The Best Arguement In Favor Of Purgatory

[thessalonian]

Bottom line either YOU ARE completely PURE completely HOLY completely PERFECT at this instant or there has to be no possibility of a bus running over you or a meteor falling on you head or a heart attack happening until you are, or there has to be a purification between death and heaven. Imputed righteousness does not deal with this.

[Paddington]

Thessalonian,

Unfortunately, I'm pretty indifferent to what you said. This is not my debate. I pitched in. That's all. Most Protestants go on believing that their sinful nature is dead at death. Apparently so do the Eastern Orthodox. I guess they call it a doctrine and stop thinking about it.

I want to be on the record that I have never heard anybody say that Purgatory is 100% suffering. Maybe I gave that impression. If I did, then I apologize. What I've heard is that the smallest pain in Purgatory is greater than the largest pain on earth and I've heard something about the "misty-rain section" of Purgatory from a heavily disputed Catholic source. It would be good if somebody posted something concrete about the non-painful side of Purgatory.

I find it very regrettable that you said, "I know how bad protestants don't hate, appreciate suffering and can see no good in it,..." because that is not true.

I Corinthians 3 obviously has subtle differences across translations and it is good that you pointed that out. Of course, now what we really need is a perfect Greek exegesis to give the final say. Maybe you or somebody will come up with it. You added something else unnecessary, "I know the mushed down version is more appealing to those who don't see any value in suffering."
There is no Holy Bible in existence that does not prominently teach suffering as part of following Christ.

Paddington

[LouisvilleFan]

Good points Paddington. The only concrete thing that can be said about purgatory is summed up in four short paragraphs of the Catechism. There isn't much. Everything else is imagery that helps some people with the concept of purgatory, but for example, it is not part of our faith that the smallest pain in purgatory is worse than the greatest pain on earth. That isn't a doctrine. Frankly, I think that borders on heresy. There are many pains on earth that, being away from God, would be far worse than the pains we'll endure when Christ lovingly makes our bodies and souls perfect for Heaven.

Think about the pain of growing up without loving parents. Millions of people endure that pain every day, and in seeking that l0ve, they fall in l0ve with many earthly things that can never truly l0ve them back and fulfill the emptiness of their hearts. They may never know a Father's l0ve until after they die, but all people have the hope of dying in God's grace, when Christ will burn away all the attachments to things they loved in this world and heal the wounds suffered from them, and create in them a clean heart overflowing with their Father's perfect l0ve.

This hope is available to every one of us... and that's cause for rejoicing! Instead of aiming for heaven and hoping to hit purgatory, as if the Gospel is some kind of cruel dart game where your salvation depends on your own skill and ability, how about we simply live for heaven? If you do that, the joy of purgatory will be a daily experience!

Or, consider this: Who experienced a foretaste the l0ve and joy of Heaven and who suffered the pains and torments of Hell: St. Ignatius, with his flesh being torn apart by lions in the arena, or Kurt Cobain, pulling the trigger to his head in the comfort of his home with all the fame and money one could desire? Both suffered greatly, but knowing l0ve in our hearts not only makes all physical suffering endurable, but even a cause for joy. When we are strangers to l0ve, nothing brings joy and temporal blessings even magnify the emptiness in our hearts.

Edited April 4, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='thessalonian' post='1491833' date='Apr 3 2008, 10:37 AM']Bottom line either YOU ARE completely PURE completely HOLY completely PERFECT at this instant or there has to be no possibility of a bus running over you or a meteor falling on you head or a heart attack happening until you are, or there has to be a purification between death and heaven. Imputed righteousness does not deal with this.[/quote]

The simple Protestant answer is "grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone." Not all Protestants would say righteousness is imputed, but all Christians believe that somehow through the mystery of God's grace we are made perfect for heaven. If you get down to the basics of Catholic teaching on this (i.e. get ride of the hellfire and brimstone writings of Middle Age saints who had horrific visions of purgatory, none of which we are expected or required to believe), Catholicism and Protestantism are not so far apart. The real difficulty, I think, is that the word "purgatory" carries a lot of baggage (it was abusive teachings about purgatory and indulgences that the "95 Theses" addressed, after all). I'll bet if you explain what purgatory is without using the p-word, you'll find many Protestants will at least concede that our belief is plausible.

Edited April 4, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[dairygirl4u2c]

one thing about purgatory that prots might disagree with, or at least the common understanding of it.

the idea of purgatory is that you are to make amends,,,, it's not forgivness but rather the temperal amending. if it's something like you get burned in fire because you cursed God's name once wihtout making amends.... that doesn't seem right, pointless.

that said, amends makes sense in the sense of sorrow, etc etc, it's a natural outcome.

they might agree with making amends as in returning something, on earth, and doing work like returning something in purgatory, but the punishment for the sake of somehting that can'tbe fixed i'd bet could be unsettling depending on how you think of it and how it is.

[JesusIsMySuperHero]

First of all, there is one essential ingredient that everybody hasn't brought up yet with sanctification, and that is justification.

This is the two components with salvation.

There is no amount of sanctification that will get you into heaven, period. If there was, sign me up, I want to be on that course, well actually, no. Because there is nothing I can do to deserve heaven.

Then there is this thing called grace. Now the Catholics have this idea, grace equals sinlessness. It's not. Grace is un-warrented favour from God.

This comes from the initial part - justification. You see, if you believe in Christ's death on the cross, you are now justified in the eyes of God. Jesus died to take away the sins of God's people, it says so in Matthew and Luke and John.

John the Baptist even said, behold the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Every time you repent of your sins, Jesus takes more sins upon himself, as you confess your sins to him. When he takes the sins to himself, through your belief that he does, you become sinless before the eyes of God, as he now sees the sins nailed on the cross, and no more on you.

That is justification. Of course, once you are justified, if you sin again, you must repent again. Sanctification is less about sinning less, but it is a component. It is about testing your faith more and more, and becoming stronger and stronger in the lord.

On Baptism, Once you believe in Christ's death on the cross, usually, what I have found with new converts, they want to be baptized, to show their faith in God. It is an essential part, as it identifies you with the death of Christ, for we are buried with Christ for baptism, which shows death to one's own will, but total submission to God and his word, as Jesus said - he who is born again (from above) through the water and the spirit shall see the kingdom of heaven. If you have repented of your sins, and are baptized, you shall be filled with the holy spirit, which brings about sanctification .

So in the eyes of God - step one - belief = justification. Step two - commitment and turn around = sanctification over time.

Then you start your walk with God under the first step in that walk - salvation. Then there is trials for God to prove your faith, and lastly - you enter into warfare, once the devil realizes, nothing he can do can stop you from serving God with all your heart, mind, strength and soul.

I hope that explains a lot as to what Justification and sanctification means.

[dairygirl4u2c]

so, to me, you are arguing that since you are justified, there's no point in purgatory. but, as i discused in the other thread.... what about the purifying fire, what about the blows that Jesus would give to those who are saved?
the fires and blows are almost surely purgatoyr, i don't see any way around it. either you are in pain in heaven, or you are in purgatory,,,, not even necessarily a difference here, ya know. heaven's said to be perfect, so if you are not in perfection, maybe youu're not really in heaven even if kinda you are. heaven's porch, as catholics like to say. i don't see much of a difference other than tehcnialities that might not even exist.

purgatory could be only increasing in sanctification. it's not necessarily completing justification, which many say was completed at death. it's an open question.

so you don't seem to have much of a bicker with purgatory as you do with faith and works etc.

justification in catholic understanding is not a whole lot different than prot, depending on how you look at it.
they don't think you need so many works to get saved so much, they don't think you need an increasing amount of works necessarily.... though this is almost certainly the case.
the only clear thing is they say the sanctification you speak of adds to the justification. you are a participant in your salvation. to me, this is more of a techicnal difference, nothing substantial. i could see saying it's substantial cause you want to stress the work of Jesus, but to me,,, works are required in both camps, and santifiction increases,,, the only question is what it does.
the argument from catholic is that,,,, why not have participation in the process? a technical participation, cause what you lack, Jesus will comensate for, as catholics die in sin and imperfect all the time and that's acnowledged.

i mean,,, i also think it's more biblical to say you aprticipate in taht way. James 2 "not saved by faith alone" (the only place faith alone is mentioned in the bible ironically), "by works we are justified".
the lambs and the goats in matthew.
Romans, 2, i believe.... where those who perserve in good works get salvaiton and those who don't damnation.
now, surely you can find arguments against these.... it depends on how reconcile the apparent discrepancies. (if you've ever noticed James talks about Abraham justified by works, and Paul talks about him justified by faith.... apparent discrepancy depending on how reconciled) most things Jesus himself says sounds more cahtolic.... many things paul says sounds more protestant... obviously they are not both wrong,,, but it's something to think about reconciling what Paul said with what Jesus said, not the other way around.

if you want to get into biblcal and theological talks on this, you've come to the right website.
hopefully you will keep an open mind.

Edited April 5, 2008 by dairygirl4u2c

[dairygirl4u2c]

given that it depends on how you reconcile passages etc, and not necessarily unquestionably clear either way... i'd argue that you should attack the CC by finding contradictions in teaching.... as i posit there would almost surely be some if it's not God's church as claimed, in 2000 years of teaching.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='dairygirl4u2c' post='1492516' date='Apr 4 2008, 02:06 PM']the idea of purgatory is that you are to make amends,,,, it's not forgivness but rather the temperal amending. if it's something like you get burned in fire because you cursed God's name once wihtout making amends.... that doesn't seem right, pointless.[/quote]

Show me that in the Cathechism.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='JesusIsMySuperHero' post='1492863' date='Apr 5 2008, 12:52 AM']Then there is this thing called grace. Now the Catholics have this idea, grace equals sinlessness. It's not. Grace is un-warrented favour from God.[/quote]

Aaaand show us that in the [url="http://ccc.scborromeo.org.master.com/texis/master/search/?sufs=0&q=grace&xsubmit=Search&s=SS"]Catechism[/url] ;-)

[JesusIsMySuperHero]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' post='1493174' date='Apr 5 2008, 06:07 PM']Aaaand show us that in the [url="http://ccc.scborromeo.org.master.com/texis/master/search/?sufs=0&q=grace&xsubmit=Search&s=SS"]Catechism[/url] ;-)[/quote]

Well, I always thought that Catholics consider Mary sinless, because she was full of grace. Maybe I misunderstood the thought processes, so if I have, please forgive me.

[Paddington]

The amends side of Purgatory has me very interested too. I used to kinda assume that Catholics believed that. Where I heard it was from Ancient Greek Philosophy about Purgatory. I ran it by a veteran priest once and he basically directed me away from the idea.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='JesusIsMySuperHero' post='1493321' date='Apr 5 2008, 11:32 PM']Well, I always thought that Catholics consider Mary sinless, because she was full of grace. Maybe I misunderstood the thought processes, so if I have, please forgive me.[/quote]

I see what you're saying. We do believe Mary is sinless and one of the verses used to back that is Gabriel describing Mary as "full of grace" in his greeting to her. And we agree on what you say about grace: it is unwarranted favor from God. To reconcile this, you need to consider the Immaculate Conception. At the moment of Mary's conception, God granted her the grace to be free from all sin. Being a single cell at that moment, she obviously didn't merit this freedom from sin, and being filled with grace, her entire life is a pure testimony to the l0ve of God (i.e. her good works were the pure fruit of grace, not her own will). So she was sinless because of God's grace, but she didn't deserve it any more than the rest of us.

The link I gave (if you click on Catechism in my previous post) is a search for the word "grace" in the Catechism and there you'll find more specifics about the various kinds of grace, like sacramental grace, the grace of charism (like a charism of celibacy), and graces received through more everyday experiences. Catholics are all about some grace

Edited April 6, 2008 by LouisvilleFan

[thessalonian]

Jesus is,

You distort. No grace does not mean sinnlessness. Grace is the means God uses to actually wash and cleans our sins away from us. It is the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through us. That power can cleanse us from sin but it can also keep us from sinning. Don't you attritube some of the sins you don't committ to God's power working in your life? Paul says "you must not sin" but does he attibute it to your own power not to sin? No. God gives us the grace to sin. Grace is not just God being nice and forgetting about sin. It is him actively working in our lives to help us overcome our human fraility.

The reason that justification (by the protestant definition) has not brought up is because we agree that forgiveness of sin comes first. One becomes "saved" first before there is any sanctification. Those in purgatory are not justified (by the protestant definition) but sanctified (by both of our definitions). You really should not come here thinking you understand Catholicism and can make substantial arguements against it because you don't and you can't. Ask and learn.

Blessings

[thessalonian]

JesusIS,

By the way, your method of weasiling out of the question at hand is typical. You slip in that sanctification is a process but don't ever answer how that process is guaranteed to be completed by the end of life. Nor do you answer the question of whether or not sanctification has to be completed to enter in to heaven. We agree that not being sanctified does not mean one is not saved.