In Favor Of Purgatory

I have very recently realized purgatory is not some indefensible concept but is a very supportable notion which boasts the authority of reason.  It seems that Protestants find this position more offensive than other Christians do, denouncing it as a Catholic invention.  Now, I am certainly not a Catholic, but, at the same time, neither would I be quick to categorize myself among the groups of various Christians.  In this post I want to introduce my own syllogistic argument for purgatory and clarify several ramifications for this concept.

I have not yet studied traditional arguments for purgatory, but I will offer a syllogism I designed (I expect that mine is very similar to what others have formulated) which uses deductive reasoning to demonstrate that if the premises I present are true then the conclusion that purgatory exists is undeniable.


1. Sanctification is necessary before entrance into heaven.
2. Full sanctification does not occur on earth before death [1].
3. Therefore sanctification must be completed after death but before heaven.


The only way to refute this conclusion is to prove one or both of the premises to be incorrect, since the conclusion follows logically from the premises.  Premise 1 agrees with general Protestant theology, so anyone who disputes my conclusion has to falsify something before the conclusion of my syllogism.

Protestants often mistake the idea of purgatory's sanctifying effect for an idea which denies that salvation is grounded in Christ alone.  Someone who is aware of the differences between justification and sanctification [2], though, should not succumb to this error.  Purgatory does not contradict the doctrine that justification only occurs because of Christ alone, yet that has not prevented people from assuming that it denies or challenges this.  The concept of purgatory has to do with sanctification, the process of becoming holy and more like God, and does not have anything to do with justification, the act of God making humans right with him in a salvific sense.

The objection that purgatory is not mentioned in Scripture is a meaningless one, because in the Bible the word "Trinity" is never even slightly alluded to, yet Protestants are quick to affirm the Trinity (something which could never be supported by deductive reasoning like purgatory can be).  The Bible never mentions that gender inequality in workplace wages is wrong, but the legislation of Mosaic Law would by extension condemn all double-standards involving gender.  Scripture is not the sole revealer of truth; it is absurd and self-refuting to believe otherwise, and there exists an extraordinary amount of ground which Scripture does not even comment on.  The fact that the Bible never seems to mention purgatory--to my knowledge--does not threaten my argument at all.  Besides, it is unjustifiably generous to the baseless Protestant stance on this matter to believe that the Bible never references purgatory, because it is impossible to prove that certain ambiguous passages are not teaching the notion.

Ironically, I suspect that, at the same time that they rightly disregard any tradition which contradicts the Bible or core Christianity, many Protestants reject the idea of purgatory out of respect for Protestant tradition.  Remember that whenever dealing with matters of truth, no one's feelings, preferences, customs, opinions, or guesses have any value.  Evangelical tradition concerning hell, Mosaic Law, and epistemology is deeply flawed, and reason blatantly denies the arguments of evangelicals against purgatory in the same way that it vomits out some of their conclusions about hell and morality.  In fact, purgatory likely exists by logical necessity.

I will continue to contemplate this matter in the coming weeks, grateful that reason can liberate from the bonds of tradition and ignorance.


[1].  There is an untraditional group of Christians called perfectionists which believes that a person can become fully perfect in this life.  I cannot currently verify or refute their claims, but I can prove that perfectionism is not incorrect just because it seems impossible or because people don't think one can shed all sins before death.  However, there are MANY beliefs which I once rejected that I now know are are true, some of which I have mentioned on my blog (annihilationism, Christian naturism, and rationalism are all things I have viciously hated at earlier points in my life).  It is of course possible that perfectionism is correct, since there is nothing self-refuting about the concept.  Note that the mere possibility that perfection is attainable between the moment of justification and death does not mean that everyone will achieve this status while living.  So even if perfectionism is true, purgatory would still hypothetically be necessary for people who did not become perfect before they died.

[2].  http://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/08/definitions-part-2.html