it is with praying for the dead. You replied with “how it affects the dead” but this doesn’t answer the question and neither does, “do what you’re told–It’s a mystery.” This ordained neccessity is not a mystery. God has revealed that to us and has given us the capacity of logic (reason) to formulate the reasons why. He hasn’t done that for everything but for prayers for the dead, he has.

Martin

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

This is, as I see it, the kind of artificial and convoluted argument which Catholics love to set up and then try to solve by applying human reason. It is a bit repugnant to the Orthodox mind which prefers to leave things in the hands of the merciful Lord who desires that all should be saved.

The question of the ultimate fate of millions of infants murdered through abortion is hardly an “artificial and convoluted” issue for many pro-life Catholics, especially the Catholics that are repentant and sorrowful for having killed their children through the sin of abortion. Perhaps some day the question of the ultimate fate of these children will be the object of a dogma promulgated by an Ecumenical Council.

The Magisterium of the Church can teach infallibly on matters of faith and morals. Some truths of the faith can only be known because God has divinely revealed those truths, e.g. the Trinitarian nature of God. Other truths of the faith that are the object of infallible teaching can be known by man through the natural law - no divine revelation is necessary to know those truths, e.g. murder is a sin. A third object of infallible teachings of the Church are the truths of reason:
Truths of Reason, which have not been formally revealed, but which are intrinsically associated with a revealed truth, e.g., those philosophic truths which are presuppositions of the acts of Faith (knowledge of the supersensual, possibility of proofs of God, the spirituality of the soul, the freedom of the will), or philosophic concepts, in terms of which dogma is promulgated (person, substance, transubstantiation, etc.) The Church has the right and the duty, for the protection of the heritage of the Faith, of proscribing philosophic teachings which directly or indirectly endanger dogma.

Dr. Ludwig Ott, The Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, Introduction, section 6, “Catholic Truths”.

The Church has never been afraid of developing her dogmas through reason guided by prayer. The Ecumenical Councils that the Orthodox accept as valid are full of Church teachings developed through prayerful human reasoning, and there exist in writings of the Eastern Church Fathers exceptional examples of reasoning guided by the Holy Spirit.

I don’t see any evidence that the Eastern Church Fathers saw human reasoning about the Mysteries of the Faith as “repugnant to the Orthodox mind”.

 

[Matt16_18]

atenciom:

Fr Ambrose,

We can’t know the whole story, but we can know, with certainty, some of it because God has revealed that much of it. And there is logic and order to what he has revealed because God is a God of order. … God created our capacity for logic and order, therefore he has that same capacity within Him.

And so it is with praying for the dead. … This ordained neccessity is not a mystery. God has revealed that to us and has given us the capacity of logic (reason) to formulate the reasons why.

Well said!

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

atenciom:

I’ve been reading the conversation between you and Mat16 and I’m not sure he’s getting through to you his point.

Dear Martin,

On reading your message twice, I have not been able to perceive any statement of why Catholics pray for the dead, only a number of scolds because my ways of thinking are not your ways of thinking - a very subtle kind of ad hominem

An important point here:

The Church was complete and perfect from the time Christ founded it, and possessed all teaching that is needed for salvation.

The Ecumenical Councils are guided by the Holy Spirit, but they did not and can not reveal anything that the Church does not already possess.

If the Councils had revealed new doctrines, such as purgatory, then those of us who live after the time of the Councils, would possess a revelation that the Apostles and early Fathers did not have.

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

Dear Martin,

On reading your message twice, I have not been able to perceive any statement of why Catholics pray for the dead …

Martin gave you a great answer: “Praying for someone in every other case meets some sort of need. It is not logical for God to suspend the order he has established for the case of praying for the dead.”

Apply a little reason to the above. Why do we pray for the living? The reason that we pray for the living is connected to the reason that we pray for the Holy souls in Purgatory.
… he is not God of the dead, but of the living …
Luke 20:38