Catholics Don't Believe You Can Earn Your Way to Heaven

A man commits a serious crime, then he gets released. He has "paid his debt to society". But wait a minute, he's only ready for the half-way house. He's unlikely to get a prestigious job in his new prison suit coat, or any job at all; he has civil impediments, he can't vote or hold certain offices. His crime was serious enough that he won't be presumed to have been completely rehabilitated until he performs a notable service to society, or at least spends many years on the straight and narrow, so that his crime can be truly overlooked or forgotten.

In Catholic faith, your "debt to society" is paid by Jesus Christ on Calvary. It's called "eternal punishment", without Christ it keeps you from going to heaven. Supposing that you do take advantage of His sacrifice, you're truly sorry, have a firm purpose of amendment, if you relapse, you go again for forgiveness (to the Sacrament of Confession).

But your sin leaves a strong trace at another layer of impurity called "temporal punishment due to sin", like the civil impediments facing the half-way house prisoner. Because "nothing impure can enter heaven", there is a place or a state, a condition of purification to render you fit for heaven after Christ has finally saved you from hell. The Catholic Church calls it purgatory.

(Where is it in the bible? Where is the word Trinity in the bible? Where does it say that you only need a personal relationship with Jesus Christ? Many valid principles aren't stated explicitly in the bible, but it does say to "hold fast to the traditions you have learned, whether by word or by letter", because much of the Gospel wasn't written down, as Jesus only wrote in the sand, the majority of the Gospel was taught from word to ear to people who couldn't afford expensive books, the exceptions were what tended to get written down. But the implication that there is a purgatory, is contained in the bible--see the comments.)

The ex-con can receive a pardon or commutation of his probation from a Governor, if he performs some heroic deed, saving numerous lives, or, like Chuck Colson, performs a long-lasting, valuable community service helping numerous people who can't help themselves.

In the Catholic Church there are 2 ways for the residual, temporal effects due to sin to be expiated: suffering in this life, or after life, undergoing purifying suffering along with other people who will finally be saved, but have to suffer for long without the vision of God--that is what causes them their pain.

Their suffering isn't meritorious enough to grant their release, the saints in heaven and those on earth suffering and practicing virtue can pray for the suffering souls in purgatory. In no way is their release by slow transfer of suffering or practice of virtue, "buying heaven". It's a long, excruciating process.

How the misunderstanding arose that Catholics think they can buy their way into heaven, is involved with history more than 500 years old. For a millennium of Christendom between roughly 410 and 1410, there was a Medieval civilization with harmony between faith and government.

Many small farmers would cluster around the manor house of a military lord who would protect them, in exchange for a certain fixed obligation of labor and agricultural produce. In most cases, those "serfs" had much more leisure than factory workers of the industrial revolution; there were a large number of holy days without work, and except for planting and harvesting, there were long stretches of idle time.

Another large sector of the economy surrounded monasteries, where the monks developed most of the farming practices that stabilized the serfs and their manorial lords. The monks who worked those monastic lands were sworn to poverty, so that monasteries built up large accumulations of economic value over decades and centuries of labor.

At the beginning, when lands were being cleared and put into production there weren't prominent town fairs ruled by merchants and bankers. Money wasn't used for sustenance, not even much barter occurred, life was mostly agrarian.

Charity was woven into the economy of monasteries. It was estimated that you only need travel 12 miles in medieval England between monasteries, where you could get a meal and minimal lodging for free, based on need. And the charity was also spiritual, including the ancient Catholic principle of prayer for the dead, which is biblical. (See "prayer for the dead" in the original King James Bible in the comment.)

There were foundations and benefices for praying for the dead, that allowed a person of means to support monasteries' charitable works, and in proportional response the monks would pray for the souls of the donors.

It happened at the close of the middle ages, that militarily strong nobles cast their eyes on the labor value accumulated by the poverty-sworn monks of the monasteries, which those nobles perceived as monetary wealth, especially where gold and jewels had been donated by the devout to adorn churches.

(Protestant writer William Cobbett wrote in his 1824 "A History of the Protestant Reformation in England and Ireland", an anecdote, that an incredibly valuable, hand illustrated bible was stripped of it's bejeweled, gold cover, the much more valuable hand-illumined manuscript, thrown in the mud and trampled by horses hooves by raiders suppressing the monasteries in Henry VIII's England.)

A new religion growing up around this seizure of monastic lands and valuables, that sought to discredit the Catholic Church, spread the black legend that the "sale of indulgences" was abusive. But this was very exceptional. Today the stipend of a Mass said for the dead is $10.

Jesus told the thief on the cross next to him, "This day you will be with me in paradise."
Should the thief have believed that and accepted it at face value,
or should he have equivocated and been full of doubt?

Well, I would like to ignore your non-sensical analogy, but God had other plans, and does enjoy having fun with his creatures. Just when I thought I was out….

Re-Read that part in Luke if you would.
Do you see that the good thief, known as Dismas, ASKED of Christ to be remembered when Christ entered his Kingdom?
So why, as You say of Dismas,” would he equivocated and been full of doubt?”
for something he asked of Jesus in the first place?
Ask not, want not.

Today is marked as the Annunciation of Christ
being conceived by the Holy Spirit into Mary.
But guess what ? Today is also the Feast day of another as well!!
Guess who ?
THE GOOD THIEF, Dismas…!!! But I bet you already knew that.. sneaky..
you were just punking me …. and now I oblige…

Actually, I was gonna write about this to my correspondees here back in the 600s, something along the lines of the good thief as an example of probably one of the most overlooked works in the Bible- just not enough time…. It doesn’t help that Dismas probably doesn’t get the love either by being overshadowed on March 25th all the time.
But with his last breath, his last words, he finds (or is filled with) the loving desire to give Glory to God, recognizing Christ the King, as being the innocent Sacrifice on the Cross, and rebuking the bad unbelieving thief.
With all he had left in his life- all he could use of his flesh – was his mind and voice – and he used it to exalt Christ. He would die in this last act, with Christ within him.

This dying good thief on his cross (remember “take up your cross, and follow me”) gives us a lifetime of the Christian faith packed into in a very short time interval.
What you miss in your analogy’s attempt is that the Good Thief shows Christ his humility, abiding love, through a selfless contrition, (and what we miss) for the purpose that he then desires to conform himself into Christ’s death as well.
This faith, is the same faith you see in the martyr’s throughout the centuries- conforming their lives to Christ unto their deaths. The Grace is, the Life of Christ itself.
This the Good thief goes through justification- sanctification- into glorification in a matter of minutes perhaps. What he begins on his cross, is what God wants accomplished in us, in our lives as well.

To understand why your analogy doesn’t work look what takes place in those few verses. A lot was going on there- mucho.

35And the people stood by, watching; but the rulers scoffed at him,

The authority of the material world, rejects and mock Christ authority and his Kingdom.

39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”

Christ again is tempted, by satan’s sinfulness in man, by the unbelievers, to disobey God’s Will.

40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?

Dismas now displays a changed heart, the desire for Obedience to God into death, In the eyes of the Lord

41 And we indeed justly; for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds;

Humility, Confession to God.

but this man has done nothing wrong.

Dismas, selflessness in death, shows Love for the other...

42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingly power.”

Have Mercy on me ! (Remember the Tax collector in the Temple parable I mentioned) A rebuke of the rulers, and soldiers, of this world, to join Christ in his Kingdom of Heaven.

43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

From the Priestly King, Your sins are Forgiven you.
Saved by God’s Grace.
It is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me….

1	I ask again, do you believe we have a body, a soul or behavior mechanism, AND a spirit?	Yes, but I can only measure one of them.
2	I add, do you believe the Word of God is powerful, more powerful than any two-edged sword?	sure. that is what the Book says.
3	Do you believe GOD separates the soul and spuirit when a person is born from above?	I have no idea about any separation, even less about it's occurance at the time indicated.
4	Do you believe God abides in the born again spirit?	We believe HE is omnipresent. What you mean by this question is unknown to me.

God tells us that He abides in the spirit of the redeemed and will never leave us or forsake us in that Presence. (Where?)

The Rapture reunites a spirit with a body and soul, a NEW Glorified body and soul, removing us and them from this plane of reality for the trip to the Father's House.

It has not been shown that a soul and a spirit get separated.

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