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Well, first of all, boatbums, I think it will work much better if you decide what you are going to focus on and address in your posts, and that you let me decide what I'm going to focus on and address in my posts. :-)
Now, when a surgeon is removing a small tumor from someone's body, should the surgeon's attention be diffused over the whole body while they are operating, or should they focus on the small tumor they are removing?
(If you don't want a particular sentence in your post focused on and addressed by other posters for some reason, the best thing would be to not put that particular sentence into your post in the first place.)
You said that purgatory was "REJECTED", so I wanted to point out the truth of the matter, that it was not rejected by the Catholic Church, and is was also not rejected by some Protestant Christians, and it was also not rejected by some Eastern Orthodox Christians.
Regarding the vague and imprecise knowledge we have about purgatory, the truth is that we also only have vague and imprecise knowledge about heaven, and we also only have vague and imprecise knowledge about hell as well. The Bible tells us:
If you allow that vague and imprecise knowledge to disqualify purgatory, then logically, you should also disqualify any belief in a "heaven" or a "hell" for the exact same reason, since we only have very vague and imprecise knowledge about those two places/concepts as well.------------------------------------------------------------
But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. 1 Corinthians 2:9
For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. 1 Corinthians 13:12
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The teachings and revelations of God and God's Church are not a matter of "consensus" of the members of the Church, or what all Catholics happen to agree on. (We would probably never have any teachings then, as there is probably no teaching which everyone agrees on exactly.)
Rather, the teachings of the Church are based on the truth as given by God to His Church, whether that truth is accepted by people or not. God does not authorize a vote to see which teachings people should be required to accept and believe in, but, rather, tells us what the truth is that we should all believe. Everyone has free will and can choose to dissent from those teachings of the truth, but that does not invalidate those truths in the least.
As the Church plainly teaches, there is a "purgatory" or "purgative state" that some souls will pass through after their life on earth ends (on their way to heaven), and we do not know exactly what that experience will be like for them, or exactly how it will work, but we do know that it prepares them for heaven.
Purgatory WAS rejected by the first Protestants and by the Orthodox precisely because it was NOT a doctrine either taught in Scripture, by the Apostles OR by the ancient church. The whole idea didn't even start to be discussed until CENTURIES after all the Apostles died. It really isn't about what "some" Protestants believe today. That wasn't the point I was trying to make. If some want to believe in some form or another of some ethereal place like a "purgatory", it neither makes it the truth nor does it establish that it belongs as part of the original Christian faith. Even the whole idea surrounding the need for such a place is unscriptural.
Regarding the vague and imprecise knowledge we have about purgatory, the truth is that we also only have vague and imprecise knowledge about heaven, and we also only have vague and imprecise knowledge about hell as well.
We have reams more knowledge about heaven and hell than you do about this imaginary place called Purgatory. It isn't "vague" nor "imprecise" but as clear as God can possibly describe them to finite minds incapable of grasping the infinite. Explain why Catholicism has such a cottage industry surrounding such a dogma as Purgatory when there is so much LESS precision and clarity about it than what God has revealed about heaven and hell in His word?
It does boil down to the Roman Catholic church asserting its authority ABOVE that of Divinely-revealed Scripture and presuming to condemn genuine Christians, who refuse to accept the so-called "truth" the Catholic church creates, as heretics when it is Catholicism that spreads soul-killing heresy. When God says we ARE justified by grace through faith APART from our works and that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from ALL sin, there is NO need for an intermediate place to cleanse ourselves from sins we have yet to be penalized for after our death. To teach Purgatory is to deny grace. It negates grace. JESUS is our place of cleansing.
She didn't say it was vague or imprecise definitions that were the basis for rejecting purgatory. Your analogy doesn't work because heaven and hell are mentioned specifically by name in many places in Scripture.
There isn't even an allusion to purgatory anywhere in Scripture, much less mention of it by name.
The only *preparation* necessary for heaven is to be forgiven by God and given the righteousness of Christ. There is nothing else.
Either we are saved now or not. There is nothing after death that can affect our eternal destiny. The born again believer is absent from the body and present with the Lord.
The unsaved person goes to hell.