Purgatory: Whose doctrine?
By Donald
Pinnock
Time and time again, it has been
proven that the Bible---and only the Bible---should be the basis of true faith,
service to God, and for the attainment of salvation. This is why we refers to
the Bible regarding matters and also tests the doctrines and beliefs of other
churches in comparison with the truth written in the Holy Scriptures.
Keeping this in mind, let us study a
belief and doctrine that is held in high regard by some churches, that which
will befall a person after he dies. In the book My Catholic Faith, Most Rev.
Louie LaRevoire states what Catholic authorities uphold:
“The rewards or punishments appointed
for men after the particular judgment are heaven, purgatory, or hell. …
“1. He who dies in his baptismal
innocence, or after having fully satisfied for all the sins he committed, will
be sent at once to heaven. …
“2. He who dies in the state of grace,
but is in venial sin, or has not fully atoned for the temporal punishment due
his forgiven sins, will be sent for time to purgatory. …
“3. He who dies in mortal sin, even if
only with one single mortal sin, will be sent at once to hell.” (p. 157)
For the Catholics, a member who has “fully
satisfied for all his sins” or has attained a state of holiness immediately
goes to heaven upon death while those who have committed venial or forgivable
sins but have died “in state of grace” go to a place or state called purgatory.
Holy
but in Grave
Let
us scrutinize this Catholic doctrine by comparing it with that which is
written in the Bible. Is it true that
those who die and are deemed holy in the sight of God go immediately to heaven?
In Psalms 86:2, King David exclaims:
“Preserve my life, for I am holy; You are my God; save
Your servant who trusts in You!” (New King James Version)
King David is a holy man. But has
David immediately gone to heaven on the account of his holiness? The apostles
made known that:
“Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of patriarch
David, that he is both dead and buried , and his tomb is with us to this
day…For David did not ascend into the heavens.” (Acts 2:29, 34, Ibid.)
King David, has not ascended to heaven
but rather is in his grave. The statement of the apostles is in accord with
that written in Job 14:10 and 12 which
says that those who die remain in their graves until the heavens are no more.
The heavens will pass away on the day of Judgment (II Pt. 3:7, 10). Thus, it is
biblically incorrect to believe that upon death, a person immediately goes to
heaven.
In the same way, one does not go
immediately to condemnation after death, as is made amply clear by the Bible:
“Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which
all who are in the graves will hear His voice
“And come forth---those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those
who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation.” (Jn.
5:28-29, New
King James Version)
Attainment of eternal life or
condemnation to eternal punishment for that matter does not happen right after
one’s death but will take place at a future time that the Lord God has
appointed---on the day of Judgment.
Purgatory
What about the Catholic doctrine
concerning purgatory? What does the word “purgatory” mean? The Catholic
Encyclopedia gives the following explanation:
“1. Catholic
Doctrine. – Purgatory (Lat., purgare, to make clean, to purify).”
(vol. 12, p. 575)
What has to be made clean is the soul,
according also to Catholic authorities;
“According to the teaching of the
Church, the state, place, or condition in the next world, which will continue
until the last judgment, where the souls of those who die in the state of
grace, but not yet free from all imperfection, make explanation for unforgiven
venial [forgivable] sins or for the temporal punishment due to venial and
mortal sins that have already been forgiven and, by so doing, are purified
before they enter heaven.” (New Encyclopedia, vol. 11, p. 1034)
Thus, according to Catholic doctrine,
those who are sent to purgatory have already had their sins forgiven, but are
not yet perfect. They, thus, have to spend some time in purgatory until they
are pure enough to enter heaven. According to Catholic leaders, through
prayers, good works, indulgences and Mass, a soul can be freed from purgatory
and thus be able to enter heaven so they state:
“Mr.
J. That’s so, Father. But you spoke of a common custom of praying for the
dead. Do you mean that we can assist those in purgatory by prayer?”
“Father
S. ‘Yes, by prayers, good works, indulgences and especially by the Church’s
divinely instituted sacrifice called the Mass’.” (Father Smith Instructs Jackson p.
93)
The practice of indulgences was the
catalyst that impelled Martin Luther to post his 95 Theses
on the door of the Wittenburg Cathedral in 1517, “protesting” against such
practices of the Catholic Church of which he was then a priest and professor.
Indulgences were for the “remittance of penance” either in this world or in
purgatory. So Catholic would have to “buy” credits to offset their own sins, or
those of the departed loved ones to enable them to pass quickly from purgatory
to heaven.
But can the dead benefit from any deed
intended for them by the living? This is what the Scriptures say:
“After a person is dead, he can no
longer show love or hate or jealousy. And he will never again share in the
things that happen here on earth.” (Eccl. 9:6, New Century Version)
Those who pass away have no share or
cannot benefit from anything that their living loved ones may do for them. The
dead have neither love nor hate or any other emotion because they have ceased
to think (Ps. 146:4, New English Bible). How then could there be any kind of
“suffering” or penance in a so-called place of purgatory when the dead do not
possess feeling or thought?
An
unfounded belief
How about the very foundation of the
doctrine on purgatory? Can even the essence of this teaching be found in the
Scriptures? Lucien Vinet, a former Catholic priest, after many years in that
church, makes in unequivocal statement in his book I Was A Priest:
“Purgatory, like Mass, has no
foundation in Holy Scripture. Christ and the first Christians never talked
about it and never knew of its supposed existence.” (p. 44)
Whether it is that this declaration is
plainly the proclamation of a disgruntled former priest who was his former
peers or not, it is starling to note that even practicing priest nowadays
confess the same. For example, Joseph Kenney C.SS.R., in his article entitled
Purgatory: Doctrine of Comfort and Hope, states the following:
“If Catholics believe and their church
teaches the doctrine of purgatory, on what foundations does the doctrine rest?
It is a fair question. Let us admit in all honesty that this question
immediately raises a problem for those Christians who base their faith on ‘Scripture
Alone’, the position that there is no source of revelation other than the
Scriptures. Nowhere in the Scripture does the word, ‘Purgatory’, occur.” (p.2)
Kenney admits that purgatory is
biblically unfounded. However, there are some Catholic officials who claim
scriptural proof of its validity (which only shows that there is some disunity
in the ranks of the Catholic priesthood concerning this). The most concrete,
according to them, being II Maccabees 12:43-46. The book of Maccabees, however,
is an apocryphal book. Apocryphal means noncanonical or legendary:
“APOCRYPHAL: concerning certain
writings of New Testament times and later which the church at large has never
accepted as canonical. Apocryphal; legendary, untrue.” (New Lexicon Webster’s Encyclopedic
Dictionary of the English Language)
In spite of its rejection by many, let
us take a look at this so-called proof:
“On the next day, as had now become
necessary, Judas and his men went to take up bodies of the fallen and to bring
them back
to lie with their kindred in the sepulchers of their ancestors. The under the
tunic of each one of the dead they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia,
which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that this
was the reason these men had fallen. … He also took up a collection, man by
man, to amount of two thousand drachmas of silver, and sent it to Jerusalem to
provide for a sin offering. In doing this he acted very well and honorably,
taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who
had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray
for the dead. But if he was looking to splendid reward that is laid up for
those who fall asleep in godliness, it was holy and pious thought. Therefore he
made atonement for the dead, so that they might be delivered from their sin.”
(II Maccabees 12:39-45, New Revised Standard Version)
In this unscriptural or noncanonical
quotation, there is mention of a battle between a Jewish army led by a Judas
Maccabeus an the Idumean forces commanded by Gorgias. After the battle, many
fallen Jewish soldiers were found wearing pagan amulets. Judas immediately sent
2,000 drachmas to Jerusalem so that intercession and sacrifices might be
offered for them, which, according to those who use this basis, would relive
them from a long duration in purgatory. Such an act though even runs contrary
to Catholic doctrine concerning those who die in mortal sin. Catholic
authorities teach that idolatry---which the wearing of pagan amulets is a sign
of ---is a mortal sin (This is Catholicism, p. 47), and the commission of such
sin, based on their teaching, would send one immediately to hell. How could
Judas help alleviate the suffering of his dead soldiers in purgatory when they
were supposed to be already in hell? Hence, the very core of Catholic proof for
purgatory runs contradictory even to their own teachings.
From
tradition of Men
If no base on accepted Scripture---as
many Christian teaching should be---from where does the Catholic Church derive
its basis of purgatory? Again, the Catholic priest Joseph Kenney admits:
“In the last analysis, however, the
Catholic doctrine does not rest on any direct Scriptural proof but on
tradition, increasingly clear and unmistakable.” (Purgatory: Doctrine of
Comfort and Hope, p. 3)
What is the grave sin being committed
by those who hold on to tradition in their efforts to serve God? Our Lord Jesus
makes known:
“You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on
to the tradition of men.” (Mk. 7:8, New International Version)
The Lord Jesus Christ rebuked those
who hold on to the traditions of men. By clinging to these, instead of being
drawn closer to God, a person is being thrust further away. We should
understand that purgatory is unscriptural, a doctrine that has only evolved
through the passage of time, as explained by Arthur Goldhammer, who translated
into English a book written by Jacques LeGoff:
“Le Goff’s central point is that the
doctrine of Purgatory does not appear in the Latin theology of the West before
the late twelfth century, that the word purgatorium
did not exist until then. …He shows that the growth of belief in an
intermediate place between Heaven and Hell was closely bound up with profound
changes in the social and intellectual reality of the Middle Ages, with
attempts to introduce ‘middle classes’ or third orders between the powerful and
the poor, the clergy and the laity.” (The Birth of Purgatory)
What buttresses the insight of Le Goff
concerning purgatory being an evolved and socially-inspired belief is the
length of time before it was officially recognized and accepted. According to
the book written by Loraine Boettner:
“The doctrine was proclaimed an
article of faith in 1438, by the Council of Florence, and was later confirmed
by the Council of Trent, in 1548.” (Roman Catholicism, p. 229)
Some form of the doctrine on purgatory
was approved by Pope Gregory I in 593 A.D., centuries after the demise of the
apostles and almost 600 years after ourLord
Jesus Christ has ascended to heaven. The doctrine was not even completed until
the 15th century. What did the same author ask due to time factor
before the doctrine was upheld?
“But does any intelligent person
believe that if such a place as purgatory is described in the Bible it would
have taken the church fathers 600 years to discover it, and another 1,000 years
to confirm it?” (Ibid.)
The Lord God desires all men to be
saved; but they must come to the knowledge of the truth (I Tim. 2:4). How then
can we continue to accept the doctrine of purgatory when it is unbiblical,
unfounded, and in every aspect untruthful?
References:
Boettner,
Loraine.
Roman
Catholicism.
Pennsylvania, U. S. A.: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1962.
Goldhammer,
Arthur, trans.
The Birth of
Purgatory,
by Jacques Le Goff.n.p.: University of Chicago Press, 1984
Kenney,
Joseph A., C.SS.R.
Purgatory:
Doctrine of Comfort and Hope. N.p.: Catholic Information Network,
1996
Morrow,
Louis LaRavoire, S.T.D.
My Catholic
Faith: A Manual of Religion. Manila Philippines: The Catholic Trade School,
1960
New Catholic
Encylopedia,
vol. 11, Washington D.C., U.S.A., The Catholic University of America, 1967
New Lexicon
Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language,
Canadian
Edition. New York: Lexicon Purblications, Inc. 1988
Noll,
Most. Rev. John Francis.
Father Smith
Instructs Jackson.
Indiana, U.S.A., Our Sunday Visitor, Inc. 1963
The Catholic
Encylopedia.
New York: The Encyclopedia Press, Inc. 1913
Vinet,
Lucien.
I Was A Priest. Australia:
Protestant Publications, 1951.
Walsh,
John, S.J.
This is
Catholicism.
New York: Image Books, 1959.