Removing our sinful natures
Today is the Feast of All Souls, in which we remember those who have died and are currently in purgatory. In honor of this feast day, I have posted a new article on my website in which I defend, using both Scripture and reason, the Catholic doctrine of purgatory:
Removing Our Sinful Natures: The Catholic Doctrine of Purgatory
Purgatory is one of those subjects, like economics, about which nearly everyone has an opinion but few have in-depth knowledge. Protestants point to it as an example of a pernicious “tradition of men” which Christ wisely condemned. Orthodox Christians, who accept the possibility of an interim state between this life and heaven, are uncomfortable with many traditional depictions of purgatory as well as associated doctrines such as indulgences. And many Catholics today treat purgatory like a persistent rash they cannot get rid of: it comes to their attention now and then, but is better left hidden from public view.
However, the doctrine of purgatory has a long and valued history within the Catholic Church and it would be unfaithful to our predecessors in the faith to ignore or minimize it. So our first necessity is a clear definition of what the Church teaches regarding purgatory. Given all the images and ideas among the faithful about this belief, it may be surprising that the Church’s teaching is actually very limited.
Read the whole thing here.
This blog article appears to be nearly a month old, but it is new to me. I just came across it via a link from newadvent.org. I hope that you will not mind, therefore, if I make a few comments about the article now.
Your discussion of “what happens to someone at death” in this article is flawed; for several of the discussion’s claims are based upon a mis-reading of 1 Cor. 15. Chapter fifteen describes the change to the body on the last day (i.e., at the sound of the “last trumpet”), and not to the change to the soul at the last moment of death, so to speak, as the discussion claims. The passage you cite is part of a larger explanation Paul gives in defense of the teaching of the resurrection of the dead (i.e., of dead bodies), including of the once-dead Christ (see esp. 1 Cor. 15:12-15).
The change the passage describes as occurring in a “twinkling of an eye” is not the change of an unpurified soul into a purified one, as your discussion suggests. It is, instead, the change of a corruptible, passible body, into an incorruptible, immortal one. There is, therefore, no potential conflict in need of reconciliation between what Paul teaches in the passage and “the common conception” of the soul’s passing through purgatory as “taking a long time.” Your observation that time “on earth” and the time “of the after-life” are different is, nonetheless, valid. Time is a measure of motion or change (see Aristotle’s Physics); and the change of astronomical bodies measured on earth to calculate days, months, and years is not subject to measurement by souls in the after-life. Now there is change in Purgatory, namely, the change disembodied souls experience; and a measurement or sense of passing of that change would be a kind of time.
We should add to your summary of the Church’s doctrine on purgatory the teaching that the purification the soul undergoes in Purgatory is, at least in some sense, the “purifying” or removing of the soul’s “unhealthy attachment to creatures” (CCC Para. 1472). This purifying is, at least in part, the temporal punishment of sin, which an act of perfect contrition can remove (see Para. 1472), since that act comes from a restoration of the souls’ love of God above all else.
I appreciate your explanation of the importance of the doctrine of purgatory; and I am pleased that a fellow Steubenville theology student is putting his learning at the service of the internet community.
Ben,
I appreciate your critique.
I think you make a good point about 1 Corinthians 15; Paul is primarily speaking of what happens to our bodies on the Last Day in that chapter. Perhaps I should not make the connection to what happens to our souls after death as explicit as I do in the article.
However, I would argue that this passage gives Scriptural support to the underlying premise I was trying to make: that what happens in the next life cannot be marked by our “time”. The fact that our bodies are glorified in a “twinkling of the eye” is consistent with the premise.
Thanks again for your comments.