An Examination of the Catholic and Protestant Debate Regarding Purgatory in 16th Century England - Essay Example

An Examination of the Catholic and Protestant debate regarding Purgatory in 16th Century England s Submitted by s: Introduction The notion of purgatory has origins that date back to the times before Jesus to the practices that were seen globally that involved saying prayers as well as caring for the dead and the practice for praying for the dead regarding making their afterlife pure that was synonymous with Judaism (Taylor, 1998, p. 66). The Christianity grew for Judaism and the same practice can be identified in various other traditions that include the medieval Chinese Buddhist practice that involved making offerings on behalf of the dead (Feher, 1998, p. 21). They thought the dead suffered trials in the state that they were in (Hershock, 2005, p. 35). The belief that the Catholics accord to purgatory if founded on the prayers that they offer for the dead, among other reasons. Over the centuries, different descriptions as well as principles have developed and the people who believe in purgatory interpret different passages in the Bible especially the ones that are not accepted as scripture by the Protestants but are recognized by the Catholics as well as the Orthodox. The first Christians waited for impending return of Christ but did not create detailed beliefs in themselves of the interim state and steadily the Christians specifically the ones that are in the west were interested in the circumstances of the interim state that existed between the death of a person and their resurrection. Conception of the idea of purgatory The perception that is associated with purgatory the same way as heaven and hell being a place that is physical was conceived in the late eleventh century and the ancient theologians had the belief that the punishments that were present in purgatory comprised of fires that were material. In the Great Schism that existed in the East as well as the West, the Western perception that was associated with purgatory was considered as the attachment point. The Catholic Church developed the belief that those who are living can be able to assist the ones whose purification from sin has not yet been achieved through prayer and gaining indulgence with them and this is considered to be as act of intercession. In the middle ages, there was an escalation in significant abuses that included the unlimited sale of indulgences by the people that were considered as professional pardoners who were sent to make collections of the contributions to projects. The projects that these professional pardoners were involved in included the rebuilding of the St Peter’s Basilica that was in Rome and they were among the factors that lead to the protestant reformation. In the reformation, majority of the Protestants did not agree with the notion of purgatory, as it was not evident in the Luther’s canon of the Bible, which does not include the Deuterocanonical books (Holgate and Starr, 2006, p. 31). The contemporary Catholic theologians have consequently mitigated the penal aspects that are associated with purgatory as well as the stress and concentrated on the willingness of the dead to participate in purification as grounding for the happiness that will be experienced in heaven. Catholicism and its perception of purgatory The Catholic Church affords the title purgatory to the ultimate purification associated with all the people who die in the grace and friendship of God but did not get the chance to be purified in a perfect way. Regardless of the fact that purgatory is often thought to be a place instead of a process that entails purification, the notion of purgatory as a physical place is not considered as a part of the idea that is supported by the church. As far as the belief of the Catholics is concerned, as soon as a person dies, that person goes through judgment whereby the everlasting destiny that is associated with the soul is specified. Some of the people are united with God for the rest of time in Heaven, which is considered as a paradise that has everlasting joy while other are condemned to a state that is called Hell. Hell is characterized by a separation from God and in this state; the torment that the soul will go through will never end. It should be remembered that a person would enter hell through their own will that will make them be separate from God. The Catholics regard purgatory as a state where cleansing is done in a temporary but painful way of punishment, which resembles the everlasting punishment, that is associated with hell since they are all linked to the idea of fire (Staley, 2007, p. 194). While pain that involves the senses is not defined by the principles as being part of the Purgatory experience, most of the theologians believe that the state involves pain of the senses. A number of fathers of the church perceived 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verses 10 to 15 as the proof that the there was an intermediate state that existed where the dross of lighter transgressions will be subjected to fire and the soul will then be purified and consequently saved. The Eastern Catholic churches that are associated with the Greek tradition have not adopted the use of the word purgatory but are in agreement that there is a process of final purification for the souls that are meant to go to heaven and that prayers can be able to assist who are in this specific state. Generally, both the members of the Latin Church as well as those of the Eastern Catholic Churches think of these differences as points of dispute but see them as slight gradations as well as dissimilarities in tradition. A treaty that is associated with the formalization of the admission of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church into the full communion that is linked to the Roman Catholic Church stated that they would not be engage in the discourse that concerned purgatory but they will entrust themselves in the teachings that are associated with the holy church. In the view of the theologians linked to the church, this implied that both sides could agree to disagree concerning the speculations that are made theologically and the opinions that about the state of purgatory while maintaining agreement of the essential issues. The eastern catholic churches that belong to the Syriac tradition have a conception in the phenomena that is purgatory but they refer to it using a different name such as ‘Sheol’ while claiming that this does not pose a contradiction with the Latin-Catholic dogma (Berkhof and Berkhof, 1996, p. 686). Protestantism and its thoughts about purgatory Generally, the protestant churches are against the idea of purgatory and one of the codes of belief that is strongly associated with the Protestants is the ‘scripture alone’. The Protestants have the principle that the bible, which excludes the deutrocanonical books, does not contain unconcealed and open discussions that are associated with purgatory and thus it is supposed to be cast away as a belief that does not conform to the bible. Another perception that is held by the Protestants is the ‘faith alone’ where they believe that faith alone without any other action is what leads to salvation and that the good deeds are only proof that one has faith (Hankins, 2008, p. 3). Salvation is typically considered to be a discrete event that happens once and for all in the life of a particular person but not the outcome of the alteration of a particular person’s character (Leupp, 2008, p. 182). On the other hand, most of the protestants believe that an alteration or transformation of the character that is associated with a person will typically follow the experience that is brought by salvation. Rather than making a distinction between the mortal and the venial sins, the Protestants hold the belief that the faith that a particular person has determines the state of salvation that is linked to a particular person and the position that the person will occupy in the afterlife (Burger, 2008, p. 215). The ones that have undergone salvation through God will go to heaven while the ones that have not embraced salvation will be left out of heaven. For that reason, the protestants rejected the idea that there exists a short-term and impermanent state like purgatory. A section of the protestants have the inclination that a person will enter into the completeness of its paradise or agony only after the body has been able to resurrect and that the soul when in the temporary state is very aware of the fate that awaits it (Igma, 2009, p. 348). A different section is of the opinion that the souls that exist in the temporary state, which exists between death and renaissance, do not have any awareness and they refer to this situation as soul sleep (Brennan and Stainton, 2010, p. 80). Conclusion Christians from both the East and the West said prayers for their dead when they were in the interim state even though the theologians that were in the East distanced themselves from making definitions of this state. Augustine developed the distinction that exists between the fire that is used to purify that is thought to save and the fire that consumes forever that is meant to be punishment for people who are unremorseful (Moreira, 2010, p. 19). Gregory the Great on his part, was able to connect the earthly penance and the purification that occurs after death while All Soul’s Day that was instituted in the tenth century brought focus on the condition of the souls that were departed. 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Taylor, M. 1998, Purgatory, 1st ed, Our Sunday Visitor Pub, Huntington, Ind. Read More