(6 votes, average: 4.17 out of 5)
Loading...Christians have always had a wide variety of beliefs about the afterlife, and just about everyone (who chooses) is able to find biblical support for their views. The Bible itself has an enormous range of views.
Among other things, there have always been Christians who have thought that there must be varying levels of punishment for sinners in the afterlife. The guy on the street who does his best but is not always a very good father surely doesn’t get punished to the same degree as Hitler.
Among believers who are convinced that there are different levels of punishment I would certainly class those who believe in purgatory. Even though it is a view almost universally rejected by Protestants, purgatory can make a lot of sense even to some of them. The afterlife is not just black and white, one thing or the other, either/or – it is not either eternal bliss for all the saints and eternal torment for all the sinners. There must be gradations, right?
And purgatory is a way of implementing the gradations. Only a few people go straight to their heavenly glory. Those are the true saints, for example, the martyrs who are tortured and killed for standing up for their faith. The rest of the saved have to pay a price for their transgressions and unfaithful behavior. Purgatory is a way to imagine how that happens.
One passage that can be appealed to in support of some such view is
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In a way purgatory makes more sense than a binary system where either you make the cut or not, and many people worry if they are going to make the cut. Where exactly does God draw the line? I grew up Lutheran and one of Luther’s main objections to the Roman Catholic system was their extortion of donations (indulgences) from people to rescue their loved ones from Purgatory. If the Catholic church had not gone to this form of extortion I wonder if the Protestant Reformation would have occurred as it did. Perhaps they overplayed their hand and should have left well enough alone! Then we’d all be Catholic, trying to pray our loved ones out of Purgatory.
And then there is Paul talking to the Corinthians about people praying for the dead. Technically he doesn’t say it works, but neither does he condemn the practice. Further, there is Paul’s ascent to heaven where he talks about different levels (the third heaven, for example). I am guessing, as a person not of the Catholic persuasion, that all these work into it somehow, right? Which of all these, if any, is the most supportive of the notion of purgatory?
Praying for the dead eventually became one of the arguments for a purgatory; but I’m not sure Paul’s ascent did, since the levels of heaven are not necessarily levels of punishment and purgatory, at least as weventually defined, was not part of the heavens, but it’s own realm.
“This idea that some people are more guilty than others and so receive a harsher penalty for their sins later transmogrified into the idea that there would be levels of punishment in the afterlife.”
Do Christians believe people are informed of their “Sin Score” when they enter purgatory or do they just have to wait around until they get called up?
Ah, I’m not sure what people think about that. The doctrine doesn’t spea of a sin score.
Dr. Ehrman,
Is the idea of Mortal sin and Venial sin developed at about the same time as Purgatory?
I”m afraid I don’t know!
New here, so apologies if this is better explained elsewhere, but why is Luke 12:47 translated differently than what you’ve indicated the literal reading is? Is this to recognize it as a figure of speech? Why are other potential figures of speech translated more literally – I’m thinking of Matthew 5:30 here. Thanks!
It’s a great question. People reading it and my answer won’t know what we’re talking about thought. Could you ask again and actually quote the words you’re asking about?
I wonder why people (mostly Christians) insist that if you die “in sin” or otherwise, a good and decent Christian person, but die in a sinful act, that person goes directly to hell despite their life or character.
I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone say that for a long time!
I do agree that purgatory makes sense, and that kept me believing in it for many, many years. But to believe in it, you have to assume that God thinks as man thinks; it is really the human concepts of fairness and justice, as well as our tendency to compare ourselves to others, that demand such a heavenly halfway house exists. Humans can’t conceive of a state of bliss so intense that we simply won’t care how the crank across the street got there. But the flip side of that coin is this: if you look at Scripture as a totality, does it seem that God’s sense of order mirrors ours? I’d debate that with several examples given time and space.
I think it makes sense to have an intermediate space for further sanctification. Yet; there really isn’t specific revelation on it in the approved canon, so where and when did the idea originate? Who was the first to explicitly write about it?
The term started showing up in the 12th century and became a doctrine in the 13th. I don’t know offhand who was first. The best study of it is Jacques Le Goff, The Birth of Purgatory.
“And so there must be a place for that to happen – neither heaven, nor hell, but somewhere in between the two”. I can’t seem to shake the impression that this is an apt description of our lives here on Earth. For some it is very close to heaven, for others it is indistinguishable from hell, but for most of us it is usually somewhere in between. If (and admittedly that’s a big if) there is a purpose to our existence here, it must have something to do with not necessarily punishment, but a “forging” or maturation of our soul, psyche, essence, or whatever you want to call our core being as individuals – perhaps over many lifetimes. To this end, suffering becomes an inevitable and inextricable part of our “spiritual” (for want of a better word) growth process, even that suffering which seems senseless to us. We may reject such senseless suffering as being morally and philosophically unacceptable in an ordered, rational, and purposeful universe, but we must still in the end somehow come to terms with its existence.
What do you think the actual meaning of this story is?
It appears to be referring to punishements that will be dealt out when the day of judgment arrives with the Son of Man.
If I recall correctly, in Dante’s Purgatorio, those who find thems selves on the shore (of that island?) are overjoyed. They are saved and despite perhaps centuries of hardship, they know they will eventually be in heaven, and never in hell.
So I would agree that Dante for one would suggest that purgatory is MUCH closer to heaven than to hell.
JRR Tolkien wrote a short story, “Leaf by Niggle”, about how a purgatorial experience might go.
I can well remember discussing this idea of Purgatory with schoolmates who were protestants of various kinds and not being able to understand just how those protestants could believe in only two punishments: eternal bliss in Heaven or total and complete damnation in Hell.
However, there are all sorts of examples of the unfair treatment of various individuals: the three Hebrews in (I believe it might be) Exodus who are so excited about God’s presence in the Ark of the covenant who just because of over exuberance try to touch the ark and are swallowed up by the earth juxtaposed to King David who sends Naham into a suicide attack (a sort of premeditated murder) just to get at his wife Bathsheba who then repents and is (according to one of the Psalms) sits at God’s feet.
Then there’s that story in Judges 11 in which a reckless promise of victory in battle results in the unfortunate daughter of the general to have to be sacrificed.
These are just a few of numerous examples of the brutal and unfair favoritism of God upon his creation which would be in keeping with the all or nothing approach to damnation/salvation.
One of the things I have noticed about my fellow protestants and also my formerly fellow fundamentalists is that they don’t realize how many of thier most dogmatic positions are built on passages of scripture from which miniscule inferences or slight interprtive possibilities are maximized and codified as the only way to see it. Tradition and authority burn it into thier minds as THE truth. Then someone comes along and constructs a perfectly reasonable alternative interpretation, as you have done, utilizing inferences from relevant passges they have entirely ignored. In the abscence of the enforcement of tradition and authority, they will run from such things as if they were some theological three eyed monster…when it’s just as likely to be true as thier own ideas. Moreso I think in that you have not only used thier select passages but have included several more that they ignore but which bear great relevance to the matter.
Luke 12:47 – “And that servant who knew his master’s will, but did not make ready or act according to his will, shall receive a severe beating.”
Why is it that Luke 12:47 is translated differently than the literal reading of “cut to shreds” as you’ve indicated above? Is this to recognize it as a figure of speech?
Why are other potential figures of speech in the gospel translated more literally?
Such as Matthew 5:30 – “And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”
Thanks!
Good quesiton. But I don’t think it means “cut to shreds.” δερω can often mean to “skin” or to “flay”; but it can also mean to “cudgel” or “thrash” or “beat” or “whip” — and since it is follows by πολλας (many times) it makes better sense to think it is referring to beatings (which can happen repeatedly). That appears to be how it is typically used where it appears elsewhere in the NT.
Purgatory sounds more ‘humane’ and reasonable