“Again and again you keep ignoring the pointedly and indisputably strong scriptural and traditional bases of the rebuttal to your arguments made by the Augustinian Club and then conclude that this is a “personal “ attack. No, it is not when you engage in theological arguments and then side step the rebuttal.”
I was calling this comment personal:
“If you are unable to appreciate the depth of these arguments just say so. Why not just admit that the explanations are well beyond your intellectual grasp.”
Frankly, the club you cite has its facts wrong. No, I do not read an e-bbok which doesn’t ever address my arguments. Nor do I wish to write from my personal knowledge an e-book in reply. I’ve spent hundreds of posts over the years discussing the Eucharist, Priests, the prohibition on vernacular translations, etc.
I refuse to take 8 hours to write out a point-by-point rejection of a cut & paste. If you have a specific objection to anything I wrote, please make it and I will respond.
” Against the flow of a 2000 year plus tradition of interpretation by some of the most illustrious scholars and early Church fathers, and converts to Catholicism like the brilliant minds of GK Chesterton and Cardinal St. Thomas Newman, you make sophomoric contrary claims and hold out your exegetical views as pre-eminent.”
My arguments are not sophomoric. I’m sorry your great minds and thinkers of incredible wisdom have been unable to show any reference to Christian Priests in the New Testament, nor explain away the book of Hebrews. With such brilliant minds, they ought to be able to show some reference to Purgatory, which, if true, would be a very powerful incentive to moral living. Yet there is none in the Old or New, and even the Apocrypha only has one slanting verse sort of indicating that maybe such a thing could exist.
Is the Apocrypha authoritative for doctrine? If not, the Paul says it isn’t scripture, but the Council of Trent refused to discuss the argument. It chose to leave it an open question, which in turn opens questions about its understanding of what is meant by scripture.
If only you had taken the time to carefully read my post from the Augustine Club (what you derogatorily term as “cut and paste”) you would have found the explanation to the Catholic belief in purgatory. Beside, the great minds of Augustine, Aquinas, Benedict XVI, and to say nothing of the illustrious pantheon of intellectuals who have studied Church history and doctrine and made deliberate conversions to Catholicism including a former Chief Rabbi of Rome, considered a pre-eminent intellectual of his time, and of course the likes of literary giants like GK Chesterton and now Cardinal (St.) Henry Newman have concluded on the primacy of Peter and the Catholic Church. The rest are all wild offshoots of the bark of the one True, Catholic, Holy, and Apostolic Church as scripture, tradition, and revelation support.
Part of your problem is the myopic view that infects all of Protestantism that scripture alone interpreted of course by the pastors of some 30,000 non-CATHOLIC Christian denominations including the nearby neighborhood four-square church and individuals like yourself who claim have cottoned onto the “definite” interpretation of sacred text.
But here’s the part of the excerpt from the Augustine Club post reproduced below that you apparently did not read and hence you keep repeating your queries.
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Why do Catholics believe in a place between Heaven and Hell called Purgatory? Where is Purgatory mentioned in the Bible?
The main body of Christians have always believed in the existence of a place between Heaven and Hell where souls go to be punished for lesser sins and to repay the debt of temporal punishment for sins which have been forgiven. Even after Moses was forgiven by God, he was still punished for his sin. (2 Kg. or 2 Sam. 12:13-14).
The primitive Church Fathers regarded the doctrine of Purgatory as one of the basic tenets of the Christian faith. St. Augustine, one of the greatest doctors of the Church, said the doctrine of Purgatory ``has been received from the Fathers and it is observed by the Universal Church.’’ True, the word ``Purgatory’’ does not appear in the Bible, but a place where lesser sins are purged away and the soul is saved ``yet so as by fire,’’ is mentioned. (1 Cor. 3:15).
Also, the Bible distinguishes between those who enter Heaven straightaway, calling them ``the church of the firstborn’’ (Heb. 12:23), and those who enter after having undergone a purgation, calling them ``the spirits of the just made perfect.’’ (Heb. 12:23). Christ Himself stated: ``Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go out from thence till thou repay the last farthing.’’ (Matt. 5 :26). And: ``Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall render an account for it in the day of judgment.’’ (Matt. 12:36). These are obviously references to Purgatory.
Further, the Second Book of Machabees (which was dropped from the Scriptures by the Protestant Reformers) says: ``It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins.’’ (2 Mach. 12:46).
Ancient Christian tomb inscriptions from the second and third centuries frequently contain an appeal for prayers for the dead. In fact, the custom of praying for the dead—which is meaningless if there is no Purgatory—was universal among Christians for the fifteen centuries preceding the Protestant Reformation.
Furthermore, ordinary justice calls for a place of purgation between Heaven and Hell. Take our own courts of justice, for example. For major crimes a person is executed or sentenced to life imprisonment (Hell); for minor crimes a person is sentenced to temporary imprisonment for punishment and rehabilitation (Purgatory); for no crime at all a person is rewarded with the blessing of free citizenship (Heaven). If a thief steals some money, then regrets his deed and asks the victim for forgiveness, it is quite just for the victim to forgive him yet still insist on restitution.
God, who is infinitely just, insists on holy restitution. This is made either in this life, by doing penance (Matt. 3:2; Luke 3:8, 13:3; Apoc. 3:2-3, 19), or in Purgatory .
Also, what Christian is there who, despite his faith in Christ and his sincere attempts to be Christlike, does not find sin and worldliness still in his heart? ``For in many things we all offend.’’ (James 3:2). Yet ``there shall not enter into it [the new Jerusalem, Heaven] anything defiled.’’ (Apoc. or Rev. 21:27).
In Purgatory the soul is mercifully purified of all stain; there God carries out the work of spiritual purification which most Christians neglected and resisted on earth. It is important to remember that Catholics do not believe that Christ simply covers over their sinful souls, like covering a manure heap with a blanket of snow (Martin Luther’s description of God’s forgiveness).
Rather, Christ insists that we be truly holy and sinless to the core of our souls. ``Be you therefore perfect, as also your heavenly Father is perfect.’’ (Matt. 5:48). This growth in sinlessness—in Christian virtue and holiness—is of course the work of an entire lifetime (and is possible only through the grace of God). With many this cleansing is completed only in Purgatory. If there is no Purgatory, but only Heaven for the perfect and Hell for the imperfect, then the vast majority of us are hoping in vain for life eternal in Heaven.