What About Purgatory?

I never, even for a moment, entertained the notion that the doctrine of Purgatory may be true for the first 30+ years of my life. The only thought I ever gave to the doctrine was for about 20 minutes in high school when a Catholic girl spoke about the doctrine at Youth Alive. It was an awful experience for everyone involved. It was awful for her because she really didn't have a strong enough grasp on the doctrine to speak about it, much less defend it, in front of a hostile and more-or-less biblically knowledgeable crowd. It was awful for the rest of us because a few of us who had less than zero tact went on the offensive and ended up making her cry. I didn't feel so bad about it at the time, but in retrospect it was an instance severely lacking in Christlikeness.

Now that I've come to terms with the fact that doctrinally I'm more traditionally orthodox than I previously suspected, I've decided it's probably time to start thinking more seriously about Purgatory. This post will be a bit of an outline of why I'm considering giving this doctrine an endorsement. I'm not ready to commit just yet, don't get me wrong. I think, though, that if I were really forced to hazard a guess, my guess would be in the affirmative.

I think the primary source of my skepticism of Purgatory has been an almost complete lack of understanding of some basics about the doctrine. Before moving on to my argument, then, I want to make two points.

First, it is often claimed that Purgatory is a figment of the Catholic Church's imagination, designed primarily for the purpose of collecting indulgences (in fact, when I mentioned Purgatory to my roommates, the first thing one of them said was, "didn't the Catholic Church just make that up?").  In reality, though, it's not clear that this doctrine was ever in doubt at any point prior to the Reformation. References to the doctrine go all the way back to the second century C.E. (Origen, Hippolytus) and it appears from Augustine and Gregory I to have been widespread by the fourth and fifth centuries.  Further, a fairly rich tradition of belief in a Purgatorial state exists in ancient Jewish literature (Talmud and Apocrypha for sure, and possibly Josephus), which lends credence to the idea that early Christians received the belief as part of the Jewish tradition from which Christianity arose.

Next, I think the basic definition of the doctrine needs to be established, since it is commonly misunderstood by outsiders to Catholicism/Orthodoxy.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines the doctrine in this way:

1030 "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.

1031 “The Church gives the name Purgatory to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the punishment of the damned."

St. Gregory is then quoted as giving the following argument:

"As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offenses can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come."

The supposed efficacy of prayers for the dead is also listed as justification for the doctrine, but since I am skeptical of said efficacy, I won't bother quoting this section.

Purgatory is not, as is the common misconception, a place where souls who narrowly missed the cut will go to earn the rest of their salvation by suffering for their sins. It is a place where those who are already saved will go for purification.

I'm not going to spend a bunch of space here defending the doctrine against all comers. If objections come later (and I hope they do), I'll try to deal with them then. For now I want to try to reason through why I believe Purgatory may be exactly the kind of place we would expect an omni-benevolent God to create.  

In the argument that follows, I assume the following controversial beliefs to be true and will not offer independent arguments for them here: Christian orthodoxy, some sort of mind/body dualism, inclusivism, progressive sanctification, and theosis.  I'm sure I've missed some, but these are the ones that come to mind for now.

I think that if God is omni-benevolent, He would provide a possibility for the salvation of the unchurched. Otherwise, He creates certain people (a great many people, in fact) without any possibility of avoiding damnation, then holds them accountable for it. I doubt this can be reconciled with a loving creator. The great theologian Karl Rahner spoke of “anonymous Christians.” This term refers to non-Christians who are saved by the grace of Christ. The view that anonymous Christians exist is called “inclusivism.” Again, I have no intention of defending inclusivism here. Suffice it to say that for the purposes of this argument I'm assuming the truth of inclusivism. This is to say that I believe many who have never heard the gospel, have only heard a distorted version of it, lack the mental capacity to grasp it, etc. may nevertheless be saved by God's grace. This is a pretty widespread intuition in many, if not most, Christians I know.

So under the assumption that anonymous Christians exist, here is my argument.

As a first premise, we'll simply state what we know about anonymous Christians: they will have had no opportunity to undergo any real process of sanctification in their earthly life. After all, how can one undergo a process of becoming more Christlike or of conforming her will to Christ's if she has never heard of Christ or been introduced to His teachings? So my first premise is just that anonymous Christians will end this earthly life without having undergone sanctification.

Second premise: some degree of sanctification is required to be in communion with God (I know “communion with God” is a loaded term. When I use this term I'm thinking about remaining in the presence of God post-judgment). This belief is firmly entrenched in the history of Christian thought, and is a part of any version of the ordo salutis. I won't do any exegesis, so if anyone wants to dispute this interpretation of the verses that follow they are welcome to do so. Here's a little rundown of texts I think support this claim: Lev. 11:44, Rom. 6:22, 2 Cor. 3:18, 1 Thess. 5:23, Heb. 12:14, and Rev. 3:15-20. Interestingly, Rev. 3:15-20 was the text used in the incident I referenced above to make the poor Catholic girl cry. I thought for sure it created an air-tight case against Purgatory. Now I think actually creates a case for this premise. If God spews the luke-warm out of his mouth, does this not demonstrate that one must have undergone some degree of sanctification in order to be in communion with Him?

So the argument thus far is this:

1.  Anonymous Christians will end this earthly life without having undergone sanctification.

2.  Sanctification is required to be in communion with God.

Now let's add one more:

3.  Anonymous Christians will eventually be in communion with God. I take this to be obvious. The definition of an “anonymous Christian” is just someone who is not a “Christian” by creed, but who is, in fact, saved. If one is saved, she will eventually be in communion with God.

So:

4.  Anonymous Christians will end this life without having undergone that which is  required to be in communion with God. (1,2)

5.  Those who will eventually be in communion with God will end this life without having undergone that which is required to be in communion with God. (3,4)

The conclusion must be that that which is required for communion with God (sanctification) will happen at some point other than this earthly life. Continued sanctification, especially in the Eastern Orthodox tradition, is the primary purpose of Purgatory. It also meets the qualification of not being part of this earthly life. I think, then, that if one shares my intuitions about anonymous Christians/inclusivism and the benevolence of God, she should very seriously consider the doctrine of Purgatory to be a live option in her theology.

Though my argument above is specific to inclusivists like me, please don't make the mistake of thinking Purgatory is only an option for inclusivists.  It isn't.  The example that comes to mind is the thief on the cross with Jesus.  Surely the thief will have no time to undergo sanctification prior to his death.  Should we say he will never undergo sanctification and will thereby skip an important step in the ordo?  Perhaps purgation is a simple theological solution even for exclusivists who want to retain strong notions of the necessity of sanctification for communion with God.

Project Abandoned

I need to apologize that I was unable (or too lazy...take your pick) to finish my project on creation.  I know a number of people were reading, interested in, and even open-minded to what I was writing.  However, the project just got too big for me at a time when I was busy with a career change and just got busy with life in general.  So, rather than leave an unfinished project on the blog, I just deleted the whole thing.  If any of you are interested in hearing more on the topic or would like to discuss it, just let me know.  I'd be happy to talk about it any time outside the context of the blog.