Recently someone engaged in an apologetic discussion about purgatory e-mailed me with a question about some of the questions that had arisen in the discussion. These touched on some significant issues, including the nature of purgatory and the way it is theologically elaborated. I thought I’d share (a slightly edited version of) my response to him, as it covers some ground one doesn’t often see covered.
I wrote:
There are different ways in which a doctrine can be theologically
elaborated. The core of the doctrine of purgatory is that (a) there is
something that occurs after death in which, for the saved, the
consequences of sin are dealt with and (b) those experiencing this
event or process can be assisted by the prayers and suffrages of the
living. That’s the core, but it can be developed and explained in
different ways.
Historically, a common way of explaining this among many theologians
has involved the idea of temporal punishments, understood in a literal
sense.
This would not conflict with the fact that Christ paid the price for
our sins because Scripture uses language indicating that Christ’s
Atonement, which rescues us from hell and which is sufficient in value
to wipe out all punishment if God wants to apply it that way, usually
does not eliminate all punishment for sin from the Christian life.
Instead, Scripture makes clear, God applies the infinite value of
Christ’s Atonement in a way that rescues us from hell and that
eliminates *many* of the sufferings in this life that we would
experience for our sins, but not *all* of the latter.
The book of Hebrews speaks of God chastizing us for our own good and
scourging every son he receives. There is thus a residuum of
punishment due for our sins that God allows us to bear in order to
teach us a lesson and encourage our growth in holiness. This is not in
contradiction to Christ’s Atonement but an outworking of it. The only
reason we receive this discipline from God is that we are his sons and
he is disciplining us to help us grow. The book of Hebrews makes this
point explicitly.
Since the chastisements and scourging that God allows to come to the
saved are not everlasting, they are therefore referred to as temporal
punishments–punishments that last only for a time, as opposed to the
eternal punishment of hell.
If, when we die, we have not dealt with all the remaining temporal
punishments that God has allowed us to experience for our sins then we
deal with them in purgatory.
This elaboration of purgatory has been popular for a number of
centuries, particularly in the West, where theologians have tended to
apply a juridical (courtroom) model to the situation, with God serving
as a judge who imposes penalties for transgressions of his law (albeit
in a fatherly manner).
Eastern Catholics have not always articulated purgatory in this way.
There are other ways in which the theological core of the doctrine can
be elaborated. One model that has been gaining ground in recent years,
including in the West, does not look to a courtroom/punishment model
but which instead speaks of purgatory as a purification or cleansing
that occurs to deal with attachment to sin. This kind of explanation
is found, for example, in the book Eschatology by Joseph Cardinal
Ratzinger and also in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Exponents of this view tend to view the
punishment/chastisement/scourging language of Scripture less literally
than it has been historically taken, seeing punishment for sin not as
something God inflicts from without but as the natural outworking of
the consequences of our sins, which God allows us to experience.
(Hell is then understood similarly, not as a place to which one is
sentenced by an angry God but as the state of definitive alienation
from God, which one has freely chosen by rejecting God’s offer of
union. In other words, on this understanding, God doesn’t send us to
hell against our will; we insist on leaving his presence and he allows
us to do so.)
How the punishment model and the purification model are to be
reconciled–or even if they need to be reconciled–is not something on
which the Church has authoritatively pronounced.
It is possible to reconcile the two to a significant degree. For
example, relying on the biblical emphasis on the sufferings and the
divine "scourgings" of the saved as means of spiritual training, one
might use the punishment model but say that the *only* temporal
punishments God allows us to experience are those needed for our
sanctification (which on anybody’s account is a painful process for
most).
This would bring the two models significantly into harmony in that on
both there would be no "excess" punishments one received. The only
sufferings the believer would have on account of sin would be those
used for his sanctification.
The question would be how one is to look at these sufferings: Are they
things caused by God from without, on the manner of a father punishing
his children? Or are they the natural outworking of the consequences
of sin, which we might envision as the pain experienced by a patient
who has broken (or shot) his foot and is having it worked on by a
doctor.
There’s a difference between "It’s time to take your punishment" and
"I’ve got to set this bone and it’s going to hurt," but they both
involve sufferings meant for the good of the one who experiences them.
Which way one looks at purgatory is currently an open question in
Catholic theology.
FWIW: Recently, I had a reflection about the cleansing of the soul from the stain of sin, said to be a cleansing by fire.
It came to me that when we humans are guilty of wrongdoing, and then have to face up to their wrongdoing, we feel the “burn” of shame deep in our hearts.
This burning shame varies in degree with the level of offense. Thus, if I a dog runs out in front of my car, and I kill it because I did not try to dodge it, I feel guilt, but it is neither lasting nor deep because the dog was not human; if I spend my income on drugs or gambling, depriving my family of necessities, then my guilt is deep and lasting.
In both examples, our guilt serves the useful purpose of correcting our behavior, of cleansing our conscience of the stain of selfishness that caused our actions. And we grow in love for others.
How much more guilt would I feel when I come face to face with God, who is love, and I am shown how I willfully sinned against Him! How much deeper and “burning” would be the shame in my soul.
Perhaps this is the punishment that God leaves us with in purgatory – our own shameful guilt that burns our souls until it burns out all desire to ever sin against Him again.
I spoke to an Orthodox convert from protestantism who rejects as Western heresy the “penal” view, and even concludes that no one goes to Hell since there is no punishment, and that Scripture is wrong to the extent that it says otherwise. I don’t know how representative of Orthodoxy this person’s opinions are.
Is this the East/West division on the two views a big obstacle to reunification? Are there protestant versions of “penal” perspectives that the Catholic Church rejects with the Orthodox? I think I heard Jimmy on the radio distinguishing between an acceptable and an unacceptable view of penal substitutionary atonement.
I spoke to an Orthodox convert from protestantism who… even concludes that no one goes to Hell since there is no punishment, and that Scripture is wrong to the extent that it says otherwise. I don’t know how representative of Orthodoxy this person’s opinions are.
Not very. I’d be willing to venture that most Orthodox would regard that person as quite heterodox. Too close to apokatastasis, sometimes called “Origenism” (though it’s debatable that Origen ever held or taught it).
Regarding the Orthodox and purgatory, check out Cleansed After Death and On the Toll Houses and Purgatory.
I can’t help but think that choosing one or the other as “the official view” is detrimental. Personally, I think the idea of God of Father brings us to both: a father is authoritative as well as nurturing.
I can’t seem to reconcile the punishment view with the idea of a loving God in my mind.
If God forgives us our sin, why does He need to punish us? If my friend says I’m a jerk, but then asks forgiveness, I don’t say, “of course I forgive you,” and then punch him in the face. That just doesn’t make sense, especially from the point of a loving God.
The idea of God purifying us makes perfect sense to me on the other hand.
You beat me to it, Jim! 🙂 Thanks for posting your response.
I’m fessing up — it was me who asked Jimmy to clarify because things were getting confused over at my blog. It seems to have been clarified, if the comments are any indication, although I’d be happy to hear from the same guy again if he has questions (and I’m sure Jimmy would entertain them, too, should the same guy ask Jimmy instead).
Shane, the use of fatherly discipline in Hebrews 12 is the perfect illustration, but it’s particularly effective if you’re a father yourself. As with God, we do not punish for the sake of punishment. Even after forgiveness is sought and given, punishment (or consequence, I’ll get there in a bit) may still follow, depending on the gravity of the transgression. I might forgive my son for drawing crayon on the walls, but he still gets to clean it up — with my help, since I’d have to prepare that magical solution that my wife has consisting of lemon (I think — I’m not quite sure WHAT she puts in there) and dishwashing liquid. Anyway, we might call that sort of punishment nothing more than consequence, but it is punishment of a sort, and the end is still discipline. Underlying all of that is indeed love — love that seeks the correction of the object of love, for their own good.
That works as far as earthly temporal punishment is concerned. In other words, it helps a person to learn and to grow in faith and to become closer to God. However, once this earthly life is done, and a person is destined for Heaven, the idea of punishment just for punishment’s sake doesn’t reconcile with God. In other words, He would certainly go ahead and punish, or allow punishment of, us on earth, because through that we get what’s best for us. We learn from discipline. The thing is, once we’re dead, there’s nothing to learn anymore in that same sense. We don’t need to learn our lesson. We need to be purified, sure, but punishing us in the same way that earthly fathers punish their children doesn’t make any sense at all. I’m having a hard time articulating this so I hope that I’m coming across right.
Maybe this is how I ought to say it. On earth, this chastisement, this discipline, helps us grow and helps us to make better choices in the future. It helps us to eternal life and to what’s best for us by guiding us into the state where we make the right choices. Once we’re dead, we don’t have any more choices to make. We’re either going to Heaven or Hell. If God wants to put us in the state where we view things correctly, that’s fine, but disciplinary punishment isn’t going to work then because the basis of discipline is that we learn to avoid negative consequences. Once we’re dead, nothing we’ll be “doing” is going to have negative consequences. Discipline won’t mean anything any more. That’s where I have the problem with purgatory seen as pure and simple punishment.
Shane–does this help? I often warn my daughter ahead of time about certain consequences: “If you do X, then you will suffer Y.” Of course, I don’t WANT to inflict Y, but my hope is that she’ll steer away from X.
In a similar way, maybe we could see the punishments of Purgatory as God’s “Y”. In this case, what God wants is for us to make sufficient reparation for sin in THIS LIFE–thus falling under what you classified as profitable–but if we brush that aside, then we do not thereby escape making reparation. The knowledge that we can’t escape the duty of making reparation by blowing it off until we’re dead might steer us away from sin (with its attendant reparatory sufferings) and towards taking up our cross of mortification in the here-and-now.
At least, that seems like a fatherly strategy I can understand from my experience.
the idea of punishment just for punishment’s sake doesn’t reconcile with God
You’re right. But no one has suggested that “punishment just for punishment’s sake” is good, nor that there will ever be any such thing.