Other Anti-Roman-Catholic Views Of The Pre-Reformation Waldensians

I won't address all of them here, but I want to provide some examples. I discussed their opposition to praying to saints and angels and their opposition to some related Roman Catholic beliefs and practices in a post last week. Gabriel Audisio covers some other disagreements as well in his book I cited in that post.

Is King David an argument for purgatory?

Here's a Catholic argument for Purgatory:

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2011/11/is-purgatory-biblical

Several problems:

i) I think there's a bait-n-switch. To my knowledge, the traditional Catholic rationale for purgatory isn't the need for postmortem sanctification. It's not about remedial punishment but retributive punishment for the guilt of temporal sin. In addition, there's a role for human merit. So the framework is forensic rather than therapeutic.  

ii) In the case of King David, the issue is complicated by the fact that he was abusing his power as head-of-state. He was wronging other people. To keep him from becoming a tyrant, God punishes him. At best, we could only extrapolate from that case to analogous examples.

It's inapplicable to purgatory because in purgatory you're no longer in a position to wrong or harm others. 

iii) It also depends on what we mean by punishment. In David's case, it's not that God meted out direct, positive punishment. Rather, God withdrew some of his protection from David so that David was now liable to palace intrigue and sedition from members of his own family. 

Again, though, that's hardly analogous to purgatory punishments. 

In the same article, Prof. Anderson says:

The final move is one in which these merits are potentially transferable to another person.

i) But that undercuts the need for penitents to personally suffer punishment to remit the guilt of temporal punishment.

ii) In my experience, Catholic apologists denounce penal substitution as a "legal fiction", but if the doctrine of purgatory includes transferrable merit, then that trades on the same principle. 

Venial sin

One Catholic teaching almost all Protestants should easily accept: mortal and venial sin. This explains the existence of small sins we all regularly commit (venial sins, Jas. 3:2) and big sins “saved Christians” do not regularly commit like adultery or murder (mortal sins).

— Trent Horn (@Trent_Horn) October 19, 2019

i) The Bible doesn't have an exhaustive list of sins.

ii) Catholicism has made-up sins.

iii) The gravity of sin ranges along a continuum. While it's easy to spot the extremes, it's blurry in the middle. So sin doesn't neatly bifurcate into two kinds of sin: mortal and venial. 

iv) Even the same sin can vary in culpability.

v) Outside of Christ every sin is a mortal (i.e. damnable) sin. 

Does Purgatory make sense?

1. A common rationale for Purgatory is that are sanctification is incomplete at the moment of death, but sinners can't enter heaven, so we require an interim postmortem state to complete our sanctification before we are ready for heaven. I've argued that I think that relies on a dubious, unexamined assumption:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/04/purgatorial-presuppositions.html

2. However, it relies on another assumption: sanctification is necessarily a process. It can't be accelerated. There can't be instantaneous sanctification. 

This raises the question of what sanctification is. There are, of course, standard definitions, but let's explore the concept from a different angle. Suppose we view sanctification, or moral character, as a kind of moral perception. Take some examples:

i) I read that someone committed a heinous crime. As a result, I form a negative view of the accused. I later read that he was falsely accused. That changes my view of the accused. And the change is immediate.

ii) Let's take (i) a step further. It turns out that he was covering for an innocent friend. The accused was prepared to face prosecution on a false charge to protect his friend. Not only was the accused innocent, but his action was morally heroic.  

In this case, I don't just change my view of the accused. Rather, I go from having a negative view to a positive view. I now see him as admirable. And, once again, the change is immediate.

iii) Decent people perceive that it's wrong to gratuitously harm a child, physically or psychologically. 

And it's not that they have an inclination to harm children, but that's overridden by their moral perception. Rather, they value children. That, too, is part of their moral perception. They view children in a way that makes the idea of harming them emotionally repellent. They don't need to suppress or resist the impulse to harm children–because they have no such impulse to begin with. 

iv) Another example is the criminally insane. Their insanity generates intellectual misperceptions which, in turn, generate moral misperceptions. If their sanity can be restored, their evil impulses disappear. 

3. If sanctification is a kind of moral perception, which is, in turn, a moral type of intellectual perception, then instantaneous sanctification seems possible if God is able to correct the intellectual misperceptions that twist moral character. 

Is Purgatory in the Bible?

42 The Lord answered, “Who then is the faithful and wise manager, whom the master puts in charge of his servants to give them their food allowance at the proper time? 43 It will be good for that servant whom the master finds doing so when he returns. 44 Truly I tell you, he will put him in charge of all his possessions. 45 But suppose the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking a long time in coming,’ and he then begins to beat the other servants, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk. 46 The master of that servant will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he is not aware of. He will cut him to pieces and assign him a place with the unbelievers.

47 “The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows. 48 But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked (Lk 12:42-48).

Among Catholic apologists, Brand Pitre is probably the best Bible scholar, so it's useful to evaluate his exegetical case for Purgatory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YesD9TjrUes

Let's summarize his argument: 

The cult of the dead

Protestant England was particularly troubled after the war [WWI] was over, because most of its very Protestant churches were unable to permit prayers fro the dead that so many bereaved families would have liked to offer. Spiritualism, with its promise of renewed contact with the departed briefly flourished because of this, prompting Rudyard Kipling to write his poem "En-Dor," warning the bereaved that they were being cruelly manipulated for gain. P. Hitchens, The Rage Against God (Zondervan), 117. 

The cult of the dead is widespread in paganism. Necromancy is a common expression. And this remains popular with mourners who attend a séance in the desperate hope of contacting a departed loved one. A way to exploit people in crisis. 

There are different paradigms for the cult of the dead. In the West, Catholicism is the best known. That includes prayers for the dead. On that paradigm, your eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death, but prayers can expedite the passage from Purgatory to heaven. Prayers for the dead are only availing for souls in Purgatory. You must die in a state of grace. If you die in mortal sin, you're out of luck. That's an exclusivist paradigm, although modern Catholicism is increasingly inclusivist. When traditional Protestant theology forbids prayers for the dead, that's the specific context. 

Then you have inclusivism in freewill theism, which may include postmortem salvation. On that view, you're not heavebound or hellbound at the moment of death. Your eternal destiny is indeterminate at the moment of death. That will be settled after you die. This is driven by one or more theological assumptions. Primarily, freewill theism's belief that everyone should have an equal opportunity to be saved, yet in this life, spiritual opportunities are highly inequitable, so postmortem salvation compensates for disparities in this life. It's also a way to reconcile inclusivism with the Gospel demand that indexes salvation to faith in Christ. If that's not possible in this life, you get a second chance in the afterlife. 

Another paradigm extrapolates from the principle of retroactive prayer. This can be combined with exclusivism. On this view, prayers for the dead don't change the decedent's postmortem condition. Rather, if availing, they affect his spiritual trajectory before he died. 

The basic idea is that God's relation to time is different from the supplicant. It isn't always necessary to pray before the event, as if God must wait to find out what we pray for, then act after the fact. If God is outside of time, or God knows the future, then God can set the answer to prayer in motion before we pray. That's consistent with exclusivism, but fundamentally different from the traditional Catholic paradigm. If you think about it, many prayers require the chain of events to be underway prior to prayer for the prayer to be answerable. On this view, prayers for the dead are just a special case of that general principle. The decedent's eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death, yet postmortem prayers may retroactively affect his final destiny prior to death.  

I've discussed this before. Now I'd like to quote from a recent article that provides some additional argumentation: William M. Webb, "Petitionary Prayer for the Dead and the Boethian Concept of a Timeless God," International Philosophical Quarterly 59/1 (2019), 65-76. 

I disagree with Webb's characterization of God's viewpoint as a timeless present. I regard God as strictly timeless. But his argument doesn't turn on that nuance. 

Merit offsets

Once upon a time there was a monk named San José del Inmaculado Corazón de María. (To be precise, he wasn't technically a saint at the time. That's what he went by after canonization.) 

During his lifetime, San José was already renown for his supererogatory merit. According to the celestial bank manager at the Thesaurus Meritorum, San José had the highest credit rating of any monk in the past 700 years.

However, San José had one peccadillo: he was a cannibal. His ancestors were Amazonian headhunters, and despite his fervent conversion to the One True Church®, he could never kick the habit. Tofu failed to sate his appetite for something more exotic. 

Although his Father Confessor had reservations about San José's culinary proclivities, his unrivaled merit score made him far too valuable for the monastery to discharge. Besides, so long as his supererogatory merits offset his dietary transgressions, he was still so holy that he could bypass Purgatory with merit to spare. Like a rechargeable phone card, his get-out-of-Purgatory-free card was always topped up with pulsating ergs of merit. On birthdays, he'd indulge (pardon the pun) in a sampler platter from multiple victims, then charge it to his get-out-of-Purgatory-free card. 

He even loaned it out to his bishop in exchange for a daily supply of fresh meat. What his bishop did with it I will leave to your sordid imagination. 

Memory wipe

Proponents of purgatory often view purgatory as postmortem sanctification, which completes what was incomplete in this life. They view sanctification as a process that can't be accelerated. 

Let's take a comparison. A hypothetical example of instantaneous psychological transformation. Consider science fiction scenarios like Dark City in which people have implanted memories. They think they remember a childhood they never had. If it's the false memory of a happy childhood, that makes them feel nostalgic. They have fond memories of their spouse, even though, in reality, their spouse is a complete stranger. 

But let's take a less drastic example. Selective memory erasure rather than false memories. Suppose two neighborhood boys are close friends. At least they used to be close friends until one boy murdered the father of the other boy. Now they're enemies. Never again can they look at each other the same way. The murderer sees the boy as the son of the man he murdered, while the son sees the murderer as the guy who killed his father. 

But suppose their memories of that event were erased. The boy of murdered father no longer remembers that the other boy was the murderer. The murderer no longer remembers that he killed the boy's father. At that point the friendship resumes as if there was no interruption.  

Suppose a year or so later, the son remembers that the other boy murdered his father, but the other boy no longer remembers killing him. That will certainly interject emotional tension into the relationship. It might destroy the friendship. 

Yet it's different if the murderer can't recall what he did, and the malice is gone. In that respect, he's a different person than he was before. 

Now, I'm not saying heaven involves a memory wipe, although it's possible that God erases especially damaging memories. I'm just using that as analogies for instant psychological transformation. 

Postmortem stages

The Bible distinguishes between this life and the afterlife. It subdivides the afterlife into the intermediate state and the final state. And it subdivides the final state into heaven and hell. The question is how to sequence these stages. 

I. Traditional Protestant eschatology

Every man has one of two eternal destinies. Every man is either heavenbound or hellbound. Those run on parallel tracks.

In addition, the traditional view has a two-stage postmortem eschatology: when a man dies, his soul passes into the intermediate state. Then, on the day of judgement, the dead will be resurrected. The saints will spend eternity on the new earth while the damned will presumably spend eternity at some alternative physical location. 

The parallel tracks temporarily converge at the Parousia, where you have a common event (the general resurrection), then they diverge after that event.

There's a simple logic to the traditional position. On the one hand, men die at different times. On the other hand, the day of judgment is a one-time event which all men will experience at the same time. The intermediate state is sequenced successively and individualistically while the final state is simultaneous and corporate. 

The only folks who don't experience the intermediate state are people alive at the time of the Parousia. 

II. Catholicism

In traditional Catholicism, those who die in a state of grace pass into Purgatory before they go to heaven, while those who die in a state of mortal sin are inexorably hellbound. 

III. Universalism

A universalist must do something with all the passages regarding eschatological judgment. In universalism, heaven and hell aren't parallel tracks, but successive stages: many decedents must go through hell to get to heaven. They first go to hell when they die: a purgatorial hell. Then they graduate to heaven.

IV. Annihilationism

Annihilationists subdivide into dualist and physicalist annihilationists. They must do something with the passages regarding eschatological judgment.

According to physicalist annihilationism, the damned pass into oblivion at the moment of death. They are resurrected at the day of judgment, suffer a period of temporary punishment, and are then annihilated.

According to dualist annihilationism, the damned pass into the intermediate state at the moment of death, in which they suffer psychological punishment. They are resurrected on the day of judgment, and then annihilated. 

Each position only has so many possible combinations, given the variables. There are only so many ways in which the variables can be serially arranged. So the variables fall into place, depending on the commitments of the adherent.  

The traditional Protestant position is the most straightforward reading of Scripture. That's how Scripture lays things how. After you die, you either pass into a heavenly or hellish intermediate state. And the final state is a physical extension of one of those two conditions. 

A challenge facing annihilationists and universalists is how to show that Scripture selects for their particular series of postmortem events. Universalists have a different sequence from annihilationists. Dualist annihilationists have a different sequence from physicality annihilationists. Does the Bible specifically outline one sequence of postmortem stages over another? Or is it the position in itself that dictates a specific sequence of postmortem stages? 

Prooftexts for Purgatory

1. I'm going to comment on Catholic prooftexts for Purgatory. Before remarking on specific passages, there's a general problem with the methodology of Catholic apologists: even if their prooftexts are consistent with Purgatory, that doesn't mean they entail Purgatory. Something that's merely consistent with the truth of X can be equally consistent with the falsity of X. For instance, Tony Blair was Prime Minister during the 9/11 attacks. So his Prime Ministership is consistent with the 9/11 attacks. But it hardly follows that his Prime Ministership entailed the 9/11 attacks. The 9/11 attacks were independent of whoever happened to be the English Prime Minister at the time. 

2. Mt 12:32

I take the basic argument to be this: if blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is unforgivable both in this life and the afterlife, then there's an implied contrast with other sins which are forgivable (forgiven?) in the afterlife. 

i) At best, that's a possible implication, but hardly a necessary implication. It can just as well or better be an emphatic way of saying blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven. That sin, even though it was committed in this life, has permanent damnatory consequences. 

ii) Assuming for argument's sake that it does open the door to postmortem forgiveness, that would make it a disproof for Purgatory inasmuch as someone can only enter Purgatory if they die in a state of grace. So their sins must already be forgiven in this life, as a precondition for entrance into Purgatory. 

iii) If, moreover, a Catholic apologist is going to draw inferences from this text to extrapolate to cases other than the unforgivable sin, then there are four possible interpretations:

a) Some sins are forgivable both in this life and the afterlife

b) Some sins are unforgivable both in this life and the afterlife

c) Some sins are forgivable in this life but unforgivable in the afterlife

d) Some sins are unforgivable in this life but forgivable in the afterlife

There's nothing in the text to single out the Catholic interpretation, to the exclusion of other interpretive options. 

iv) Likewise, if a Catholic apologist says this opens the door to postmortem forgiveness, then that doesn't select for Catholic Purgatory. It could be used as a prooftext for postmortem salvation (you get a second chance in the afterlife). 

3. 1 Cor 3:15

i) In context, it refers to the day of judgment, whereas Purgatory concerns the intermediate state.

ii) In context, the "fire" isn't to purify character, but to test the quality of the preacher's work.

4. Lk 12:47-48

There's nothing distinctively Purgatorial about this passage. Rather, it describes different penalties for different sins. Degrees of punishment corresponding to degrees of accountability corresponding to degrees of knowledge. 

5. Mt 5:25-26

i) Mt 5:25-26 is quite down to earth. About the here and now rather than the hereafter. It refers to an out-of-court settlement to avoid debtor's prison. That's not Purgatory, but prudent advice to Christians to head off legal tangles like that.

ii) Even if we think it applies a fortiori to eschatological judgment, the point is that, in contrast to an out of court settlement, hell (v22) has no escape hatch. 

6. 2 Macc 12:39-46

Evangelicals reject this book as apocryphal, but even if we grant the book's canonicity for discussion purposes, the Catholic appeal fails to distinguish between a descriptive text and a prescriptive (or proscriptive) text. This is not a divine command. Even if the account is historically accurate, a narrative doesn't endorse everything recorded in the narrative. Assuming this is historically accurate (a dubious assumption), it tells you something about the attitude of Judas Maccabaeus and his coterie, but tells you nothing about God's attitude. There's nothing normative about this example, any more than atrocities in the Book of Judges are normative, or royal sins in 1-2 Kings are normative.  

Purgatory now

C. S. Lewis helped to popularize the notion of purgatory among quasi-evangelicals. That's a reason not to get your theology from Lewis.

One issue is how we define purgatory. Suppose we define purgatory as means of weaning believers from the attractions of sin. On that definition, this life is purgatory. God uses this life to wean Christians from sin. By experiencing the deleterious consequences of sin, it helps Christians to foster an aversion to sin. Sin has short-term attractions, but it causes long-term suffering. For Christians, life in a fallen world is remedial punishment. 

In the intermediate state, we''ll presumably remember the deleterious consequences of sin. However, the intermediate state won't have the temptations to sin that bombard us in this life. So purgatory, in a traditional sense, is superfluous and misplaced. 

Purgatorial presuppositions

1. What are the presuppositions of purgatory? The basic argument is twofold: (i) sinners cannot enter heaven; (ii) Christians are still sinners when they die. Hence, there must be a period of postmortem sanctification to render them sinless. 

2. But what's the basis for the assumption that sinners cannot enter heaven? I can think of roughly three or four prima facie arguments:

i) Rev 21:27 is stock prooftext. 

However, even if we grant the relevance of that passage to the issue at hand–which is dubious (see below), that of itself, doesn't explain why it's the case. It's just a statement of fact. What's the underlying rationale? 

ii) It might be argued that sinners cannot enter into the presence of God, the heavenly angels, and the saints. That's incompatible with God's holiness (1 Jn 3:2), and the general holiness of heaven.  

iii) It might be argued that the saints in heaven can never commit apostasy. Never lose their salvation or fall from heaven. But that must mean they are sinless.

iv) It might be argued that sin is incompatible with heavenly bliss (e.g. Rev 14:13; 7:16-17; 21:4).

3. Let's run back through the list:

i) One ambiguity is how the word "heaven" is defined. Is that used to denote the intermediate state of Christians or the final state of Christians? On the face of it, Rev 21:27 has reference to the final state, not the intermediate state. In the narrative of Revelation, this is after the return of Christ and the final judgment. So it doesn't speak directly to the period between death and the final state. In the same book, Rev 6:19-11 is more germane to the intermediate state.

Therefore, Rev 21:27 doesn't prove that sinners can't enter heaven, if we're using heaven as a synonym for the intermediate state of Christians rather than the final state of Christians. Mind you, this doesn't mean sinner can enter heaven, in that sense. But one needs a better argument. It could be true, but perhaps we lack sufficient information to say whether or not that's true.

ii) The problem with this rationale is obvious. Jesus mingled with sinners. God appears to sinners in theophanies. Seers (e.g. Isaiah, Daniel, John the Revelator) have visions of heaven, which seem to be (temporary) out-of-body experiences. So there doesn't seem to be any impediment in principle to God's compresence or Christ's compresence with sinners in heaven. Likewise, heavenly angels appear to sinners. Sinners survive these encounters. 

iii) This is more interesting. From the standpoint of Reformed theology, God preserves the elect from apostasy even though they can still sin. So, in theory, people in heaven could still be sinful, but not be in danger of falling from heaven. I'm not saying that's true, just addressing the logic of the rationale.

In addition, even assuming that someone can become sinless through a gradual process of sanctification, which is not a given, it's unclear to me how any incremental process could make it impossible for someone to sin. Impeccability seems to require a special act of grace by which God preserves an individual from sin. But if God can instantly render a Christian impeccable, then, a fortiori, God can instantly render a Christian sinless. If God can do the greater, he can do the lesser (argumentum a maiore ad minus). That, however, nullifies the rationale of purgatory at one stroke. 

iv) That's more complicated. Certainly heaven is supposed to be an improvement over life in a fallen world. A better place (Heb 11:16). Sin is a source of misery. 

Again, though, it may be necessary to distinguish between the intermediate state and the final state. The saints in Rev 6:9-11 don't seem to be blissful! 

There are various ways in which heaven (i.e. the intermediate state) could be a great improvement, could be a far happier condition, without requiring the saints to be sinless. For instance, there will be no crime in heaven. No persecution. There won't be the opportunity to commit certain sins. 

My point is not to deny that the saints are sinless. My point, rather, is that the supporting arguments fall short of demonstrating that contention. From what I can tell, traditional theological assumptions on this question are underdetermined by the available evidence. 

A quick argument against purgatory

http://www.jamesagibson.com/2017/04/26/a-quick-argument-against-purgatory/

Understanding Prayer for the Dead

In his foreword, to James B. Gould's, Understanding Prayer for the Dead: Its Foundation in History and Logic (Cascade Books, 2016), Jerry Walls says:

The author distinguishes four kinds of prayers for the dead, and notes that the main Christian traditions have differed on the matter of which of these kinds of prayer are appropriate. The four kinds of prayer are for consummation, growth, purification, and salvation. While the first kind of prayer is most widely accepted and practiced, by many Protestants as well as Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, the second and third types of prayer are accepted less commonly by Protestants, but are practiced by the Orthodox and Catholics. However, the fourth kind of prayer, for salvation, is generally rejected by all three traditions, on the ground that postmortem repentance and salvation are impossible. 

As a Protestant who has written a book defending a doctrine of purgatory, including postmortem repentance, I am both intrigued by Gould's argument as well as attracted to it. Indeed, the early practice of prayer for the dead, particularly prayer for purification, was one of the factors that led to the eventual development of the doctrine of purgatory. The traditional doctrine of purgatory however, pertains only to persons who died in a state of grace, so postmortem salvation is excluded…As Jairus and his friends learned, death may not be the insurmountable barrier we think it is. 

Several issues:

i) One question concerns the boundaries of Arminianism. Walls keeps moving the border stone. Does Arminianism have definable boundaries? What is out of bounds? How far can you redefine traditional Arminianism before it ceases to be Arminian? Jerry has a bunch of groupies who rubber-stamp whatever their guru says. Whenever he has forthcoming book or interview, they say "I can't wait!" They agree with him in advance of whatever he says. Nowadays, Arminianism seems to be harmonious with just about anything besides Calvinism. 

ii) The appeal to Jairus is a bait-n-switch. His daughter wasn't even dead at the time Jairus dispatched his servants to solicit Christ's intervention. And even if she was, that would be a "prayer for the dead" is the sense of petitioning God to restore a decedent to life. That's completely different from a "prayer for the dead" in terms of purgatorial sanctification or postmortem salvation. Jerry's comparison is criminally equivocal.

iii) Whether prayer for the dead, in Jerry's sense, is permissible depends in part on your theology. It's not so much a question of directly challenging prayer for the dead, but challenging the underlying theology.

iv) In addition, there are disanalogies between intercessory prayer for the living and intercessory prayer for the dead. Much intercessory prayer presumes the liabilities of life in a fallen world. The kinds of harms and deprivations to which we're vulnerable in the here-and-now. Disease, poverty, suffering. Life in a fallen world is hazardous and precarious. Picking your way through a minefield. 

But in classic Protestant theology, when Christians die, that takes them out of harm's way. They no longer have the same needs. They can no longer be hurt. They've put all that behind them. They leave the world of pain, danger, and suffering behind. That's very liberating. A huge relief. They are safe and secure in heaven. They no longer need intercessory prayer. 

But for people like Jerry, the afterlife is an extension of the fallen world. Logically, if the lost can be saved in the afterlife, then the saved can be lost in the afterlife. If the psychological dynamic is fluid in one direction, why not the other? 

v) If our prayers can facilitate postmortem salvation, why does the Bible never once command us to pray for the dead? Prayer is a huge part of Biblical piety. Both Old and New Testaments are chockfull of prayers and commands to prayer. If postmortem salvation is possible, if that actually happens, if prayer for the dead makes a necessary contribution to the salvation of decedents who wouldn't otherwise be saved, then there's nothing more important that you can pray for. So why the silence of Scripture? 

vi) There's a major point of tension between belief in God's universal love and belief that death is the cutoff for salvation. But one can relieve a point of tension in either one of two different directions. Because Walls regards the universality of God's love as nonnegotiable, he makes whatever adjustments are necessary (e.g. postmortem purgatory, postmortem salvation, prayer for the dead) to relieve the tension.

Problem is, there's no evidence that his postulates are true. It's a third story conjecture resting on a second story conjecture resting on a first story conjecture. A skyscraper of wishful thinking. 

vii) In addition, there's at least prima facie evidence that his position is contradicted by some passages of Scripture. And that's not confined to Calvinism. That includes Jansenism, Thomism, and Augustinianism. 

Modern Reformation goes off the rails

The current issue of Modern Reformation (September-October, 2016, 25/5) has an article by Jerry Walls promoting purgatory: "The Imagery of Heaven in C. S. Lewis". I'm curious as to why an ostensively Reformed periodical is providing a platform to boost purgatory. The same issue has an article by Arminian Scot McKnight. How very ecumenical. Makes you wonder who's minding the store at Modern Reformation these days. 

Is I. H. Marshall in heaven?

Did I. H. Marshall go to heaven when he died? Before SEA accuses me of damning Arminians and dispatches the flying monkeys to arrest me, that's not where my question is headed.

Rather, how would Jerry Walls and his fan club answer that question? Would Walls and his fanboys say Marshall is cooling his heels in purgatory for the next few decades? How much remedial punishment must Marshall undergo before he's presentable to the saints in heaven? 

Perhaps we now need an Arminian Tetzel to expedite Marshall's purgation. Having rehabilitated purgatory, is Walls working on a theology of indulgences to fast-track the process? 

Arminian marionettes

Jerry Walls got wind of a post I did:

https://www.facebook.com/JerryLWalls/posts/10153709390210676?pnref=story 

For most internet Arminians I know, there's a chasm between their self-image and reality. 

i) To begin with, they claim to be oh-so loving, but if they dislike your theology, they instantly impute the worst possible motives to you. 

They aren't loving at all. It's just a flattering self-image. An acid test of love is how you treat people you disagree with, people you naturally dislike. In my extensive experience, internet Arminians almost uniformly fail that test. They turn John 3:16 into "For we so loved ourselves." 

They assume a maternal disapproving tone, like a first grade teacher berating a child and trying to make him feel bad. "Now Tommy, you should be ashamed! What would Mommy think!" 

ii) In addition, their behavior falsifies their claim to be libertarian free agents. All that Walls had to do was introduce the post by mentioning that it was written by a Calvinist, and their conditioned reflexes spring right into action. Arminians are so predictable, so Pavlovian in that regard. 

They have a preexisting narrative about Calvinists. All that's required to trigger the desired reaction is to begin with the word "Calvinist" or "Calvinism." That pushes their buttons. Once you begin with that word, everything else they read is filtered through their jaundiced lens. It's funny to see people who pride themselves on libertarian free agency who are so easily and irresistibly led by the nose. 

iii) I also see that annihilationists like Glenn Peoples and Peter Grice pile on. That's fine. Tells you something about the theological center of gravity over there. 

iv) Then you have the hypocritical reaction to satire. Yet Jerry himself posts satires of Calvinism. Take his "Joy to the World" satire a while back. Likewise, the Society of Evangelical Arminians posts many satires of Calvinism. 

But once again, that demonstrates the chasm between their self-image and reality. Their theological protestations notwithstanding, they don't believe in equal treatment. They say that because it makes them feel morally superior, but in reality they are pure partisans.

v) Then you have the faux outrage over a satire about hell. Do they feel the same way about movies like Drag me to Hell, or TV shows like Reaper, Brimestone, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer? 

vi) Notice how the whole conversation revolves around Calvinism. That's not because my post had anything to do with Calvinism or Arminianism. It didn't spoof his Arminianism, but his views on Purgatory and hell.

So why does their reaction fixate on Calvinism? That's because Jerry gratuitously recast the topic in terms of Calvinism, so when they read the post, they have "Calvinism" etched on their spectacles. They see it everywhere in the post even though it's nowhere to be found in the post. They are so suggestible. 

Just like puppets. That's their favorite metaphor for Calvinism (along with robots), yet they themselves act just like puppets. They are so easily manipulated. Jerry pulls their strings and they dance to his tune. 

vii) Apropos (vi), they are unable to draw an elementary distinction between fiction and real life. If I write a fictional story about someone going to hell, that must be because I think he's hellbound in real life.

Would any reasonable person draw that inference? No. 

But their Arminian programming has primed them to assume the worst. Their reaction is so…dare I say…robotic! 

One of them whined:

That little story made a lot of smoke but no fire. If you're going to do satire, the least you can do is make a point. All this does is arbitrarily say "Jerry Walls"—you know, that guy who's wrong about hell and purgatory. End of story. Rather disappointing.

That's because it never focussed on Walls. My little story parodies many things: ethnic stereotypes, the high school caste system, male adolescent fantasies, horror tropes (e.g. The Omen), &c. Walls was just a part of that.

Moreover, it was written for fun. Anyone who knows much about creative writing knows that it has its own momentum. A writer may just go with the flow. One thing leads to another. 

viii) Then you have the groupies who complain that if I wish to critique him, I should write something serious instead of satirical fiction. Of course, I've posted extensive of his material. But they make these uninformed attacks because they live in the bubble of internet Arminianism. 

ix) With rare exception, internet Arminians never disappoint my low expectations. 

Papal indulgences

The Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Spirit and in accordance with sacred Scripture and the ancient Tradition of the Fathers, has taught in the holy Councils and most recently in this ecumenical Council that there is a purgatory and that the souls detained there are helped by the acts of intercession (suffragia) of the faithful, and especially by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar.

Related Canon 30 from the Council of Trent's Decree on Justification (Sixth Session, 1547)

30.  If anyone says that after the grace of justification has been received the guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out for any repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to be paid, either in this world or in the other, in purgatory, before access can be opened to the kingdom of heaven, anathema sit ["let him be anathema" or excommunicated]. 

http://www.crossroadsinitiative.com/library_article/775/Decree_on_Purgatory_Council_of_Trent.html 

1030 All who die in God's grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven. 

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a12.htm 

1471 "An indulgence is a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose guilt has already been forgiven, which the faithful Christian who is duly disposed gains under certain prescribed conditions through the action of the Church which, as the minister of redemption, dispenses and applies with authority the treasury of the satisfactions of Christ and the saints."81 [Paul VI, apostolic constitution, Indulgentiarum doctrina, Norm 1.] 

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p2s2c2a4.htm

i) If, for the sake of argument, you accept the Tridentine premise, then there's a certain inner logic between purgatory and indulgences. In the Tridenine definition, purgatory involves retributive punishment. It's about guilt. Paying off your debt. Same thing with the treasury of merit. The "satisfactions" of Christ and the saints presume the same forensic category.

If you think there's a treasury of merit which the pope can tap into, then, within that framework, it makes sense to say your purgatorial sentence is subject to commutation or pardon. Someone else paid the debt. Someone else made restitution on your behalf.  

ii) Mind you, even on its own terms, that's dubious. It operates with a quantitative view of guilt, as if as sinner has incurred x units of guilt which may be offset by x units of merit. But why think guilt is quantitative rather than qualitative? There are other problems, but I'll pass on that.

iii) Another problem is the contradiction between the traditional conception of purgatory and the contemporary conception (in Roman Catholicism). The contemporary conception has undergone a paradigm-shift from retributive justice to remedial justice. From objective guilt to subjective corruption. Purgatory is now a process of postmortem sanctification to purify the decedent before he is ready for heaven.

But even if you grant that for the sake of argument, it clashes with the traditional theology of indulgences. If purgatory is necessary to complete your sanctification, then that process can't be accelerated or short-circuited by a papal indulgence. Rather, that would operate at its own pace. However long it takes you to eradicate your sinful disposition. An indulgence would prematurely convey you to heaven, before the refining fire has had time burn away the dross.  

So you end up with a hybrid theology of purgatory and indulgences, combining disparate elements from two incompatible paradigms.  

Purgatory and evolution

To my knowledge, most contemporary Catholic intellectuals embrace theistic evolution. This goes all the way to the top, beginning with Pius XII. 

Now, physicalism is a common corollary for human evolution. What makes modern man smarter than early man, or other higher animals, is the fact that we have bigger, more complex brains. There's a direct correlation between intelligence and brainpower. The seat of human intelligence is not some incorporeal soul. Rather, it's the end-result of encephalization over the course of human evolution.

But here's the rub: Purgatory is a version of the intermediate state. The intermediate state presupposes a robust version of dualism. The postmortem survival of the soul (i.e. consciousness, personality, memories). 

If, however, physicalism is true, then that falsifies Purgatory. Brain death extinguishes consciousness. There is no immortal, immaterial soul to experience Purgatory. There may be a future resurrection, but nothing in-between. 

Contemporary Catholic philosophers and theologians labor to update and "reinterpret" traditional dogma in light of what they deem to be historical and scientific challenges to traditional dogma. But it's hard to see how they can graft physicalism onto Purgatory.

I suppose they could try to argue for dualism despite their commitment to theistic evolution. But on the face of it, that's ad hoc.

Jerry Walls and the Unequable Distribution of Grace

http://www.rightreason.org/2014/jerry-walls-and-the-unequable-distribution-of-grace/