George,
Firstly, correct me if I am wrong, but my understanding is that according to RC dogma, purgatory will cease to exist at the end of the age, and that, for all souls in pugatory, it is a temporary situation- in this sense, is it not a partial, temporary "damnation"?
Well, if it's temporary, how can it be "damnation"?
Purgatory, in RC teaching, is a cleansing of the just - it is not a "half way" hell for those who are only "kind of good", but a final cleansing of those who have departed in the "state of justice"/"state of grace."
It seems to be somehow connected with the RC doctrine of "mortal" and "venial" sin- motal sins warranting eternal perdition while venial sin deserving what could only be understood as a slap on the wrist in comparison to eternity. The conclusion drawn from this teaching runs something like: "Why worry about venial sins, because even if you have to spend 10,000 years in purgatory for them, you have all of eternity in Paradise to look forward to." This is unmistakably Origenist.
Well, from the pious descriptions (and also what has been said in a more theological, dogmatic fashion by the RCC) of Purgatory, I don't think it's so careless or triffling a consequence for the temporal debt due to sins.
However, to be fair I think the Orthodox Church makes a similar, basic distinction between "mortal" and "venial" sin - there are sins which are death to the soul, where as others which simply manifest unhealed parts of that person, and which while still do some violence to the individual, do not utterly cut them off or render them "dead members" of the Church. While popular Latin catechisms often listed "common examples" of things which were "mortal" or "venial" sins, strictly speaking the RC dogma is that the most basic difference between the two is in the conscience of the individual - a "mortal sin" involving a grave matter, and the conscientious understanding that it was a grave matter (hence, a small child or someone who is somehow retarded in adulthood, would not be reckoned as being guilty of "mortal sin" even if they ostensibly did something seriously wrong.)
The tendency to do bad things but rationalize them as being "not that serious", in my own experience, is not a uniquely "Latin" tendency. The Orthodox gossip network (alive online and at a parish near you) is a perfect example of this, since for most such things are perceived as being not THAT serious (though actually, they can be.) The same is true of other times where people of little zeal treat the "little things" not simply as being little, but as not mattering at all (which is not the case.)
Secondly, "penance" is an act of repentance. It is not a punishment, but a medicine for the illness of sin.
Is not just (and I stress, "just" as in within the justice of God, which is not always perceived as being just by fallen men) punishment always medicinal?
When you spank an errant child, that is definately punishment - yet if done soberly, it has the intention of correction. Also some punishments (like restitution or paying a debt) have the aim of restoring equity.
To say that purgatory serves to purify souls indicates that there is repentance after death- when the Bridegroom orders the doors of the Wedding Feast to be shut.
Well, to an extent the idea of a soul being saved after it's repose is not entirely foreign to Orthodox tradition - or at least to popular traditions and stories which go back to the earliest period of the Church.
However, is that what the teaching on purgatory is teaching? The RC definition is that it is a place of cleansing and restitution, not one of repentence - hence if a person is not sorry for their sins before death and confessed, there would be no question of purgatory, but utter loss, after death.
If we have a set of balancing scales, and on one side place what a Roman Catholic would call the smallest, venial sin, and on the other side of the balance, we place all the virtues, prayers and merits of all the Saints and of the Theotokos- they still will not be enough to raise the scales.
I find this understanding interesting - it would seem if this is indeed Orthodox teaching (which I do not happen to agree it is, for the record), then it would seem the RC vision of God is in fact more lenient and not as personally offended by sins as the "Orthodox" understanding of God would imply. Yet this would be entirely contrary to much of the apologetic/polemic you constantly hear against Catholicism by Orthodox apologists (namely, that the Latin "Anslemian God" is a blood thirsty being who is infinitely outraged, where as supposedly the "Orthodox God" is without ego and not personally offended by sins.)
Only One is able to raise the scales- Our Lord Jesus Christ who was Crucified and Rose from the dead. Even the most holy Theotokos, who is more honourable than the Cherubim and more glorious than the Seraphim did not get into Paradise through her own merits.
So you understand the economy of salvation to involve the idea of Christ "meriting" forgiveness of sins, and a judicial satisfaction? I'm not disagreeing, yet I've seen many people denounce such a teaching as "Augustinianism" or "Anslemianism" and supposedly "not Orthodox."
In the Orthodox Church, sin is an illness requiring the medicine of Repentance, Confession, and Correction in this life before we die- because this life is our only opportunity for repentance.
So if someone dies contrite, but without time to purify themselves of defects or make restitution to God for what they are liable to, then they will be lost?
Finally, the question arises: "How then can prayers, fasting and almsgiving help the departed?" If our prayers, fasting and almsgiving are done for the sake of Christ, and not for vainglory, then they are acts of faith, and nothing is impossible to God who is All-Merciful.
Ok, now you seem to be contradicting yourself. Nothing was ever impossible for God - hence if you're saying prayers and satisfactions can somehow help the faithful departed, that means...
a) they are in a condition where they in fact need them
b) God does accept them for that end
Our hope is therfore the Mercy of our God, not our merits. The false doctrine of purgatory places our hope back in our own "atoning" merits.
The RC doctrine recognizes that all such things to be of value must be done in the grace of God (in union with Christ), and that how they are accepted by God (if at all) is up to Him. There is, from my extensive reading on the topic, no concept of personal autonomy or somehow forcing God to do anything as if He were a servant of forces that constrain Him.
The belief in the "atoning" punishment of purgatory is definitely Origenist.
I think you've singularly failed to demonstrate that, since the fundamental error of Origen was that there was no such thing as "eternal punishment", but that all (including even the demons) would eventually be restored to God. That's Origenism - let's not equivocate when there is no grounds for doing such.
The prayers of the Orthodox Church for the dead cannot possibly lead to a belief in purgatory.
Well, rightly or wrongly, it seems that they did for a whole bunch of them - particularly when it was St.Gregory the Great who spoke of "purgatory" himself well before the permanent schisms of later centuries. While one can fault the rectitude of "filling in blanks" with syllogistic conclusions based on the particulars of Church praxis and Divine Revelation, it would seem that the Latin theological position of purgatory itself is not "unreasonable". I could understand "presumptuous"...but unreasonable, that's another thing. Certainly to say it's "not possible" is over the top.
As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgement, there is a purifying fire. He who is truth says that whoever utters blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will be pardoned neither in this age nor in the age to come. From this sentence we understand that certain offences can be forgiven in this age, but certain others in the age to come (St.Gregory the Great, Dialogues 4, 39)
I see what you are saying, however, why would Christ need a vicar? A vicar acts when the one he represents is absent. Why would Christ be absent from His Church? I think we both know the answer...
Let's press this reasoning.
A "vicar" is someone who is a representative of another, and you are right, to the extent that they are absent.
However, before jumping too fast, it's worth considering that the Priesthood and the Episcopate exist at all. According to the Scriptures, Christ is the High Priest and Mediator of the Church. Yet, we have this great plurality of Bishops, and their dependent Presbyters. Given what the Scriptures say, we can ask with the Protestants - "why? Why have these men, when Christ is our Priest?"
The answer is, because while yes it is true He is such in the Heavens, it is the ministry of the Priest which embodies this and communicates this in time and space - hence why He established the Priesthood to begin with amongst the Apostles.
Well, are not these men "vicars of Christ"? Does their existance somehow imply that the peace, grace, and presence of Christ are lacking from the Church? No, if anything, they manifest it.
By this same logic, one could say that there is a sense in which Christ is absented (until the Second Coming) in terms of His Shepherding of the Church as a whole, at least in the way He did when the Apostles followed Him through the Holy Land, or even the way He did after His Ressurection (but before the Ascension.) The Popes claim that they embody this unifying, visible leadership, the supreme earthly court of appeal and authority - without which, (so they say) the Church would to varying degrees devolve into a conflicted mess.
I'd like to see a good argument, as to how the "vicarship" the Pope claims is essentially different than the "vicar" role played by every Bishop in his own diocese, the Bishop who we receive as if he were Christ Himself?
And if the pope is only the head of the Church militant, how can his indulgences release souls from purgatory?
My guess is that they would answer "the keys" - the keys of authority given to the Church; and so they believe, fundamentally to St.Peter, but in a real (but subsidiary) manner, later, to the rest of the Apostles as well. Christ did say something quite bold, when He said that the Apostles could "bind and loose" with an authority which would even be recognized by Heaven - and this binding and loosening seems to directly late to the absolution of sins. Christ gave to His Apostles as men the power He had as God-Man (but in so far as being a man, the Jews understood as blasphemous.)
The old argument for "indulgences" is that in the Church had books of "canonical penances" for various sins, with the understanding that these penances were in some wise appropriate to the sin they were punishing. Well, it was always recognized as being in the discretion of the Bishops (and supremely in RC lights, the Pope) to reduce those canonical punishments or excuse them. The reasoning of the RCC is that, for this to be done justly (and not simply delay the matter), there has to be some basis for this. They understand the merits of Christ and the superabundant merits of the Saints in Christ as being the basis for this - hence the formalization of the idea of "indulgences."
The Church Triumphant and the Church Militant is One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church with Christ as it's head. The Body of Christ is not divided, it is one, and has no need of two Heads.
But for the sake of argument then (particularly if one is insistant on holding to a strict, "Ignatian" ecclessiology where each diocese is in reality the fullness of the Church), one could just as easily say "the Body of Christ is not divided, it is one, and has no need of several hundred, if not thousand, Heads" (in this case Christ, and the total of the Episcopate.)
I'm just tired of poor, and if deeply penetrated, hypocritical arguments "for" and "against" this or that position or policy. Truth does not need beligerance or stupidity to prop it up.
Seraphim
