From: jhpb@sarto.budd-lake.nj.us (Joseph H. Buehler)
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
Subject: Re: free grace
Date: 26 Jul 92 20:25:48 GMT
Organization: none

In article <Jul.16.01.01.55.1992.28241@dartagnan.rutgers.edu> allan@hc.ti.com (Allan Poindexter) writes:

	  (Our Catholic readers may notice that he has come very close to
	  reinventing a certain Catholic doctrine...)

   As explained to me the doctrine of rewards would differ from the
   doctrine of purgatory in at least three ways:

I don't quite see where Purgatory comes into this.  You basically
start to expound the Catholic doctrine of Heaven, and contrast
Purgatory to it, seems like:

   1.  The doctrine of purgatory seems to involve some pain (or at least
   discomfort) where the doctrine of rewards would claim that everyone is
   completely joy filled in the Kingdom *but* some have a greater capacity
   for joy than others.

Here is the Catholic doctrine: The happiness of Heaven consists in the
vision of the Divine Essence.  The clarity of this vision, and thus
the degree of happiness, is a function of the degree of sanctity that
one reaches on earth.  But everyone is perfectly happy.  The usual
example is two different size glasses full of water.  Which is fuller?
So it is with souls in Heaven.  Some are happier that others, but
everyone completely content.

   2.  The implication of most works I have seen on rewards is that the
   consequences of disobedience here and now are eternal.  In other words
   at the judgement of believers the pecking order will be fixed eternally.
   I have not seen this explicitly stated anywhere but the implication does
   seem to be there.  By contrast purgatory as traditionally protrayed
   involves the working off of sins over time.

Catholics believe that one's place in Heaven is set for all eternity
at the moment of death.  Purgatory doesn't change this.

   3.  Purgatory is traditionally protrayed as a place outside of heaven.
   Rewards are something that are part of the economy of heaven itself as
   opposed to an antechamber to heaven.  (N.B.  I say purgatory is
   *traditionally* portrayed this way.  I know of at least one Roman
   Catholic philosopher who has proposed that purgatory is a part of
   heaven.  I will leave it to the s.r.c RCs to clarify this issue.)

I'm curious who the philosopher is.  As stated, it is rather silly,
because the essence of Heaven is the Beatific Vision, which excludes
all suffering.  The principal suffering of Purgatory is deprivation of
this vision.

Catholic doctrine in the area of grace, free will, rewards, etc., is
well developed because of the Reformation.  There are extremes to be
avoided, basically.

The primary point that seems to me to be essentially Catholic, as
opposed to the Reformers, is the classification of grace into
efficacious and inefficacious.  They would regard an inefficacious
grace as an oxymoron.

The pastoral emphasis in the Catholic Church is on the free will
aspect of salvation, for obvious reasons.  Over-preaching God's part
of the grace/free will relationship leads many to presumption, I
think.  For the scrupulous it's beneficial, but we don't exactly have
a general problem with that in the Western populace at the moment...