Why it is Dangerous Not to Believe in Purgatory

[justasking4]

Originally Posted by justasking4
Does the church teach these passages are about purgatory?

guanophore
As with all the instruction of Jesus, the Son of God, we teach that all of His instruction relates to the Kingdom of God. He did not make up stories for the sake of telling stories!

What was the point of the story in Luke 16:19-31? Was it about purgatory?

 

[justasking4]

i heard the same kind of thing and it still bothers me… but i think one explanation may be that there are levels of Purgatory and maybe the saint saw souls going to some deep part of Purg and thought thye were actually in Hell… Purg IS temporary Hell… excrutiatingly painful in the lower levels and not so fun in the upper levels either…

People take sin so lightly but God does NOT… Every sin we commit does terrible damage to us… damage that will not be allowed into Heaven where “no impure thing will enter” (Rev 21:27)

If Christ paid the full price for our sins and His blood cleanses us from all sin why would purgatory be necessary if both of these things that were done are more than sufficent for us to enter heaven right after death?

 

[East_Anglican]

I have read the Catholic Answers document explaining the roots of purgatory with interest and here is my conclusion.

All Christians agree that we won’t be sinning in heaven. Sin and final glorification are utterly incompatible. Therefore, between the sinfulness of this life and the glories of heaven, we must be made pure. Between death and glory there is a purification.

What part of the doctrine of substitution atonement don’t you understand?

We have been purified.

Ephesians 5:25-28

25Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her 26to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, 27and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. 28In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.

Colossians 1:21-23

21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of] your evil behaviour. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— 23if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.

Thus, the Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “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. The Church gives the name purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CCC 1030–1).

Either we have been purified perfectly or we haven’t been purified at all. Ephesians 5:25-28 and Colossians 1:21-23 are for everybody not a select bunch.

The concept of an after-death purification from sin and the consequences of sin is also stated in the New Testament in passages such as 1 Corinthians 3:11–15 and Matthew 5:25–26, 12:31–32.

Ok let’s have a look at these scriptures.

Firstly 1 Corinthians 3:11–15

For it to make sense wit’s better to read the whole chapter but so this isn’t to long I’ll start at verse 6.

6I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. 7So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 8The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labour.

We are talking about labouring for the kingdom here.

9For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.
10By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. 11For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.

So as we grow in Christ false doctrine is burnt away. That which is not of Christ is burnt away as we journey with him. This is Theosis.

14If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. 15If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.

This is because what Christ did is enough and he will survive by having the false doctrines and foundations burnt away.

This has nothing to do with purgatory at all.

Next Scripture Matthew 5:25-26

25"Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still with him on the way, or he may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison. 26I tell you the truth, you will not get out until you have paid the last penny.

To say that the prison here is Purgatory is stretching it a bit. In short, what Jesus is saying is blessed are you when you are merciful for then you will be shown mercy.

Next scripture
Matthew 12:30-32

30"He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. 31And so I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven men, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. 32Anyone who speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but anyone who speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.

The way purgatory is gleaned out of this verse is rather dogmatic. Some how because there is an age to come there has to be a place of cleansing called purgatory. Of course this is nonsense. The phrase ‘in this age or the age to come’ is an expression of finality.

 

[East_Anglican]

The doctrine of purgatory, or the final purification, has been part of the true faith since before the time of Christ.

Not true.

The Jews already believed it before the coming of the Messiah, as revealed in the Old Testament (2 Macc. 12:41–45)

Ok let’s look at 2 Maccabees 12:41-45. There is another Roman Catholic myth that Martin Luther wanted 1st and 2nd Maccabees taken out of the Bible because of this passage because it bothered him so much. Personally I can’t see how it could.

42 Betook themselves unto prayer, and besought him that the sin committed might wholly be put out of remembrance. Besides, that noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves from sin, forsomuch as they saw before their eyes the things that came to pass for the sins of those that were slain.

So they reaped what they sowed.

43 And when he had made a gathering throughout the company to the sum of two thousand drachms of silver, he sent it to Jerusalem to offer a sin offering, doing therein very well and honestly, in that he was mindful of the resurrection:

So Judas Maccabees believed in the resurrection of the dead did he? Good for him, so do I.

44 For if he had not hoped that they that were slain should have risen again, it had been superfluous and vain to pray for the dead.

He’s praying about what will happen to them on judgement day and not praying them out of Purgatory.

45 And also in that he perceived that there was great favour laid up for those that died godly, it was an holy and good thought. Whereupon he made a reconciliation for the dead, that they might be delivered from sin.

So he prayed that God would have mercy.

How on Earth can anybody glean Purgatory from that passage?

 

[East_Anglican]

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).

A piece of literature so obscure you can’t Google it.

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.

Orthodox Jews to this day believe that Jesus is not the Messiah.

Jews, Catholics, and the Eastern Orthodox have always historically proclaimed the reality of the final purification.

Not true!

The Eastern Orthodox do not believe in purgatory. Some believe in the doctrine of Toll Houses but Purgatory is not the same thing.

The Eastern Orthodox pray for the dead in case they didn’t die in a state of grace.

It was not until the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century that anyone denied this doctrine. As the quotes below from the early Church Fathers show, purgatory has been part of the Christian faith from the very beginning.

Not True

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.

Jesus paid it all!

You can glean any doctrine you like from The Church Fathers and that is exactly what the writers of this article I am quoting from have done.

The Acts of Paul and Thecla

“And after the exhibition, Tryphaena again received her [Thecla]. For her daughter Falconilla had died, and said to her in a dream: ‘Mother, you shall have this stranger Thecla in my place, in order that she may pray concerning me, and that I may be transferred to the place of the righteous’” (Acts of Paul and Thecla [A.D. 160]).​

How do you get a place of purification from that.​

Abercius

“The citizen of a prominent city, I erected this while I lived, that I might have a resting place for my body. Abercius is my name, a disciple of the chaste Shepherd who feeds his sheep on the mountains and in the fields, who has great eyes surveying everywhere, who taught me the faithful writings of life. Standing by, I, Abercius, ordered this to be inscribed: Truly, I was in my seventy-second year. May everyone who is in accord with this and who understands it pray for Abercius” (Epitaph of Abercius [A.D. 190]).​

Abercius was asking people to pray for him when he was still alive.​

The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity

“[T]hat very night, this was shown to me in a vision: I [Perpetua] saw Dinocrates going out from a gloomy place, where also there were several others, and he was parched and very thirsty, with a filthy countenance and pallid color, and the wound on his face which he had when he died. This Dinocrates had been my brother after the flesh, seven years of age, who died miserably with disease. . . . For him I had made my prayer, and between him and me there was a large interval, so that neither of us could approach to the other . . . and * knew that my brother was in suffering. But I trusted that my prayer would bring help to his suffering; and I prayed for him every day until we passed over into the prison of the camp, for we were to fight in the camp-show. Then . . . I made my prayer for my brother day and night, groaning and weeping that he might be granted to me. Then, on the day on which we remained in fetters, this was shown to me: I saw that the place which I had formerly observed to be in gloom was now bright; and Dinocrates, with a clean body well clad, was finding refreshment. . . . [And] he went away from the water to play joyously, after the manner of children, and I awoke. Then I understood that he was translated from the place of punishment” (The Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicity 2:3–4 [A.D. 202]).

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I’m glad that isn’t scripture. I bet the translator had some fun with that one. Her brother was no longer in a place of suffering. I can tell you that because Hell is not a place of punishment and neither is purgatory. Purgatory does not exist. Hell is as a result of sin and not Gods punishment for it. We are persecuted on Earth ,we suffer.​

Tertullian

“We offer sacrifices for the dead on their birthday anniversaries [the date of death—birth into eternal life]” (The Crown 3:3 [A.D. 211]).

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He is saying that they gave gifts to God as a thank offerings for giving their loved ones eternal life.​

“A woman, after the death of her husband . . . prays for his soul and asks that he may, while waiting, find rest; and that he may share in the first resurrection. And each year, on the anniversary of his death, she offers the sacrifice” (Monogamy 10:1–2 [A.D. 216]).

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She obviously hasn’t read the “we’ll be like the angels” passage.;
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[East_Anglican]

Cyprian of Carthage

“The strength of the truly believing remains unshaken; and with those who fear and love God with their whole heart, their integrity continues steady and strong. For to adulterers even a time of repentance is granted by us, and peace * is given. Yet virginity is not therefore deficient in the Church, nor does the glorious design of continence languish through the sins of others. The Church, crowned with so many virgins, flourishes; and chastity and modesty preserve the tenor of their glory. Nor is the vigor of continence broken down because repentance and pardon are facilitated to the adulterer. It is one thing to stand for pardon, another thing to attain to glory; it is one thing, when cast into prison, not to go out thence until one has paid the uttermost farthing; another thing at once to receive the wages of faith and courage. It is one thing, tortured by long suffering for sins, to be cleansed and long purged by fire; another to have purged all sins by suffering. It is one thing, in fine, to be in suspense till the sentence of God at the day of judgment; another to be at once crowned by the Lord” (Letters 51[55]:20 [A.D. 253]).

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Long suffering is Hell and not purgatory.​

Cyril of Jerusalem

“Then we make mention also of those who have already fallen asleep: first, the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs, that through their prayers and supplications God would receive our petition; next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who have already fallen asleep, and, to put it simply, of all among us who have already fallen asleep, for we believe that it will be of very great benefit to the souls of those for whom the petition is carried up, while this holy and most solemn sacrifice is laid out” (Catechetical Lectures 23:5:9 [A.D. 350]).

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Through their prayers he said. Through their prayers. They are before the throne of God praying for us. He said nothing of us praying for them.
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[East_Anglican]

Gregory of Nyssa

“If a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted, overcoming the irrational by reason. If he has inclined to the irrational pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire” (Sermon on the Dead [A.D. 382]).

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What he is saying here is that our bodies will rise again as bodies, but in a finer and more glorious form than we have now.​

John Chrysostom

“Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice [Job 1:5], 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” (Homilies on First Corinthians 41:5 [A.D. 392]).

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Yes and the Eastern Orthodox pray for the dead as John Chrysostom but you can not use him to support purgatory.​

“Weep for those who die in their wealth and who with all their wealth prepared no consolation for their own souls, who had the power to wash away their sins and did not will to do it. Let us weep for them, let us assist them to the extent of our ability, let us think of some assistance for them, small as it may be, yet let us somehow assist them. But how, and in what way? By praying for them and by entreating others to pray for them, by constantly giving alms to the poor on their behalf. Not in vain was it decreed by the apostles that in the awesome mysteries remembrance should be made of the departed. They knew that here there was much gain for them, much benefit. When the entire people stands with hands uplifted, a priestly assembly, and that awesome sacrificial Victim is laid out, how, when we are calling upon God, should we not succeed in their defense? But this is done for those who have departed in the faith, while even the catechumens are not reckoned as worthy of this consolation, but are deprived of every means of assistance except one. And what is that? We may give alms to the poor on their behalf” (Homilies on Philippians 3:9–10 [A.D. 402]).​

It is obvious from this this that John Chrysostom was concerned about those who had died who were not Christians. It is hard for the rich to enter Gods kingdom. He suggests praying that God has mercy on them and that giving Alms to the poor may help them. The rich and selfish that go to the piytt won’t so we must set an example to them.#​

 

[East_Anglican]

Augustine

“There is an ecclesiastical discipline, as the faithful know, when the names of the martyrs are read aloud in that place at the altar of God, where prayer is not offered for them. Prayer, however, is offered for other dead who are remembered. It is wrong to pray for a martyr, to whose prayers we ought ourselves be commended” (Sermons 159:1 [A.D. 411]).​

Praying for the dead does not mean purgatory exists.​

“But by the prayers of the holy Church, and by the salvific sacrifice, and by the alms which are given for their spirits, there is no doubt that the dead are aided, that the Lord might deal more mercifully with them than their sins would deserve. The whole Church observes this practice which was handed down by the Fathers: that it prays for those who have died in the communion of the Body and Blood of Christ, when they are commemorated in their own place in the sacrifice itself; and the sacrifice is offered also in memory of them, on their behalf. If, then, works of mercy are celebrated for the sake of those who are being remembered, who would hesitate to recommend them, on whose behalf prayers to God are not offered in vain? It is not at all to be doubted that such prayers are of profit to the dead; but for such of them as lived before their death in a way that makes it possible for these things to be useful to them after death” (ibid., 172:2).

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Augustine was so wrong on a lot of things it’s no wonder The Eastern Orthodox don’t take him that seriously.​

“Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after that judgment” (The City of God 21:13 [A.D. 419]).

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The first bit is right but the next bit is not. There is a remnant of Manicheaism in it.​

“That there should be some fire even after this life is not incredible, and it can be inquired into and either be discovered or left hidden whether some of the faithful may be saved, some more slowly and some more quickly in the greater or lesser degree in which they loved the good things that perish, through a certain purgatorial fire” (Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Charity 18:69 [A.D. 421]).

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First reference to purgatory in any Christian literature. But even here it does not fit the doctrine of purgatory. It is more to do with Theosis.​

“The time which interposes between the death of a man and the final resurrection holds souls in hidden retreats, accordingly as each is deserving of rest or of hardship, in view of what it merited when it was living in the flesh. Nor can it be denied that the souls of the dead find relief through the piety of their friends and relatives who are still alive, when the Sacrifice of the Mediator [Mass] is offered for them, or when alms are given in the Church. But these things are of profit to those who, when they were alive, merited that they might afterward be able to be helped by these things. There is a certain manner of living, neither so good that there is no need of these helps after death, nor yet so wicked that these helps are of no avail after death” (ibid., 29:109).​

That sounds more like the doctrine of Toll Houses than purgatory.

The fact is That the belief in purgatory is yet another medieval superstition. The Superstition is based on an earlier Pagan belief from Plato which went like this. - When you die your soul goes to a place of burning to be purged. After the purging has taken place your soul then leaves that place and is regenerated. After this your soul is put in somebody else.

This belief was adapted to make it fit into Christian thought. The regeneration part had to go because it messed up the belief in Baptismal regeneration and the reincarnation bit also had to go so that you go to Heaven instead. But the rest remained. The origins of the belief in purgatory are purely pagan and do not fit in Jewish or Christian theology.

 

[guanophore]

Does the church teach these passages are about purgatory?

Have you read the forum rules recently? This is one that you violate frequently, responding to a question with a question. Now, be so kind as to go back and address my question.

Yes, all of the NT is a product of Sacred Tradition. Everything in it represents Catholic Teaching.

What was the point of the story in Luke 16:19-31? Was it about purgatory?

I asked you first. Please comply with the forum rules so that you don’t get reported to the mods.

If Christ paid the full price for our sins and His blood cleanses us from all sin why would purgatory be necessary if both of these things that were done are more than sufficent for us to enter heaven right after death?

You are making a distinction that does not exist. Jesus’ blood transcends time and space. It can cleanse at conception, throughout our lives, and prior to our entrance into Heaven. However I agree taht His blood is "more than sufficient.