Purgatory view

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

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.”

I did wonder if that had any connection to purgatory but it was so generalised that it could fit many occasions of prayer.

The fact that you yourself immediately took it as applicable to purgatory confirms my impression that this doctrine, unknown in the early Church, has become deeply inculcated in Roman Catholics, especially since the 16th century Council of Florence.

Well, we must go to work on it. Pope John Paul is so much wanting to see the union of Catholicism and Orthodoxy and purgatory is one doctrine which will need to be discarded if his heartfelt desire has any chance of being realised… to work, my friends… the remaining time is short and there is serious work to be done before Christ returns.

 

[Matt16_18]

It is easy to show that the Fathers of the Church were interpreting sacred scriptures to teach about Purgatory long before the Council of Florence. For example, around the year 200 A.D., Tertullian mentions the suffering done by the dead in expiation for the temporal punishment due to their venial sins:

Agree with thine adversary quickly, whiles thou art in the way with him; lest at any time the adversary deliver thee to the judge, and the judge deliver thee to the officer, and thou be cast into prison. Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.
Matt 5:25-26

… we understand that the prison of which the Gospel speaks to be Hades, and if we interpret the last farthing to be the light offense which is to be expiated there before the resurrection, no one doubts that the soul undergoes some punishments in Hades …

Tertulian, The Soul, [58,8]

---

But if someone’s work is burned up, that one will suffer loss; the person will be saved, but only as through fire.
1Cor. 3:15

For it is said: “He shall be saved as if by fire. “And because it is said that he shall be saved, little is thought of that fire. Yet plainly, though we are saved by fire, that fire will be more severe than anything a man can suffer in this life.

St. Augustine of Hippo [A.D. 354 – A.D. 430], Explanations of the Psalms [37,3]

 

[RNRobert]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Matt16_18
Purgatory is the purgation of inordinate self-love. The refining fire that separates the gold from the dross is the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Fr Ambrose:

I thought that purgatory was the working off of the temporal punishment due to venial sin? Is this incorrect?

Fr. Ambrose, I think those two statements do not contradict, but complement each other. Inordinate self-love is the cause of sin (I’m talking here of actual sin, not original sin). The way I see it (I’m no theologian, Father, just trying to explain it the best I can) sin scars the soul, if you will, which must be repaired. This is what Catholics mean when there is a ‘temporal punishment’ that must be paid for. This sin, or ‘scar’ if you will, is the dross that must be burned off. I read somewhere once that “Hell is hot, but God is hotter, a ‘consuming fire (Heb 12:29)’.”
It’s not a perfect explanation, but I think those two statements are different ways of describing the same thing.

 

[Antonio_B]

thisismyusrname:

Ah…this is a pole…I didn’t see that option before… nnnnnevermind

I hate to tell you, but a “pole” is somebody from Poland. I guess you meant a “poll.”

Antonio

 

[atenciom]

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, 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.

And…
Mat16:

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.”.

Fr Ambrose,
I wasn’t attempting to explain why catholics pray for the dead. And If I subtley scolded you, I apologize. What I was attempting to do is to show how your response to Mat 16 does not answer his question and (if you think about it) insults the character of God.

Basically, Mat16 asked “what effects are you trying to cause when you pray for the dead” and your response was that God didn’t reveal that to humans and that you do what you’re told. You tried to write it off as a mystery of some sort and that you (or we) will never know. You even implied that catholics, in their quest (need?) for logic, created a reason of our own and claimed that God revealed it to us, when God revealed no such thing (as you claim).

Your reasoning is that God chooses to keep such things a mystery (supra-rational). Our response: God did not keep the reason why you and I pray for the dead a mystery because it is illogical to keep that particular thing a mystery and since God ordained logic to be good, he must follow logic. He chooses to keep other things a mystery but not the praying-for-the-dead thing.

So what I’m saying is:
-God has revealed we must pray for the dead. God has ordained that if we pray, he will give grace.
-Because He says we must do it, it must be needed. God would be “out of order” if it’s not needed. God cannot be “out of order”
-God gives (of himself) us the capacity of logic and order to figure this out for ourselves. He created the idea of logic and order and ordained it to be good.
-Therefore praying for the dead does exactly what praying for anything else does: results in God giving grace in all the forms that comes in: blessing, cleansing, suffering, all of the above, etc

A response like “Praying for the dead is good and that’s all you need to know” when logic like this exists insults God’s character because it accuses God of dodging the question when there is a perfectly good answer that our God-given logic figured out. AKA It’s a cop out and unworthy of God.

Martin

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

atenciom:

And…

Fr Ambrose,
I wasn’t attempting to explain why catholics pray for the dead. And If I subtley scolded you, I apologize. What I was attempting to do is to show how your response to Mat 16 does not answer his question and (if you think about it) insults the character of God.

Basically, Mat16 asked “what effects are you trying to cause when you pray for the dead” and your response was that God didn’t reveal that to humans and that you do what you’re told. You tried to write it off as a mystery of some sort and that you (or we) will never know. You even implied that catholics, in their quest (need?) for logic, created a reason of our own and claimed that God revealed it to us, when God revealed no such thing (as you claim).

Your reasoning is that God chooses to keep such things a mystery (supra-rational). Our response: God did not keep the reason why you and I pray for the dead a mystery because it is illogical to keep that particular thing a mystery and since God ordained logic to be good, he must follow logic. He chooses to keep other things a mystery but not the praying-for-the-dead thing.

So what I’m saying is:
-God has revealed we must pray for the dead. God has ordained that if we pray, he will give grace.
-Because He says we must do it, it must be needed. God would be “out of order” if it’s not needed. God cannot be “out of order”
-God gives (of himself) us the capacity of logic and order to figure this out for ourselves. He created the idea of logic and order and ordained it to be good.
-Therefore praying for the dead does exactly what praying for anything else does: results in God giving grace in all the forms that comes in: blessing, cleansing, suffering, all of the above, etc

A response like “Praying for the dead is good and that’s all you need to know” when logic like this exists insults God’s character because it accuses God of dodging the question when there is a perfectly good answer that our God-given logic figured out. AKA It’s a cop out and unworthy of God.

Martin

Spoken like a true son of scholastic theology Beware Logic! It can lead to madness, or even, far worse, to a belief in predestination. “Logic” warped poor Saint Augustine’s ideas of heaven and hell and made him dream up many “logical” but absurd doctrines. His teaching of “massa damnata” comes to mind and also that all unbaptized babies go to Hell. “Logical” stuff for Augustine but alien to God and truth.

“Logic” did in the brain of poor Anselm of Canterbury and he created the strange theory of Substitutionary Atonement.

As Chesterton said: “The poet [that’s the Orthodox] tries to expand to fit the heavens while the logician (that’s the Catholics] tries to cram heaven into his head.”

I would just comment though that the Orthodox way does not insult God, perish the very thought.

 

[atenciom]

Fr Ambrose:

Spoken like a true son of scholastic theology Beware Logic! It can lead to madness, or even, far worse, to a belief in predestination. “Logic” warped poor Saint Augustine’s ideas of heaven and hell and made him dream up many “logical” but absurd doctrines. -snip-

“Logic” did in the brain of poor Anselm of Canterbury and he created the strange theory of Substitutionary Atonement.

As Chesterton said: “The poet [that’s the Orthodox] tries to expand to fit the heavens while the logician (that’s the Catholics] tries to cram heaven into his head.”

I would just comment though that the Orthodox way does not insult God, perish the very thought.

Fr Ambrose,

With all due respect, I am aware of the perils of logic abuse (rationalism) . Anything can be abused. Fideism (the opposite of rationalism) is just as perilous. In fact, sin is really the abuse or perversion of something right and good. The Devil doesn’t have to create something (in fact he can’t) to get us to turn away from God, he simply perverts what has been created.

In fact it’s very interesting that you brought up Calvinism. I just finished having this discussion with a calvinist and he used his logic to take the mystery out of God when scripture is very clear to leave it as a mystery. (if you want a copy of my letter, I would be happy to send it to you)

I assume that you are accusing me of the same thing. That is, pigeonholing God into my brain based on the fact that I’m using my capacity to reason, a gift that is given to all people. No sir. One cannot assume that if one is using something, they are automatically abusing something.

You have even cited some famous people who have supposedly abused their capacity for reason. I say “supposedly” because I simply don’t have the time to verify your claims. But even if those past abuse claims were true, it proves nothing. One does not discount something based on how many times someone abuses that thing. Example: we do not get rid of stop signs simply because some (or all) people drive through them. People may murder but that says nothing to the validity of the “Thou shalt not kill” commandment. I could easily point out the errors of some fideists but again, it proves nothing.

Instead, I want to show you how using our God-given capacity for logic and order in certain matters of God is permissible and even required. But on other matters, it is pushing reason beyond it’s limits—it’s an abuse. I knew that you would respond as you did and so, since my last post, I had been thinking of the best way to show you when reason should be applied and when reason can’t be applied. I thought it best to use a fictional conversation to illustrate to you, how the misapplication or abuse of reason resulted in your unintentional insult to the character of God.

Abuse—On the Holy Trinity:

Man: How does this 3-in-1 thing work?

God: I am one God.

Man: Yes, but by reading the scriptures and using my reason, I can deduce that you are three persons.

God: Yes, that’s true.

Man: Well, which is it: One God or three persons?

God: Yes.

Man: C’mon. You can’t be both.

God: Yes, I can.

Man: But they are both diametrically opposed. I can’t understand that.

God: That is unfortunate.

Man: Okay then, so how can you be both?

God: No amount of my explaining will make you understand. It is above (supra) your reason. If I were three-Gods-In-one-God or three-persons-in-one-person then it would be against (contra) your reason. But I am three-persons-in-one-God. That is possible but you can’t understand.

Man: Well, that helps a lot. (sarcastically)

God: It’s a mystery. You will know soon enough.

Man: Well then, since I can’t understand “both”, I will respectfully pick one and say that you are one God.

God: This denys all sorts of other truths that I’ve established. That is unfortunate.

(see next post)

Martin

 

[atenciom]

Abuse – On pre-destination vs Freewill

Man: If I have freewill, how can you be omnipotent?

God: I can see your conundrum.

Man: Scripture clearly says that you gave me freewill which means that I don’t need your help anymore to get to heaven. (pelagianism)

God: Scripture also says that I choose you and that you can’t get to heaven unless I choose you.

Man: Yes, I see that. But they are diametrically opposed. Which is it?

God: Both. There is a special “tension” between the two that you cannot understand. It’s a mystery.

Man: Well then, since I know you to be all powerfull, I figure that you power can override my freewill. So I will say that you predestine me.

God: Doing that will result in me creating other people, allow them to go through suffering, and then predestinating them to hell. You have a saying, “Life is hard and then you die.” This doctrine depicts me as evil. This is unfortunate.

Proper use of reason – On praying for the dead

Man: What effect does praying for the dead do?

God: What effect does praying for anything do?

Man: You give grace.

God: Okay then. What’s the problem?

Man: You never said blatantly that you will give grace to those who are dead (“on the way to heaven”)

God: Well what did I say?

Man: Your Son commands us to be perfect. You say that we MUST be perfect in order to be in heaven. We aren’t perfect. You give us grace to make us perfect in our earthly life. This grace comes in different ways (blessing, suffering, cleansing, etc). This is all in scripture and Tradition.

God: So then, do the math.

Man: There is nothing which says that this process stops when someone dies. In fact, if it stops, then you would be sabotaging your own plan of salvation which would make you evil or incompetent. We MUST be perfect to be with you. You say that it is good for us to pray for the dead. The reason why it is good to pray for the living is that it results in your grace. There is no reason why this is not true for the dead. And you know they need the grace.

God: Nothing you said contradicts any truth. One thing flows from the other.

Man: So it’s not a mystery. We can just apply a little logic and come to the conclusion.

God: I gave you logic. You’d better apply it. Not doing so makes me look bad to atheists since it insults the reason that I gave them.

Fr Ambrose, do you see how God did not intend logic to be discarded wholesale. Sometimes, it is required and sometimes people puch it beyond what it can go.

Martin

 

[jeanine]

my father passed away of cancer almost a year ago (8/31) and received his last sacrament at least 3 or 4 times while he was in hospice (our parish priests are amazing)…in any event, just recently i asked one of our priests about purgatory and to please explain it to me. he told me that is was a cleansing of your soul before you enter befor the throne of our lord. i reminded him that my father had received his last rites before he died and he pretty much assured me that he believed that my dad is in heaven right now, that he had been absolved of all his sins…i believe that too! we just dont know…purgatory could just be a blink of an eye…i would like to think that all non christians are given an opportunity at their death to proclaim jesus as their saviour…

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

atenciom:

God: I gave you logic. You’d better apply it. Not doing so makes me look bad to atheists since it insults the reason that I gave them.Martin

Yes, but we have heard it all before - the over emphasis on logic and vast confidence in the human powers of reason… it is all the vanity of the human mind.

We saw it with the doctrine of transubstantiation - hailed as the ultimate logical explanation of the way that the Bread and Wine change. Promoted as a logic against which no atheist could prevail.

Now, the doctrine is a bit of an embarrassment, relegated to a mere theological option… The atheists are laughing. It is not so foolproof, so logical. It is confined to a type of aristotelean logic whose faults are obvious to us today.

 

[Nate]

To understand what is meant by purgatory you first have to understand that sin has two conseqences. The first and most terrible is separation from God, which if made permanent is known as hell. This can only be remedied by God’s forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice. The second consequence is temporal suffering inflicted on yourself or other people.

For example if a terrorist repents of his sins, he may be forgiven, but the damage he caused remains. The people that were maimed remain crippled, etc. Furthermore the evil that is done tends to propagate itself for long times and even sometimes grows. A person who lost a loved one may sulk and grow bitter, turn into a racist and commit other acts of violence in retaliation.

Going to heaven involves sharing in God’s life. That means sharing to some extent in His knowledge, which greatly exceeds that which we have now. It means coming to recognize the full evil of the pain our sins have caused others and may still be causing others on earth. We have all heard the cliche “the truth hurts.” Well, God is the truth, and sharing His life may require an initial painful awakening. That is the pain of purgatory.

Obviously other people on earth can act to rebuild things you have damaged, and ease pain you may have caused. This will ease and hasten your own awakening. People can pray to God to intervene and heal the temporal suffering you have caused, and that can have the same result. The prayer of the Church toward that end, is called an indulgence.

Ja 5:16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Nate:

To understand what is meant by purgatory you first have to understand that sin has two conseqences. The first and most terrible is separation from God, which if made permanent is known as hell. This can only be remedied by God’s forgiveness through Christ’s sacrifice. The second consequence is temporal suffering inflicted on yourself or other people.

For example if a terrorist repents of his sins, he may be forgiven, but the damage he caused remains. The people that were maimed remain crippled, etc. Furthermore the evil that is done tends to propagate itself for long times and even sometimes grows. A person who lost a loved one may sulk and grow bitter, turn into a racist and commit other acts of violence in retaliation.

Going to heaven involves sharing in God’s life. That means sharing to some extent in His knowledge, which greatly exceeds that which we have now. It means coming to recognize the full evil of the pain our sins have caused others and may still be causing others on earth. We have all heard the cliche “the truth hurts.” Well, God is the truth, and sharing His life may require an initial painful awakening. That is the pain of purgatory.

Obviously other people on earth can act to rebuild things you have damaged, and ease pain you may have caused. This will ease and hasten your own awakening. People can pray to God to intervene and heal the temporal suffering you have caused, and that can have the same result. The prayer of the Church toward that end, is called an indulgence.

The teaching of the Roman Catholic Church is only

1. Purgatory exists
2. The prayers of the living can assist those in purgatory.

This magisterial doctrine makes all the above at best simply a personal belief spun out of human logic and unsupported by the Church and the Magisterium, and at worst an erroneous personal belief spun out of human logic (glaringly revisionist in respect to what Catholics believed 50 years ago), and again,unsupported by the Church and the Magisterium.

 

[atenciom]

Fr Ambrose:

Yes, but we have heard it all before - the over emphasis on logic and vast confidence in the human powers of reason… it is all the vanity of the human mind.

We saw it with the doctrine of transubstantiation - hailed as the ultimate logical explanation of the way that the Bread and Wine change. Promoted as a logic against which no atheist could prevail.

Now, the doctrine is a bit of an embarrassment, relegated to a mere theological option… The atheists are laughing. It is not so foolproof, so logical. It is confined to a type of aristotelean logic whose faults are obvious to us today.

You are right. Over emphasis on logic and the power of human reason is bad because the person is taking it farther than it can go (they are putting their faith in reason).

You cited the transsubstanciation scenario. I don’t know what you are referring to but the last time I checked, transsubstaciation is a full-fledged, bonafide mystery that cannot be explained. Some theologians may have tried to explain and the athiests may have laughed but they weren’t laughing at the RCC, they are laughing at those catholic theologians who tried to explain. The RCC maintains that we believe in that because Jesus said so. We can try to explain it with the best logic we can but that is not what the argument rests on.

But again, I say. Praying for the dead is not one of those bonafide mysteries on the same level as transsubstanciation/ freewill-predestination/trinity stuff.

You have no valid reason to write off the “praying for the dead” issue as a bonafide mystery. You must have a reason to write it off otherwise you insult the character of God.

Your choice,
Martin

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

atenciom:

the transsubstanciation scenario. I don’t know what you are referring to but the last time I checked, transsubstaciation is a full-fledged, bonafide mystery that cannot be explained/

The whole Aristotelean view which sees the world as composed of substance and accidents and which is the foundation of the Transubstantiation theory has no credence today. It is a Greek philosophical concept which has outlived its usefulness.

The Orthodox, who usually refrain from trying to explain the great Mysteries of the faith in pagan philosophical terms, are spared the embarrassment of having to drop them when the philosophy becomes outmoded.

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

atenciom:

You have no valid reason to write off the “praying for the dead” issue as a bonafide mystery. You must have a reason to write it off otherwise you insult the character of God.

Is this in the way of an infallible statement? Or is it merely a private opinion? Has it been decided in Rome that the Orthodox are insulting the character of God and have been doing so for 2 millennia?

 

[Matt16_18]

Fr Ambrose:

The Orthodox, who usually refrain from trying to explain the great Mysteries of the faith in pagan philosophical terms, are spared the embarrassment of having to drop them when the philosophy becomes outmoded.

Utter nonsense.

 

[Matt16_18]

Ignorance is not a virtue. It is possible to commit serious sin by refusing to accept what can be known by reason.

INVINCIBLE IGNORANCE

Lack of knowledge, either of fact of law, for which a person is not morally responsible. This may be due to the difficulty of the object of the knowledge, or scarcity of evidence, or insufficient time and talent in the person, or any other factor for which he is not culpable.

(Etym. Latin in, not + vincibilis, easily overcome: invincibilis.)

VINCIBLE IGNORANCE

Lack of culpable knowledge for which a person is morally responsible. It is culpable ignorance because it could be cleared up if the person used sufficient diligence.

One is said to be simply (but culpably) ignorant if one fails to make enough effort to learn what should be known; guilt then depends on one’s lack of effort to clear up the ignorance.

That person is crassly ignorant when the lack of knowledge is not directly willed but due to neglect or laziness; as a result the guilt is somewhat lessened, but in grave matters a person would still be gravely responsible.

A person has affected ignorance when one deliberately fosters it in order to not be inhibited in what one wants to do; such ignorance is gravely wrong when it concerns serious matters.

(Eytm. Latin vincibilis, easily overcome; ignorantia, want of knowledge or information.)

Pocket Catholic Dictionary, John A. Hardon, S.J

 

[Fr_Ambrose]

Matt16_18:

Ignorance is not a virtue.

Did anybody say that it was?

The Orthodox are also ignorant of the infallibility of the bishops of Rome, and ignorant also of the Roman Pontiff’s certainty of his immediate and universal jurisdiction, and ignorant of his claim that nobody can be saved unless they are in communion with him…

Ah, blessed ignorance!

 

[Matt16_18]

The historian Gibbon was amused by the thought that Christianity almost foundered on the controversy between homoousios and homoiousios, the fate of humankind hanging on a single iota. But the difference between Christ the mediator and Christ the God is a very real one, and whether Christ is of the same substance [homo-*ousios] or a like substance [homoi-*ousios] to God the Father is a matter of importance to all Christians, not only theologians.
The Council of Nicea

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”.

**Cathechism of the Catholic Church

250** During the first centuries the Church sought to clarify her Trinitarian faith, both to deepen her own understanding of the faith and to defend it against the errors that were deforming it. This clarification was the work of the early councils, aided by the theological work of the Church Fathers and sustained by the Christian people’s sense of the faith.

251 In order to articulate the dogma of the Trinity, the Church had to develop her own terminology with the help of certain notions of philosophical origin: “substance”, “person” or “hypostasis”, “relation” and so on. In doing this, she did not submit the faith to human wisdom, but gave a new and unprecedented meaning to these terms, which from then on would be used to signify an ineffable mystery, “infinitely beyond all that we can humanly understand”.

 

[kepha1]

Congratulations!!! You’ve won an EXTREME MAKEOVER!!!”

And the winners are overcome with joy, with tears and much gladness! Such is the popular TV show most of us are familiar with. The winners are chosen from those who cannot afford the luxuries that modern medicine can offer them.

A plastic surgeon cuts and slices the face, liposuction is done, chin implants, nose jobs, various other implants, followed by weeks of painful recovery.

Lasers are fired into the eyeballs to get rid of unwanted eyeglasses. Fitness trainors shape muscles with all manner of physical exercises, plus rigid diets for weight loss.

Dental surgery is done, teeth may be pulled, jaw bones re-shaped.

All proceedures are planned with the doctors and done willingly.

The nations top celebrity hair stylists and wardrobe designers do the finishing touch, and then…

The prizewinners are escorted by limousine, they are all done and beautiful. The family and friends await the grand entrance with much anticipation. With shock and awe, the transformed contestant is embraced by all the loved ones, with tears of joy, and much exaltation.

That’s my take on purgatory. It’s a prize from a loving Father, not a torture chamber from a mean, angry god.

kepha1