From: lbarrass@phillip.edu.au
Newsgroups: aus.religion
Subject: Re: Aqunias on faith & purgatory
Date: 29 Jul 92 20:01:07 GMT
Organization: RMIT (Bundoora Campus)

In article <ricko.712225983@ee.uts.EDU.AU>, ricko@ee.uts.edu.au (Rick Jelliffe) writes:
> This might be interesting or useful to people: 
> a reader/poster to this group asked me some questions about purgatory,
> & I thought here might be a good place to post some paragraphs 
> from St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica. I hope it'll help explain what
> Catholics mean by the state of purgatory, and how this does not diminish
> what Jesus did on the Cross, but in fact is only possible because of the Cross.
> 
> The first few paragraphs are needed to define terms.
> 
> -------
> (PURGATORY)
> 
> The good who love God perfectly will be submitted to no judgement other than
> being assigned their reward. The good who are imperfect will be judged as to
> their imperfections but will be saved.
> 
> Souls fit for heaven go there; souls in mortal sin are, by their own
> free choice and decision, assigned to hell; souls in God's grace but unfit
> for heaven are detained in purgatory.

Tell us then what the purpose of the blood of Jesus is if it is not to make
unfit souls fit? This is the whole reason the concept of purgatory diminishes
the blood of our saviour. 



> 
> Heaven is for those without spot or wrinkle, nothing defiled can enter.
> In heaven the blessed will directly see the very essense of God.
> Souls remain in purgatory until the preventing obstacle is removed
> by eduring the penalties of its state or by prayers and sufferages on its
> behalf.
> 	

Again, the only obstacle to eternal life is SIN. The only way to remove sin is
by the blood of Jesus


> THe greater love and desire one has for what is, at least temporarily,
> out of one's reach, the greater is the pain at being derived of it.
> Now the souls in purgatory have a keen awareness of the great Good 
> which they desire; their love and longing for it surpass anything 
> experienced in this life; hence their pain is the greater.

Show us one verse that supports the idea of purgatory. I thought the Bible says
that it is destined for man to die once and THEN face judgement. (Heb 9:27)



> 
> The souls in purgatory patiently submit to their penalties, but they
> long to be freed from them and to be purified from all that blocks
> them out of heaven.

The penalty was paid upon the cross.

> 	
> The devils in hell have no power to afflict the souls in purgatory.
> Indeed, the souls in purgtory have conquered the demons by avoiding mortal
> sin or by being contrite for it. The souls in purgatory have actually won
> heaven, and wait only till they are conditioned to enter it. The holy souls
> are the victors, and the demons the vanquished.	
> 
Show me a verse(s) that say this. Also a verse showing that there are mortal or
any other classification of sin (apart from the unforgivable blaspheming the
Holy Spirit). The ideas of purgatory/mortal sins etc come from mans tradition,
not the word of God.

> -------
> (Me again) 
> Many non-Catholics are confused about purgatory: they see it as something
> which bypasses Jesus, the one mediator between God and man. Or they
> see it as something somehow connected with earning salvation.
> 

              YEP!!


> In fact, as I hope the quotes show, purgatory expresses how a SAVED soul
> is transformed to be fit for (in the sense of being able to participate in,
> NOT in the sense of meriting) heaven. It represents how God's grace 
> brings us rotten sinners into our new birthright, without violating our
> personality (ie when we die we aren't perfect, yet in heaven we are:
> how does God accomplish this without overriding our wills? The state of
> us relinquishing our wills is purgatory).
> 

see 1Cor 15:35-49 regarding new bodies given. (pefect bodies)


> (Please don't write to me  saying Jesus' blood washes total clean: I believe.
> Read the quotes: the Catholic notion of purgatory talks about the initial
> steps of a saved dead person and how God conforms us for his presence.) 
>  

The Catholic notion of purgatory is just that!! It is not a Biblical notion!


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                                               []   2Chron 7:14
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lbarrass@phillip.edu.au                     Lindsay    
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Newsgroups: aus.religion