What Happens in Purgatory? Tim Staples

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What Happens in Purgatory?
Tim Staples on Catholic Answers Live

Purgatory is a state of purification before heaven. But what exactly goes on there? We can't know every detail about it in this life, but the Bible does give us clues

 

Catholic Crusader

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Premise 1: There will be neither sin nor attachment to sin in heaven.

Premise 2:
We (at least most of us) are still sinning and are attached to sin at the end of this life.

Conclusion: Therefore there must be a period between death and heavenly glory in which the saved are cleansed of sin and their attachment to sin.

Because this is a deductive argument, if one wants to dispute the conclusion, he must take issue with one of the premises, since the conclusion follows from them necessarily.

So which is it?

Is it not true that the saved in heaven are perfectly sanctified? (“Nothing unclean shall enter [heaven].” — Rev 21:27).

Or is it not true that we are still sinning and attached to sin at the end of our earthly life? (If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” — 1 John 1:8).

You can’t get out of this argument by asserting, as I read one man say, that Christ covers us with his righteousness the moment we are justified, and therefore God sees us as he sees his Son, Jesus. To do this would be to deny the first premise (and what the Bible teaches) and to believe, instead, that the unclean will enter heaven, but that God will kid himself into believing otherwise.
 

JudgeRightly

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Premise 1: There will be neither sin nor attachment to sin in heaven.

Premise 2:
We (at least most of us) are still sinning and are attached to sin at the end of this life.

Your premise 2 is false, or at least, incorrect.

Christians still sin, even after they are saved, but not after they die, because they are still susceptible to the things in this world, especially the flesh. (Romans 7:18)

However, we are no longer bound by sin when we are saved, as Christ has freed us from those chains. (Romans 8)

Conclusion: Therefore there must be a period between death and heavenly glory in which the saved are cleansed of sin and their attachment to sin.

Since Premise 2 is invalid, your conclusion is also invalid.

In addition, it does not necessarily follow that there must be a period of time after death and before going to heaven, let alone one that's needed to cleanse believers, as when one dies, he leaves his flesh behind, and his soul/spirit (which has been redeemed) ascends to heaven.

Because this is a deductive argument, if one wants to dispute the conclusion, he must take issue with one of the premises, since the conclusion follows from them necessarily.

So which is it?

Is it not true that the saved in heaven are perfectly sanctified? (“Nothing unclean shall enter [heaven].” — Rev 21:27).

Or is it not true that we are still sinning and attached to sin at the end of our earthly life? (If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” — 1 John 1:8).

Yes, we still sin, but it's not we who do evil, but sin in us.

Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good.But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find.For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice.Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me.I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin. - Romans 7:13-25 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans7:13-25&version=NKJV

You can’t get out of this argument by asserting, as I read one man say, that Christ covers us with his righteousness the moment we are justified, and therefore God sees us as he sees his Son, Jesus.

Why not? It's what the Bible says.

To do this would be to deny the first premise (and what the Bible teaches) and to believe, instead, that the unclean will enter heaven, but that God will kid himself into believing otherwise.

False, because of the reasons given above.
 

Catholic Crusader

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Your premise 2 is false, or at least, incorrect

Why, because you say so? The scriptures say otherwise.

The Christian world agree with me.


christian-traditions-chart-1.gif
 

JudgeRightly

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Why, because you say so?

I answered this in the rest of my post which you have ignored.

The scriptures say otherwise.

I quoted scripture in defense of my position. So one of us must be wrong, but simply claiming scripture supports your position doesn't make it so.

The Christian world agree with me.

christian-traditions-chart-1.gif

Irrelevant.
 

Hoping

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What Happens in Purgatory?
Tim Staples on Catholic Answers Live

Purgatory is a state of purification before heaven. But what exactly goes on there? We can't know every detail about it in this life, but the Bible does give us clues

There is no purgatory.
If we could pay for our sins ourselves Jesus wouldn't have needed to suffer and die.
 

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I quoted scripture

So did I. I also have 2,000 years of Christian teachings and saints to back it up. You do not.

Here's some more:

QUOTE


In Matthew 5:24-25, Jesus is even more explicit about Purgatory.

Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25-26).​

For Catholics, Tertullian for example, in De Anima 58, written in ca. AD 208, this teaching is parabolic, using the well-known example of “prison” and the necessary penitence it represents, as a metaphor for Purgatorial suffering that will be required for lesser transgressions, represented by the “kodrantes” or “penny” of verse 26. But for many Protestants, our Lord is here giving simple instructions to his followers concerning this life exclusively. This has nothing to do with Purgatory.

This traditional Protestant interpretation is very weak contextually. These verses are found in the midst of the famous “Sermon on the Mount,” where our Lord teaches about heaven (vs. 20), hell (vs. 29-30), and both mortal (vs. 22) and venial sins (vs. 19), in a context that presents “the Kingdom of Heaven” as the ultimate goal (see verses 3-12). Our Lord goes on to say if you do not love your enemies, “what reward have you” (verse 46)? And he makes very clear these “rewards” are not of this world. They are “rewards from your Father who is in heaven” (6:1) or “treasures in heaven” (6:19).

Further, as St. John points out in John 20:31, all Scripture is written “that believing, you may have [eternal] life in his name.” Scripture must always be viewed in the context of our full realization of the divine life in the world to come. Our present life is presented “as a vapor which appears for a little while, and afterwards shall vanish away” (James 1:17). It would seem odd to see the deeper and even “other worldly” emphasis throughout the Sermon of the Mount, excepting these two verses.

When we add to this the fact that the Greek word for prison, phulake, is the same word used by St. Peter, in I Peter 3:19, to describe the “holding place” into which Jesus descended after his death to liberate the detained spirits of Old Testament believers, the Catholic position makes even more sense. Phulake is demonstrably used in the New Testament to refer to a temporary holding place and not exclusively in this life.

The Plainest Text

I Corinthians 3:11-15 may well be the most straightforward text in all of Sacred Scripture when it comes to Purgatory:

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.​

No Christian sect I know of even attempts to deny this text speaks of the judgment of God where the works of the faithful will be tested after death. It says our works will go through “fire,” figuratively speaking. In Scripture, “fire” is used metaphorically in two ways: as a purifying agent (Mal. 3:2-3; Matt. 3:11; Mark 9:49); and as that which consumes (Matt. 3:12; 2 Thess. 1:7-8). So it is a fitting symbol here for God’s judgment. Some of the “works” represented are being burned up and some are being purified. These works survive or burn according to their essential “quality” (Gr. hopoiov – of what sort).

What is being referred to cannot be heaven because there are imperfections that need to be “burned up” (see again, Rev. 21:27, Hab. 1:13). It cannot be hell because souls are being saved. So what is it? The Protestant calls it “the Judgment” and we Catholics agree. We Catholics simply specify the part of the judgment of the saved where imperfections are purged as “Purgatory.”

Objection!

The Protestant respondent will immediately spotlight the fact that there is no mention, at least explicitly, of “the cleansing of sin” anywhere in the text. There is only the testing of works. The focus is on the rewards believers will receive for their service, not on how their character is cleansed from sin or imperfection. And the believers here watch their works go through the fire, but they escape it!

First, what are sins, but bad or wicked works (see Matthew 7:21-23, John 8:40, Galatians 5:19-21)? If these “works” do not represent sins and imperfections, why would they need to be eliminated? Second, it is impossible for a “work” to be cleansed apart from the human being who performed it. We are, in a certain sense, what we do when it comes to our moral choices. There is no such thing as a “work” floating around somewhere detached from a human being that could be cleansed apart from that human being. The idea of works being separate from persons does not make sense.

Most importantly, however, this idea of “works” being “burned up” apart from the soul that performed the work contradicts the text itself. The text does say the works will be tested by fire, but “if the work survives… he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss.” And, “he will be saved, but only as through fire” (Gr. dia puros). The truth is: both the works of the individual and the individual will go through the cleansing “fire” described by St. Paul in order that “he” might finally be saved and enter into the joy of the Lord. Sounds an awful lot like Purgatory.

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JudgeRightly

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So did I.

You quoted verses and then interpreted them based on your beliefs.

I quoted verses that EXPLAINED the verses you quoted, showing how they don't support your beliefs (because scripture does not contradict scripture).

I also have 2,000 years of Christian teachings and saints to back it up. You do not.

Appeal to tradition is a logical fallacy, and won't fly here on TOL.

Here's some more:

QUOTE


In Matthew 5:24-25, Jesus is even more explicit about Purgatory.

Make friends quickly with your accuser, while you are going with him to court, lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you be put in prison; truly I say to you, you will never get out till you have paid the last penny (Matthew 5:25-26).​

He's talking about literal prison, on earth. Not some made up halfway house between earth and heaven and hell, and there is nothing in the passage to suggest that "it's parabolic."

This has nothing to do with Purgatory.

Agreed.

The Plainest Text

I Corinthians 3:11-15 may well be the most straightforward text in all of Sacred Scripture when it comes to Purgatory:

For no other foundation can any one lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble—each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.​

No Christian sect I know of even attempts to deny this text speaks of the judgment of God where the works of the faithful will be tested after death. It says our works will go through “fire,” figuratively speaking. In Scripture, “fire” is used metaphorically in two ways: as a purifying agent (Mal. 3:2-3; Matt. 3:11; Mark 9:49); and as that which consumes (Matt. 3:12; 2 Thess. 1:7-8). So it is a fitting symbol here for God’s judgment. Some of the “works” represented are being burned up and some are being purified. These works survive or burn according to their essential “quality” (Gr. hopoiov – of what sort).

What is being referred to cannot be heaven because there are imperfections that need to be “burned up” (see again, Rev. 21:27, Hab. 1:13). It cannot be hell because souls are being saved. So what is it? The Protestant calls it “the Judgment” and we Catholics agree. We Catholics simply specify the part of the judgment of the saved where imperfections are purged as “Purgatory.”

The problem is that you take what happens in a relatively short period of time, in heaven, no less, and call it a place called purgatory.

Sounds an awful lot like Purgatory.

Except that, again, it's taking place in heaven, and the people involved are saints. There are no non-saints in the group.
 

Clete

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Premise 1: There will be neither sin nor attachment to sin in heaven.

Premise 2:
We (at least most of us) are still sinning and are attached to sin at the end of this life.

Conclusion: Therefore there must be a period between death and heavenly glory in which the saved are cleansed of sin and their attachment to sin.

Because this is a deductive argument, if one wants to dispute the conclusion, he must take issue with one of the premises, since the conclusion follows from them necessarily.

So which is it?

Is it not true that the saved in heaven are perfectly sanctified? (“Nothing unclean shall enter [heaven].” — Rev 21:27).

Or is it not true that we are still sinning and attached to sin at the end of our earthly life? (If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” — 1 John 1:8).

You can’t get out of this argument by asserting, as I read one man say, that Christ covers us with his righteousness the moment we are justified, and therefore God sees us as he sees his Son, Jesus. To do this would be to deny the first premise (and what the Bible teaches) and to believe, instead, that the unclean will enter heaven, but that God will kid himself into believing otherwise.
It is truly baffling what Catholics count as sound reason. If this is what you count as logical then why bother? Why not just believe whatever the Hell you want to believe and stop pretending to be rational about it?! Simply idiotic!

Your pretend rebuttal of the real refutation of your silly dogma, which you anticipated, ignores what it means to be covered with Christ's righteousness, which is a figure of speech. It isn't merely that "God sees us as He sees His Son, Jesus" as though God were pretending like we are righteous, its that we ARE like His Son! We are IN HIM and He in us. For I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. We still war against our flesh while in the body because the flesh is sinful but the flesh will neither enter nor even see Heaven. When we leave this moral body, we will put on immortality and there will nothing left of sin or the evil which produces it.

2 Corinthians 5:1-8 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed, having been clothed, we shall not be found naked.​
4 For we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed, that mortality may be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who also has given us the Spirit as a guarantee.​
6 So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord. 7 For we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are confident, yes, well pleased rather to be absent from the body and to be present with the Lord.​


What the doctrine of Purgatory is really all about is the belief that Christ's shed blood isn't quite sufficient to cleanse from sin and that there is more penance to be paid ON OUR PART!!!! It is nothing short of outright blasphemy. It IS NOT taught in the bible, which is a good thing for us Christians because, if it were, it would falsify the entire New Testament!


Clete
 
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DAN P

Well-known member
Premise 1: There will be neither sin nor attachment to sin in heaven.

Premise 2:
We (at least most of us) are still sinning and are attached to sin at the end of this life.

Conclusion: Therefore there must be a period between death and heavenly glory in which the saved are cleansed of sin and their attachment to sin.

Because this is a deductive argument, if one wants to dispute the conclusion, he must take issue with one of the premises, since the conclusion follows from them necessarily.

So which is it?

Is it not true that the saved in heaven are perfectly sanctified? (“Nothing unclean shall enter [heaven].” — Rev 21:27).

Or is it not true that we are still sinning and attached to sin at the end of our earthly life? (If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” — 1 John 1:8).

You can’t get out of this argument by asserting, as I read one man say, that Christ covers us with his righteousness the moment we are justified, and therefore God sees us as he sees his Son, Jesus. To do this would be to deny the first premise (and what the Bible teaches) and to believe, instead, that the unclean will enter heaven, but that God will kid himself into believing otherwise.
And 1 John says , we know that whosoever is born of God sinneth not , but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself himself and explain how you keep yourself from sin ??

dan p
 
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