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I see that Purgatory has raised its head again this week. Typically for me, I sit on the fence. I don’t know whether I believe that there is an actual place, but I think there is a state of mind which is purgatory. That may be, as Geoffrey thinks (and, as usual, my thanks to him for minding the shop) because we cannot accustom ourselves to the vastness of God’s mercy and love. My beloved St Isaac gets almost cross when men attribute emotions like anger to God, and yet it is hard not to see in the Scriptures as a whole, evidence of what looks like God’s anger. Is that just us transferring our emotions to God?
That love is given freely and in superabundance. He is the shepherd who risks all to save one lost sheep and brings it home on his shoulders, rejoicing. In Homily 38 he tells us with exaltation:
In love did He bring the world into existence; in love does He guide it during this its temporal existence; in love is He going to bring it to that wondrous transformed state, and in love will the world be swallowed up in the great mystery of Him who has performed all these things; in love will the whole course of the governance of creation be finally comprised. And since in the New World the Creator’s love rules over all rational nature, the wonder at His mysteries that will be revealed then will captivate to itself the intellect of all rational beings whom He has created so that they might have delight in Him, whether they be evil or whether they be just.
The just and the unjust enjoy His benefits.
Isaac understood how hard this is for sinful mankind to grasp – it is too simple for us:
If zeal had been appropriate for putting humanity right, why did God the Word clothe himself in the body, using gentleness and humility in order to bring the world back to his Father? And why was he stretched out on the cross for the sake of sinners, handing over his sacred body to suffering on behalf of the world? I myself say that God did all this for no other reason than to make known to the world the love that he has, his aim being that we, as a result of our greater love arising from an awareness of this, might be captivated by his love when he provided the occasion of this manifestation of the kingdom of heaven’s mighty power—which consists in love—by means of the death of his Son.
Why did He choose this (for Him) terrible way of redeeming us? Some say that it was to fulfil a covenant, because they cannot comprehend that God really can do anything, including transcend any human idea of a covenant. No, He made that sacrifice to open our hearts, so that we might see how very much He will sacrifice for us. As St John the Divine tells us:
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
In part I of his works, St Isaac reminds us:
Mercy and justice in one soul is like a man who worships God and the idols in one house. Mercy is opposed to justice. Justice is the equality of the even scale, for it gives to each as he deserves; and when it makes recompense, it does not incline to one side or show respect of persons. Mercy, on the other hand, is a sorrow and pity stirred up by goodness, and it compassionately inclines a man in the direction of all; it does not requite a man who is deserving of evil, and to him who is deserving of good it gives a double portion. If, therefore, it is evident that mercy belongs to the portion of righteousness, then justice belongs to the portion of wickedness. As grass and fire cannot co-exist in one place, so justice and mercy cannot abide in one soul. As a grain of sand cannot counterbalance a great quantity of gold, so in comparison God’s use of justice cannot counterbalance His mercy. (I.51, p. 379)
Does Christ mention ‘justice’ in His teaching? Or is that our obsession? Isaac challenges us:
“Do not call God just, for His justice is not manifest in the things concerning you” (I.51, p. 387)
We cannot see through God’s eyes. The Gospel is one of love. If we really proclaimed that, in its most radical and self-sacrificial form, I just wonder what might happen? But that such a God requires from us something more when we are dead? Well, there’s the rub for me.
[For those wanting some profound reflections on St Isaac, the series here by Fr Aidan Kimel is wonderful: http://goo.gl/eDDQt ]
All Along the Watchtower 
I’ve always felt, without coherently putting it together, that we get justice from God, unless we beg for mercy and attempt to do better, showing real contrition perhaps.
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That is a profound thought 🙂 x
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Perhaps, it’s certainly inchoate. 🙂 x
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I don’t know 🙂
There is a tension between God’s love and us. St Isaac believed that hell was us in the presence of that love but rejecting it.
In that sense, we create hell for ourselves.
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I know a bit (only a bit) about that concept and I think there is a lot in it. Many of us do create a hell on earth for ourselves, and that may be how we do it. 🙂
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It comes, I am sure, from our fallen nature, and our refusal to listen to God.
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I think you’re absolutely correct in that.
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Thank you 🙂 xx
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You’re welcome 🙂 xx
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That’s also where the fire comes in “Our God is a consuming fire” in love it burns up all dross.
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The refiner’s fire, indeed 🙂
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That’s what I find so fascinating – I’d not thought of it this way, but it makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?
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I mentioned a Protestant writer and theologian Greg Boyd in an earlier post who in one of his blogs said he believed in purgatory but said nothing else. His view of purgatory was not as a place of punishment but as a place of learning. He just does not get the sudden transfer from whatever meagre Christian virtues we have developed into the glorious presence of God. I’m certainly not sure about this.
However in several of our Lord’s parables He talks of those servants who will weep in darkness and of 5 that run out of oil and 5 who are wise. They are all servants but are not all immediately it seems ushered into the total bliss of heaven.
In these parables there is much talk of rewards and future degrees of responsibility that depends upon our faithfulness in the here and now. The parables are there to motivate us and spur on. As far as the life to come is concerned Jn. 3:16 and an awareness that it is all something we understand dimly is enough for me.
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I think so – we are told so very little – but God is love, He is the Father, and in those things I put all my faith.
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For me it has resulted in an assurance of my eternal security a hymn comes to mind
“My faith has found a resting place
not in a form or creed
I trust the ever living one
His wounds for me will plead
I need no other argument
I need no other plea
It is enough that Jesus died
And that He died for me”
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Me too 🙂 xx
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I don’t think the Church has ever taught that Purgatory is a “place”. Time and place only exist for us in this world. God is timeless and placeless. As I said in a post in response to Geoffrey (I think) some time ago, to be ‘purged’ of our sins at the moment we encounter Christ after death, is not a criticism of God’s mercy. It is a realistic attitude; even when we die in a state of grace we most likely still have some of our human weaknesses clinging to us i.e. we are not (yet) holy. Nothing that is not holy can enter heaven. So at death we are cleansed by the fire of God’s love for us, and understand our own weaknesses in the light of His infinite goodness.
There is a Protestant tendency (I don’t think Geoffrey shares it) to say “I love Jesus, therefore I am saved.” But our love for Him in life is not as pure, devoted, wholehearted as it should be (and will be after purgation).
Dante, having a vivid and concrete imagination, described Purgatory as a place, and he did the same with Hell. But they are states of reality, not places as we mean by the word; the same is true of Heaven.
And Geoffrey, it isn’t true that the Pope is selling indulgences on Twitter(!) as Christopher Howse in a Telegraph article, explains. I, too, find the concept of Indulgences difficult to comprehend but I see this as my own theological limitation rather than as a reason to leave the Church…
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Thank you Francis. I think that the issue of Purgatory and Hell are very difficult for us. I have just been reading what St Isaac says, and he sees Gehenna in the way in which Catholics see Purgatory, and raises the interesting question of universal salvation. This is a tricky area, but there is a fascinating series here by Fr Aidan Kime; http://goo.gl/eDDQt.
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Also of interest here is Sergius Bulgakov’s understanding of the afterlife: http://goo.gl/Bh5fS. He explicitly describes the intermediate state as purgatorial, and he is followed on this point by Paul Evdokimov. Not all Orthodox would agree, of course; but many would (e.g., Kallistos Ware and Hilarion Alfeyev).
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Fr Aidan – I was very interested in the comments on your final post in the series where the comparison is drawn between Gehenna and Hell – that might provide some way of answering the discussions we have had here on Purgatory.
As I understand it, which is not far, we are allowed to hope for universal salvation, but not to say it is so; that is it can be a pious belief, but one is not to say it is what the Church believes.
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Jessica, Eastern Christians typically distinguish between Hades and Gehenna, the former referring to the intermediate state and the latter to the final state. Both are spiritual conditions of condemnation (what Western Christians would call hell), but only the latter, which is created after the Final Judgment and the general resurrection of the dead, is final, definitive, and irrevocable.
I believe it is fair to say that a diversity of beliefs exist and have existed in the Eastern Church regarding the Last Things. See my series “What is Orthodox Hell?” (http://goo.gl/Z5KgT). You are certainly correct to say that the Orthodox Church does not formally teach universal salvation, though many Orthodox hope for the salvation of all. I would describe myself as a confident universalist and would invoke St Isaac and St Gregory Nyssen as my mentors.
Please understand, my opinions on this topic are simply my own. I am not speaking for my Church or my bishop.
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I am most grateful, Fr Aidan. As a reader of St Isaac, I have long been tempted in that direction. The more jurisdictional view of this, with God as some sort of angry father punishing us, seems to me to be an anthropomorphic understanding which fails to take into account the fact Our Lord tells us to call the Father ‘Abba’.
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“I don’t think the Church has ever taught that Purgatory is a ‘place’.”
This is accurate, if we restrict ourselves to the magisterial teaching of the Latin Church. But it also the case that over the centuries plenty of Latin theologians have understood purgatory, as well as hell, as a place. It’s not clear to me when Catholic theologians stopped thinking of Purgatory in this way.
The Council of Florence, for example, avoided construing Purgatory as a place, even though that was the dominant opinion of Latin theologians at the time, because of the objections of the Eastern participants.
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The strangest things are thought by all sorts of people but I do not think it should enter the head of any Protestant that basis of his salvation has anything to do with the quality of his love for Christ.
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The one thing about evil that I firmly believe is that it shrinks away from goodness and feels pain in its presence. If one one clings to their evil they probably wish to be separated from the All Good God and thus put themselves in hell.
On the opposite side, that is, where the will is conformed to the Good and the soul desires to be with God, is the mystical saints who tell us of the purgation of both sense and spirit that must take place before union with God. It can be done here as some of them have done or it may be done in some other manner after or at the moment of death: but transformation must take place nonetheless. They speak of the purgation in opposing terms: as painful and penitential suffering and also as the sweetness of God who is lovingly leading them to abandonment of all for union with Him. So in like manner, it seems to me, that one dies to self and to the world or they die to the Heavenly Kingdom.
The strange thing about speaking in human terms about the emotions of God is the fact that through Christ becoming incarnate, God has transformed Himself and is capable of human emotions, as Christ is Truly God and Truly Man. Where He resides outside of time was this always present to the Mind of God as well? How else can the ineffable make Himself known to the mere finite creatures of this world? How else are we to relate to such a One as our Creator through Love instead of abject fear?
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That is a hugely interesting comment, dear friend. Would you mind if I picked up parts of it for a post? 🙂 x
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You know I never refuse you anything, dear friend. 🙂 x
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Thank you – there is so much in that last comment … 🙂 x
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Actually there was much fodder in your post to consume and consider. 🙂
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Thank you – this seems to me to open up some fruitful themes 🙂 x
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Good. As you know it is in these realms of our spirituality that I am most intrigued and this seemed to fit that mold. 🙂 x
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I am working on one for tomorrow which tries to take some of these themes further 🙂 x
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Sounds interesting, Jess. 🙂 x
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Thank you 🙂 x
Do have a look at Fr Aidan’s comments, and at his pieces on St Isaac – I think they are very much in your line of interest – and the implications for our views on Purgatory seem very interesting indeed.
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Will do. Thank you. 🙂
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Just a passing thought on this. Christ became man on his birth, yes. But man was also created in God’s image, which in some ways would indicate that God is a perfected man.
[Ignore my syntax here, which is very bad, and try for the thought because I can’t seem to get my meaning into words.]
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I agree to the extent as to what I wrote (or thought I intimated) above: that to God all is present in an eternal now and therefore the Second Person of Christ has always been present though his taking on of our nature in the incarnation is a temporal one time event in our understanding. But it would have been before His eyes from all eternity. A God that is so loving that He took on human vesture to walk among us and to suffer with us and for us as His greatest gift of Love.
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Much better said than mine, and pretty much what I was trying to say. 🙂
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Your point, I think, was understood. We are on the same page on that. 🙂
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Always a good thing, and I think so too. 🙂
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🙂
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Christ is ‘The image of the invisible God”. Man was created in the image of God – God has an image and that image is Christ in whose image we are created. Unless image is understood metaphorically.
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Jessica, you may be interested in a series of articles I published a while back on St Isaac the Syrian: http://goo.gl/eDDQt.
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Father Aidan, thank you so much – these are fascinating – and I shall add a link to my post. 🙂
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Father, I was not that well acquainted with St. Isaac the Syrian and thank you for the links. He, seems, like all the mystics to find God’s love to be a kind of ecstasy for the soul to ponder and rest within. Now what I do not know (I only read the one post so far) is how he sees doctrine and theology in view of the spiritual life. For the mystics that I am more familiar with and their writings seem to caution the souls on the spiritual journey to use doctrine and theology as a guide to our own personal errors and interpretation of our experiences with Him Who is All Love. St. Teresa of Avila preferred a spiritual director that was adept at theology so that she would not be led astray by her own fears, wants, desires, or the evil one who prows about to undo every good that God has accomplished in the soul. It seems that these are to serve the soul and not to condemn the soul (as many are want to do) so that we might join ourselves to the Godhead in a more perfect manner. We see those such as Helen Schucman and her Course in Miracles as a modern example of such misguided spirituality and there are many others as you well know.
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