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No Heaven Without Purgatory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

David Brown
David Brown
Affiliation:
Fellow and Tutor at Oriel College, Oxford
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Extract

If Purgatory is given a role at all in modern conceptions of the after–life, it is likely to be at most of the kind found in Hick and Rahner, in providing a second chance for those of whom it might be argued that they have had no proper opportunity in this life. Apart from its intermediate character, however, this account has very little in common with the traditional conception, whereas it seems to me that philosophical reasons, partly conceptual and partly moral, compel assent to something very much more like the traditional view. This I take to have had two essential features: (a) that it was a place of moral preparation (not trial) for those whose lives and decisions had already destined them for Heaven and (b) that this moral preparation involved some kind of purgatorial (i.e. purifying) pain that was seen as a necessary consequence of the rectification of moral wrong–doing. Three arguments in defence of (a) are offered below. These will help to provide an appropriate framework for the brief defence of (b) which then follows. For convenience these three arguments may be labelled the temporal argument, the identity argument and the self–acceptance argument.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , December 1985 , pp. 447 - 456
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

page 447 note 1 Hick, J., Death and Eternal Life (London: Fount paperback, 1979), esp. pp. 414ff.;Google ScholarRahner, K., Theological Investigations (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1983), vol. 19, pp. 181–93, esp. p. 192.Google Scholar

page 448 note 1 Defended, for instance, in Boron, L., The Moment of Truth (London: Burns & Oates, 1965), p. 129ff.Google Scholar

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page 449 note 1 Bornkamm suggests that the catalyst was arguments with Hellenistic Christians in Damascus (Bornkamm, G., Paul, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1971, p. 23), while Jung bases his interpretation on the fact thatGoogle Scholar‘fanaticism is only found in individuals who are compensating secret doubts’ (Jung, C. G., Contributions to Analytical Psychology, trans. H. G. & C. F. Baynes, 1945, p. 257).Google Scholar

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page 453 note 1 As, for example, in Oman's, John classic, Grace and Personality (Cambridge University Press, 1917)Google Scholar and reprinted in many other editions since.

page 455 note 1 Eliot, T. S., Little Gidding, IV.Google Scholar

page 455 note 2 St Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory (Classics of Western Spirituality, London: S.P.C.K., 1979), p. 80.Google Scholar

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page 456 note 1 I am very grateful to David Cook, Oliver O'Donovan and Janet Soskice for helpful, critical comments on a previous draft.