Replies

Cooked up is exactly how it came to be. It was not something Jesus nor his Apostles taught. Like many of the unscriptural doctrines Catholicism now teaches, it began with a perversion of the gospel from justification by grace through faith without works to where we "cooperate" with God's grace and justify ourselves by the works we do. Instead of our redemption being because of Christ's righteousness imputed to us, it became the infusion of grace allotted to us by the works we did and the sin we avoided or "handled" correctly. Though it is claimed up one side and down the other that Catholicism believes in salvation by grace, it is a facade as ones salvation can be lost by even one unconfessed unpenanced sin. Purgatory was invented as a way to keep people dependent on the church for absolution and indulgences were money making schemes to build magnificent basilicas and treasuries. Needless to say, it was NOT based on the truth.