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THE dogma of purgatory, founded in Scripture and
tradition, can be deduced with certitude from revealed
truths wherein it is implicitly contained. We must not
confound these arguments with the reasons of
appropriateness, which we have just spoken of and which
are open even to non-believers. We are now to speak of
reasons which arise from revealed principles.
St. Thomas [377] expounds these theological reasons in
his commentary on the Sentences. [378]
The first question is posed as follows: Is there a
purgatory after death? St. Thomas gives two arguments
of authority: the classic text from the Second Book of
Machabees, [379] and a text of St. Gregory of Nyssa.
Then he expounds the theological reason for the
existence of purgatory.
According to divine justice he who dies a contrite
death, but has not undergone the temporal punishment
due to his sins, must endure this punishment in the
other life. But at the moment of death, even when
contrition has forgiven mortal sins and destroyed
eternal punishment, it often happens that the temporary
punishment due to these sins remains to be endured. It
happens also that there remain in the soul venial sins.
Divine justice therefore must insist on a temporal
punishment in the other life. St. Thomas adds: "Those
who deny purgatory speak therefore against divine
justice and fall into heresy, as St. Gregory of Nyssa
has said."
This theological reason, founded on the necessity of
satisfaction, is demonstrative. It destroys the
foundation of the Protestant negation. [380] It is thus
formulated by the Council of Trent: [381] "It is
absolutely false and contrary to the word of God to
maintain that sin is never forgiven by God unless there
be remitted at the same time all the punishment due to
sin." [382] "This position [383] is true only of those
sins forgiven by baptism. But it is not true of sins
committed, with still greater ingratitude, after
baptism, even when these sins were forgiven by
contrition and the sacrament of penance." That baptism
brings with it remission of all punishment due to sin
is the reason why, in ancient times, some people put
off their baptism as long as possible.
This theological reason is founded on what Scripture
says concerning penance. [384] Already in the Old
Testament we see that, even after the remission of
sins, there often remains a temporal punishment to be
endured. The Book of Wisdom says that God "brought Adam
out of his sin." [385] Nevertheless he had to continue
cultivating the soil in the sweat of his brow. [386]
Moses, [387] in punishment of a fault already pardoned,
could not enter the promised land. David [388] repented
of his adultery and received pardon for it, yet he was
punished by the death of his son. Jesus and His
apostles preached the necessity of penance and of good
works to satisfy for sins already forgiven. St. Paul
[389] speaks of labors, of watchings, of fasting, which
the Church has always considered as worthy fruits of
penance, according to the word of the Precursor. [390]
We often read in Scripture [391] that almsgiving
delivers from the pain and suffering due to sin. These
good works are satisfactory and at the same time
meritorious. They suppose therefore the state of grace,
that is, the remission of sin. [392] In the natural
order it is not sufficient that one who has, for
instance, kidnapped the daughter of a king simply
restores her to her father. To repair the injury he
must undergo a proportionate punishment.
It is not sufficient to cease sinning, not even to
repent. The order of justice, if violated, must be re-
established by voluntary acceptance of a compensating
punishment. [393] The created will which has arisen
against the divine order is bound, even after
repentance, to undergo punishment. Because it has
turned away from God, it is deprived of His possession
for a time. Because it has preferred to Him a created
good, it has to undergo a punishment called pain of
sense.
But, says the Protestant objection, Christ the Redeemer
has already satisfied superabundantly for all our sins.
Tradition has always replied: The satisfactory merits
of Christ are certainly sufficient to redeem all men,
and yet they must be applied to each individual in
order to be efficacious. [394] They are applied to us
in baptism, and then, after our fall, by the sacrament
of penance, of which satisfaction is a part. Just as
the first cause does not render useless second causes
but gives to them the dignity of causality, so the
merits of Christ do not render our merits useless, but
arouse our own wills to make us work with Him, through
Him, and in Him for the salvation of souls, and in
particular for our own soul. Thus St. Paul says: "I now
rejoice in my sufferings for you and fill up those
things that are wanting of the sufferings of Christ in
my flesh, for His body, which is the church." [395]
To deny the necessity of satisfaction in this world and
of satispassion in purgatory amounts to denying the
value of a life of reparation. Such denial involves the
Lutheran negation of the necessity of good works, as if
faith without works could suffice for justification and
salvation.
At the end of a conference which I gave in Geneva, a
Protestant, intelligent and well-instructed, came to
see me. I said to him: "How could Luther come to the
conclusion that faith alone and the merits of Christ
suffice for salvation: that it is not necessary to
observe the precepts, not even the precepts of the love
of God and neighbor? " He answered me: "It is very
simple." "How very simple?" "Yes," he said, "it is
diabolical." "I would not dare to say that to you," I
answered, "but how is it that you are a Lutheran?" "My
family," he answered, "has been Lutheran for
generations, but in the near future I shall enter the
Catholic Church."
Father Monsabre wrote the following words : "Its
principles regarding justification led Protestantism to
deny the dogma of purgatory. Man, saved by faith alone,
by the merits of Christ, without relation to his own
deeds, need fear nothing from divine justice. Divine
justice must acknowledge his audacious and
imperturbable conscience in the redemptive virtue of
Him whose merits he exploits, even though he himself
may have violated all the commandments. The negation
which follows from these principles, invented to shield
the wicked, is as odious as it is absurd. It is
unintelligent and barbarous, for nothing is more
conformable to reason than the doctrine of the Church
on purgatory, and nothing is more consoling for the
heart. Protestantism, at the last hour, faces the
terrible perspective: everything or nothing. How count
on heaven when a man looks back on a life of sin, sees
that he is offering to God only a late repentance,
without reparation for so many offenses? Hence there
remains only the perspective of malediction." [396]
The chief reason for the existence of purgatory is the
one we have now expounded, namely, the necessity of
satisfaction for sins, mortal or venial, already
forgiven. Purgatory is a place of satispassion, which
applies what was lacking on earth in the line of
satisfaction.
But there are two other theological reasons for the
necessity of purgatory. First, the just soul,
separating from the body, often has venial sins.
Secondly, sins already remitted have consequences which
are called the remains of sin. Since nothing soiled can
enter heaven, the soul must be purified before it can
see God face to face.
That venial sins do remain is not doubtful. St. Thomas
says: "A man lies in sleep, in the state of grace
indeed, but with venial sin, which will not be remitted
without contrition.
Many souls in the state of grace retain numerous venial
sins at the moment of death." [397]
On the "remains of sin" St. Thomas [398] speaks as
follows: "Mortal guilt is forgiven when grace turns the
soul to God, the soul which had been turned away from
Him. But there may remain an inclination toward created
good. This inclination, this disposition caused by
preceding acts, is called the remains of sin. These
dispositions grow weaker in a soul that lives in the
state of grace. They do not have the upper hand. But
they do solicit the soul to fall back into sin.
Take a man who has sinned by drunkenness, and who has
confessed at Easter with sufficient attrition. He has
received absolution, sanctifying grace, and the infused
virtue of temperance. But, not having as yet the
acquired virtue of temperance, he retains the
inclination to sin again. Or take the case of
antipathy. If we confess with sufficient attrition, the
sin is remitted, but we retain its consequences in the
form of an inclination to sin again in the same way.
Purgatory must erase these consequences if they are
found in the soul at death.
But does not extreme unction remove these consequences?
We answer: first, some die without this sacrament;
secondly, some do not receive it with full
dispositions. Extreme unction, [399] fortifying the
soul for the last struggle, hinders disordered
habitudes from harming us at the supreme moment. But
these habitudes still remain, like rust. And nothing
soiled can enter into glory.
Such are the theological reasons for the necessity and
the existence of purgatory. First, sins already
forgiven often demand a temporal suffering. Secondly,
venial sins may still remain. Thirdly, defective
dispositions, although their corporeal element
disappears, remain as inordinate dispositions of the
will. Of these three reasons, the chief is the first.
It is, we think, demonstrative, because of the revealed
principles on which it rests. [400]
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