Why do Protestants object to Purgatory?

[AlegreFe]

The FACT that there is a Purgatory does not mean that we cannot live our “purgatory” here on earth. At least we can shorten our stay in purgatory as much as we possibly can with God’s Grace. Because it is God’s GRACE ALONE that will get me into heaven, NOT Faith Alone. But with God’s Grace I have to live a HOLY life in order to get “cleaned up” so that I can get to heaven. We are all called to be Holy in Christ. I thank God for my Baptism. I thank God for Christ’s death on the Cross. I thank God that I can receive the Body, Blood, Soul & Divinity of Jesus Christ in the Holy Eucharist. All of those give off Grace. As a matter of fact, the Holy Eucharist IS the ideal Grace because it is Jesus Christ Himself.

 

[Atreyu]

But this is the point of Difference. Protestants believe that were already Justified in the eyes of God at teh time we became saved. If yoau already have something, Why get it again?

I do understand why Catholics belive in Purgatory, but do you see why Protestant’s don’t?

Our beliefs about other things (Justification, salvation) each lead to different logical conclusions.

Oh yes Syele, I do. But if you look at my first post in this thread, you’ll see that I’m only trying to show that the Catholic teaching is reasonable.

By the way, Catholics also believe that you are justified when you at the time you become saved! But we do not think that you are necessarily saved at the time you are justified…

 

[Atreyu]

You are mistaken again: one must be given faith in order to have it: faith itself is a gift of God and is not of ourselves. Everyone is not saved because no one deserves to be saved. The wonder of grace is that God saves some though He is under no obligation to save any, and though there is no virtue nor merit in any of us that earns us the ‘right’ to be saved.

You missed the point of my post. I know very well that faith is a gift of God. But my point was that we must have this faith in order to be “saved” using Protestant terminology. How you get that faith is completely irrelevant to that line of logic.

It may be the Roman Catholic teaching but it is not the teaching of the Christian faith nor of Scripture.

The Christian faith… False dichotomy and that’s all I’ll say.

Scripture teaches that humans are incapable of cooperating with the grace of God.

Hey?! I think I’d like a reference for this!

It is God who saves us, not we who in any way save ourselves.

So I suppose you deny free will? Well that’s ok. But under Catholic teaching, humans do have free will. God will never force anyone to love Him, and so we humans have the choice of cooperating with His grace or rejecting it. But even the ability to cooperate with His grace is a gift of grace in itself.

It is impossible for us to be perfect.

Matthew 5:48:
Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Hebrews 10:14:
because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
I think you are trying to say that we cannot be made perfect of our own flesh and blood; that the Mosaic Law makes noone perfect. But we must be perfect in order to enter Heaven, as nothing imperfect will enter Heaven.

 

[Syele]

Oh yes Syele, I do. But if you look at my first post in this thread, you’ll see that I’m only trying to show that the Catholic teaching is reasonable.

Well based on Catholic Beliefs only, I do think your teaching on Purgatory is “reasonable.” The problem is that the OP implies that Protestants are “Unreasonable” , when , in fact, the lack of Purgatory is completely reasonable when see in light of our other beliefs.

By the way, Catholics also believe that you are justified when you at the time you become saved! But we do not think that you are necessarily saved at the time you are justified…

Not being saved at the time you are justified is the very issue affecting purgatory though.

 

[VociMike]

But Christ has already paid the penalty for sin, and no further penalty for sin need be paid if ‘those in Purgatory’ are in Christ and therefore covered by His righteousness. Is Christ being daily made to suffer again for the sins for which He once died to atone for?

I think much of the problem here is loose terms such as “penalty for sin”. Every sinner should pay the penalty for every sin they commit. Not the penalty to God, for we cannot pay that penalty. But the penalty in the sense of making what amends we can, for our sin and for all the sin in the world. Because in doing so we help aleviate the pain and suffering caused by sin, and we participate in our own sanctification. Again, this is all loose terminology, but I hope you’ll agree that we should pay that penalty for sin which is in our power to pay.

But as far as Christ being made to suffer again, I just can’t fathom where you get such notions. Purgatory is simply the process, whatever it may be, whereby God takes an imperfect, impure, but saved soul, and makes that soul perfect, pure, all-holy, so that that soul may enter heaven. So again, I don’t see the objection, unless one believes (as you say you do not) that we are already, here and now, perfect, all-pure, all-holy.

 

[VociMike]

Not being saved at the time you are justified is the very issue affecting purgatory though.

I just don’t see this. Purgatory is about the saved and only the saved. Nobody “gets saved” by purgatory. Whether that saved person got saved in an instant by saying the sinner’s prayer, or got saved over a lifetime, the point is, purgatory is about those who have died in a saved state.

 

[VociMike]

Mike: what we are crashing headlong into is the concrete application of one of the Five Solas of the Reformation–Solo Christo, “by Christ Alone”. Over-and-over the Reformers insisted that justification is ‘forensic’. See the following link to help understand how Reformational understanding of justification differs substantially from Catholic understanding of the same. Otherwise I fear we will ride this merry-go-round ad infinitum. :

apuritansmind.com/Justification/HodgeCharlesJustificationForensic.htm

Hope this furthers the conversation.

Well, the reference in the first sentence to “Romish” didn’t help.

But seriously, are you suggesting that something in this doctrine eliminates the concept of God purifying the saved upon death, so that they may enter heaven in a perfected, all-holy state?

 

[Syele]

I just don’t see this. Purgatory is about the saved and only the saved. Nobody “gets saved” by purgatory. Whether that saved person got saved in an instant by saying the sinner’s prayer, or got saved over a lifetime, the point is, purgatory is about those who have died in a saved state.

My point is simple. Protestants believe the issues taken care of at Purgatory are taken care of at the time of being Saved.

The Protestant and Catholic beliefs on the whole questions of how you are saved, when you are saved, and what exactly you are saved from are simply different. Similar, but different. For Protestants, Purgatory is redundant.

 

[Syele]

Well, the reference in the first sentence to “Romish” didn’t help.

But seriously, are you suggesting that something in this doctrine eliminates the concept of God purifying the saved upon death, so that they may enter heaven in a perfected, all-holy state?

The protestant believe is that when you are Justified, in the eyes of God, the Christian is judged only by the deeds and life of Christ. To say we need furthur cleansing, means that Christ needs furthur Cleansing in the sight of God. Christ was perfect. He needs no furthur clensing.

 

[VociMike]

My point is simple. Protestants believe the issues taken care of at Purgatory are taken care of at the time of being Saved.

The Protestant and Catholic beliefs on the whole questions of how you are saved, when you are saved, and what exactly you are saved from are simply different. Similar, but different. For Protestants, Purgatory is redundant.

Then let me ask you, are you right now all-perfect, all-pure, all-holy, completely free from sin and from any desire to sin? For you will be so in heaven.

There are only two choices. Either you are now indeed all-pure, all-holy, without sin or any desire to sin, or, God will need to finish transforming you from your impure, sinful self when you die.

 

[Syele]

Then let me ask you, are you right now all-perfect, all-pure, all-holy, completely free from sin and from any desire to sin? For you will be so in heaven.

There are only two choices. Either you are now indeed all-pure, all-holy, without sin or any desire to sin, or, God will need to finish transforming you from your impure, sinful self when you die.

I am Justified by Christ’s work on the cross. You are asking if Jesus is now indeed all-pure, all-holy, without sin or any desire to sin. Is HE? Because I will be seen as if I were Him if I am saved. Justification is a gift from God and I cannot attain it throught right living. God doesn’t need to finish. He knew what he was doing the first time.

My personal sanctification (the removal of my desire to sin) is gradually happening as I live my life here on earth.

 

[VociMike]

My personal sanctification (the removal of my desire to sin) is gradually happening as I live my life here on earth.

So if you died this moment, God would somehow need to remove from you that final vestige of desire to sin, right?

 

[VociMike]

I am Justified by Christ’s work on the cross. You are asking if Jesus is now indeed all-pure, all-holy, without sin or any desire to sin. Is HE? Because I will be seen as if I were Him if I am saved. Justification is a gift from God and I cannot attain it throught right living. God doesn’t need to finish. He knew what he was doing the first time.

My personal sanctification (the removal of my desire to sin) is gradually happening as I live my life here on earth.

I’m curious, you talk about how you will be seen. But how are you really? Are you really all-pure, all-holy, without sin?

If you are now seen as without sin or desire to sin, and therefore need no final perfection at death, will you have a desire to sin in heaven? Will you sin in heaven? If not, why not, since you sin and have a desire to sin here on earth?

 

[HailMary]

Why do Protestants object to Pergatory when it is a Biblical concept. It was also believed by the Jews of Jesus day.In that snese belief in Purgatory was not created by the CC but inherited from it’s earliest roots of Judaism. There is no evidence that the Lord refuted this teaching. So why doProtestants not accept it?

Martin Luther threw out some books from the Old Testament [Protestants call them Apocrypha] because Luther’s notion of salvation could not coincide with what the books of Maccabees said regarding Purgatory: in particular, 2 Maccabees 12: 43-46.

By this time all Christians pre-Luther accepted the canon of the bible that the Church had determined back in the 4th century, which included the second book of Maccabees. Luther also wanted to throw out the book of James too! He called it the “Epistle of the Straw”.

 

[Syele]

I’m curious, you talk about how you will be seen. But how are you really? Are you really all-pure, all-holy, without sin?

If you are now seen as without sin or desire to sin, and therefore need no final perfection at death, will you have a desire to sin in heaven? Will you sin in heaven? If not, why not, since you sin and have a desire to sin here on earth?

God is capable of completing our Sanctification without there being a seperate place for it and without suffering.

 

[VociMike]

God is capable of completing our Sanctification without there being a seperate place for it and without suffering.

OK, now we’re making progress. In the first place, purgatory is a process. While it is commonly represented as a place, there is no teaching that it is indeed a place, or that time is involved (in fact, it is not even known is these concepts apply after death).

As for suffering, I’d have to look and see exactly what the Church teaches on that matter. It could just be the suffering of giving up sinful desires. That certainly happens on earth. And then there is that passage in 1 Cor. 3:
*11: For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

12: Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw –

13: 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.

14: If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward.

15: If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. *

“The Day” – that’s not in this life, that’s after death…

So at most then, it sounds like your rejection is one of rejecting any notion of suffering in the final purification after death.

 

[Syele]

Why would there be need of a process? It is instant, just as God could create light in an instat with a word HE can instantly at Judgement make us stop desiring sin. Why do we need some process to go through? Why limit God?

 

[flameburns623]

Well, the reference in the first sentence to “Romish” didn’t help.

But seriously, are you suggesting that something in this doctrine eliminates the concept of God purifying the saved upon death, so that they may enter heaven in a perfected, all-holy state?

Sorry. The article was perhaps less friendly to Catholicism than it could have been. Apart from the loaded language, I did think it would be helpful.

The reason that the Reformers rejected the notion of Purgatory, pure and simple, is that we believe that we discern from Scripture the doctrine of imputed righteousness rather than a doctrine of infused righteousness. You are mired deeply in the idea that YOU are the one who must be perfect; Protestant theology says you are incapable of such a state and that your ownly hope of Heaven is to be covered by the righteousness of Christ. If you grasp the difference between imputed versus infused righteousness you will see how the Reformation understanding fully negates the idea of Purgatory. It is no longer needful to talk about sin–or the effects of sin, or the remnants of sin, or whatever simile one cares to emply–being ‘burned-away’.

And then there is that passage in 1 Cor. 3 . . .

Actually, even Roman Catholic exegetes have pointed out that this passage does not convey the idea of purgatory (the purging of sin) as it does the testing of one’s works. If one has done things in the name of Christ which did not actually forward the Kingdom of God, then those things will as it were be ‘burned away’–they will have no lasting, eternal significance. The passage is simply misapplied by Catholic apologists to the concept of purgatory.

Oh yes Syele, I do. But if you look at my first post in this thread, you’ll see that I’m only trying to show that the Catholic teaching is reasonable.

Purgatory makes sense if one starts with the idea of infused righteous and the perfectibility of the human soul. The Protestant Reformation started with the idea that the human soul cannot be perfected, and that it can only obtain Righteousness by having that Righteousness imputed to it. Given the starting assumptions, both positions are consistent and reasonable.

 

[jmcrae]

Why would there be need of a process? It is instant, just as God could create light in an instat with a word HE can instantly at Judgement make us stop desiring sin. Why do we need some process to go through? Why limit God?

Then why do we even need to live on this earth, beforehand?

Why can’t God just instantaneously give us wholesome, generous, saintly lives, without having to go through 60, 90 or even 100 years of suffering here on earth?

 

[VociMike]

Why would there be need of a process? It is instant, just as God could create light in an instat with a word HE can instantly at Judgement make us stop desiring sin. Why do we need some process to go through? Why limit God?

There’s nothing about a process (certainly not a supernatural process) that prohibits it from being instantaneous. If you don’t like the word “process” just call purgatory the action (by God) of completing our purification, perfection, sanctification. Could you live with that?