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Mar 25th, 2025
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I'm an Apokatastasis kind of guy, myself--it would be most unlike God to leave loose ends.
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Stuart and Todd,
OK, so basically what you're really saying is that Rome once required, or at least once considered requiring, certain beliefs about purgatory, but then later didn't.
So I get that, but I don't feel the need to spin the story by calling it an Orthodox victory.
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In my neck of the woods, when someone concedes all the points of your argument, you have won.
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In my neck of the woods, when someone concedes all the points of your argument, you have won. Stuart, I think I speak for a great many of my fellow Catholics when I say that it would be much appreciated if you could get your story straight before you talk about our Church. Earlier you said that she "answered all of the principal objections raised against [purgatory] at the Council of Florence". Now you are saying (or implying anyhow) that she has conceded all the points of the Orthodox argument. Are you just saying whatever will get a rise out of people?
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The two are pretty much the same thing.
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I'm an Apokatastasis kind of guy, myself--it would be most unlike God to leave loose ends. Don't you mean "Univeralism"? Apokatastasis is not Christian, but a potential Universalism certainly is.
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Apokatastasis is not Christian St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Clement of Alexandria, and Origen would disagree as would a friend of mine/ fellow parishoner at my parish, and poster here on ByzCath- Gabriel.
Last edited by Nelson Chase; 01/19/11 06:06 PM.
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Passed the News item and into general debate - moving to E-W
"One day all our ethnic traits ... will have disappeared. Time itself is seeing to this. And so we can not think of our communities as ethnic parishes, ... unless we wish to assure the death of our community."
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On Zenit's daily "the World Seen From Rome" is an ad for what appears to be to be a peculiar and startling book. I admit I have not read it (I probably won't) but it's yet another contribution to the discussion of the nature of purification of souls in the afterlife. This site'll give you the picture: http://www.RansomingMartinLuther.com
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Stuart is absolutely correct. What was the decisive point of dissensus on purgatory between Orthodox and Catholic at the Council of Florence? The Latin claim of a physical, spatially-located punitive fire. The Orthodox replied that they knew of only one punitive fire, the fire of Gehenna. On this point the Orthodox have won. Latin theologians no longer teach a physical purgatorial fire. Moreover, they no longer explain the purgatorial fire as enjoying a retributive purpose: its purpose is purely transformative and sanctifying. In his encyclical Spe salvi, Pope Benedict interprets purgatory as personal encounter with the Christ himself: This encounter with him, as it burns us, transforms and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves. All that we build during our lives can prove to be mere straw, pure bluster, and it collapses. Yet in the pain of this encounter, when the impurity and sickness of our lives become evident to us, there lies salvation. His gaze, the touch of his heart heals us through an undeniably painful transformation “as through fire”. But it is a blessed pain, in which the holy power of his love sears through us like a flame, enabling us to become totally ourselves and thus totally of God. In this way the inter-relation between justice and grace also becomes clear: the way we live our lives is not immaterial, but our defilement does not stain us for ever if we have at least continued to reach out towards Christ, towards truth and towards love. Indeed, it has already been burned away through Christ's Passion. At the moment of judgement we experience and we absorb the overwhelming power of his love over all the evil in the world and in ourselves. The pain of love becomes our salvation and our joy. It is clear that we cannot calculate the “duration” of this transforming burning in terms of the chronological measurements of this world. The transforming “moment” of this encounter eludes earthly time-reckoning—it is the heart's time, it is the time of “passage” to communion with God in the Body of Christ. I would recommend that everyone read both Spe salvi and Ratzinger's book Eschatology, and then compare with Metropolitan Hierotheos's book Life After Death. You may be pleasantly surprised.
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Does anyone know, where specifically in a magesterial document, that the Church taught that Purgatory was a physical spatially located punitive fire that had a retributive purpose.
Is it in the definition that dogmatized Purgatory?
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Does anyone know, where specifically in a magesterial document, that the Church taught that Purgatory was a physical spatially located punitive fire that had a retributive purpose. Is it in the definition that dogmatized Purgatory? No. Purgatory as physical location has never been formally dogmatized. This question was intentionally avoided in the Florentine definition.
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Father,
I am wondering if the idea of Purgatory as being a physical place gained popularity because of Dante's Divine Comedy and the section on Purgatory
Just a thought but I could be off base. :-D
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Fr Kimel,
If what you say is true (and I assume it is), then that means that the Orthodox have taken issue with a part of the doctrine of purgatory that was not dogmatized, but was left as an open question.
I realize that the main issue is the dogmatization of this itself (as we discussed), but it seems odd to have had such a long-standing argument over an open theological question that was never dogmatically held as an irreformable article of faith.
Well! I wish that someone would, then, please tell Father Ambrose!
Last edited by danman916; 01/20/11 03:39 PM.
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Fr Kimel,
If what you say is true (and I assume it is), then that means that the Orthodox have taken issue with a part of the doctrine of purgatory that was not dogmatized, but was left as an open question.
I realize that the main issue is the dogmatization of this itself (as we discussed), but it seems odd to have had such a long-standing argument over an open theological question that was never dogmatically held as an irreformable article of faith. The difficulty, I believe, is most Western Catholics treat it as dogma, whether or not it is so defined because of secondary concern. Another aspect of the question to consider are doctrines, such as indulgences, that make it seem as if purgatory is an actual place.
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