Science and Purgatory

Faith & Science Conversation
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In his book Science and the Trinity: The Christian Encounter with Reality John Polkinghorne in effect defends the idea of Purgatory – though a different sort of Purgatory (I’ll get to that). He begins with the observation that science shows us that God is patient, working through processes that can take immense amounts of time, and not often in sudden dramatic interventions – and even when He does dramatic interventions they are part of a plan that covers generations. Then he notes that just because we go from an old creation to a new one God isn’t going to change His patience or His love, that these will continue.
Thus to Purgatory: not the traditional place of torment for sins to burn them out, but a place of hope where ‘souls’ can strive to gain more and more of the Light. He invokes the Mount of Purgatory from Dante’s Purgatorio, where sinners work their way up the mountain towards heaven with angels cheering them on, striving upward in the knowledge that they cannot slip backwards.

I find this a definitely more positive view of Purgatory. The doctrine has often been defended with Paul’s assertion that some will be saved “as through fire”, but as some have pointed out in this forum that’s a tenuous connection. The doctrine is built more on the idea that we must be pure to gain heaven and that God in His mercy will make that possible for believers who are “not up to par”, and on the idea that God is vengeful and enjoys punishing people. But God is love, and if there is some sort of Purgatory w should expect it to be loving, not vindictive.

Anyway . . . . all ye science types and others, comments?

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C.S. Lewis believed in purgatory, his book “The great Divorce” is one of the examples of that.

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Nice imagination but I do not find the idea convincing.

During this life, there is hopefully a process of growth where we should learn and get rid of harmful habits and false beliefs. Maybe this could be called ‘strive towards more and more of the Light’.

During longer periods of time (generations), there is hopefully a process that leads towards increased understanding. I believe God has a long-term plan and He is guiding His followers towards the goal He has.

The first process happens during our life (at individual level), the second during much longer times (generations) and at the level of tribes, nations, humanity or church. The idea that there is between these two a process called ‘purgatory’ - happening at individual level but after current life has ended - is highly speculative. I do not find sufficient support for the idea, not from the knowledge of observable life or the scriptures. It demands wild imagination to develop this kind of mental images from the simple words “as through fire”.

My mental image from the words of “as through fire” is a man that is standing at the smoking remains of his house. He managed to escape from the burning house but everything he had collected and stored in the house, his life’s work, burned. He lost everything, except his life.

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Which is all of us!

Amen to all that!

I find myself more and more led to the idea that heaven and hell begin for us now already … and so then, perhaps ‘pergatory’ too! Meaning, to the extent that ‘pergatory’ is meant to refer to some sort of ‘in-between’ state or some necessary ‘preparatory’ period, this life is that very kind of place for us. And it goes without saying that while an individual’s work may become ‘finished’ in the sense of them being called (death) beyond their brief physical span, that on the other hand, the greater Work is always ongoing, and it would be part of God’s uber-necessary continued work on us and in us that we should continue to become fitted for heaven in all the ways that we will still have failed that while still living for ourselves (the kernal not yet falling to the ground so that it can then die and produce much more good fruit).

While you (I guess) may see yourself as challenging @St.Roymond in saying this, I’m not so sure this is really different. I think you’re probably right too. Our own salvation may only become recognized by us after everything else that we thought felt like salvation, and that we chased after instead, has been burned down.

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Just shooting from the hip;

I’m not ready to play harps with Peter forever. Purgatory is appealing to me or at least some sort of “leveling up” in the afterlife. I have much more growth to do.

The modern “Jesus or hell” is often based on “it is appointed for men to die once then face judgment” but even within that proof-text hunting, I don’t see why purgatory can’t be a judgment.

Jesus told the criminal on the cross, today you will be with me in paradise. But in other parts of scripture it seems to hint at a future general resurrection of the dead. I’m not sure scripture provides a very detailed or univocal view of what happens when we die. We just know we want and should be on God’s team and go to a place where every tear will be erased (maybe eventually).

I find purgatory just makes sense but I kind of doubt most “sola scripture” proponents would accept it.

I also wouldn’t dismiss a punishment aspect of purgatory as God being vindictive. For me it makes sense that sin is punished. That all the unredressed wrongs in the world can be dealt with in the afterlife is important in my thought process. Of course, this needs to be considered alongside the concept of God’s grace. That Hod offers free forgiveness and love doesn’t mean I don’t need to grow in it or maybe even that part of his love is offering a chance at punitive/restorative redemption I don’t deserve. I don’t know. Squaring those two away, if even possible, would require a lot more reflection.

Vinnie

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I find the idea of purgatory to be repugnant. There is enough suffering in this life without adding to it. It also smacks of needing some sort of perfection that the whole principle of forgiveness negates…

Richard

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I do not know what happens after death, except the little that the NT scriptures hint.
I find the speculative idea of purgatory questionable because of two reasons.
(1) I do not find support for it in the biblical scriptures, which makes me wonder what is the source of this idea - what is the background and the cultural context of this hypothesis? The history of the idea may be well known but I have not studied it.
(2) purgatory questions the assumption that what Jesus did was sufficient for salvation. Purgatory is perhaps better than eternal separation from God (hell = Gehenna) but it adds the need for us to suffer enough so that we can be forgiven. Jesus + enough of suffering by me = salvation - is that assumption justifiable?

If the idea of purgatory is combined with the belief that sufficient rituals or donations can shorten the time in purgatory, then there is a danger that salvation becomes at least partly merchandise - those who have money and influence can buy a ticket out of purgatory.

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I can understand the repugnance from what ‘purgatory’ became in its historically institutional sense.

I think there’s a difference between the claim that “Christ finished the work of opening up a path of salvation for us - and all that is necessary to save us” and the different claim that “There was or is some point at which Christ’s work on / in me is complete and He has no more to do.”

[In fact - in some ways, I don’t think much of ‘purgatory’ as a descriptive label for anything. I have a different word I would use for it … life. Or death turning toward life.]

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I would say that the whole concept of salvation relies on a single moment as opposed to a linear life. The forgiveness is repeated which is why OSAS does not work, but it is limitless so there should be no need for anything to follow it. Ultimately the moment that matters is the moment of death.

Richard

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I figured you’d pounce on that. :smiley:

I made the same point once to a Roman Catholic priest. His response was that those who have gone to Confession and been absolved don’t go to purgatory. I said that kind of screws up the whole idea; someone who has lived a saintly life but committed some major sin just before dying would end up in Purgatory while a mass murderer who had just walked out of Confession and dropped dead would be fine – so the point of Purgatory has to be to make people more Christlike, not just officially forgiven.
And if I’m understanding Polkinhorne right, that fits with his concept.

That would seem to fit with Polkinghorne’s idea.

Heck, I’ve gone through that at least three times in my life!

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That thought occurred to me a while back while reading something by John Stott . . . can’t recall what it was though. It came back to me when reading this part of Polkinghorne’s book.

Two things: that happened on the Cross, and when in a new life we see clearly all that we did wrong, just seeing the holes that left in who we could have been will be torture beyond comprehension.

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I don’t think that applies to Polkinghorne’s concept, which is not about punishment and suffering but about striving to fix the “holes” in out lives so we can become whole people.

Yeah, that’s tied into the whole “treasury of merits” idea in Roman Catholicism, which is something I can’t see any way to regard good Christology because it implies at root that God can be bought.

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I don’t believe in purgatory teaching because it is based on the premise that there are those without sin who don’t need to have them removed and they go to heaven.

WRONG!

We all have sin which needs to be removed, and thus the place where this happens is the only heaven with any people in it.

Pah!

All the evidence demonstrates that the removal of sin is an extremely difficult and painful process. The “wide road” is the comfortable road where people cling to their sins even as those sins devour them – frogs in the slowly boiling water.

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None of which has the least thing to do with what I wrote and you quoted.

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I am lucky to be born in a Christian country and when I experienced God in my life I had no idea which religion to chose. I went to a Church, learned about Christ and became a Christian. What if I was born in a Muslim country, would I have been a Muslim?

Do devout Muslims go to hell?

Or to put it in a different way, are there second chances in afterlife?

John 3:16 - For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
John 3:17 - For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

2Petr 3:9 - The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

It’s God’s strong desire all will be saved and what me wonder is if His desire ends after a person dies. The common belief is yes for instance per Hebr 9:27, but it isn’t saying what the judgement will be, the common belief is that Christians will (popular said) go to heaven and the rest goes to hell, but the text says nothing about that, only that all will be judged.

So, someone dies, an unbeliever, a Muslim, a Buddhist, a criminal. Did God stop loving him/her? Did God’s desire him/her to be saved stopped also? Or is there a second chance for repentance? Even we give people second chances, our juridical systems give people second chances.

I like the scenario C.S. Lewis created in his book “The great divorce”, a bit comparable with the New Jerusalem in Revelation -

Rev 22:14 - Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates.
Rev 22:15 - Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

C.S. Lewis argues the dogs, the sorcerers etc. can still repent and enter the city but many of them are repulsive to come to the light, prefer to remain in their sins, too proud to confess etc. etc. and remain in the darkness.

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That question has been danced around by Christians since Christ said that “No one comes to the Father except by me”

The point being, it is not what we think that matters, only what Christ thinks. IOW Christ can, and probably does, bring non-Christians to the Father, because, or even despite, their personal beliefs.

Richard

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  • Purgatory is a Repair Shop. A Recycle Bin is where you go when you’re beyond repair.
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I agree! While I have no objection to praying for the dead (including for recognised saints, as I believe the Orthodox do), I feel that the living, in our war-ravaged world, are much more in need of prayer than are the dead. Excessive “praying for souls in purgatory” seems unnecessary, though many of my fellow-Catholics probably wouldn’t agree!

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I’ve been binging on all the old House, MD episodes so my thought was a hospital, but repair shop may work better since how long you’re in it depends on how wrecked you are.
Though just as a sword can be reforged, things in a recycle bin can often be restored.

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The second thing is speculation, the same as purgatory. The idea of torture beyond comprehension doesn’t sound like heaven, it sounds like purgatory or maybe worse. As for the first part, this is very important and I’ll offer thoughts on it in response also to what Knor said below.

It can but it depends on who is teaching purgatory. Officially I believe purgatory is for people who are saved. It’s a refinement or preparation process. From Catholic.com

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines purgatory as a “purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven,” which is experienced by those “who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified” (CCC 1030). It notes that “this final purification of the elect . . . is entirely different from the punishment of the damned” (CCC 1031).

The purification is necessary because, as Scriptureteaches, nothing unclean will enter the presence of God in heaven (Rev. 21:27) and, while we may die with our mortal sins forgiven, there can still be many impurities in us, specifically venial sins and the temporal punishment due to sins already forgiven.

So it’s not an issue of whether or not what Jesus did was enough, but a question of where is the sinner saved by the blood of Christ at upon entering the afterlife. Maybe we all end up in purgatory for a stint for sanctification.

Also, this whole idea tends to assumes we know or agree on what Jesus actually accomplished on the Cross which to me is a murky area.

I’m not sure how someone can actually be punished for other people’s sins and meaningfully say they can be forgiven on this account. I lean towards a solidarity model of atonement but realize that scripture (and most major church traditions) without a shred of doubt goes well beyond this into what some here might deem “blood magic.” But I mean, a lot of those metaphors seem cultural and to stem from a time where blood sacrifice was normal. For me it makes little sense. Mercy makes far more sense than sacrifice. But an atonement discussion is its own thread. I just don’t think the nature of purgatory can really be discussed without first laying out those assumption about what Jesus actually did on the Cross.

For me, the canon is a part of Church tradition as is purgatory. All mainline traditions are worth exploring. Some we keep, some we reject. We disagree on sola scripture but there is no reason to discuss that further here. But I will say that to me, both scripture and tradition teach universal salvation, annihilationism, and eternal conscious torment depending on where you look. “Bible alone” arguments don’t really carry much force for me. We have to bring external beliefs in, especially when Scripture is not even remotely univocal on an issue.