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PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS
Edited by
Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte
and Benjamin W. McCraw
Purgatory
Benjamin W. McCraw
Editors
Purgatory
Philosophical Dimensions
Editors
Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte Benjamin W. McCraw
Pontifical University Antonianum Department of History, Political
Rome, Italy Science, Philosophy, and American
Studies
and University of South Carolina Upstate
Spartanburg, SC, USA
Research Fellow University of the
Free State
Bloemfontein, South Africa
ISBN 978-3-319-57890-3 ISBN 978-3-319-57891-0 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939928
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Contents
1 Introduction: Purgatory’s Religious and Philosophical

Heritage(s) 1
Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte and Benjamin W. McCraw
Part I The Nature of Purgatory
2 Purgatory, Atonement, and the Self 19

Gordon Graham
3 Religious and Paranormal Experiences as Evidence

for Purgatory 33
Travis Dumsday
4 In the Twinkling of an Eye 51

David Baggett and Jonathan Pruitt
5 Purgatory’s Temporality 69
Vincenzo Lomuscio
6 Indulgent Love 89
Neal Judisch
v
vi Contents
Part II Purgatory and Historical Considerations
7 Leibniz, Purgatory, and Universal Salvation 111

Lloyd Strickland
8 Mirror Geography: On the Emergence of

Purgatory and the City 129
9 Climbing up to Heaven: The Hermetic Option 151

Stephen R.L. Clark
10 Poetry as Purgatorial: Dante and the Language(s) of

Purgatory 175
Giuseppe Varnier
11 Aquinas and the Possibility of a Probable Reasoned

Argument for the Existence of Purgatory 199
Jeremy Bell
Part III Extending Purgatory
12 The Body in Crisis: Contemporary Articulations of

Purgatory 221
Anne Cranny-Francis
13 Praying for the Dead: An Ecumenical Proposal 239

Benjamin W. McCraw
14 On the Metaphysics of Economics and Purgatory 263

Michaël Bauwens
15 Issues of Impermanence: Christian and Early Buddhist

Contemplations of Time 281
Christopher Ketcham
Contents vii
16 The Purification of Doubt: Is It Better to Exist in

Purgatory? 303
Nicolas Michaud
Index 319
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is an Invited Professor of philosophy at the

Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy and Research Fellow at the
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa. He started his
studies in Philosophy at the Higher Institute for Philosophy at the Catholic
University of Leuven, Belgium and obtained his Ph.D. in Philosophy at
the Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy. He studied Spiritual
Theology at the Pontifical University Gregoriana, and was Postdoctoral
Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
of the University of Edinburgh. In 2010, he was awarded the ‘European
Philosophy from Kant to the Present Prize’, issued by the University of
Kentucky. He has published on topics ranging from continental philoso-
phy, patristics, theology-philosophy-politics interdependencies, educa-
tional theory, to football.
Benjamin W. McCraw teaches philosophy at the University of South

Carolina Upstate. He has a Ph.D. from the University of Georgia and a
BA from Wofford College. His research focuses primarily on epistemol-
ogy and philosophy of religion—especially their intersection in religious
epistemology. He has published articles in the International Journal
for Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy and Theology, Social Epistemology,
and Logos and Episteme and is the co-editor of The Concept of Hell
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), Philosophical Approaches to the Devil
ix
x Editors and Contributors
(Routledge, 2015), The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions

(Lexington Books, 2015), and Philosophical Approaches to Demonology
(Routledge, 2017).
Contributors
David Baggett is a Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics in the

Divinity School of Liberty University. Author or editor of about a
dozen books, including Good God (2011) and God and Cosmos (2016)
with Jerry Walls (Oxford University Press), he has also published several
dozen articles in philosophy and popular culture, ethics, philosophy of
religion, moral apologetics, epistemology, and philosophy of sport—in
such journals as the Journal of Religious Ethics, Philosophia Christi, and
the Harvard Theological Review. He’s also the founder and executive
editor of MoralApologetics.com.
Michaël Bauwens is a postdoctoral fellow at the IAP in Liechtenstein

on a Templeton project on free will and divine intervention. He has a
Ph.D. in philosophy from the KU Leuven, and a BA, MA and M.Phil.
from the same university. His research focuses on social ontology,
metaphysics and philosophy of religion. He has published articles in
the Journal of Institutional Economics, Communio, and Methode, and
is a contributor to a forthcoming book on Heaven and Philosophy
(Lexington Books, 2017, ed. Simon Cushing).
Jeremy Bell teaches philosophy and history at Campion College, Sydney.

In 2015, he completed his Ph.D. in Philosophy and Social Thought at
the University of Chicago. His dissertation was on Elizabeth Anscombe’s
philosophy of mind. His research interests include Thomist hylomor-
phism, just war theory, sexual ethics and philosophy of punishment.
Stephen R.L. Clark is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the

University of Liverpool, and an Honorary Research Fellow in the
Department of Theology at the University of Bristol. He continues to
manage an international e-list for philosophers, and to serve as Associate
Editor of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy. His books
include The Mysteries of Religion (1984), A Parliament of Souls (1990),
God, Religion and Reality (1998), Biology and Christian Ethics (2000),
Editors and Contributors xi
Understanding Faith: Religious Belief and its Place in Society (2009),

Ancient Mediterranean Philosophy (2013), and Plotinus: myth, metaphor
and philosophical practice (2016). His chief current interests are in the
philosophy of Plotinus, the understanding and treatment of non-human
animals, philosophy of religion, and science fiction.
Anne Cranny-Francis was first known for her feminist writing on tex-
tual politics—how gender is articulated in texts in all media—in books
such as Feminist Fiction (1990) and Engendered Fictions (1992) and the
co-edited Feminine, Masculine and Representation (1990). She has also
worked on the politics and practice of literacy, on the body, and on mul-
timedia and emerging technologies. Her other books include Popular
Culture (1994), The Body in the Text (1995), Multimedia: Texts and
Context (2005) and Technology and Touch (2013), and the co-written
Gender Studies: Terms and Debates (2003). Her major research interests
currently are technology and culture, sensory studies, multimodal litera-
cies, and the textual politics of ex-patriot Australian writer, Jack Lindsay.
She is currently a Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of
Technology Sydney. Anne has also worked as a creative consultant for
Children’s television, a social researcher, literacy consultant, and a media,
communication and web site consultant.
Travis Dumsday holds the Canada Research Chair in Theology and

the Philosophy of Science at Concordia University of Edmonton. He has
published on a variety of topics in analytic philosophy of science, meta-
physics, natural theology, and ethics.
Gordon Graham is Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and

the Arts at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is a graduate of the
Universities of St Andrews (MA) and Durham (MA; Ph.D.). He is the
author/editor of sixteen books, including most recently Wittgenstein and
Natural Religion (Oxford UP 2014).
Neal Judisch is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of

the Multidisciplinary Studies program at the University of Oklahoma.
He specializes in metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, and
philosophical theology. He acquired his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the
University of Texas (2005).
xii Editors and Contributors
Christopher Ketcham earned his doctorate at the University of Texas

at Austin. He teaches business and ethics for the University of Houston
downtown. His research interests are applied ethics, social justice, and
east–west comparative philosophy. He has chapters in Reconsidering the
Meaning in Life (Philosophy of Life Publishers, 2015), and Commercial
Space Exploration: Ethics, Policy and Governance (Ashgate, 2015). He has
published articles in The Journal of Space Policy, Philosophical Inquires,
Per la filosofia, Leadership and the Humanities, and the Journal of the
Philosophy of Life.
Vincenzo Lomuscio teaches philosophy at the Liceo De Sanctis, Trani

(Italy) and collaborates with “Aldo Moro” University of Bari. He has
a Ph.D. from the University of Bari. His research focuses primarily on
philosophy of religion and continental metaphysics. His last publica-
tions are Moving Image and Conversion: a Neo-Platonic Film Theory in
T. Botz-Bornstein and I. Stamatellos (ed.), Plotinus and the Moving
Image: Neoplatonism and Film Studies (Brill 2016) and From temporality
to eternity: three philosophical approaches, in Religious Inquiries, vol. IV,
Issue 7 (2015), 17–30.
Nicolas Michaud teaches philosophy and humanities at Florida State

College Jacksonville. He holds his Doctorate in Educational Leadership,
his Master’s in English, and his Master’s in Practical Philosophy and
Applied Ethics. Michaud specializes in issues of educational philoso-
phy, marginalization, epistemology, and ethics. His peer-reviewed pub-
lications include “Why Philosophy Matters in Educational Leadership”
and “The Disabled as Deviant: Samuel Beckett’s Rejection of Narrative
Prosthesis.” He also speaks once a week on issues of society and philoso-
phy on his YouTube channel “uPhilosopher.”
Jonathan Pruitt is an Adjunct Instructor in the College of Theology at

Grand Canyon University. He has an MA from Talbot School of Theology
and another from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. He is currently
working on a Ph.D. at the Divinity School of Liberty University, and
has written an article on Robert Adams for a forthcoming Bloomsbury
Encyclopedia of American Philosophers and for Eleutheria (“The Eternal
Progression Argument against Mormonism”). His research focuses on
the connection between virtue ethics and Christian apologetics. He is the
managing editor both of Moralapologetics.com and Eleutheria.
Editors and Contributors xiii
Lloyd Strickland is a Reader in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan

University (UK), having previously taught at Lancaster University,
the University of Central Lancashire, and the University of Wales,
Trinity Saint David. His principal research interests are Early Modern
Philosophy (especially Leibniz), and Philosophy of Religion. He
has published six books: Leibniz Reinterpreted (Continuum, 2006),
Shorter Leibniz Texts (Continuum, 2006), Leibniz and the Two Sophies
(University of Toronto Press, 2011), Leibniz’s Monadology (Edinburgh
University Press, 2014), Leibniz on God and Religion (Bloomsbury,
2016), and Tercentenary Essays on the Philosophy and Science of Leibniz
(Palgrave, 2017). He also runs a website which contains many of his
translations of Leibniz’s writings: http://www.leibniz-translations.com.
Giuseppe Varnier is a Fellow and Aggregate Professor of Theoretical

Philosophy at the University of Siena, where he teaches General
Epistemology, Epistemology and Theory of Knowledge and Theory of
Science at the Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Studies.
He received his Doctorate from the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa
in 1987 and also studied in Bochum and in Boston. He briefly taught
in Florence, at the University of Jena, the University of Oldenburg, and
the University of California at Irvine. He’s author of about forty publica-
tions in Italian, English and German, mainly in the history of contempo-
rary philosophy, and epistemology and philosophy of language. A book
on intersubjectivity and epistemology is forthcoming. He is also deeply
interested in the history and criticism of poetry, especially Italian, English
and German poetry.
List of Tables
Table 3.1 A fourfold taxonomy 35

Table 8.1 Planetary characters 156
xv
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: Purgatory’s Religious

and Philosophical Heritage(s)
Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte and Benjamin W. McCraw
There is a place in Rome, the Eternal City, that gives the concept of ‘eter-
nal’ attributed to the present capital of Italy since antiquity—already in
ancient times did the idea live that Rome would last forever: in aeternum—
a whole different meaning. In fact, upon leaving the Basilica of Saint Peter
and strolling along Castel Sant’Angelo, we find, a couple of 100 m fur-
ther along the LungoTevere—having passed Italy’s Court of Cassation (this
might be considered as a bit ironic)—something quite remarkable. In an
often unnoticed neogothic church (the Church of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus in Prati or, how the church is also known, the Church of the Sacred
Heart of Suffrage)—it is not a typical tourist-frequented place to visit as it
K.K.P. Vanhoutte (*) 
Department of Philosophy, Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy
K.K.P. Vanhoutte 
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
B.W. McCraw 
Department of History, Political Science, Philosophy, and American Studies,
University of South Carolina Upstate, Spartanburg, SC, USA
© The Author(s) 2017 1

K.K.P. Vanhoutte and B.W. McCraw (eds.), Purgatory,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_1
2 K.K.P. VANHOUTTE AND B.W. McCRAW
is situated on one of those incredibly busy city arteries that are always stuck
with traffic—which seems like a miniature version of Milan’s Cathedral,
there is a tiny little gem that, as just mentioned, gives a whole new mean-
ing to the Eternity as present in the name of the city that houses it.
The tiny little jewel we are talking about is the Museo delle Anime
in Purgatorio (the Museum of the Souls in Purgatory). More than a
museum, it contains a showcase in a side-room of a Church that is filled
with references to Purgatory—even the main altarpiece portrays Joseph,
Jesus’s father, interceding for those who reside in Purgatory, depicted as
they are in the dark and doomed right corner at the bottom. Besides the
image of a suffering face, scorched on the wall of what used to be the altar
of the chapel and discovered after a fire that almost destroyed the same
altar,1 the museum itself contains only2 16 pieces of cloth, paper, or wood,
all of which, as is claimed, bear the signs of some of the inhabitants of
Purgatory. These “relics” of Purgatory3 are all hands and fingerprints, that
is, what one sees are the images or reflections of scorched hands, fingers,
and their prints—and, on a single occasion, a cross (drawn, as it seems, by
one of the burnt or burning fingers). The touch, “the most demystifying
of all senses” as Roland Barthes noted accurately (1991, 90), the burnt
touch, as a trace of presence, a remembrance of presence of and made by
those who dwell in the afterlife, in-between Hell and Heaven. It is as if,
by some strange omen or foreboding, these “ghosts”—of whom we have
the name and address (even the address of the apparitions)—were already
aware that the essential data for identifying a person is contained (is con-
sidered as being contained) in the ink-black prints of the fingerprint.
Some might call these artifacts or tokens “exotic,” as some remains of
ancient popular culture, or even as simply belonging to folklore, but they
are, besides being remarkably similar figuratively although deriving from
four different European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, and Italy)
they are also fully consistent with all the “theory” regarding purgatory,
some aspects of which will also become clear in what follows, more than
anything, extremely interesting and extraordinary (in its meaning of “out
of the ordinary”).4
Some Traces of Purgatory’s Christian History

and Heritage
Purgatory, foremost known for it being a Roman Catholic dogma

regarding a third, middle, place in the afterworld that caused not a
little bit of controversy, began its existence as one of history’s ironies
1 INTRODUCTION: PURGATORY’S RELIGIOUS AND PHILOSOPHICAL ... 3
(Le Goff 1984, 52).5 But, even as a historical irony, Purgatory is not
just a (Roman Catholic or Latin) dogma. It is also, and this not only for
those who believe it to be a dogma, (the name of) a place that dawned
into the awareness of Medieval Christianity at a certain—for some almost
exactly datable—time. In fact, according to Jacques Le Goff, the term or
name “Purgatory” did not exist before 1170. Purgatory, the noun, a noun
which, still according to Le Goff, indicates the coming into ‘existence’
of a new place and space in the topography of the afterlife, was coined
(most probably) by a disciple of Peter Lombard named Peter Comestor
(also known as Peter Manducator or Pierre le Mangeur). Peter was the
first to employ the neologism purgatorium in the years spanning 1170
and 1178–1179 (the year of his death) whilst he was working at the
Parisian cathedral school of Notre-Dame of Paris (Le Goff 1984, 135;
155–157).6
Relatively soon after the coinage of purgatorium did this place and
concept give its acte de présence in the writings of Pontiffs (the first
being Innocent IV in 1254) and, in 1274 (The Second Council of
Lyon), became a dogma within the Latin Church, something which did
spell “disaster.” First of all, the dogma created a rift between the Latin
Church and the Churches of the East (the Greek or Armenian, for exam-
ple) who refused Purgatory as it finds, according to the members of
these Churches (something for which could be argued against), no base
in Scripture, being founded thus solely on dreams or ravings if not, and
even worse, on the long ago anathemized and heretical notions of, for
example, Origen (see note 5). Secondly, it also made the battle much
fiercer with, at first, the heretical groups (the Waldensians or Cathari, for
example, and just to mention two of the greater and better known here-
sies) who actively fought the concept, noun, and even idea of Purgatory,
and later, with the Reformation, Purgatory’s existence, again, became a
fundamental stumbling block. In fact, the Protestant Church(es) refused
to have anything to do with the doctrine of Purgatory, simply eschewed
its abuses, and refused to accept Purgatory being an actual place in the
afterlife. For most of these Churches it was, and mostly still is, follow-
ing the ironic subtitle of John Casey’s chapter dedicated to Purgatory
in his treatise on the loci of the afterworld, “[one of] Rome’s happiest
inspiration” (Casey 2009, 225)—or less ironically and mostly cynically
(although at times historically very accurate) Purgatory allowed for the
infamous indulgences which were the “bingo of the sixteenth century”
(Bainton 1950, 72).7
For as much as its “birth” in the last half of the twelfth century,
Purgatory is not some deux ex machina. Its “pregnancy” or “incubation”
period was long and tortuous, and it did not conquer all spirits in its
process of growth. In fact, even though Le Goff’s research is hard to
dismiss, he is not the only one who has attempted to date the ‘birth’
of Purgatory. According to the Portuguese historian Isabel Moreira, just
to mention one of the more interesting voices of recent scholarship on
Purgatory, Le Goff’s decade in the second half of the twelfth century
is much too late for the advent of Purgatory. For Moreira, Purgatory is
already a sheer fact by the middle of the eighth century (a special place
is reserved for Bede the Venerable in her research) (cf. Moreira 2010,
2015).8 “The idea of purgatory as a staging post in the afterlife,”
Moreira writes, “[…], burst on to the eschatological landscape in the
eighth century” (2010, 5). It would even not be completely wrong to
claim that some sort of middle, or some sort of purgation, that did not
belong to Heaven or Hell can already be discovered in St. Augustine or
in Tertullian’s idea of a refrigerium.
However, whilst mentioning St. Augustine, it has to be acknowledged
that even though most of the members of the Latin Church strongly
defended Purgatory,9 there were sections within the Church who did not
approve the theorization of Purgatory too much—before and after the
concept of purgation became the locus and noun of “Purgatory.” This
group of people within the Latin Church was mostly composed of its
great scholars. The Church’s most rational thinkers, among them the
already mentioned St. Augustine, but even St. Thomas Aquinas, the
Angelic Doctor, treat Purgatory only slightly, and mainly because they
had to, as if it was something as a necessary evil with which to contend.
Notwithstanding the (silent) opposition inside the Latin Church, and the
very loud opposition from outside of it, Purgatory did resist all opposi-
tion and is still one of the more intriguing ideas, concepts, and dogma in
the Latin Church.
The Philosophical Nature of Purgatory

So far, much we have said up until this moment remains within the reli-
gious realm; it has to be stressed that the current volume is not exclu-
sively a work of theology: biblical, historical, systematic, or otherwise.
Though it is important, if not absolutely necessary, to note the history
and (specific) theological underpinnings of Purgatory (our reason also
for holding still with this aspect), we should also address the topic in
ways not indebted to any particular religious, historical, and textual con-
text. Hence, in this section, we examine Purgatory from a philosophical
perspective. We can use this perspective to inform the examination of a
purgatorial state in religious traditions in later sections. Here, we shall
not focus on the doctrine’s history, basis in, or localized to any particu-
lar religious tradition (although these questions are interesting in their
own right; just in a different context). Even with this caveat in mind,
we should develop the concept of Purgatory so as to frame the philo-
sophical discussion of what follows. We think it crucial to distinguish a
philosophical from a (specifically) religious approach to Purgatory so as to
avoid illicitly focusing on just the Abrahamic traditions in general but the
Roman Catholic tradition in particular. Certainly we can formulate some-
thing like a purgatorial state outside of both contexts, so we must begin
to distill some kind of conception of Purgatory without assuming such a
specific doctrine. Even if one wants to reserve “Purgatory” for a specific,
formal doctrine, we think it best to have a broader conception at least
for the purposes of a philosophical discussion. But we note that the philo-
sophical concept and religious models are not separate (even if distinct):
a philosophical model of Purgatory can help one examine Purgatory in
a variety of religious traditions—even ones that may not use that term
or any related one, as we’ll see below. The philosophical discussion of
Purgatory that follows, thus, is expansive rather than restrictive.
For one in/from/considering the Western Theistic tradition, the con-
cept of Purgatory is likely taken from orthodox Roman Catholicism.
This is our point of departure and, within this tradition:
it is the state, place, or condition in the next world…where the souls of

those who die in a state of grace, but not yet free from all imperfection,
make expiation for unforgiven venial sins or for the temporal punishment
due to venial and moral sins that have already been forgiven and, by so
doing, are purified before they enter heaven. (Cevetello and Bastian 2003,
824)
Even if we begin by quoting the formal Roman Catholic doctrine, we

can still utilize this specific model to develop a more general conception.
In fact, we are convinced we can even draw two distinct lines of discus-
sion: (1) what sorts of distinctively philosophical concepts are involved in
Purgatory—this more general or abstract line of discussion is examined
in this section; and (2) which notions rise above any specific and specifi-
cally religious theistic background and is shared in the manifold of reli-
gious discussions or convictions that are similar to the Catholic doctrine
of Purgatory—this more specific line of examination is developed in the
next section.
We can delineate four important clusters of concepts lurking in the
definition provided above from which we can deduce a more general
philosophical conception of something analogous to Purgatory outside
of any particular religious tradition.
1. Purgatory as a state of being involving purgation or purification

2. Purgatory as an intermediate or tertiary state of being
3. Purgatory as a transitory or temporary state of being
4. Purgatory as a state of being involving judgment or punishment
(1), (2), (3), and (4) extend, we think, beyond the specifics of any par-
ticular religious tradition or creed, and yet they are specific enough so
as to mark out an informative, non-trivial conception that can be used
inter-religiously. Let’s address each in turn.
First, and certainly what’s the most obvious, we connect Purgatory
to purgation and purification. If any component should be central it is
the very root of the concept. In fact, as we already indicate, Le Goff’s
(1984) seminal treatment of the history of the concept takes the creation
of “Purgatorium” as a distinct noun as the “birth” of the doctrine as
itself; that is, Le Goff takes it for granted that the doctrine of Purgatory
is essentially tied to the term/concept of a distinct location or state of
purgation and purification. Obviously, the root is “purge” or “purga-
tion” from the Latin “purgo.” Hence, the place or state of purging just
is what we come to call “Purgatory.” These points aside, though, (1)
makes no specific claims about what purgation is, involves, or the end of
the purifying. So, though (1) may sound specifically tied to a Christian
(maybe even Roman Catholic) doctrine, the ambiguity of “purging” or
“purifying” in general means that our use of the term(s) here actually
leaves a wide philosophical, as well as a religious/theological, latitude.
How shall we characterize (2)? Most basically, an intermediate place
or state is one that is in between two (or more) others. But between
what? One obvious way would be to construe Purgatory as a state or
place that is neither the best nor worst state of being (or place). For a
Christian perspective, for instance, a purgatorial state would be one that
is neither perfect bliss in Heaven nor miserable damnation in Hell. But

we need not adopt only this view of being an intermediate. All that is
crucial (for our purposes of philosophical analysis) is the notion that a
purgatorial state is one that lies in between and is conceived of in contra-
distinction to other places or states of being. In this way, a Purgatory is
defined, in part, by dual otherness; i.e., by some X and Y (or others) that
the purgatorial state is not.
Relatedly, we construe Purgatory as a state that is temporary and/or
transitory (3). Not only does a purgatorial state of being or location lie
between (at least) two others, but Purgatory marks out a transition from
one state/place to the other. Hence, to be in Purgatory—taken to be
either a location or a state of being—just is to be in a process of transi-
tion or movement from (or in-between) the two “others” that mark out
the intermediate-ness of the purgatorial state. Again taking the Roman
Catholic doctrine as an instance (of the larger type), the movement from
the mundane, premortem state to the heavenly, post-mortem commun-
ion with God just is Purgatory. It is purgatorial simply by virtue of the
transition between earthly life and one of heavenly blessedness.
Finally, (4) a purgatorial state involves judgment or punishment. We
don’t assume, however, that these concepts must necessarily overlap: it’s
possible to conceive of Purgatory as a place of punishment without judg-
ment and, depending on your views on what constitutes punishment,
one might view Purgatory as a place of judgment without punishment.
The Roman Catholic view of Purgatory above clearly collocates both
concepts: Cevetello and Bastian note that it “is intimately related to the
biblical doctrines of divine judgment…and the temporal punishment due
to sin” (2003, 824; emphasis ours). However, a Buddhist notion of rein-
carnation through “Hells” involves punishment for one’s actions (i.e.,
one’s kamma or karma), but there is no single divine being or set of
divine beings that places one into these Hells via some judgment (see
Braarvig 2009). Hence, we take our fourth point as a disjunction even if
it may be an inclusive one (depending on the specifics of the Purgatory
in question).
Discussing of the question of Purgatory in a purely philosophical
way would thus compose these four diverse, but strongly interrelated,
aspects. It necessitates acknowledging Purgatory as requiring a form of
transitory and/or temporary purgation or purification that could be con-
sidered as a form of punishment, possibly based on or followed upon a
judgement, in an intermediate or tertiary state of being.
Descriptions of Purgatory from Philosophical Theology

Beyond these four conceptual families, we also want to address a few
more points which can be added to the families from the previous sec-
tion. These possible additional aspects find their origin in particular reli-
gious traditions but, as they tend to arise in many of them, they can be
considered as rising out of their specific tradition and heritage. As such
these religious conceptions that are often aligned with a commitment to
something like a purgatorial state or place can be added to the philosoph-
ical discussion of Purgatory. They certainly aren’t necessary to the philo-
sophical analysis offered in (1)–(4) above, but they can add an additional
range of elements that are helpful in discussing Purgatory philosophically
or theologically. We find six specific concepts that are often or impor-
tantly connected to a commitment to a purgatorial state (in general).
(a) The transition in Purgatory is a positive one

(b) Purgatory is an extra-mundane state/place
(c) The purgation/purification or punishment in Purgatory involves
(literal or metaphorical) fire
(d) Purgatory is a response to sin
(e) Purgatory involves divine grace, mercy, and/or forgiveness
(f) Purgatory allows for or promotes a sort of relationship between
the living and the dead—often expressed through masses or
prayers for the dead (suffrages)
(a)–(f) require a brief discussion. We mean (a) very broadly: a concept

of the purgatorial state satisfies this when there is some general sense
of improvement or betterment in one’s going through it. Purgatory is,
in fact, a concept that is intrinsically related to the question of hope.
Probably, this has a strong connection with (1) above: if Purgatory is
connected with purification or purgation, then it’s likely a good thing for
the person being purged or purified. But, just as the souls that Dante fol-
lows in Purgatory only go upwards on towards Heaven through different
travails, the details of this purification can vary. For instance, Jerry Walls
(2012) differentiates two different (Christian) models of Purgatory: “sat-
isfaction” and “sanctification.” The former works on a retributive justice
account of punishment—i.e., the purgation through which one goes,
atones, or evens out for the un- or under-forgiven sins one has commit-
ted premortem. Hence, Purgatory serves as the means for the satisfaction
of divine justice. The latter model, however, takes the point of purifying
to be the positive development of the agent as such—i.e., the point of
one’s time in Purgatory is to make one fit or suited for communion with
God. Hence, the point of Purgatory is to sanctify the person. Whether
one takes a “satisfaction” or “sanctification” model (or both), the end
of the purgatorial state is the perfection of the agent. However, even
though the various Christian traditions seem to see the only possible out-
come of Purgatory to be Heaven, we should not make (a) into a nec-
essary condition. If we see the Buddhist temporary “Hell” in between
different lives as some kind of Purgatory, it won’t be necessary that the
state is positive. That’s because some people enter the Buddhist Hell
worse than when entering it due to deleterious karmic effects. So, we
leave (a) amongst the common or important aspects rather than a philo-
sophical necessary condition.
(b) seems fairly straightforward: the purgatorial state is often consid-
ered one that occurs after one’s death. Yet we shouldn’t make (b) into
one of the four necessary conceptual components. The reason is that
some Protestant Christians do not locate the purgatorial state postmor-
tem. For this sort of view, “purgatory is a reality to be experienced in the
course of the ‘common troubles’ that afflict us in this life, rather than
a matter of punishment in the life to come” (Walls 2012, 40). But one
need not necessarily turn to Protestantism to find instances of “earthly
Purgatory.” Before the tripartite separation existed in Christianity, it was
a rather commonly held belief that life’s tribulations were some sort of
purgatorius. Le Goff goes even so far as to claim that even St. Augustine,
often claimed of having been the “true father of Purgatory,” was con-
vinced that Purgatory was “in this world rather than the next” (1984, 70).
(c) Another frequent, but by no means necessary, component of some
views of Purgatory have fire as the purgative agent (see, for instance, Le
Goff 1984, 7–11). The specifics of whether the fire is a literal fire that
burns the skin or a metaphorical fire that connotes a refining of a per-
son varies across different models of Purgatory. What remains is a certain
relationship between Purgatory and pain, be it physical or not.
(d) Also plausibly connected with (1) but also with (2) and (c), the
root source of the purgatorial state is often some kind of “sin” or bad
(religious) state of the agent in need of an intermediate, purifying state.
If Purgatory, then, responds to sin through purification, it’s easy to see
why (a) often accompanies the model—since the removal of sin would
definitely count as a bettering for the person.
And, in line, we can see the motive for (e) as well. If God or whatever
divinity there is organizes a purgatorial state for the purification of sin
(through means of fire and possibly pain) leading for the betterment of
the agent, then Purgatory is plausibly taken as an expression of grace,
mercy, or forgiveness with respect to one’s sins. At this point, again, the
Buddhist model will diverge—there is no divine giver of grace or mercy
for that tradition.
(f) Finally, a historically important connection with Purgatory (and
religious practice in general) is a connection or relationship between the
living and the dead. In particular, there is a strong historical component
of the living praying for their deceased friends and family who are in a
purgatorial state; presumably with the aim of easing or speeding up the
purgation (see Le Goff 1984, 11–12). Similarly, many Christian tradi-
tions especially offer masses or services for the dead by the living. But
there are other important ways to think of how this relationship may play
out. The infamous concept of an indulgence certainly hinges on the idea
that the living just aren’t connected to the dead but that they can affect
those in the afterlife. Additionally, the strong Christian notion of a com-
munity of saints—including those that are alive and the dead—fits into
our discussion at (f).
Purgatory Outside of Roman Catholicism

Even though the concept of Purgatory (or its birth as a noun, for Le
Goff) as well as with its controversial history of heresy and orthodoxy are
interesting and have taken the forefront of much contemporary discus-
sions, it should be stressed that it stands for much more than just a ques-
tion of dogmatics or a topos in the hereafter. Long before (and also well
afterwards) Le Goff’s dating of the place of purgation, and well beyond
the borders of (Roman Catholic) Christianity, the idea that there is some
sort of purging, or purification, during or after man’s earthly life—be it
in a different and circumscribed location or not—is well present and doc-
umented. We have already hinted at a wide reach of Purgatory or purga-
torial states or phases in the previous section, but we deem it important
to render this more explicit.
Although the Eastern Orthodox Churches eschew “Purgatory” (as
a doctrine specific to Roman Catholicism), they do commit to a more
general purgatorial state. First, Eastern orthodoxy includes, as an escha-
tological end, a process of divination, likeness, or unification with God
(theosis). Furthermore, to Louth, if “the question about purgatory is

broken down into its constituent parts, then the position becomes less
clear” (2008, 243). Importantly, for the Eastern Orthodox Churches,
“the notion of a particular judgment after death is far from unaccepta-
ble in Orthodox theology…the idea of an intermediate state, neither
heaven nor hell, seems generally to be assumed, especially in popular in
Orthodox belief about the afterlife” and any such “purification involves
suffering is again readily accepted” (243; emphasis ours). We emphasize
terms in the previous sentence to highlight how such a view accepts (1)–(4)
above. What Eastern Orthodoxy rejects most vigorously is the claim that
any such suffering is expiatory (243). Or, to utilize Jerry Walls’ language
of “satisfaction” and “sanctification,” although the “satisfaction” model
of Purgatory is excluded, a “sanctification” model doesn’t seem at all
ruled out. Notably, Orthodoxy rejects (c) but can affirm (f). Similar to
the Orthodox Churches, Jerry Walls (2012) argues that also Protestant
commitments don’t exclude and, for him, positively supports a ‘sanctifi-
cation’ model of Purgatory. Thus, if we take a purgatorial state generally
so as to only require (1)–(4), non-Roman Christian traditions can affirm
at least a state close enough to Purgatory to warrant the name.
And similar views appear for other Western theistic traditions—i.e.,
Judaism and Islam. During the last few centuries before the Common
Era within rabbinical Judaism, the notion of a purgatorial state gained
some traction: “the idea was current that some people would remain
only for a time in Gehenna,10 where they would be purified. The school
of Shammai attributed this purification to the eschatological place of tor-
ture, where certain people, through God’s mercy and goodness would
be prepared to enjoy eternal life” (Cevetello and Bastian 2003, 825).
Thus, we have several elements from our discussion above: (1)–(4),
(a), (b), and (e). Similar developments or interpretations in Islam lead
toward purgatorial commitments.
The realms of the blessed and the damned are separated by a tower-
ing wall. There is also a hint of the existence of a purgatory or limbo for
beings whose deeds are neither extremely good nor extremely bad. Both
the Qur’ān and hadith present a wide variety of reasons why a person may
be condemned to a life of torment. In time, Muslim theologians began to
emphasize God’s grace and mercy and to downplay his anger and wrath.
The belief arose that after a certain period of purgation the angel Gabriel
would intercede on the sinner’s behalf and release him from the fire.
(Long 2005, 9455–9456)
Such an interpretation, thus, affirms (1)–(4) and (a)–(e). From this we

could conclude that the Abrahamic religious traditions seem at least fairly
amenable to something like a purgatorial state, even if it doesn’t exactly
match the formal Roman Catholic doctrine that may be most familiar to
the use of ‘Purgatory’ in the West.
Yet non-Western religious traditions can have space for a purgatorial
state as well. Obviously, we cannot and have no aim to discuss all or even
many/most of the traditions outside of the Western Abrahamic models,
but a few instances can show that a general purgatorial state has a poten-
tially wide religious geography. As mentioned above, Buddhism cannot
affirm a judgment, but the notion of punishment in an intermediate state
occurs in the tradition (Braarvig 2009, 268). Moreover, such states are
necessarily impermanent (257). The conceptual connections between
what are often called “Hells” in Buddhism and Purgatory is reflected in
the translations: “[i]t is likely that this is why many of the early transla-
tors of the Buddhist Cannon have preferred using the term ‘Purgatory’
rather than ‘Hell’” (257). Hindu traditions offer similar views; which
isn’t surprising given the historical connections between Buddhism and
Hinduism. For them,
Hell is not a permanent dwelling place, but a realm from which one
returns after the punishment for moral impure deeds have been com-
pleted…Hell is like a prison. The prisoner does his time and is there-
after returned to society. Hell functions in binary opposition to heaven,
svarga, but hell is not in binary opposition to the highest salvific goal, as in
Christianity and Islam. (Jacobsen 2009, 386)
Again, we see various elements of above: intermediate and temporary

state of purgation after judgement, especially reading (2) as “intermedi-
ate” rather than “tertiary” as well as (a), (b), and (d). We even see a pur-
gatorial state in Oceanic religious traditions. The people of Wuvulu
hold that each hamlet is guarded by puala-spirits whose reactions to

human behavior are interpreted by priests. The puala send bad people
down to Mani Pino Pino directly below each settlement, where waste drips
down and evildoers live in agony eating snakes and lizards, until the puala
grant mercy and bring them up to the wonderful villages of the dead.
(Trompf 2005, 2007)
Again, we see (1)–(4) and a mix of the rest; i.e., (a) and (d).
Thus, we take it that a commitment to something like a purgatorial
state occurs across a wide range of religious traditions—especially given
the relatively general conceptions marked out in (1)–(4) and (a)–(f). We
take this as even more evidence (beyond what’s sufficient even if only
considering Roman Catholicism) that a discussion of Purgatory, espe-
cially a philosophical one, is timely, fruitful, and needed. It’s to these aims
that we think the current volume directs itself.
Through this introduction, we hope to have laid some of the phil-
osophical, religious, cultural, and historical groundwork to provide
context for this book. As the content of the volume will demonstrate,
however, there is even much more to Purgatory then we have been able
to outline in this introduction.
The collection is divided into three broad headings. Part I locates
Purgatory in its more familiar philosophical and theological territory,
Part II draws it into discussion with various historical considerations,
and we end with Part III which consists of some proposals to extend the
philosophical talk of Purgatory in ways that we may not have seen before
or to draw out even familiar topics in perhaps new ways. Each chapter,
though, takes the philosophical task of examining Purgatory, vague as that
project may be, seriously and, through their diversity, it shows the depth
of the concept of Purgatory; enlivening it along various philosophical
dimensions.
Notes
1. It was this fire (that raged on July the second in 1897) that was the origi-
nating event that gave life to the museum. The image of the suffering
face is now not visible. I want to express great gratitude to the guardian
who allowed me to also consider this image.
2. The size or the quantity of items in the “permanent” exhibition should,
however, not be considered as detrimental—the small number of heir-
looms can, in fact, be considered as fruit of an excessively strict (but,
obviously, necessary) selection process.
3. Jacques Le Goff, in his pioneering volume on Purgatory, claims that simi-
lar “relics” were already known and preserved in the thirteenth century
(1984, 303). For reasons of accuracy, the items preserved at the small
museum in Rome date from the beginning of the seventeenth until the
end of the nineteenth century.
4. According to the tradition (legend?) there is another place still that can
be visited during one’s lifetime that is supposed to bring a person in con-
tact with Purgatory. In the north-western part of Ireland there seems to
be, on a small island in Lough Derg, a hole where a person, if truly ani-
mated by the faithful spirit of penitence and contrition, can be purged
from his sins. This place goes under the name of sancti Patricii purgato-
rium (Saint Patrick’s Purgatory) and can still be visited today. A monas-
tery is still present on this tiny island, and the purgatory hole can still be
visited. Neither of us both has, however, been able to visit this place dur-
ing the preparation of this manuscript. As custom holds, the visitors of
the purging hole were supposed to be locked up in it for 24 hours, after
which, if the penitent was still present in the hole (if not he would have
been lost forever to the pains of Hell), his sins would have been forgiven.
It might actually have been a good thing for us not to have tested this
theory to its truth (maybe this volume would not have had any authors
at all).
5. As Le Goff so cunningly remarks, Purgatory originates as a double par-
adox. (1) the two Church Fathers (Clement of Alexandria and Origen)
who have been named as Purgatory’s “founders” were Greek theologi-
ans, and Purgatory was never developed by the Greek Christian Church
(the split between the Greek and the Latin Church is, obviously, of a
much later date (mid eleventh century) than the one when Clement and
Origen were effectively writing). In fact, it was, and remains, a bone of
contention between the Greek and the Latin Church. (2) the theory on
which the two Greek Fathers based their “foundation” of Purgatory was
considered, by both the Greek and the Latin Church, as blatantly hereti-
cal (Le Goff 1984, 52). Also Jerry L. Walls shares Le Goff’s opinion that
it indeed regards one of history’s many ironies (2012, 15).
6. In the second appendix of Le Goff’s impressive research on Purgatory,
this unique origin is somewhat enlarged. In fact, Le Goff writes: “[…],
it would seem that the earliest use of purgatorium as a noun occurred
shortly after 1170 in the writings of several men: the Cistercian Nicholas
of Clairvaux, the Benedictine Nicholas of Saint Albans, and Peter
Comestor, a secular master in the school of Notre Dame of Paris” (Le
Goff 1984, 364). Considering the fact, acknowledged by Le Goff, that
many twelfth century manuscripts have been lost over time, to iden-
tify precisely the first author and the date of conception of the noun
‘purgatory’ seems almost impossible.
7. It has to be added that there are also, even historically, some exceptional
cases of Reformed theologians who look somewhat favorable to the doc-
trine of Purgatory.
8. It should not be left unsaid that the different dating is not solely a ques-
tion of different interpretation of historical data. What is at stake as well
is an almost completely different historical epistemology. Le Goff denies
the history of Purgatory as being an “evolutionary” one which, still for
Le Goff, could not be “farther from the truth” (Le Goff 1984, 58).
For him, the development of the ‘idea’ of Purgatory was “not uniform
nor inevitable” and signed by “periods of stagnation which might have
spelled an end for the doctrine once and for all” (58), whereas Moreira,
who is convinced that “it is a distortion to view earlier ideas about purga-
tion simply as a prelude to a later high medieval ideology” (2010, 5),
defends a much more evolutionary understanding of history (the history
of Purgatory), even though she has to acknowledge, something which
not necessarily undermines her defense of a more evolutionary history,
that there is no “clear, linear trajectory of belief in purgatory” in the still
available sources (11).
9. The official Church-powers cherished Purgatory as it was one of its most
powerful weapons against the worldly powers and a fantastic source of
income, and the “ordinary” lay and pious believer held Purgatory close
as it was deemed to have created a more just subdivision in the afterlife
(giving them the chance to avoid Hell; a place that most probably would
otherwise have been their final destination in the hereafter).
10. “Gehenna” is often translated as “Hell.” Historically, Gehenna refers to
the Valley of Hinnom, just outside of Jerusalem. It is reputed to have
been the site of child sacrifice to Moloch and, later on, became a burning
trash pit for the city’s refuse. The imagery and historical connotations are
hard to miss. The Hebrew ‘sheol’ is another (but can also mean ‘grave’
or ‘pit’) and, depending on the rabbinical tradition or interpretation, can
serve as the place of punishment or the eternal place of the damned. For
more on these terms and their relation to Hell, see McCraw and Arp’s
introduction to their 2015 volume.
References
R. H. Bainton (1950) Here I Stand. A Life of Martin Luther (New York:
Abingdon-Cokesbury Press).
R. Barthes (1991) Mythologies, A. Lavers (tr.) (New York: Farrar Straus &
Giroux).
J. Braarvig (2009) ‘The Buddhist Hell: An Early Instance of the Idea?’, Numen
56:2/3, 254–281.
J. Casey (2009) After Lives. A Guide to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory (Oxford
and New York: Oxford University Press).
J. F. X Cevetello and R. J. Bastian (2003) ‘Purgatory’, New Catholic Encyclopedia,

2nd ed., vol. 11, (Detroit: Gale), pp. 824–829. Gale Virtual Reference Library,
proxy.uscupstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.
do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=uscspart_lib&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3407
709208&asid=a888b5bb0a9d01f8eb0bdc57dbc540dc.
J. Le Goff (1984) The Birth of Purgatory, A. Goldhammer (tr.) (Alderschot:
Scolar Press).
K. A. Jacobsen (2009) ‘Three Functions of Hell in the Hindu Traditions’,
Numen 56:2/3, 385–400.
B. J. Long (2005) ‘Underworld’, in L. Jones (ed.) Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd
ed. Vol. 14 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA), pp. 9451–9458. Gale Virtual
Reference Library. http://proxy.uscupstate.edu:2048/login?url=http://go.
galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=uscspart_lib&v=2.1&it=r&id
=GALE%7CCX3424503219&asid=72281e8744d68bfd6a5372f9247a9e15.
A. Louth (2008) ‘Eastern Orthodox Eschatology’, in Jerry L. Walls (ed.)
The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology (Oxford: Oxford University Press),
pp. 233–247.
I. Moreira (2010) Heaven’s Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press).
I. Moreira (2015) ‘Purgatory and History: Augustine and Bede’, in Michael
Root and James J. Buckley eds. Heaven, Hell, … And Purgatory? (Eugene:
Cascade Books), pp. 34–46.
G. W. Trompf (2005) ‘Cosmology: Oceanic Cosmologies’, in L. Jones (ed.)
Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed. Vol. 3 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference
USA), pp. 2004–2007. Gale Virtual Reference Library. http://proxy.
uscupstate.edu:2048/login?url= http://go.galegr oup.com/ps/i.
do?p=GVRL&sw=w&u=uscspart_lib&v=2.1&it=r&id=GALE%7CCX3424
500659&asid=70371b534cadc57c17c0249f5cd35bb6.
J. L. Walls (2012) Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (New York:
Oxford University Press).
PART I
The Nature of Purgatory

CHAPTER 2
Purgatory, Atonement, and the Self
Gordon Graham
The Protestant Rejection of Purgatory

Almost 40  years passed after the break with Rome before the
Convocation of the national Church of England settled on its Thirty-
Nine Articles of Religion. Even then, the interpretation and authority of
these Articles remained sufficiently open and uncertain to leave scope for
competing slants on, for instance, the nature of Christ, the theology of
holy communion, and the doctrine of predestination. The result was that
these topics, among others, subsequently generated considerable debate,
and even sharp disagreement, within Anglicanism.
This is not true of all the articles, however. Consider Article XXII—
“Of Purgatory.” This declares that “The Romish Doctrine concerning
Purgatory, Pardons, Worshipping and Adoration as well as of Images as
of Relics, and also Invocation of Saints, is a fond1 thing, vainly invented,
and grounded upon no warrant of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the
Word of God.” The Article covers much more than its advertised topic,
and in the nineteenth century, there was deep disagreement among
Anglicans about the use of images and the invocation of saints. But by
G. Graham (*) 
Princeton Theological Seminary,
Princeton, USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_2
20 G. Graham
contrast, with respect to the subject of Purgatory itself, there does not
seem to have been much subsequent dispute, or even any discussion.
This is not because Article XXII has the character of a final word.
On the contrary, the Article is rather puzzling. It implies, without actu-
ally stating, that Purgatory was one of the defining doctrines of the
“Romish” church, when in fact, doctrinal pronouncement on the sub-
ject of Purgatory came relatively late to the pre-Reformation church. It
is true that something of the idea had been around for centuries and was
a subject of discussion among several of the Church Fathers. Augustine,
for example, discusses it in Book XXI of the City of God. He regarded
the existence of Purgatory, however, as a theological option—something
that might or might not be true—and in this reflected a generally held
view that it was not central to Christian teaching. Belief in Purgatory
only received official recognition some centuries later, at the Council
of Lyons, after Aquinas had formulated a more detailed account that
proved influential. The doctrine’s re-affirmation at the Council of Trent
(1545–1563) was in response to the Protestant Reformation, certainly,
but even then many other, more pressing theological issues predomi-
nated, with the result that Purgatory did not figure very prominently. Its
precise content, too, remained somewhat vague and neither the affirma-
tion at Lyons nor at Trent lent any support to the popular notion of
Purgatory as a place or location.2
Article XXII is also questionable in its assertion that belief in
Purgatory is “grounded upon no warrant in Scripture.” In fact, the earli-
est discussions of the idea were prompted by a verse in Paul’s first letter
to the Corinthians where he imagines the day of judgment as an occasion
on which “fire will test the worth of each person’s work” (I Corinthians
3:13). To this passage we can add three or four more from the New
Testament, as well as few from the Old. These may not amount to “war-
rant,” but they raise a legitimate question as to whether Purgatory can
justifiably be declared “repugnant to the Word of God.”
Thirdly, by placing “Purgatory” and “pardons” side by side in a sin-
gle condemnation, the Article suggests that the doctrine of Purgatory
and the practice of indulgences automatically go together. Probably this
association did indeed hold in the minds of ordinary pre-Reformation
Christians, but the doctrine and the practice are at best contingently
related. Discussion of Purgatory long pre-dated the sale of indulgences.
Nor is there any very obvious connection between Purgatory and the
invocation of saints. It seems likely that among those who drafted the
2 PURGATORY, ATONEMENT, AND THE SELF 21
Thirty-Nine Articles a sense prevailed that belief in Purgatory was in

some way allied to praying for the dead, especially in ways of which the
reformers disapproved. But the Article does not in fact mention this
topic,3 and as a matter of Christian history, evidence of prayers for the
dead, especially in the context of Holy Communion, can be found at a
very early stage and well before any theological discussion of Purgatory.
Article XXII, then, opens up more questions than it resolves. Despite
this, it seems to have prompted virtually no significant theological reflec-
tion about Purgatory.4 Nor did anything else. It is striking, indeed, just
how little material there is on the topic. Books devoted to it are excep-
tionally few in number, and the topic has not been included in most
encyclopedias of theology and religion, even the monumental 12 volume
Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics edited by James Hastings and pub-
lished over a 20-year period (1908–1927). One liberating consequence
of this is that any exploration of the subject has to pursue it in hitherto
unconsidered ways. There is thus the relatively unusual possibility of say-
ing something on an interesting theological topic that has not been said
before. Accordingly, this essay will be an exercise in conceptual imagina-
tion, an attempt to construct a conception of Purgatory that connects it
both with a more central Christian doctrine, and some interesting issues
in philosophy.
Punishment and Purification
Although not much has been written about Purgatory, it is not quite
true that thinking about it needs to begin de novo. The verse from Paul’s
Epistle to the Corinthians makes use of the image of fire as a test of some
sort, echoing possibly the reference in Malachi 3:2 to a “refiner’s fire.”
Since Chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation refers to condemnation
in a “lake of fire,” this already raises a question. How does the fire of
Purgatory differ from the fire of Hell? Traditional uses of fire suggest an
answer. Sometimes fire is used to purify, as in the refining of metals, and
sometimes it is used for destruction, as in the burning of stubble. For
human beings, of course, the encounter with fire is painful, and so it also
signifies suffering. Now just as fire can serve two contrasting purposes,
pain and suffering have correspondingly different ends and outcomes.
Sometimes they are valuable as causes of education and improvement
(as in the proverb, “the burnt child fears the flame”), and sometimes as
forms of chastisement and punishment.
22 G. Graham
It seems natural to suppose that whereas the fires of Hell are a means
of punishment, the suffering of the souls in Purgatory is a means of
improvement. That, after all, is what the word “Purgatory” and its asso-
ciate “purgation” imply. It seems to follow, as the Fathers supposed,
that while the souls in Hell are the souls of the damned, and subject to
fires of perpetual punishment, the souls in Purgatory are the souls of the
saved, further purified by fire. They are on their way to Heaven, and the
‘fire’ they experience will make them better fitted for a life of blessedness
in the presence of God. This way of thinking suggests that the distinc-
tion between the fires of Hell and the fires of Purgatory can be used to
good explanatory effect. Yet this rather neat differentiation is not as eas-
ily sustained as might be supposed.
Of what is the soul in Purgatory purged? An obvious answer is “sin.”
But, however obvious, this answer is not very satisfactory. The most cen-
tral Christian affirmation is the forgiveness of sins by means of the sav-
ing work of Christ. For sinners to be saved, all that is required on their
behalf is a penitential acknowledgement of sins committed and a faith-
ful acceptance of their remission through Christ.5 These two elements
are both necessary and sufficient. So what is there left for Purgatory to
accomplish? How could true penitence and faith require that there be a
still further step before admission to the beatific vision?
It is from reflection on this issue that the “logic of Purgatory”
emerges, to use an expression of Jacques Le Goff’s (1984, Chap. 7).
Suppose I commit a great sin—say the abduction, rape, and murder of a
child. Horrible though my actions have been, Christians hold (or ought
to) that through faith in Christ I can be forgiven. At the same time, no
one supposes that forgiveness somehow remedies the matter by undoing
the sinful act, or that forgiveness ameliorates the terrible pain and suffer-
ing my action has brought upon others. These things remain. The truth
of this opens up an important distinction between remission and atone-
ment. Even if what I have done has been forgiven, it still seems morally
necessary that I should atone for my actions. This addition is essential,
surely, if we are to preserve a morally relevant difference between those
who commit sinful acts like rape and murder, and those who do not. A
concept of forgiveness that eliminated any distinction would seem mor-
ally unacceptable to most people.
Now by the nature of the case, atonement must take the form of a
penalty or a burden that is imposed on the person who atones. I can-
not atone for my actions if the conduct required of me for this purpose
is easy or pleasurable. One familiar line of thought, then, is that for the
purposes of atonement penance is needed as well as penitence.6 But what
if, though penitent, I die before my penance is complete? Is there not a
residual measure of atonement waiting to be made? It is precisely here,
it might be said, that we uncover the necessity of Purgatory, because it
is in or through postmortem Purgatory that the necessary penance of
the penitent is completed. Interestingly, though, if we pursue the logi-
cal implications of this line of thought, we must abandon the earlier dif-
ferentiation between the fires of Purgatory and the fires of Hell. Both
have to be punitive, and in much the same way. Consequently, the idea
of “refining” fire drops out of the picture. The result is that if the fires of
Purgatory and Hell do differ, it must be in some other respect. It is easy
to see what that is—duration. Purgatory comes to an end, but Hell is
forever.
Having been led to this conclusion, the connection with indulgences
becomes more evident, and thus brings us to the heart of the Protestant
objection to Purgatory. If Purgatory is only for a time, then, depend-
ing on the penance required of each penitent, that time will be longer
or shorter. What determines the length of time? The possibility opens
up that before they die penitents might find some method or means to
secure postmortem ‘time off’—special acts of devotion and contrition,
perhaps, or exceptional generosity to the Church. Already, it is easy to
see a basis for some anxiety about this possibility. Can penance properly
so called be offset in this way? If so, in what sense can it be described
as morally necessary? Suppose we leave this aside. Even so, it is difficult
to avoid a greater anxiety—that the means of offsetting postmortem
penance could be subject to manipulation and corruption. In the eyes
of many, that is precisely what the practice of indulgences allowed. By
becoming subject to financial transaction, indulgences subverted acts of
devotion and generosity. They emptied these actions of any true devo-
tion or generosity, and effectively permitted mere compliance with a
scale of charges financial or otherwise, levied by a clerical class that pur-
ported to possess the spiritual power to reduce purgatorial sentences, and
was willing to exercise this power in exchange for a specified benefit of
some sort.
It remains to be observed, nevertheless, that the sale of indulgences,
however objectionable, was (and would be) a purely contingent result of
the belief in Purgatory as a period of punishment, not a logical implica-
tion of the conception itself. History is always complex, but let us agree
24 G. Graham
that human wickedness on the part of some clergy and church authori-
ties saw an opportunity to further their desire for wealth and power by
exploiting the idea of Purgatory, the fear of punishment and the theolog-
ical ignorance of ordinary people. Abuse of this kind may give us reason
to reject the whole practice of indulgences, but this does not mean that
they strike to the heart of the idea of Purgatory itself.
Even if the connection with indulgences is severed, however, there is
a different, deeper, and more central objection to be found elsewhere.
Purgatory drastically diminishes the role of Christ in the redemption of
human beings. That is because it effectively abandons an essential con-
nection with the doctrine of the Atonement. God forgives penitents, all
will agree. But why? God forgives not because of their penitential state
of mind, however sincere, but because Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross has
atoned for the sins of the whole world. The moralists are right that peni-
tence without penance is not atonement. If Christ has atoned for our
sins, however, what need could there be for additional atoning penance
on our part? What need, accordingly, could there be for Purgatory?
The Doctrine of Atonement

The doctrine of Christ’s Atonement does not appear in any of the three
principal creeds of the Church—Apostles’, Athanasian, or Nicene. This
may be because few have disputed its centrality to the Christian faith. Yet
some well-known theological differences have arisen between alternative
explanations of precisely how the Crucifixion secures the atonement of
sin. We can identify four main ways in which atonement has been con-
ceived. The first, which owes much to Origen, builds on verses in the
Gospels of Matthew (20:28) and Mark (10:45), and employs the idea of
“ransom”. Satan holds humanity hostage, and by his death on the Cross,
Christ paid the ransom necessary for Satan to set us free. A second expla-
nation, advanced by Anselm, draws on Romans (3:25), Hebrews (2:17),
and the first letter of John (2:3; 4:7). It invokes the idea of propitiatory
sacrifice. God’s justly fierce wrath is set to consume humanity for its
wickedness. No ordinary sacrifices, such as the priests of old could make,
can avert the divine wrath. Only the unique sacrifice of Jesus can wholly
assuage divine anger. The third explanation, articulated most forcefully
by Calvin and the Protestant reformers, employs the idea of “penal sub-
stitution.” God’s justice requires that guilt must be punished. God incar-
nate, in the perfect humanity of Jesus, voluntarily bears the punishment
that humankind deserves, and thus atonement is made for the sins of
the world. In this way, God’s justice and mercy are reconciled. Finally, a
fourth explanation, articulated by Abelard and motivated by a rejection
of the picture of “sinners in the hands of an angry God”7 employs the
idea that atonement comes through the imitation of Christ and faithful
obedience to him.
I have explored the respective philosophical merits of these four expla-
nations elsewhere (Graham 2010, Chap. 9). For present purposes, the
one to focus on is penal substitution. As we saw, Aquinas’s more devel-
oped account of Purgatory rests on a conviction that forgiveness does
not simply return things to how they were. We cannot solve the prob-
lem of horribly wrongful acts by moral “air brushing” of some kind that
makes it appear as though these acts had never been performed in the
first place. Consequently, when sins have been forgiven, there remains a
moral residue. This residue requires not simply acknowledgement, but
atonement. That is why penitence without penance is insufficient.
The doctrine of the Atonement, obviously, accommodates this
requirement. The sins of the wicked who repent are atoned for, because
Christ has borne the penalties that constitute atonement. The theory of
penal substitution, unlike the theories of ransom, sacrifice, and imita-
tion, takes full account of the internal relationship between punishment
and atonement, and thereby more adequately explains how the human
sinfulness that has estranged humanity from God may be overcome in
such a way that its moral seriousness is not diminished. This is its princi-
pal merit. Yet elsewhere it encounters a major objection, expressly raised
by Kant (1999, 6). How can the actions of a sinner be atoned for by
someone other than the sinner? Surely justice requires that any atoning
penance must be paid by the evildoer. How then is “substitution” pos-
sible? Moreover, the problem is intensified if, as Christian belief holds
of Christ, the substitute is perfectly innocent, because this doubles the
injustice. If Christ really is the penal substitute for sinners, then those
who are truly guilty suffer nothing, while someone who is wholly inno-
cent suffers greatly.
To address this problem properly, it is necessary to consider some
recurrent issues in legal theory and the philosophy of punishment.
Wherein exactly does the injustice of penal substitution lie? Initially it is
plausible to invoke this principle of justice—“The innocent ought not
to be punished, and the guilty ought not to go free.” Everyone accepts
this as a basic principle by which systems of justice must be guided,
26 G. Graham
and it seems clear that penal substitution violates it. We ought to ask,
though, how adequate this principle is. Now while it does discriminate
between innocence and guilt, and tells us how to treat every innocent
person, it fails to tell us how to discriminate justly within the class of
the guilty. Some such discrimination is essential, however, because not
every guilty person warrants the same degree of punishment. It depends
on the offense. It would be deeply unjust to treat petty thieves in the
same way as murderers. Accordingly, there is reason to hold that this first
principle is not in fact basic, but simply one application of a more fun-
damental principle—“the punishment must fit the crime.” Or to put it
more precisely, the severity of a punishment must match the gravity of
the crime. Clearly, any punishment will be too severe for innocence, and
no punishment will not be severe enough, even for the least grave crime.
In other words, what (for convenience) I shall call “the fitness principle”
subsumes the distinction between guilt and innocence, while also allow-
ing us to act justly with respect to different degrees of wrongdoing.
According to the fitness principle, it is a requirement of natural justice
that crime and punishment match each other in some way. This already
raises a difficulty for the deterrence theory of punishment, despite its
widespread popularity. There are no grounds for thinking that the effec-
tiveness of a punishment as a deterrent in any way matches the gravity of
the offence it deters. Draconian punishments and exemplary sentences
for relatively minor offences are likely to deter potential wrongdoers,
whereas murderers are rarely (if ever) deterred by the prospect of punish-
ment.8 In short, efficacy and justice too easily part company. That is one
of the reasons that has led many legal theorists to reject deterrence and
opt for a retributivist theory; people should be punished for what they
have done, not for what they, or others, might do.
A retributivist theory, however, will not quite serve in the present
context. Retributivists hold that people should be punished because
they deserve to be punished, and not for any other reason. Suppose we
agree with this, and supplement it with the fitness principle. “People
should be punished because they deserve to be punished, and punished
with a degree of severity that matches the gravity of their offense.” This
still leaves unanswered the question of the standard or measure by which
severity and gravity are to be matched. It is at this point that retribution
often becomes confused or conflated with revenge. The victims of crime
(and/or their relatives) often want the satisfaction of seeing their assailants
suffer in the way that they have made others suffer. This vengeful feeling
is understandable from a human point of view, but as John Locke points

out (1960, Sect. 13), punishments dictated by vengeful feeling, however
understandable, are very likely to exceed the gravity of the offence. The
degree of suffering that, as a matter of fact, is required to assuage the feel-
ings of victims may well exceed the degree of suffering that justly reflects
the wrongness of the action being punished.9 What is sometimes known
as “victim justice,” in other words, is highly susceptible to partiality.10
Locke expressly set to one side the question of what he calls “meas-
ures of punishment,” but in a telling phrase he refers to punishment
making “an ill bargain to the Offender” (1960, 275). This way of speak-
ing casts the idea of punishment into the realms of a quasi-commercial
transaction. The same context is invoked when, much more commonly,
people speak of offenders “having paid their debt to society.” Now the
concept of an offense as debt, and punishment as the payment of a debt,
will not give detailed content to “measures of punishment,” but it sug-
gests a way of thinking that can prove illuminating in the present context
once we return to the concept of penal substitution.
Suppose I justly incur a financial penalty that I am unable to pay, and
suppose that someone else pays it for me. The debt is then paid, and
my status as a debtor is expunged. These facts remain, regardless of who
paid the debt. Of course it is plausible to think that there is a residual
obligation on my part—at the very least, to convey my gratitude to the
person who paid the debt. It might also be plausible to claim that justice
will only have been done if, eventually, I pay back something equivalent
to the money that was paid on my behalf—perhaps by some sort of ser-
vice. I shall not examine this contention here but assume it to be true.
The point to be emphasized, however, is that, even if we make eventual
repayment a requirement of justice, it is not necessary for the perpetrator
of the offense to be the person who first pays it back. It is only necessary
that, in the end, I (so to speak) become the person who pays the fine. I
do this when, in whatever way, I properly compensate the person for the
debt that has been paid on my behalf.
We can apply this line of thought to the doctrine of the Atonement.
Human beings are, in a phrase from the Book of Common Prayer, “tied
and bound by the chain of their sins.” That is why they cannot pay the
debt that accrues to sin. Jesus, being fully human but without sin, was not
chained in this way. The service of God that is perfect freedom and that
Jesus exemplified, is what enabled him to pay the price of sin, and thus
relieve us of a debt we cannot pay. This is his ‘penal substitution’ for us.
28 G. Graham
But if (on the assumptions we are making) it is not to fall foul of principles
of justice, there must be a way in which sinners can repay him. What could
this be? One obvious obstacle is the size of the debt. As the Elizabethan
prayer of General Thanksgiving expresses it, “the redemption of the world
by Our Lord Jesus Christ” is an action of “inestimable” love with “innu-
merable” benefits. It is impossible to calculate compensation for that which
is inestimable, and indefinitely many actions will never be an adequate
return for innumerable benefits. How is this obstacle to be overcome?
Traditionally, the resolution of this difficulty lies in the concept of
“self-sacrifice.” Nothing short of my whole self will suffice as a return
for my salvation through the Cross. This thought is most memorably
expressed in Isaac Watts’s much-admired poem, frequently sung as a
hymn. The first and last stanzas read as follows:
When I survey the wondrous Cross

On which the Prince of Glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.
Were the whole realm of nature mine
It were an offering far too small.
Love so amazing, so divine
Demands my life, my soul, my all.
“Giving your life to Christ” is a familiar way of expressing an ideal

of Christian discipleship expressly enjoined in all the synoptic Gospels,11
and recognized across denominations that in other respects differ greatly.
But what makes my soul, my innermost self, an adequate sacrifice? The
fourth account of Atonement that appeals to the imitation of Christ has
something to add here. My innermost self is a fit return insofar as it is
truly Isaiah’s “contrite heart” (Isaiah 57:15).12 This returns us, finally, to
the topic of Purgatory.
Purgatory and the Self

Sometimes, often perhaps, people have thought of the fires of Hell and
Purgatory literally. Obviously, it is not necessary to think of them in this
way, and importantly wrong if it deflects us from the idea that these are
spiritual rather than material processes and conditions. But in attempting

to think about them more clearly, the image—or analogue perhaps—of
fire can be helpful.
In the refining of ore, fire induces a separation between the metal and
the dross. We can think of this process in either of two ways—as one
in which the ‘true’ nature of the ore emerges, or one in which, more
simply, that which is valuable is separated from that which is not. For
present purposes the difference does not matter. Either way, we are pri-
marily interested in the fact that the process produces something pure—
pure gold or pure silver, for example. The value of the process lies in the
purity of the product it produces.
If we think of Purgatory as a process of purification, there is an evident
resonance with the idea of a refiner’s fire. What, though, are the analogues
of the metal and the dross? A plausible answer is this: Purgatory removes
those things that prevent a true sacrifice of the self, namely all those
aspects of an individual’s soul or psyche that contaminate or obstruct a
self-giving worthy of Christ. Initially, it is natural to think of these as the
seven deadly sins (or some such list),13 but on the assumption that the
souls in Purgatory are in a preferable condition to the souls of those sent
straight to Hell, we can leave aside these rather grosser sins. More inter-
esting for present purposes is the way in which virtuous conduct can be
insidiously corrupted by attachment to the self. This is a recurrent theme
in theologians from Augustine through Luther to Barth, who have been
struck by the fact that human beings seem by nature to be incurvatus in se
(a Latin phrase meaning “curved inward on oneself”), rather than directed
“outward,” which is to say, beyond self, toward God and for others. “Our
nature,” Luther (2006) says, is “so deeply curved in on itself that it not
only bends the best gifts of God towards itself… [it] even uses God him-
self in order to attain these gifts” (159). This means that, while people
know themselves to be saved by Jesus dying on the Cross, they may still
be subject to an inclination that prevents them from wholehearted disci-
pleship, a powerful tendency, in Luther’s phrase, to bend toward self even
the gifts they fully acknowledge to have been given to them by God.
Consider the many aspects of self in which this ‘chain’ of attachment
may be manifest. There is first straightforward self-interest. It is possi-
ble, and perhaps common, for people to be honest, charitable, friendly,
hospitable, truthful, and so on, because it is in their self-interest to act
in these ways. Such people need not fall into the class of Hume’s “sen-
sible knave” who effectively makes a pretense of these things. People,
30 G. Graham
rather, can have “mixed” motives such that while a genuinely moral is
not absent, it is self-interest that tips the balance. When self-interest has
been set aside, however, this need not mean that attachment to self has
been put to an end. The open pursuit of self-interest may be checked not
by altruism, but by self-satisfaction. Contentment with how I am, what
I have done and what I believe important can be a good thing precisely
insofar as it defuses any aggressive pursuit of self-interest on my part. But
it slides easily into complacency, and thus also stifles any desire to dis-
cover what is truly good and strive for it. Yet, even countering self-satis-
faction effectively may not necessarily signal that we have left the realms
of incurvatus in se. It may instead bring us to focus on self-image—the
way we appear to ourselves in the light of how we think others see us.14
The person who can truly be said to have left self behind will be no more
concerned about self-image than self-interest.
Concern with self-image is closely related to what is more widely and
easily regarded as a vice—self-importance. Here too, though, a sub-
tle form of corruption opens up. The modern world lauds self-respect
or self-esteem as desirable traits for human beings to possess. Self-
respect, in fact, is widely regarded as the mark of psychological maturity.
Conversely, the person who lacks self-respect or who has low self-esteem
is to be sympathetically pitied as psychologically damaged or defective.
Perhaps this is correct. The point to make here, however, is that the vir-
tue of self-respect and the vice of self-importance can be very hard to
disentangle, and within ourselves we easily mistake the one for the other.
Even when naked (or not so naked) self-interest and anxiety about
self-image are left aside, concern with self-respect and self-esteem can
surreptitiously generate self-righteousness. Penitents, let us say, fully
acknowledge their wrongdoing. They are truly glad to have their sins
forgiven and are sincerely willing to pay penance. Yet in their heart of
hearts (as we say), a concern for self-respect may preserve a sense that
what they did was at some level warranted, justifiable, or understandable
in the circumstances. In other words, there remains an element of self-
righteousness, which is to say, an element of the belief that, being right-
eous in themselves, they are not in need of redemption.
In all these ways, a deep and subtle attachment to the self may persist.
Insofar as it does, it is clearly an obstacle to “giving oneself to Christ” in
grateful acknowledgement of the “inestimable benefit” of the Cross. Such
an attachment may be more or less deeply integrated into the person one is.
It is hard to deny that all human beings are egoistical to some extent—that
is precisely their point of contrast with Christ—but some are rather more
so than others. In light of what has been said, we could think of the pro-
gress of the soul as movement along a spectrum of self-centeredness where
the hold that self-interest, self-satisfaction, self-image, self-importance, and
self-righteousness exercise over us is loosened, leaving us in the end capable
of the self-sacrifice that will unite us with Christ, and thus restore humanity
to full communion with the God from whom it has been estranged.
Against the background of this picture, we can understand the refin-
ing fires of Purgatory as the means by which, postmortem, lingering
attachments to the self are “burnt” away, thereby making Christian souls
fitting recompense for the price Christ has paid as their penal substitute.
There is however, an important implication of this conclusion. When
the process of refinement is complete, there may be nothing left to give.
“Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Jesus tells his
hearers in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:21). If this is true, it
opens up an important possibility in the present context. Purified of all
attachment to the self, the person whose greatest treasure has been the
self, even in subtle ways, will be destroyed. In this case, we might say, the
fires of Purgatory become the fires of Hell.
Notes
1. ‘Fond’ in the archaic sense of foolishly credulous.
2. This remains true of its affirmation in the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic
Church.
3. Nor does any other Article.
4. An exception, notable for its rarity, are three lectures on Article XXII,
delivered and published in 1901 by A J Mason, Lady Margaret’s Reader
in Divinity at the University of Cambridge.
5. The topic is philosophically rather more complex than this straightforward
assertion suggests. See, for instance, John Hare (2012).
6. In this connection Merold Westphal (2012) contrasts the “ritual of humil-
ity” that penitence requires, with the “ritual of humiliation” that consti-
tutes penance.
7. The title of a famous sermon by Jonathan Edwards.
8. Though people often argue a priori in this context, the deterrent effect of
a punishment is a strictly empirical matter. The severest punishments may
not in fact deter the gravest of crimes. There is no evidence that terrorists
are deterred by the deathpenalty for terrorism. Why would suicide bomb-
ers fear execution?
32 G. Graham
9. This works the other way as well, of course. A victim might be satisfied
with a degree of suffering insufficient to match the gravity of the offense
they suffered.
10. There are alternative “reparative” and “expressive” theories of punish-
ment that make the involvement of victims a requirement of justice, but I
ignore them here.
11. See Matthew 16:24; Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23.
12. “Thus says the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is
Holy:‘I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite
heart and a humble spirit’.”
13. These are pride, covetousness, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth. I leave
aside here the traditional distinction between mortal (or ‘grave’) and
venial (or ‘light’) sins.
14. Arguably, the age of the ‘selfie’ has shown, perhaps surprisingly, that to
many people self-image is more important than self-interest.
References
G. Graham (2010) ‘Atonement’, in C. Taliaferro and C. Meister (eds.) The
Cambridge Companion to Christian Philosophical Theology (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press), pp. 124–35.
J. Hare (2012) ‘Forgiveness, Justification and Reconciliation’, in P. K. Moser
and M. T. McFall (eds.) The Wisdom of the Christian Faith (Cambridge:
I. Kant (1999) Religion Within the Boundaries of Mere Reason A. Wood (ed.) and
G. Di Giovanni (tr.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
J. Le Goff (1984) The Birth of Purgatory A. Goldhammer (tr.) (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press).
J. Locke (1960) Two Treatises on Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press).
M. Luther (2006) Lectures on Romans W. Pauk (tr. and ed.) (Louisville: John
Knox Press).
M. Westphal (2012) ‘Repentance and Self-Knowledge’, in P. K. Moser and
M. T. McFall (eds.) The Wisdom of the Christian Faith (Cambridge:
CHAPTER 3
Religious and Paranormal Experiences

as Evidence for Purgatory
Travis Dumsday
Introduction
“Purgatory” has come to mean different things in contemporary
Christian systematic theology and philosophical theology. For some, it
continues to refer to a postmortem state of being specified by Roman
Catholic doctrine. According to that doctrine, persons who have died in
a state of grace (and are therefore ultimately Heaven-bound) but with
a debt of justice remaining on certain sins must pay that debt via peni-
tential suffering in an intermediate location/state (neither Heaven nor
Hell) known as Purgatory. That debt can in turn be lessened by prayer
and almsgiving undertaken by the living on behalf of those in Purgatory
(hence the doctrine of indulgences). The old Catholic Encyclopedia sum-
marizes the doctrine as follows: “Purgatory (Lat., ‘purgare’ to make
clean, to purify) in accordance with Catholic teaching is a place or condi-
tion of temporal punishment for those who, departing this life in God’s
grace, are not entirely free from venial faults, or have not fully paid the
satisfaction due to their transgressions.”1 Contemporary Roman Catholic
teaching on Purgatory remains consistent with this understanding,
T. Dumsday (*) 
Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Concordia University
of Edmonton, Edmonton, Canada

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_3
34 T. Dumsday
though the emphasis has shifted away from a penal model to one focused
on Purgatory as a place of moral purification. This shift in emphasis is
reflected in the new Catechism of the Catholic Church, part 1, Sect. 2,
article 12, which states: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but
still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but
after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness neces-
sary to enter the joy of Heaven. The Church gives the name Purgatory
to this final purification of the elect, which is entirely different from the
punishment of the damned” (1995, 291).2
That then is the basic Roman Catholic understanding of the doc-
trine.3 By contrast, for some Protestant philosophers and theologians
“Purgatory” has become a label for alternative understandings of an
intermediate (neither-Heaven-nor-Hell) postmortem location/state,
one that affords an opportunity either for sanctification prior to entering
Heaven,4 or a second chance at repentance for those otherwise in danger
of Hell,5 or both.6 Theologians within the Eastern Orthodox tradition
affirm the reality of something akin to an intermediate state after death,
as well as the efficacy of prayers for the dead, but typically reject both the
label ‘Purgatory’ and the juridical payment-of-debts model prominent
historically within Catholicism.7
Clearly then, within the current theological landscape “Purgatory”
admits of multiple meanings. This is important to note at the outset;
when discussing the sorts of evidence that could be available for a reli-
gious doctrine, it is crucial first to specify exactly which doctrine is under
discussion. So to clarify: for the remainder I will be concerned specifi-
cally with the Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory. As such, some of
the points made will be inapplicable to alternative understandings of
“Purgatory” (though I trust not all of them).
In debates over the reality of Purgatory, at least four sorts of argu-
ments have been made: (1) philosophical arguments, for example
Aquinas’ argument from justice (Summa Theologiae Suppl. III, App.
2, Art. 1)8 or Newman’s (1987, 720–721) argument from incomplete
sanctification; (2) Biblical arguments, designed to show that there are
scriptural foundations for the doctrine9; (3) tradition-based arguments,
designed to show that Purgatory was affirmed by the early church
fathers10; (4) arguments from religious and paranormal experiences,
experiences in which some sort of experiential contact with Purgatory
(whether direct or indirect) is claimed.
3 RELIGIOUS AND PARANORMAL EXPERIENCES AS EVIDENCE … 35
In the recent theological and philosophical literature on Purgatory,

the first three types of argument have received the most attention, while
the fourth has generally been neglected. However, it played a notable
role historically, both in the early Scholastic defenses of the doctrine and
also in reformation-era debates between Protestant and Roman Catholic
apologists. Le Goff for instance notes the use of the experiential argu-
ment by the influential early thirteenth-century Scholastic William of
Auvergne (Le Goff 1984, 243). The use of such a strategy continued
through into the reformation. Ghostly apparitions, then widely under-
stood as the appearances of souls undergoing purgatorial suffering, were
often dismissed by Protestant theologians as (a) superstitious delusion,
(b) human fraud (allegedly committed by priests and monks to further
their financial interests), or (c) as demonic deception; and these dismiss-
als were aimed precisely at undermining belief in Purgatory. By contrast,
such apparitions were referenced by Catholic theologians as experiential
evidence for Purgatory.11
Given that long historical pedigree, it would be interesting to subject
this fourth sort of argument to a reexamination. The remainder is struc-
tured as follows: in the next section I present a taxonomy of types of
experiential evidences for the reality of Purgatory. For each type I supply
several representative case studies. Then in Sect. 3 I consider briefly (and
tentatively) the respective degrees of evidential weight that ought to be
accorded to each type of experience.
A Taxonomy of Experiential Evidences for Purgatory

There are various ways one might categorize such experiences, but here
I’ll use a fourfold taxonomy: (A) direct explicit; (B) direct implicit;
(C) indirect explicit; (D) indirect implicit. Relevant case studies ought to
fit into one of these groupings, such that they can all be plugged some-
where into the Table (3.1).
Let’s consider each of the four categories in turn.
Table 3.1 A fourfold

Explicit Implicit
taxonomy
Direct
Indirect
36 T. Dumsday
A. Direct Explicit
These are experiences in which the experiencer is herself apparently in

direct contact with Purgatory, and where it is in one way or another
made explicitly apparent to her that it is Purgatory specifically that she
is in contact with. In terms of historical case studies, the paradigm here
is the visionary transported to or otherwise shown Purgatory, where it
is made explicit that what she is seeing is indeed Purgatory. Everyone
is familiar with this sort of experience in a fictional context, by way of
Dante’s Purgatorio, but allegedly real visions of this sort have a long his-
tory, with one of the earliest being the near-death experience (NDE)
of Drycthelm recorded in book five, Chap. 12 of the Venerable Bede’s
eighth-century History of the English Church and People. In that expe-
rience Drycthelm is shown various states of the afterlife, the nature and
purpose of which are then explained to him by a guide (presumably an
angel, but this is never clarified). The experience had such an effect on
him that he parceled out his property between his wife, his children, and
the poor of the area and then took monastic vows. Bede writes:
This was the account he used to give of his experience: ‘A handsome man
in a shining robe was my guide, and we walked in silence in what appeared
to be a north-easterly direction. As we travelled onwards, we came to
a very broad and deep valley of infinite length. The side to our left was
dreadful with burning flames, while the opposite side was equally horri-
ble with raging hail and bitter snow blowing and driving in all directions.
Both sides were filled with men’s souls, which seemed to be hurled from
one side to the other by the fury of the tempest….I began to think that
perhaps this was Hell, of whose intolerable torments I had often heard tell.
But, as if in response to my thoughts, the guide who preceded me said:
“Do not think this; for this is not Hell as you imagine”.’ (Venerable Bede
1955, 289–290)
The two continue on to view other states of the afterlife, including one
that was much more positive than the first, a realm of springtime mead-
ows and happy people in white robes. But Drycthelm’s guide explains
that just as the first site wasn’t Hell, the positive locale wasn’t Heaven:
…he asked me, “Do you know what all these things are that you have
seen?” ‘No’, I replied. Then he said: “The valley that you saw, with its hor-
rible burning flames and icy cold, is the place where souls are tried and
punished who have delayed to confess and amend their wicked ways, and
who at last had recourse to penitence at the hour of death, and so depart
this life. Because they confessed and were penitent, although only at death,
they will all be admitted into the Kingdom of Heaven on the Day of
Judgement. But many are helped by the prayers, alms, and fasting of the
living, and especially by the offering of Masses, and are therefore set free
before the Day of Judgement….This flowery place, where you see these
fair young people so happy and resplendent, is where souls are received
who die having done good, but are not so perfect as to merit immedi-
ate entry into the Kingdom of Heaven. But at the Day of Judgement they
shall all see Christ….” (Venerable Bede 1955, 292–293)
This account is a classic case of the direct explicit sort of experience. The
theology here is particularly interesting, insofar as Drycthelm is really
shown two purgatories, or perhaps two levels of Purgatory (to concep-
tualize it in the manner of Dante): (1) a frightening Purgatory where
people are actively punished, and where those who dwell within it are
capable of receiving aid from the prayer and almsgiving of the living; and
(2) a pleasant Purgatory in which there is seemingly no active punish-
ment, or rather no punishment distinct from the delay of entrance into
Heaven. The guide gives no indication that those in the Heaven-like
Purgatory can be helped by the living in the same way that those in the
Hell-like Purgatory can be.
Near-death experiences are thus one route to a direct explicit expe-
rience of Purgatory. Another historically prominent route has been the
visionary experience of Purgatory granted to the living. Let’s consider
two recent examples, both occurring in the context of well-known sup-
posed Marian apparitions: those in Kibeho, Rwanda in the early 1980s,
and those in Medjugorje, part of what is today Bosnia-Herzegovina,
beginning in the 1980s and to an extent still ongoing. Neither apparition
has received the full official approval of the Roman Catholic Church;
however, the Kibeho apparitions received a measure of ecclesiastical
acceptance when public devotions at the apparition site were permitted
by the local bishop in 1988. The status of Medjugorje continues to be a
matter of controversy within the Roman Catholic Church; this contro-
versy persists despite being one of the world’s top Roman Catholic pil-
grimage sites, drawing tens of millions over the last 30 years.12
The Marian apparitions in Rwanda began in 1981, with the
first visionary being the 16-year-old convent student Alphonsine
38 T. Dumsday
Mumureke.13 She was the first of a group of eight young Rwandans to

report apparitions of the Blessed Virgin and, in some cases, Jesus as well.
Initially the group consisted solely of Catholics, but later came to include
15-year-old Segatashya, whose family practiced a traditional form of ani-
mism, and also 24-year-old Vestine Salima, from a Muslim family. The
visionaries, who eventually were brought together and subjected to close
scrutiny by church officials, would fall into a deep trance state during the
apparitions. As is often reported in Marian apparitions (the phenomenon
shows up also in Medjugorje), during these trances the visionaries would
become wholly insensitive to external physical stimuli as skeptical physi-
cians and Church investigators shone flashlights in their eyes, burnt them
with candles, stuck needles into them, etc.14
Three of the visionaries were shown certain states of the afterlife, one
of which included a vision of a place explicitly identified as Purgatory.
This was reported by the 17-year-old Anathalie Mukamazimpaka:
And then we moved on to our next destination, a world where the light
was as dim as dusk. Below us were people dressed in clothes of dreary and
duller colors in comparison to the other worlds we’d seen. Most of them
seemed content, but many seemed quite sad, and were even suffering. Mary
said, “This is Isesengurwa, a place of purification; the people you see are
Intaramirwa, those who persevere.” (Ilibagiza and Erwin 2008, 136–137)
One point of interest in this description of Purgatory is the variable state

of its denizens, with some content, other sad, others actively suffering.
So in this case there are arguably distinctions of level, but not instanti-
ated in distinct locations, as was the case in Drycthelm’s account.
Turning to the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje: they too began in
1981, and as in Kibeho the principal visionaries were mainly teenagers.
Also similar to Kibeho, the apparitions occurred to the six upon their
entering into a deep trance state, during which they would supposedly
see and hear the Blessed Virgin. Three of the visionaries eventually had
the experience of seeing various afterlife states, including Purgatory.
Sullivan briefly recounts their reports:
She had left earth for the first time on All Souls’ Day (November 12) in
1981, Vicka recalled, when the Virgin appeared unannounced to her and
Jakov, explaining that She wished to take the two of them to visit Heaven,
Hell, and Purgatory. Jakov, barely eleven, began to sob, pleading with the
Virgin to leave him behind….[With respect to Purgatory] Jakov saw only

‘a cloud’ with people moving inside. Vicka’s description again was much
more detailed. She had viewed Purgatory as a ‘dark chasm,’ suspended
between Heaven and Hell. The atmosphere suggested a mist filled with
ashes; she was reminded of how it felt to enter a fog-shrouded cemetery
on a winter day. She heard ‘moanings and lamentations, and the sound
of countless fingers knocking, as though they wanted to get out.’ The
Virgin had told them that Purgatory was ‘the place where souls are puri-
fied, and that much prayer is needed for the people there,’ Vicka said….
Eventually, at the Virgin’s urging, Mirjana said, she had accepted a glimpse
of Purgatory, a place where she could see only ‘people shivering, thrash-
ing, writhing in pain.’ The Madonna explained to her why such a place was
necessary: ‘Since nothing can live in the sight of God but pure love, God’s
justice cleanses.’ The Virgin described Purgatory as a series of ‘levels’ that
stretched all the way from the gates of Hell to the portal of Paradise. Souls
in Purgatory who prayed frequently were permitted occasionally to com-
municate with the living, the Madonna said; because the dead no longer
have free will, they cannot atone for their sins and are completely depend-
ent on the prayers of those still living. (Sullivan 2004, 155–158)
These three case studies are all instances of supposed direct explicit expe-
riences of Purgatory, insofar as they involve claims to have seen an after-
life state clearly identified for them as such.15
I will not venture to evaluate the evidential weight of these three par-
ticular visions; the goal has simply been to provide examples of a single
type.16 I will make some points about the evidential status of this general
type in Sect. 3 below. For now let’s continue laying out the taxonomy.
B. Direct Implicit
In this type the person is herself in direct experiential contact with

Purgatory, but it is not apparent to her that it is Purgatory specifically
that she is in contact with. So the person is seeing Purgatory, but can-
not confirm that it is Purgatory as opposed to Heaven or Hell or some
other afterlife state. In terms of case studies, it is not entirely clear what
the paradigm here would be, but I suggest that negative NDEs provide
one potential source of examples. These are often interpreted as experi-
ences of Hell, but in the absence of an explicit, unambiguous identifica-
tion one cannot rule out the idea that the object of the experience could
instead be Purgatory. In other words, this sort of experience may provide
40 T. Dumsday
evidence for the reality of Purgatory, but can do so only indirectly, and
with a corresponding degree of ambiguity.
A substantial literature on negative NDEs already exists, so I’ll pro-
vide here just one published example. It is drawn from the ground-
breaking work Life After Life by philosopher and psychiatrist Raymond
Moody, which book helped to launch contemporary academic study
of NDEs in general. It is particularly interesting for our purposes inso-
far as Moody in his subsequent discussion seems to touch upon some-
thing very like Purgatory, even employing some related theological
terminology:
I do know of a few cases in which a suicide attempt was the cause of the
apparent ‘death.’ These experiences were uniformly characterized as being
unpleasant….A man who was despondent about the death of his wife shot
himself, ‘died’ as a result, and was resuscitated. He states: ‘I didn’t go
where [my wife] was. I went to an awful place….I immediately saw the
mistake I had made….I thought, “I wish I hadn’t done it.”’ Others who
experienced this unpleasant ‘limbo’ state have remarked that they had
the feeling they would be there for a long time. This was their penalty for
‘breaking the rules’ by trying to release themselves prematurely from what
was, in effect, an ‘assignment’—to fulfill a certain purpose in life. (Moody
1975, 143)
In the case of the man who shot himself, no indication is given as to

whether he thought the negative place he had entered was to be a per-
manent abode or temporary; had the experience been veridical and had
it in fact been an experience of what would only have been a temporary
state, it would count as a direct implicit experience of Purgatory; that is,
it would count as an experience of what was in fact Purgatory, without
it having been explicitly identified as such. Importantly, the other expe-
riencers Moody then mentions seem to have had what amounted to a
direct explicit experience of Purgatory, insofar as they apparently intuited
or in some other way were made aware that they were in a state of tem-
porary postmortem suffering as penalty for wrongdoing. Unfortunately
Moody does not here expand on their reports.
Of course, if there are indeed levels to Purgatory, with the upper levels
being more akin to Heaven than Hell, positive NDEs could potentially
also supply direct implicit evidence for Purgatory. The number of pub-
lished case studies of positive NDEs is now beyond voluminous, so I’ll
just provide one, again from Moody. It is particularly interesting for our
purposes insofar as it could be interpreted as starting off as a negative or
at least ambivalent experience and then becoming positive after a request
for divine assistance. In this passage the experiencer is speaking for her-
self, with Moody simply recording the report:
I had a heart attack, and I found myself in a black void, and I knew I had
left my physical body behind. I knew I was dying, and I thought, ‘God, I
did the best I knew how at the time I did it. Please help me.’ Immediately,
I was moved out of that blackness, through a pale gray, and I just went on,
gliding and moving swiftly, and in front of me, in the distance, I could see
a gray mist, and I was rushing toward it. It seemed that I just couldn’t get
to it fast enough to satisfy me, and as I got closer to it I could see through
it. Beyond the mist, I could see people, and their forms were just like they
are on the earth, and I could also see something which one could take
to be buildings. The whole thing was permeated with the most gorgeous
light—a living, golden yellow glow, a pale color, not like the harsh gold
color we know on earth. (Moody 1975, 75)
She goes on to encounter an uncle who had died years earlier, who tells
her that it’s not yet her time. She then wakes up and finds her panicked
young son praying for her to come back.
C. Indirect Explicit
These are experiences in which the person does not come into direct
experiential contact with Purgatory, but rather is informed explicitly
about its existence by an apparently supernatural entity. Paradigm case
studies here would include Marian apparitions in which the Blessed
Virgin talks of Purgatory, or apparitions of the dead in which they iden-
tify themselves as denizens of Purgatory.
For an example of the former sort, consider the alleged Marian appari-
tions at Fatima, Portugal, beginning in 1917. These apparitions are eas-
ily the best-known in contemporary Catholicism. They have long since
received official recognition by the Roman Catholic Church. Walsh
recounts a dialogue which occurred as part of the first apparition (the
first apparition of the Blessed Virgin, that is—the visionaries had earlier
seen an angel). This was the first of what would be an ongoing series
of appearances to three very young Portuguese shepherds. One of the
42 T. Dumsday
visionaries, nine-year-old Lucia dos Santos, asked the woman (who had
not, at this early stage, identified herself as the Blessed Virgin) about the
postmortem state of two recently deceased family friends:
Lucia suddenly remembered two girls who had died recently. They were
friends of her family, and used to go to her house to learn weaving from
her sister Maria. ‘Is Maria da Neves now in Heaven?’ she asked. ‘Yes, she
is.’
‘And Amelia?’
‘She will be in Purgatory until the end of the world.’ (Walsh 1954, 50–51)
Elsewhere, McGrath (1961, 184) notes that Amelia was 18 years old,
correcting some earlier works on the Fatima apparitions that identified
her as a child of seven.17
As an example of a ghostly apparition making explicit mention of
Purgatory, Hamlet’s vision of his father remains far and away the best-
known fictional example. But comparable reports have actually been
made. Van den Aardweg summarizes the following case, a relic from
which is housed at the so-called “Purgatory museum” in the Church of
the Sacred Heart of Suffrage in Rome:
…on the night of June 5, 1894…the deceased Sister Maria of St. Louis
de Gonzaga appeared to Sister Margaret. According to the account of the
event, which is preserved in the monastery, the deceased, who had been a
pious nun, appeared dressed as a Poor Clare sister, surrounded by shad-
ows but recognizable. To the surprise of Sister Margaret, she explained
that she was in Purgatory to expiate for her bouts of impatience, her not
accepting God’s will. The deceased had suffered for about two years from
tuberculosis, severe fever, coughing, and asthma and had given into a fit of
discouragement, desiring to die at once rather than to suffer any longer.
However, as she was a very fervent soul, upon the exhortation of her
Mother Superior, she had resigned herself to God’s will. A few days later,
she had died that very morning of June 5. She asked for prayers for suf-
frage….She reappeared to the same nun, on June 20 and 25, to thank her
and give spiritual advice to the community, before she went to Heaven.
(Van den Aardweg 2009, 52–54)
What makes this sort of report an example of an indirect explicit experi-

ence is that Purgatory itself is mentioned; had the ghost simply asked for
prayer, which would have been consistent with the reality of Purgatory,
but also would have been consistent with the idea that the damned can
still benefit from, and perhaps ask for, prayer.18
D. Indirect Implicit
These are experiences in which the individual does not come into direct
experiential contact with Purgatory, but rather comes into contact with
an apparently supernatural entity or event, the nature of which is argu-
ably best explained in terms of the reality of Purgatory. Paradigm case
studies here would include hauntings and other forms of ghostly appa-
rition in which Purgatory is never explicitly mentioned by the entities
in question. For better or worse, such experiences are commonly dis-
cussed under the rubric of the “paranormal” rather than the religious. I
have already noted in the Introduction the role that reports of this sort
played in reformation-era debates concerning Purgatory. Apparitions of
the dead are comparatively common events, but usually they are one-
off experiences in which someone sees a recently deceased loved one.19
Less common are so-called “hauntings” where the apparition shows up
repeatedly in the same location. McLuhan discusses an example of this
latter variety:
Surprisingly, considering the persistence of interest in the idea of ghosts,

hauntings in which an apparition is seen in the same location by different
people turn out to be a much smaller category in the SPR20 research. A
well-authenticated report from 1892 described the ghost of a woman in a
Cheltenham house which, over a period of eight years, was seen by at least
seventeen people, in many cases more than once, and by some on repeated
occasions. The figure was tall, wore a long black widow’s dress and held a
handkerchief to her face that masked her features, and she often seemed
to be crying. She would suddenly appear in different parts of the house,
even outside on the lawn in broad daylight, and could be followed, usually
to her favorite spot behind a couch by the living room window. If spoken
to, she would appear to be about to speak but would then move away sud-
denly, often passing through a wall. She looked to be three-dimensional
but was non-material, like a hologram—she did not displace thin threads
placed across her path and if someone tried to touch her their arms passed
right through her. (McLuhan 2010, 220)
44 T. Dumsday
Even if one gives such phenomena any credence, there are of course
multiple ways that one might fit their reality into one’s ontology. From a
Roman Catholic perspective Purgatory seems a potential option, at least
as supplemented with the idea that for some souls their purgation, or a
portion of it, is carried out tied to a location on earth.
Assessing Evidential Significance

The case studies cited above are of course just a sampling of a huge array
that could be brought to bear here. Naturally, many will dismiss all such
data as the products of deception, delusion, or interesting brain anom-
aly. But for those of us already inclined to take seriously claims to reli-
gious experience (an inclination I defend elsewhere),21 it would be worth
discussing, at least in a brief and preliminary fashion, the respective evi-
dential weights of the four sorts of experience laid out in the previous
section’s taxonomy.
In principle, direct explicit and indirect explicit experiences would
seem to provide the best potential sources of evidence for Purgatory,
insofar as they are the types which are unambiguously evidence for
Purgatory specifically. The two sorts of implicit experience, no mat-
ter how evidentially compelling as genuinely veridical religious and/or
paranormal occurrences, retain an ineliminable degree of ambiguity on
this score. That is, a really compelling ghost sighting might be good evi-
dence against the truth of metaphysical naturalism, and might even be
good evidence for human postmortem survival (though that is less clear);
but taking it to be really good evidence for Purgatory would require
an extended argument, one that would have to involve taking down
other proposed non-natural explanations—e.g., the idea that ghosts are
lost souls who for some reason are unable to move on to their proper
postmortem location, whether that be Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory, or
the idea that all apparent ghost sightings are really sightings of demons
who are trying to trick us in various ways (as was argued by a number of
Protestant apologists in the reformation-era debates on Purgatory).
Yet in assessing overall evidential weight, the ambiguity of the implicit
experiences might be counterbalanced, at least to a degree, by the con-
sideration that certain types of implicit experience referenced above are
arguably far more common than the explicit experiences. Negative near
death experiences and alleged hauntings appear to be reported more
widely than are Marian apparitions (for example), let alone Marian
apparitions in which Purgatory is mentioned. Taking the numbers game

into account, if Purgatory really were the best way to accommodate
ghosts within the Christian worldview (and that is of course debatable),
and if the evidence for the reality of hauntings in fact proved compelling
(also obviously debatable), such evidence might by sheer dint of num-
bers in the end constitute better overall evidence than that provided by
the types of explicit experience.
Or it might not—a small number of really well-attested, thoroughly
well-supported relevant Marian apparitions (for instance) might carry
the day for Purgatory on their own account. Thus if one is particularly
impressed by the Fatima events, then insofar as Purgatory was referenced
by that allegedly Marian apparition, this could perhaps constitute by itself
strong indirect explicit evidence for the reality of Purgatory.
At any rate, once one has determined which sort of experiential evi-
dence is liable to be of greatest evidential weight, and once one has
accordingly made a truly thorough study of the relevant case histories
falling under that type, one will then be faced with a further question:
how to weigh that experiential evidence against the other three sorts of
argument for Purgatory canvassed in the Introduction. For instance, if
one finds the relevant experiences of the Kibeho visionaries evidentially
compelling, but thinks that there is a strong Biblical case to be made
against Purgatory (perhaps on grounds of an apparent conflict with
belief in the all-sufficiency of Christ’s cross for our redemption), those
two lines of evidence will need to be assessed in relation to each other.
Indeed, ultimately all four types of argument ought to be considered in
conjunction. That sort of evaluation is a much more complex affair than
that involved in examining any single line of evidence. Happily, such an
evaluation is also well above the pay grade of this short paper, and I leave
the task to others.
Notes
1. Holy See, Catholic Encyclopedia, accessed online via www.newadvent.org.
2. The compatibility of the payment-of-debts model with the sanctification
model has in fact been disputed, but for a recent defense see Neal Judisch
(2009). Judisch goes so far as to argue that the two are ultimately equiva-
lent. For a critique of Judisch on this point see Jerry Walls (2012, 88).
3. Which understanding leaves a great deal of room for philosophical
and theological speculation as to related details. Consider for instance
46 T. Dumsday
questions pertaining to the metaphysics of Purgatory: is it literally a place,

and if so how is its location to be understood? Or is it rather a state of
soul? Relatedly, do those in Purgatory have some sort of a body, and if
so do their sufferings include bodily sufferings? Who or what imposes
these sufferings? Such questions have a long history of debate in Roman
Catholic theology; for some of this history see Jacques Le Goff (1984).
On the history of questions relating specifically to the location and bodily
status of Purgatory see also D.W. Pasulka (2015).
4. See for instance C.S. Lewis (1964); Jurgen Moltmann (2000); John
Polkinghorne (2000); and Clark Pinnock (1996).
5. Consult for instance P.T. Forsyth (1948); Karl Rahner (1983); and
William Willimon (2008).
6. See again Walls (2012), who advocates a model of Purgatory that provides
both an opportunity for further sanctification for those already bound for
Heaven, and also an opportunity for those at risk of damnation to have
another chance (or rather chances) at salvation.
7. The Orthodox Church has not made the same sort of formal dog-
matic pronouncements concerning this state as one sees in Catholicism.
As such, a degree of diversity remains amongst Orthodox theologi-
ans concerning some important details. To get a sense of this diversity
see Hilarion Alfeyev (2002); Vasilios Bakogiannis (1995); Demetrios
Bathrellos (2014); Sergius Bulgakov (2002); Constantine Cavarnos
(1985); Jean-Claude Larchet (2012); Andrew Louth (2013); Michael
Pomazansky (2005); Hieromonk Seraphim Rose (2004); Nikolaos
Vassiliadis (1993); and Timothy Ware (1984).
8. “I answer that from the conclusions we have drawn above…it is suffi-
ciently clear that there is a Purgatory after this life. For if the debt of pun-
ishment is not paid in full after the stain of sin has been washed away by
contrition, nor again are venial sins always removed when mortal sins are
remitted, and if justice demands that sin be set in order by due punish-
ment, it follows that one who after contrition for his fault and after being
absolved, dies before making due satisfaction, is punished after this life.”
9. Frequently discussed texts in this connection include 2 Maccabees
12:41–46; Matthew 12:31–32; and I Corinthians 3:11–15. Note that
2 Maccabees is not accepted as canonical within Protestant denomina-
tions, while its status within Eastern Orthodoxy is a matter of some
complexity (along with the remainder of what are sometimes called the
Old Testament ‘Deuterocanonicals’).
10. For examples consult Bernhard Bartmann (1936, 88–107); and Brett
Salkeld (2011, 37–42).
11. For discussion of the role that ghost sightings played in Reformation-era
debates on Purgatory, see Peter Marshall (2002, 233–264) and Timothy
Chesters (2011, 21–63). Such a characterization of the denominational

split on this issue is of course a broad generalization; there were cer-
tainly reformers who advocated the reality of ghosts (and then faced the
theological task of accommodating them into their worldview without
recourse to Purgatory), and Catholics who rejected it.
12. A proper review of the history of internal Roman Catholic debate con-
cerning Medjugorje would occupy a much lengthier article than this. In
2014 the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith concluded
a 4-year ecclesiastical inquiry into the apparitions. In May 2015, Pope
Francis announced that the results of that inquiry would soon be released
publicly. As of March 2017, this has yet to occur. Here I will just note
that one important factor distinguishing Medjugorje from Kibeho is the
persistent rejection of the veridicality of the apparitions by Medjugorje’s
local bishop.
13. For a brief summary of the Rwandan apparitions see Roy Abraham
Varghese (2000, 134–137); for a much more detailed recounting see
Immaculee Ilibagiza (2008).
14. For example, during the initial stages of ecclesial investigation into
Alphonsine’s visions “the priest…stuck a needle several inches long
deep into the young visionary’s arm during an apparition, to no avail;
Alphonsine just kept chatting happily with Mary” (Ilibagiza and Erwin
2008, 45).
15. For some additional visions of Purgatory, also taking place in the broader
context of supposed Marian apparitions (in Cuenca, Ecuador in the late
1980s, and in Naju, South Korea in the early 1990s) see Varghese (2000,
146; 178–179).
16. I cannot however resist expressing my sympathy for 11-year-old Jakov in
his desire not to be shown Hell. Other alleged Marian apparitions have
shown horrific panoramas of the damned to even younger children, nota-
bly to 6-year-old Jacinta Marto during the events at Fatima. On the latter
see William Thomas Walsh (1954, 80–81).
17. Again, I do not wish to comment in any detail on the evidential status of
the particular cases under discussion in this section; still, on theological
grounds one might raise a few obvious concerns here: (1) the definite-
ness of the claim that this girl will be in Purgatory until the Apocalypse
(would no amount of prayer and almsgiving on the part of her family
have availed to lessen her punishment?); (2) the seeming harshness of
the verdict (was Amelia a closet murderer?); (3) the morality of provid-
ing this information to the visionaries, given the pain their subsequent
report presumably caused the dead girl’s family (assuming that family
gave any credence to the apparition). Arguably none of this constitutes
decisive evidence against the veridicality of the Fatima apparitions, and
48 T. Dumsday
such concerns must of course be weighed against (among other things)

the evidential significance of the remarkable later event of the so-called
‘miracle of the sun’—witnessed by tens of thousands, it is uncontrover-
sially either one of the largest mass religious experiences in recorded his-
tory or one of the largest mass hallucinations in recorded history.
18. The efficacy of prayers for those in Hell is a commonly held position in
the Orthodox Church; just how efficacious these prayers are (whether
they simply ease the sufferings of the damned, or perhaps even effect
their salvation) is still a matter of discussion within Orthodoxy. On these
issues see again the sources noted in the Introduction.
19. For instance, in a multi-year study in the United States participants were
asked “Have you ever felt as though you were in touch with someone
who had died?” The results: when the question was asked in 1984 of
1445 people, 42% answered “yes.” When the same question was asked in
1988 of 1459 people, 40% answered “yes.” When the same question was
asked in 1989 of 991 people, 35% answered “yes.” For survey data and
discussion see Spilka et al. (2003, 312–314).
20. This acronym refers to the Society for Psychical Research, from whose
journal McLuhan is taking this report.
21. See Travis Dumsday (2008a); (2008b); (2011); and (forthcoming).
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CHAPTER 4
In the Twinkling of an Eye
David Baggett and Jonathan Pruitt
Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory (2015) is a distillation of Jerry Walls’ schol-

arly and groundbreaking work on eschatology over the last few dec-
ades, including on the doctrine of Purgatory. The intuition behind his
approach is this: to be fit for Heaven, we have to be perfect. The bib-
lical admonition to be holy as God is holy is to be taken with dread-
ful seriousness. None of us at death, however, has achieved such a state.
N. T. Wright makes a similar point:
Do not our spirits, our souls, still leave a great deal to be desired? If we
have made any spiritual growth during the present life, does this not leave
us realizing just how much further we have to go? Do we not feel, in our
small steps towards holiness here and now, that we have only just begun to
climb, and that the mountain still looms high over us? (2003, 32)
So, it seems to many that some amount of posthumous transformation is

necessary—for some more than others, but some for all of us.
Many Christians agree that at death we have yet to achieve anything like
perfection, but still resist the doctrine of Purgatory. Of course plenty of
D. Baggett (*) 
Liberty University School of Divinity, Lynchburg, VA, USA
J. Pruitt 
Grand Canyon University, Lynchburg, VA, USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_4
52 D. Baggett and J. Pruitt
Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and even some Protestants remain altogether

open to Purgatory; but many resist it vociferously. Mention of Purgatory
immediately tends to make Evangelicals, for example, go a bit apoplectic,
raising the specter as it does of indulgences, religious abuses, and satisfac-
tion models of purgation that undermine the sufficiency of the Cross.
Walls, himself an Evangelical, makes it clear that the model he
endorses instead is a sanctification model. Most Evangelicals agree with
the need for posthumous sanctification, but embrace a model of instan-
taneous transformation (the “zap” theory)—and insistently refuse to call
such a process “Purgatory.” If, though, Purgatory is just the name of this
posthumous transformation itself, then the locution “Purgatory” may
stir ire, but not much rides on this semantic point, beyond the observa-
tion that some of the visceral opposition to Walls’ argument might be
motivated more by knee-jerk appeal to tradition than the substance of
the idea. At any rate, Walls demurs on the zap theory, since such a model
isn’t typically how moral transformation takes place.
In this paper, we intend to argue, most broadly, that this need not
be understood as a philosophy/Bible dichotomy, which we think would
be preferable because it’s problematic if clear thinking (which good phi-
losophy essentially is) and the deliverances of scripture radically conflict.
More specifically, we will try to show that, even if one adheres to an
interpretation of scripture according to which posthumous moral trans-
formation is instantaneous, or nearly instantaneous, this wouldn’t pre-
clude the sort of process Walls argues radical sanctification requires.
Why Purgatory?
In his scholarly book on Purgatory, Walls writes that “the modern rec-
ognition of the role of ‘becoming’ in the unfolding of the present order
gives us reason to believe that this will also characterize God’s new crea-
tion” (2012, 53). In this connection, John Polkinghorne writes, “Among
other things, this recognition seems to require some recovery of a suit-
ably demythologized concept of Purgatory. The hope of purgation must
be part of the transforming process that fits human beings for everlasting
encounter with the reality of God. It will surely not be brought about by
an instantaneous act of divine magic” (Polkinghorne 2000, 41).
Walls argues for the need for a process of transformation. Forgiveness
can happen in a moment, but the notion of sanctification taking place
in a moment, without a process, strains credulity. We may be declared
4 IN THE TWINKLING OF AN EYE 53
righteous by God’s decree when we are justified, but biblical soteriol-

ogy goes far beyond the matter of the imputation of righteousness. It
involves real change, radical transformation; we really will be made holy
as God is holy. Holiness will be imparted, not just imputed; and indeed,
the process will reach a point of culmination.
Immanuel Kant, on this score, was, at least from a Christian perspec-
tive, partially right and partially wrong (see his 1930; 1998; and 2001).
He was right about seeing the need for virtue; he recognized the need
for a solution to “Spener’s Problem”: our need to become not just better
men, but new men (2001, 279). We need a “revolution of the will.” We
are, he thought, all born under the “evil maxim,” which, when pressed,
inevitably subordinates the demands of morality to our own desires. We
are all saddled with our “dear self” from which we need deliverance. Yet
because of the “taint of our race,” we can’t morally lift ourselves up; we
need outside assistance, and Kant thought this gave us reason to posit
God’s existence as a necessity of practical reason. We’re obligated to priv-
ilege the affection for justice over the affection for advantage, but unable
to do so in our own strength. Owing to his upbringing in the tradition
of Lutheran pietism, he, like Luther, thought of sin as curving us inward
on ourselves, a moral malady in need of fixing.
Kant’s argument for immortality in this connection, however, seems
predicated on a departure from Christian thought. For he thought we
could never actually attain the “holy will.” At most we can eternally
approach it asymptotically. Because it’s a process that can never be com-
pleted—like adding to infinity—it requires an eternity to continue pur-
suing it. Although it’s consistent with orthodox Christianity to think
that there are ways we can continue to grow throughout eternity, the
idea that we can never be glorified, entirely conformed to the image
of Christ, completely delivered from the power and corruption of sin,
seems to be a Kantian departure from Christian thought.
Christianity teaches that we will indeed be made wholly holy, but
Walls insists that in order for this process to be consistent with our iden-
tity, we need to participate in the process. If God were unilaterally to
zap us into such a state, such radical instantaneous transformation would
raise intractable identity questions without a coherent enough narrative
of how it takes place and a sufficiently gradual process of transforma-
tion that salvages an ongoing sense of self. Walls (2015, 134–138) asks
us to re-envision the plot of A Christmas Carol (Dickens 2006), this
time featuring Scrooge going to bed a selfish miser and waking up a new
man, with an entirely new moral orientation, but without all the inter-
vening plot twists that explain the transformation. Looking in the mir-
ror the next morning, the “new” Scrooge might understandably ask who
he really is. Did he actually endure through a transformation, or was he
replaced? Is he merely a person with similar memories and appearance to
the Scrooge who no longer exists?
Walls assumes a plausible view of the necessary conditions for moral
transformation. In order for a person to be morally transformed, she
must at least will that the transformation take place. Being able to will
one’s own moral transformation requires certain insights, like the rec-
ognition of one’s need to change and the direction one needs to take.
Further, if Aristotle is right, then transformation requires habituation.
Virtue can only be gained through practice. Thus, moral transformation
requires a process. Even though Scrooge’s transformation is relatively
quick, he still undergoes this process. He identifies his need of repent-
ance, the direction in which he should go, and he puts the virtues he
learns into practice.
For example, Scrooge submissively says to the Second Ghost,
“Conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion,
and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught
to teach me, let me profit by it” (Dickens 2006, 44). If Scrooge did
not endure through every step of the moral transformation and awoke
to find himself fully transformed, he would rightly wonder if he had
endured at all and Scrooge was no more. He would have a different
character, but had he been morally transformed? Moral transformation
plausibly must be done in harmony with the will of the one being trans-
formed. As Taylor says, the moral victory must be our victory, or it is no
victory at all (Taylor 1930, 434).
John Hare (2015) makes a similar argument. Hare posits that divine
commands are given to “free agents.” A free agent is an entity with its
own causal powers that can decide between bringing about a change or
resisting it. In order for agents to obey a divine command, “[t]hey have
to persist, in order to be obedient, through the hearing of the command
and obeying it” (Hare 2015, 56; emphasis added). If Scrooge ended up
behaving the right way, but not persisting, then he would not be obey-
ing God at all. He would be more like a machine who, though he oper-
ates the right way, has no role in becoming the sort of thing that would
operate the right way. Since moral transformation presumably requires
obedience to divine commands, and if Hare is right, then we have fur-

ther support of Walls’ view.
So, for such reasons, Walls claims what is needed is a process of trans-
formation that, intuitively, takes time. He makes this point repeatedly in
his recent popularization of his thought on this matter. Here’s just one
example: “Since God sanctifies us by truth, does it necessarily take some
degree of time to understand the truth about God and ourselves and to
internalize that truth? Again, insofar as one believes that it takes time to
understand and internalize the truth as God reveals it to us, one will be
inclined to affirm the doctrine of purgatory” (Walls 2015, 113).
In support of Walls’ claim, perhaps we can invoke Kant again, who
thought of space and time as somewhat analogous to the categories fur-
nished by reason. But whereas the categories of causation, substance,
necessity, and the like are concepts, space and time are not mere con-
cepts. They are rather, in his terms, pure forms of sensible intuition.
Space is the a priori form of outer sense, the faculty by which we rep-
resent objects as outside us. Time is the pure (a priori) form of inner
sense, our awareness of our own inner mental states. Kant’s Metaphysics
Exposition (2003, 67–70) reveals what’s entirely a priori about time and
space, and in his Transcendental Exposition (2003, 70–74) he shows
how this a priori content gives rise to the possibility of synthetic a pri-
ori knowledge—such as geometrical truths. When considering a process,
Kant would suggest, at the least, that the subjective experience of the
process requires that it be experienced temporally. Experiencing a pro-
cess is otherwise impossible. Just as shape, or spatial extension, requires
space, the experience of processes would seem to require they be expe-
rienced temporally. Temporal extension, though, is inconsistent with an
instantaneous transformation.
For reasons both moral and metaphysical, reason seems to suggest
that posthumous moral transformation necessitates a process requiring
time. But certain critics often suggest that this is problematic because
of the deliverances of special revelation. Those who would resist Walls’
suggestion and opt instead for an instantaneous model of transformation
are often motivated by their interpretation of Scripture. No matter how
clever, how philosophically adroit and logically coherent Walls’ approach
may be, it is thought to run afoul of the Bible, they insist. This is why
such a debate gets cast by some as another paradigmatic conflict between
philosophy and scripture, and why many Evangelicals, understanding the
dilemma in those terms, would assign primacy to Scripture. Let’s briefly

consider their case.
Why the Biblical Resistance?

Though those offering biblical reasons for rejecting Purgatory are often
vociferous and adamant, these protestations come from a relatively few
number of verses. The biblical basis for rejecting narrows even further
once the distinction is made between sanctifying and atoning purga-
tion. Concerning what the Bible teaches about the disembodied state in
general, Wright says, “It’s actually quite difficult to give a clear biblical
account of the disembodied state in between bodily death and bodily
resurrection” (Wright 2003, 31). So a dogmatic position on what hap-
pens after we die and before the resurrection is likely not warranted. On
the surface, too, certain other biblical verses seem to resonate a great
deal with Walls’ suggestions, such as this one: “And I am certain that
God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until
it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns” (Philippians
1:6 [New Living Translation]). Note that the good work will continue—
not until death, but until the day Christ Jesus returns.
At any rate, one verse commonly adduced to undermine Walls’ argu-
ment is this one: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what
we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ
appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (I John 3:2
[New International Version]).Notice that, even if this means transforma-
tion is instantaneous, or at least nearly so, it isn’t for a reason that some
think, namely, that shedding the sinful body makes glorification inevi-
table. That idea seems to be predicated on a large mistake: the clearly
unbiblical idea that the body is somehow inherently corrupt. Though
an impeccable Gnostic view, it’s not a biblical one; and if instantaneous
posthumous transformation is possible or actual, it’s surely not for that
reason, which overlooks that our worst sins tend to be entrenched sins of
the heart, like pride.
The impetus to understanding this verse as teaching total and seem-
ingly instantaneous transformation is rather something like the beatific
vision, a clear-eyed apprehension of God in his glory and Christ in his
splendor. It makes sense that such an experience could be deeply trans-
portive and transformative. Even the splendor of natural earthly scenes,
or the towering spires of a great university, or the beauty of simple
kindnesses, can touch and move our hearts and minds in our earthly
experiences. How much more inspiring and transformative is an appre-
hension of the very embodiment of truth, goodness, and beauty likely to
be?
Does such a verse settle the matter, however? Perhaps not, for at least
two reasons. First, Polkinghorne, reflecting on this very verse, writes
that “there is a hint of a salvific process, for we can scarcely suppose that
Christ will be taken in at a glance” (Polkinghorne 2000, 131).This is a
top-down consideration, owing to the breadth and scope of the grandeur
of Christ. There’s also a bottom-up reason to be hesitant to assume that
this verse precludes a process, namely, that, owing to our fallenness, our
transformation would seem to require coming to terms with the truth, a
process, however quick, of appropriating that truth and eschewing our
resistance to it. A subjective mental process still seems called for that
can’t be reasonably denied, because of the moral and metaphysical rea-
sons cited earlier. Nevertheless, some might find this unpersuasive, and
remain committed to belief in instantaneous transformation after death.1
Another commonly cited verse thought to oppose Purgatory is I
Corinthians 15:52: “[We will all be changed] in a flash, in the twinkling
of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will
be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” For many this seals the
deal, precluding any suggestion that a posthumous process of sanctifica-
tion is needed. Garland says of this verse: “This transformation will be
effected by God’s mysterious power…[The imagery] refutes any view of
a gradual transformation of the resurrected” (2003, 743–744).
Walls seems right that, when considering the logic of moral transfor-
mation, most all of our experience seems to demand such a process, one
in which we come to terms with the truth, undergo genuine penitence
and a change of heart, growth in sympathy and empathy and compas-
sion. We can be forgiven in a moment, but wholesale changes to character
don’t occur instantaneously. Significant crisis moments that lead to rapid
change can happen, but even these require a temporal process, at least
of recognition of one’s sin and the decision to do right. But going from
being radically imperfect to totally perfect in a single instant is nothing
any of us has even remotely experienced; it may be literally impossible.
So what do we do with this impasse? Complete moral transforma-
tion requires a process that is incomplete at death, sometimes quite
incomplete indeed, but it is also supposed to happen in something like
the twinkling of an eye. Is this dilemma intractable? Have we arrived
in the untenable place of choosing between rationality and Scripture, a

potentially protracted purgation process and a Heavenly, instantaneous,
magical zap? Let’s suppose we take as our desiderata both the need for
a posthumous moral transformation and for the process to be done in a
very short interval. Is there a way to effect a rapprochement by produc-
ing a possible way in which both conditions are satisfied? We will now
argue that, yes, even if we grant the reliability of the biblical interpre-
tation that says posthumous transformation is instantaneous, or at least
nearly so, this is altogether compatible with Walls’ insistence on the need
for a process.
An Effort at Reconciliation
What we would like to do is tentatively offer an effort at synthesizing
the desiderata. Suppose we grant both that (1) a process is needed for
posthumous transformation, and that (2) it happens in a very short inter-
val, something like the twinkling of an eye. Are these inconsistent? Only
if we assume that the process needs more than the twinkling of an eye.
As Corey Latta, puts it, “I imagine the twinkling of an eye to be both
anthropomorphic, of course, and an ancient glimpse into a cosmological
truth” (Corey Latta, April 2015, e-mail message to author)
What cosmological truth? Well, it’s natural to think of any process as
requiring time, and quite an elaborate process requiring a great deal of
time, but there may be reasons to question that this is always the case.
Purgatory’s opponent seems to be presupposing just such a proposition,
which we can call the “Significant Process Requirement” (or ‘SPR’ for
short): (3) Significant processes require a significant amount of time,
continuing our desiderata above. SPR is prima facie plausible; for that
matter, though, so is the idea that extraordinarily unlikely claims require
extraordinary evidence, but this isn’t always so. A random selection of
cards from a deck yields a very unlikely hand, but warranted belief in
such a hand requires nothing more than a casual glance. Similarly, the
idea that elaborate processes require much time may be just as mistaken.
If there is good reason to doubt SPR, then there may not be much
tension at all between glorification taking place in the twinkling of an
eye and its requiring a process, perhaps even a protracted one. A pos-
sible story according to which these two conditions are both satisfied
is all that’s needed to answer the claim that Purgatory is precluded by
the scriptural demand for a fast process after death, however adamantly
expressed. We needn’t argue the story is true, but merely possible. We

also happen to think our story, or something like is, is rather plausible,
but we are content for present purposes to argue for its mere possibility.
Much of the issue here pertains to time. So consider a quick insight
from science. If you were traveling at the speed of light time would
not stop in your reference frame, but your clock would appear to have
stopped to anyone who could see it from another reference frame (the
‘rest frame’) relative to which you were traveling at the speed of light.
Of course, by relativistic length contraction in the direction of motion,
the length of your spaceship would also have shrunk to zero as observed
from the rest-frame (while nothing would have changed from your per-
spective). And also of course, unless you managed to transform your
spaceship and yourself into massless particles, you wouldn’t be traveling
at the speed of light anyway, because resistance to acceleration (mass)
increases without bound as the speed of light is approached, so the
speed of light can never be reached by massive objects because their mass
would become infinite.
So here’s the point for present purposes. Time would not stop in my
reference frame even at the speed of light (bearing in mind that this is
likely not physically possible). And the closer to the speed of light I go,
the more my clock appears to slow down from the perspective of some-
one in the “rest frame.” Thus, even a short interval, given this “plas-
ticity” of time, might contain plenty of chances for transformation
requiring an interval of time, perhaps a significant interval. Relativity
theory would show us that time is relative to speed, and so—lacking any
privileged point of view or absolute time—it could be stretched or short-
ened as circumstances require. Perhaps the person undergoing purga-
tion is like the person in the “rest frame.” Time speeds along for him
from the perspective of the fast-as-light traveler. So what seems like a
single moment for a person traveling at the speed of light could be an
age for the person in the “rest frame.” The details of the science are not
as important as the more general point: the best-accepted science shows
that time is relative. That is all that is needed to move our argument
along.
We are not presuming to have a physicist’s grasp of relativistic impli-
cations of time, but this doesn’t undermine the claim that there’s a
potential rapprochement between a posthumous process of radical
transformation and a near instantaneous event. If time is so difficult to
understand, especially after death, why assume that the “twinkling of an

eye” precludes a process of transformation? Such an assumption strikes
us as presumptuous, an unprincipled assumption that we have a good
bead on how time works after we’ve shuffled our mortal coil. What
we do know of time seems to call such sanguine confidence into seri-
ous question. So perhaps the resistance to Walls is based less on what the
Bible says, after all, and more, perhaps unwittingly, on what someone is
supposing to be true about time, and ambitiously assuming at that.
What does the Bible mean when it says that a thousand years in our
sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night? Is
there not perhaps at least an intimation that time is more fluid or plastic
than we might have imagined? C. S. Lewis played with this idea when,
after the kids came back from Narnia, just a few minutes had passed,
while their experience in Narnia had canvassed years—and, from their
perspective, in fact had. And an analogous spatial example can also be
found in Lewis. Consider in The Great Divorce how it’s revealed that
Hell inhabited but a speck of space:
All Hell is smaller than one pebble of your earthly world: but it is smaller
than one atom of this world, the Real World…If all Hell’s miseries
together entered the consciousness of yon wee yellow bird on the bough
there, they would be swallowed up without trace, as if one drop of ink had
been dropped into that Great Ocean to which your terrestrial Pacific itself
is only a molecule. (Lewis 2009, 138)
In that speck was the entirety of Hell. For all we know the whole uni-
verse could be contained at the head of a pin; it wouldn’t make flying to
London from New York go any quicker. And what might the twinkling
of an eye contain?
Arguably the Bible hints that God’s relation to time is fundamentally
different from our own, and science seems to hint too that time is not
what it at first seems. Time itself, objectively speaking, is likely not the
absolute some seem to think it is. Perhaps the passenger from the Grey
Town is right: “Time’s sort of odd here” (Lewis 2009, 10). If it var-
ies with speed in this physical universe, its plasticity is evident even here.
How much more so might time function in ways we can scarcely imagine
in the world to come?
Apart from those considerations about objective time, there is also the
fascinating issue of our subjective experience oftime, rife with mysteries of
its own. Consider people who seem to “see” their lives flashing before
their minds when they think they’re on the brink of death, or the subjec-
tive experience of time seeming to slow down in certain emergency situ-
ations. It’s not the case, presumably, in these instances, that time itself is
showing its plasticity, but it goes to show the relativity of our subjective
responses to time. For present purposes, again, this is relevant, because
it’s sufficient to show the possibility of a great many events transpiring in
rapid succession, all within a short interval of time.
In an experiment in which people were dropped from a high distance
and given a watch that flickered a number too quickly for people nor-
mally to see it, those who were plummeting were in fact able to read it
accurately. In those cases, a physiological explanation is ready at hand.2
The rush of adrenaline and various other physical reactions to the terrify-
ing experience seem to heighten their observational powers. The interval
is brief, but, owing to the elevation of cognitive powers, a great deal of
thought and deliberation is able to be done. Time doesn’t change, but it
almost seems to from their perspective.
Our suggestion, then, is that either way—from an objective perspec-
tive according to which time itself is more malleable than absolute, or a
subjective perspective that makes it at least seem that time slows down—
the dichotomy between a moment and a process may well turn out to be
a false one. If a story is at least possible in which a process can occur in
but a moment, then much of the Evangelical angst over Walls’ Purgatory
proposal, predicated on the presumption we understand time better
than we do—assumptions about how time works that are controversial
indeed—may turn out to be misguided. Perhaps we can indeed experi-
ence an extensive, elaborate transformative process in a timeless moment,
or at least in a very short interval of time.
A Few Objections
We admit to finding the doctrine of Purgatory attractive for various rea-
sons, one among them the importance it seems to carve out for the pro-
cess of sanctification. Recent work by notable biblical scholars on Second
Temple Judaism (see Thornhill 2015, 226; Wright 2009, 183ff) that
emphasizes the theological importance of impartation of righteousness
and not mere imputation seems at least to comport nicely with a pro-
cess of sanctification that involves real transformation that goes beyond a
legislative and positional analysis. Wright argues that becoming a certain
kind of person, namely the sort of person that embodies the righteous-
ness of God, is the goal of the Christian life (Wright 2009, 168). If the
Christian life is about becoming like Jesus, then it seems strange to have
the telos completed in a zap.
On the other hand, we are mindful that some of the science involved
in this discussion is beyond our expertise. Someone could hold that
space-time relativity is false and that there is such a thing as absolute
time. In other words, and using McTaggart’s (1908) language, the
B-theory of time that says that there is no actual present is false. On
this view, relativity relies on assumptions that are questionable, and they
think we can make sense out of the empirical date supposedly confirming
relativity, and we’re not prepared to delve into some of those discussions.
But, even in that case, it may be that subjectively a person could experi-
ence a powerful transformative process that seemed to take ages in what
was actually only a moment.
To wrap up this paper, we’ll try to answer a few objections to our
exploratory proposal. We’ll consider one objection against the possibil-
ity of time itself objectively changing and thereby featuring what we’ve
called its “plasticity,” and one objection against the possibility of time
merely seeming to display plasticity when, in fact, it’s the cognizer’s
enhanced mental powers that explains the appearance.
First the objection to time featuring objective plasticity: contra the
thesis that processes require time, some might say that a Molinist view
like the one proposed by William Lane Craig (2000, 128), and many
other theologians, includes a case of a process that requires no time. The
story would go like this. According to the Molinist view, God’s deci-
sion to create is a process but it requires no time at all. Craig holds that
there are three “logical moments” of creation (2000, 128). In the first
moment, God sees all possibilities. In the second, God sees what would
happen if he created any particular world. And in the third, God acts to
create and he has resulting free knowledge of that world.
To understand the force of the objection, we must first have an idea of
what a “logical moment” actually is. Craig says that logical moments are
analogous to temporal moments in the sense that they can be ordered,
but logical moments are ordered by logical priority instead of chronolog-
ical occurrence. God’s free knowledge depends on the other two kinds
of knowledge and so they have higher priority (Craig 2000, 128). If we
try to cash out logical moments in phenomenological language, we face
a difficulty. We do not have any conception of what it’s like to be a mind
that operates atemporally through the use of logical moments. But we

can try to get a rough approximation on the table. A logical moment
must be a mind’s direct awareness of its own thoughts and the simul-
taneous decision to act upon those thoughts. Suppose this works in the
case of God who knows all true things at any given moment, including
the content of his own thoughts.
This would show the possibility of a “timeless process,” in either an
objective or subjective sense. If some processes require no time, then
perhaps the process of sanctification after death requires no time (either
subjectively or objectively) and thus Purgatory is not needed to make
sense of the apparent conflict between philosophy and Scripture.
However, even if this objection were sound, the conclusion is not.
The important part of our thesis is not that processes require time, but
that a process is required after death for sanctification. So in one sense
this is no challenge to either desideratum, because it would show that
the instantaneous and process aspects of purgation are fully reconcilable.
Perhaps this is in fact the most straightforward way to effect their synthe-
sis. However, we harbor two doubts about the applicability of this model
to posthumous transformation, and they parallel the aforementioned dis-
tinction between top-down and bottom-up considerations. Perhaps for
any finite being, moral transformation must always be a temporal process
because if, say, I want to think about something, I must first decide to
call it to mind, then recall it, and then I begin thinking about it. Since I
cannot be aware of everything I might recall at a particular moment (like
God), then my thinking cannot occur in purely logical moments. In one
moment I will to recall. In the next I recall, and then in the next I pon-
der. It seems like mental processes occurring in purely logical moments
would require omniscience. So if a finite thing thinks, it must be in
time.3
This actually seems to comport, recall, with what Kant had to say on
the matter. It is hard to imagine how a process like reflection by finite
minds could possibly occur atemporally, and this inclines us to agree with
Walls (and Aristotle) that process requires time—sanctification especially
so because of the sort of mental reflection it requires.4
Two contingent aspects of the unglorified human condition bol-
ster our convictions here: our finitude and our fallibility, that is, both
our cognitive limitations and our sinful condition. Both seem to rein-
force a relevant sort of disanalogy between God, able to effect processes
atemporally, and ourselves, less plausibly thought able to do so. Again,
though, if posthumous transformation could be done in an atemporal

process, then those skeptical of Purgatory for requiring a temporal pro-
cess have been offered an answer. Our own position, though, is to grant
that a temporal process seems likely, but one consistent with a short
interval, at least either from some rest frame or other or because of the
subjective plasticity of time owing to enhanced cognitive and affective
powers in the moral agent.5
And this introduces the second objection we wish to consider, a con-
cern raised about our subjective treatment of time. On the one hand, it
seems that God could give us aid that would allow us superhuman ability
to be transformed and cooperate with the transformation in an actually
short period of time (on the absolute view of time held by Craig). But
a potential problem with this view is whether this is too much help. C. S.
Lewis gives a thought experiment about playing chess in The Problem of
Pain. He says that if we bend the rules of the game too much, then win-
ning loses its luster:
In a game of chess you can make certain arbitrary concessions to your

opponent, which stand to the ordinary rules of the game as miracles stand
to the laws of nature. You can deprive yourself of a castle, or allow the
other man sometimes to take back a move made inadvertently. But if you
conceded everything that at any moment happened to suit him—if all his
moves were revocable and if all your pieces disappeared whenever their
position on the board was not to his liking—then you could not have a
game at all. (Lewis 1962, 33–34)
The application to our case is that the human telos must be realized in
the right way. Aristotle (2009, 15) thinks of the human good as inti-
mately connected with the process of attaining it. The good for man is
achieved when humans develop within themselves, through the slow
process of habituation, the right sort of character.
If there is a human good and humans are meant to achieve it, then
humans are in a scenario much like the one Lewis describes. We must
win our game (or achieve our good) according to the rules required by
our nature. God could “zap” us and repair our defects, but something
integral to the human good would be lost. The concern is an Aristotelian
one. If we achieve our telos by cheating (by receiving so much divine aid
that the game is broken), then we defeat the human good in the same
way that the good of winning in chess is defeated if the rules are broken
too much. But that’s on the assumption that God gives us superhuman
powers. If we achieve the human good as super humans, then we haven’t
actually achieved the human good at all. There would be something defi-
cient about human excellence that was not achieved with the right sort
of human effort.
We are mindful of this concern and think it worth wrestling with. It
surely would, by our lights, preclude certain accounts in the vicinity of
the one we have attempted to articulate and defend here. But at least
for now, we are not convinced it defeats our own proposal. We could
say that God doesn’t so much as give us superhuman powers as he just
allows for the unfettered operation of the human mind. Perhaps a mind
in the right environment could become sanctified very quickly. To us this
doesn’t seem farfetched. Moral reform can take place very quickly given
the right circumstances. Even supposing we can know a priori that a pro-
cess takes time, what we can’t know a priori is how much time.
Or perhaps we are shown just a glance of the harrows of Hell—the
horrors of what a trajectory of willful rebellion culminates in. Our pre-
ferred example is its diametric opposite, however, for we think the pull
of the good and of love is ultimately infinitely stronger than the pull of
darkness, sin, and hate.
So consider once more the beatific vision, the very face of God, Christ
in all his glory and splendor. That, we contend, would be a more pow-
erful catalyst for change than anything else we could think of, yet with-
out depriving moral agents of their freedom to say no. In fact, to see
such glory and respond negatively is the very definition of the sort of
sinful obstinacy that Walls argues Hell is reserved for. Perhaps such a
potentially transformative vision might take only a moment, but if real
and authentic transformation ensures, it would still require a process of
apprehension, reflection, decision, and formation, however brief it would
be. Perhaps even in the twinkling of an eye.
Notes
1. Daniel Akin argues that in 1 John 3:2, “John’s emphasis seems to rest here
on what believers will be as opposed to how the transformation will take
place.” If Akin is correct, this would not be a good place to stake out a claim
about the nature of posthumous moral transformation (Akin 2001, 137).
2. For a brief overview of this experiment see Abumrad and Krulwich.
3. In Body and Soul, J. P. Moreland and Scott Rae insist on the importance
of a stable identity through time. On the basicality of endurance through
time to our experience:
Finally, in processes of deliberation or in nonbasic actions where we carry
out a plan, we are directly aware of the fact that we are enduring agents
who continue to possess and exercise the active power of control through-
out out these processes, all the while reserving the power to refrain from
so acting as we teleologically guide our deliberative processes or sub-acts
toward our intended goals. (Moreland and Rae 2000, 133)
On the necessity of endurance to free acts:
Typical free acts take time and include sub-acts as parts, and an enduring
agent is what gives unity to such acts by being the same self who is present at
the beginning of the action as the intentional agent who originates motion,
who is present during the act as the teleological guider of means to ends and
who is present at the end as the responsible actor-all all the while retaining
the power of regulative control. (Moreland and Rae 2000, 150–151)
4. Aristotle says time is either change itself or the measure of change (2016, 203).
5. Here perhaps one could raise another concern on the objective time side of
this discussion. For Kant claims that it’s an a priori deliverance of intuition
that there can only be one time. If what’s meant is the way time is sub-
jectively experienced, that poses no particular challenge. Relative to one’s
own rest frame, time seems to be moving normally for all of us. If, however,
what’s meant is that time can’t have relativistic entailments, or analogously
that space can’t feature non-Euclidean components, that would pose a prob-
lem for our theory. But the relativist can invert the Kantian’s modus ponens
into a modus Tollens and conclude the evidence for relativism is a defeater
for Kant’s view. More likely, though, what many in the literature seem to
think is that, when it comes to non-Euclidean geometries, this is consistent
with what Kant says about space after all. Perhaps by parity of reasoning the
same rapprochement can be effected between Kant’s reflections on time and
time’s relevant plasticity our account requires. At any rate, we can express
our point with a disjunction: Either Kant is right, and his view is consist-
ent with non-Euclidean geometries, and by extension or analogy pockets of
time speeding up; or Kant was wrong, in which case we needn’t worry with
reconciling our account with his stance. More likely the former’s true.
References
J. Abumrad and R. Krulwich. Why a brush with death triggers the slow-mo effect.
NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129112147.
Accessed July 12, 2016.
D. Akin (2001) 1, 2, 3 John (Nashville: Broadman and Holman).
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Aristotle (2016) Metaphysics C. D. C. Reeve (tr.) (Indianapolis: Hackett
Publishing Company).
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C. Dickens (2006) A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Books, R. Douglas-
Fairhurst (ed.)(Oxford: Oxford University Press).
D. E. Garland (2003) I Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic).
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Company).
I. Kant (1998) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals M. Gregor (tr.)
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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(trs. and eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
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Macmillan).
C. Latta (2015) E-mail message to author. Quoted in David Baggett, in ‘The
twinkling of an eye’, Moral Apologetics. http://moralapologetics.com/in-the-
twinkling-of-an-eye (accessed July 11, 2016).
C. S. Lewis (1962) The Problem of Pain (New York: Macmillan).
C. S. Lewis (2009) The Great Divorce (New York: HarperCollins).
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J. P. Moreland and S. B. Rae (2000) Body & Soul: Human Nature & the Crisis in
Ethics (Downers Grove: IVP Academic. Kindle Edition).
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Science’, in J. Polkinghorne and M. Welker (eds.) The End of the World and
the Ends of God (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International), pp. 29–41.
A. E. Taylor (1930) The Faith of a Moralist (New York: Macmillan).
A. C. Thornhill (2015) The Chosen People: Election, Paul, and Second Temple
Judaism (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press).
J. L. Walls (2012) Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
J. L. Walls (2015) Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory: A Protestant View of the Cosmic
Drama (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press).
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Departed(Harrisburg: Morehouse).
N. T. Wright (2009) Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision (Downers Grove:
IVP Academic).
CHAPTER 5
Purgatory’s Temporality
Vincenzo Lomuscio
Introduction: Thinking Through Purgatory

The Catholic doctrine of Purgatory contains a great deal of dogmas of
Catholic theology, from the double nature of Christ to the relationship
between grace and human freedom, from the intercession of saints to
the redemptive role of Church. This means that if we attempt a philo-
sophical foundation of this doctrine,1 we have to found a long series of
dogmas philosophically. This is a very demanding goal, especially within
the scope of a chapter. However, we can move in a different direction
to consider this doctrine in its philosophical dimensions: we can admit
Purgatory as an ontological object that we have to understand and try
to highlight the philosophical implications of its existence. Indeed, much
like other theological questions, the doctrine of Purgatory provokes our
philosophical categories, not only about their possibilities, but it also
gives us an opportunity to evaluate our thinking in a different way.
How can we think of Purgatory philosophically? The Swiss theolo-
gian, Hans Urs von Balthasar, wrote in Wahrheit der Welt (1947) that
we only have a philosophical way of thinking of Hell and Heaven. This
is to consider them through the philosophical categories of temporality.
V. Lomuscio (*) 
Independent Researcher, Andria(BT), Italy

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_5
70 V. Lomuscio
When thinking of temporality in an analogical way, Heaven is “eternal

future” (continuing newness, ever new discovery) and Hell is “eternal
past” (impossibility of newness, no new discovery). This way, we think of
temporality as analogical, because we consider only one temporal dimen-
sion (only the past or only the future), and we consider it without the
limit of temporal finitude. In this analogical way, we see the difference
between temporality (past-present-future) and eternity (only past or only
future), mortal life and eternal life (Balthasar 2000: III, B4).
Nevertheless, in that same book, von Balthasar wrote nothing about
Purgatory, probably because the temporality of Purgatory is not think-
able in the same way. Indeed, if life in Purgatory is temporary, it is not
eternal, so we have to imagine a condition of life that is over temporality
of mortal life, but also temporary. How can we solve this contradiction?
If we live after death, we maintain a temporal relationship with our life
before it was lived. If there is a temporal relationship between life after
death and mortal life, we have to think of Purgatory’s temporality, which
is related to both mortal temporality and eternal salvation. And, if there
is a beginning of eternal salvation (after Purgatory), there is also a tem-
porality in eternity.
Two Philosophical Questions

The question of salvation is the central one of the Christian Faith, but
the doctrine of Purgatory was institutionalized between the II Council
of Lyon (1274) and the Council of Trent (1545–1563),2 and was not
accepted by Orthodox Church and by Protestant Reformers. However,
before its institutionalization as “Purgatory,” the consideration of
purification after death was already present in the Old Testament, in
the second book of the Maccabees 3 : “it is therefore a holy and whole-
some thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins”
(12:45). The ability to pray for the dead was regarded, since the Old
Testament, as a possibility to purify their souls to be worthy for eternal
life in communion with God. If our prayers can purify the souls of dead,
the biblical text admits an existential dimension for these souls, such that
they maintain a kind of relationship with us. In the New Testament, this
existential dimension was confirmed by Christ’s words in the Gospel of
Matthew, where he states that there are sins which we must purify after
death:
5 PURGATORY’S TEMPORALITY 71
Come to terms with your opponent in good time while you are still on the
way to the court with him, or he may hand you over to the judge and the
judge to the officer, and you will be thrown into prison. In truth I tell you,
you will not get out till you have paid the last penny. (Matthew 5:25–26)
And so I tell you, every human sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but
blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And anyone who says
a word against the Son of man will be forgiven; but no one who speaks
against the Holy Spirit will be forgiven either in this world or in the next.
(Matthew 12:31–32)
Furthermore, there are similar passages in Paul’s first letter to the

Corinthians (3:11–15) and in John’s Apocalypse (21:27). Aside from
biblical texts, the question of purification of the soul after death is
widely claimed by Patristics, for example by Cyril of Jerusalem (2007,
154),4 Gregory of Nyssa (1979, 58),5 John Chrysostom (2007, 249),6
Augustine (1992, 121; 2013, 337; 2005, 336),7 and many others (see
Salza 2009). Indeed, there is a long tradition of praying for the dead,
a tradition which demonstrates that faith in postmortem purification is
deeply rooted in the history of Christianity. This intermediary state of
soul between death and Heaven gives rise to a twofold philosophical
question: the former about the possibility to purify one’s past life, and
the latter about the aforementioned temporality of purgatorial souls.
The Purification of Our Past Choices

The early philosophical implication of the existence of Purgatory is that
the past can be purified. Each sin is a sin committed, so it is a past action
or past intention. The question of purification of sins implicates the
question of changing our past. This seems contradictory to our ordinary
experience of the past or folk wisdom (Kutach 2011, 247–251), in which
it appears unalterable, unredeemable and closed. Also in the Gospels, we
find a sentence about the weight of the past, expressed by Christ before
the healing of the paralytic:
“Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?
But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to
forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic, “Rise, pick up your stretcher,
and go home.” He rose and went home. (Matthew 9:5–7; see also Mark
2:8–13; Luke 15:17–26)
72 V. Lomuscio
This passage is very meaningful. Jesus speaks of two distinct powers

(“which is easier…”): the power to forgive sins on the earth and the
power to heal the paralytic. To show his power to forgive sins, Christ
heals the paralytic by way of a miracle. Since the power of taking away
sins is shown through the power of miraculous healing, both are mira-
cles. Indeed, both regard the ability to change an unchangeable reality.
All our past actions are realities that have occurred, so they are a kind of
Being, and this Being is closed because it has happened. Therefore, only
the Lord of Being can eradicate it. Only those who transcend the Being
can possess the power to change it.
Beyond the theological questions that this passage arouses, we have to
consider this emphasis on the rigidity of our past life. All our past actions
and choices are incontrovertible and we cannot change them (except
through God’s action). What we have been is there, like a granitic real-
ity. In this passage, it seems that Christ accepts a growing block theory of
time (see Broad 1923; Tooley 1997), in which past and present are real,
and movement toward the future is the development of this compact
reality. This theory can be applied only partially, because notwithstand-
ing the weight of past, we have the ability to change it through God’s
mercy. On one hand, this impenetrability of past can be penetrated and
changed only by God and, on the other, it singles out our conversion
toward God. How can we think of changing the past?
If it is a miracle, maybe it is a question that transcends our thought,
such as the healing of a paralytic. Yet we can investigate it in terms of the
human dimension, especially through the temporality of sin. To focus on
this question, we have to recall the meaning of the word “sin”, which
is translated from the Hebrew word “chattàʼth,” the Greek “hamartia,”
and the Latin “peccatum.” All these words mean in some way “missing
the mark”; therefore, they allude to something we did not realize. This is
very interesting because the notion of sin does not directly indicate the
evil we have done, but indicates indirectly the good we did not do. We are
guilty of closing a possibility of goodness, and therefore the evil of our
sins—first and foremost—is an unrealized good.
In light of this consideration, we can take a different approach to the
possibility of changing our sins with regard to our present. If a sin is an
unrealized good, or possibilities that we never made real, we can take the
possibility to eradicate our sins to mean the possibility to realize that good.
And because we carry our sins, we therefore carry the possibility to real-
ize our unrealized good deeds. Therefore, each sin regards a relationship
between possibility and actuality, because it implicates a possible realiza-

tion of a good which is waiting for this. And because the sin, according
to the Purgatory doctrine, regards our souls, each possibility is that of
a soul. Surely, we cannot realize the same good we did not realize, the
same realities we left, but we can realize the same soul’s possibilities. We
have to consider that there is a part of that past good which is always
present in our souls.
As Aquinas writes in Quaestiones Disputatae de Veritate, each conversion
toward goodness is, first and foremost, the belief in God, the movement
of faith (Aquinas 1954, q. 28, a. 4). Each goodness we do not realize is
primarily a belief not realized. To admit a purification of sins, we have to
admit the possibility to change our past through a conversion of faith.
This implicates the presence of past not as a closed reality, but as a possibil-
ity not yet realized. According to the Christian notion of conversion, when
a sinner converts, he begins to live a new life. For example Paul’s conver-
sion, when he passes from a life full of violence to a life where he dedicates
himself to the Christian communities, or Matthew’s conversion, when he
meets Christ and leaves his life as a tax collector to begin life as an Apostle.
Both begin to realize a dedication for God and for their neighbors that
before they did not. This new life in the same person is a kind of awak-
ening, in which latent possibilities begin to be uncovered. The openness
toward God and our neighbors is always present as our possibility8: sin can
be regarded as the closure of this possibility and conversion as its openness.
The past continues to exist in the present, as a possibility waiting to
be. Yet this “waiting to be” is an openness to the future. We can develop
possibilities that are rooted in our soul, but while these possibilities are
still waiting to be realized, the future they will create will continue to
invoke our present. Therefore, the soul’s unrealized past possibilities
continue to occur through the present because there is still an unrealized
future. That unrealized past was a future and is still a future. Therefore,
if there is the possibility to remove our sins, this possibility regards a
future not yet realized, not because our past vanishes, but because our
future never present in the past can become present now.
Of course we cannot take the weight of sins only to mean a soul’s
missed possibility, because it is clear that each missed good implies the
realization of a bad action. When we miss the goodness, we unavoidably
realize evil, or create a not-good situation. The unsolvable question is
removing bad events. Can I remove my past mistakes? It seems impos-
sible both to remove our choices and bring back those events we stopped
74 V. Lomuscio
happening. We cannot think of persistence of past (future) possibilities

as making the same events real. What remains in us is merely the possibil-
ity to carry ourselves toward another view, toward God and toward our
neighbors. This may appear insufficient, but we have to consider it in
relationship with other souls.
Each goodness engages other people’s goodness, each development
of my soul can be, at the same time, the development of possibilities of
other people’s souls. What we can be to the others is incalculable.9 This
incalculableness does not allow us to define the range of good and bad of
our actions. Yet, if we are to be judged, we have to postulate that we can
recognize the difference between good and evil in each choice. And if we
are judged by God, then we have to postulate that each choice is good
or bad in itself, before its consequences. Their value depends primarily
on individual free choices, and only secondarily on accidental features
between deliberations and events. Otherwise, we could ascribe goodness
and badness to casual situations, admitting that a sinner can be judged
as good and vice versa. If God’s judgment regards our choices, there-
fore our soul’s choices are anyway good or bad (this means that there is
always a possibility to choose the good). Each possibilities of the soul is,
in itself, toward God or toward evil.
Obviously, casual events can also be good-makers or bad-makers; a sin
can produce a good outcome and a good intention can produce bad sit-
uations. However, any situation is only a context in which our possibili-
ties are played, because we can be judged only about our intentions and
deliberations. The first reason of good and bad always lies in the soul’s
freedom. Our freedom is always played through particular conditions,
but every time, the source of good and bad is the soul.10
Because we are speaking about purgatorial souls, we have to remem-
ber that these souls have chosen love of God and their neighbors dur-
ing their mortal life, but sometimes they have loved wrongly. We have
to take their sins to mean mistakes of love, as Dante Alighieri explains in
Purgatorio, when he describes the source of good and bad as our soul’s
ability to love. Direction and modality of love determine the good and
the bad, the virtue and the punishment:
From this, then, thou canst understand that love

must be the seed in you of every virtue,
and every deed that merits punishment. (XVII.103–105)11
Purification of the Sins of the Dead

Now we have to understand how it is possible to purify the sins of the
dead. The doctrine of Purgatory argues that purgatorial souls are des-
tined for Heaven, but they must purify their sins before this passage. So
this doctrine recommends that we pray for purgatorial souls to shorten
their time of penance. This temporary condition raises the question of
the relationship between these souls and their past. At first glance, it seems
an impossible relationship because we have argued a purification of our
past only through the possibility to realize the soul’s possibilities not yet
realized. We can change our past because we have time to change, there-
fore, because we still have a future in this temporal life. The dead have
no more time to change themselves. How can they change their past?
What is the temporal condition of purgatorial souls? Can they still realize
their possibilities?
According to Christian theology, we will be judged about this life, and
after this life, we have no more time to change what we have done. This
implies a different existential condition afterlife, in which we will live no
longer a temporal existence, but an eternal existence. This difference
between time and eternity constitutes the impossibility to change, after
death, what we are realizing in this life. And yet, as mentioned earlier,
we have to admit a temporality of Purgatory, because purgatorial souls
do not live already an eternal life, but a temporary purification before
eternal life.
To understand if a purification of past life after death is possible, we
have to explore the relational dimension of sin and goodness. We have
seen that each soul’s sin regards his relationship toward his neighbor as
a possibility of unrealized love. If each sin is an indirectly missed good,
we have to think of the terms of relation for each sin. This means that
each sin is a non-received goodness, while each goodness is a received
goodness. Every time we follow a good intention, there is a neighbor
who receives this goodness. Every time we convert our intentions toward
love, there is a love received.
To understand praying for the dead, we have to consider both sides
of the relationship. If sins are closures of possibilities to love and each sin
is removed by realizing these possibilities, these possibilities involve our
neighbors. Each path of remission is not only ours but, at the same time,
we have been involved in the paths of remission of those who have given
us their love. Because death can interrupt these relationships, we have
76 V. Lomuscio
to investigate how they could continue through the present of living

people.
The possibilities realized by human deliberation can open up other
possibilities. Therefore, closing some possibilities can close other pos-
sibilities. Each action can give rise to a new situation and a new set of
chances that we can choose (Blondel 2004, 271). As such, those who
I have met in my life have influenced my possibilities to realize good.
When I was a child, for example, my grandfather spent his time with me,
and I am happy today when I remember this. This content of memory
constitutes a present situation where I experience the meaning of love.
This gives me a good condition to love in the present. Therefore, it stim-
ulates my freedom to open myself toward my neighbors. At the same
time, this remembering is also a kind of relationship with my grandfather
that lives on in my present.
Here, we can recall the thought of Augustine of Hippo, when he
argues that memory is not a simple representation of what has hap-
pened, but a field of experience that transcends oneself. Indeed, through
my memory, I discover that I am a mystery for myself, because there are
many memories which I cannot recall by myself. They are mine, but my
memory cannot recall them without external stimulations or particular
conditions. And above all, in my memory I can experience once again
my past relationships while understanding their meaning for my life. This
demonstrates, according to Augustine, that memory is not a solipsistic
reality, but a place of relationship.
This much is certain, Lord, that I am laboring over it, laboring over myself,
and I have become for myself a land hard to till and of heavy sweat. We
are not in this instance gazing at the expanses of the sky or calculating the
distances between stars or weight of the earth: the person who remembers
is myself; I am my mind. It is not surprising that whatever is not myself
should be remote, but what can be nearer to me than I am to myself? Yet
here I am, unable to comprehend the nature of my memory, when I can-
not even speak of myself without it. (Augustine 1997, IX, 16:25)
As argued by Heidegger in his phenomenological interpretation,

Augustine takes memory to mean the deepest experience of soul
(Heidegger 2004, 133–139). What happened in my past is now hap-
pening more deeply, because I can experience myself through the under-
standing of my history. The whole itinerary of Augustine’s Confessions
is not a simple biography, but a philosophical and theological discovery

of meaning of his life’s relationships (with past friends, with his mother,
with the bishop Ambrose, etc.). For example, about his dead friend
Augustine says: “the man it had held so dear and lost was more real and
more lovable than the fantasy in which it was bidden to trust” (1997,
98).
Based on this consideration, I take possibility to mean that my past
in some way becomes present to myself, and I can explain its meaning
through my actual thought. Lived love becomes actual through mem-
ory and I can understand its relevance once again. By remembering a
received love, I can once again live that love and its meaning for my life.
If it is possible to relive the love received in the past, and if each love is
an openness of possibilities, it is possible to develop in the present the
possibilities of love received in the past.
With this in mind, we can understand our role toward the dead. Our
deceased friends or relatives had left us memories, and these memories
are the subject of our prayers for them. Through memory, we can under-
stand the meaning of their love and their sins, we can understand once
again in the present what possibilities have been opened and what have
been closed. We have said that each action or intention opens possibili-
ties to act or to intend for others. In this case, by being thankful for their
love in actual understanding, we can develop possibilities opened by their
love.
Much like we have to bring ourselves to love to overcome our sins, in
the same way, to overcome the sins of the dead, we have to bring our-
selves through their love. Because purgatorial souls are destined to go to
Heaven, but still have to remove part of their past, it means that during
their life they have opened possibilities of love. Therefore, when we pray
for the destiny of our dead, this prayer is both a request to God and a
memory of their past love.
Past sins are unrealized possibilities of goodness, and are therefore
futures waiting to be realized. Can we open those possibilities of love?
Praying for our loved ones in some way means loving them; when we
pray we open our possibilities of love through them. Maybe, if there is a phil-
osophical possibility to consider forgiveness for their sins, it is on our side
of the relationship. Through our love, their past love recurs in us, devel-
oping possibilities of goodness (the rest concerns God, the other pole of
their love relationship).
78 V. Lomuscio
As Aquinas writes in his Summa Theologiae (Q. 71, Art. 2, Suppl.),

there are two ways in which we can realize merits “for acquiring a certain
state” with regard to God: by working and by praying. The former pro-
duces only personal merits (my work cannot make another person wor-
thy), and the latter can give merits also to other people, because we can
pray for others. But “for something consequent upon a state” for exam-
ple to promote movement toward God, both work and prayers can help
others. Indeed, “all who are united together by charity acquire some
benefit from one another’s works” (Summa Theologiae, Q. 71, Art. 1).
As regards that which is consequent upon or accessory to a state, the work

of one may avail another, not only by way of prayer but even by way of
merit: and this happens in two ways. First, on account of their commun-
ion in the root of the work, which root is charity in meritorious works.
Wherefore all who are united together by charity acquire some benefit
from one another’s works, albeit according to the measure of each one’s
state, since even in heaven each one will rejoice in the goods of others.
Hence it is that the communion of saints is laid down as an article of faith.
Secondly, through the intention of the doer who does certain works spe-
cially for the purpose that they may profit such persons: so that those
works become somewhat the works of those for whom they are done, as
though they were bestowed on them by the doer. Wherefore they can avail
them either for the fulfilment of satisfaction or for some similar purpose
that does not change their state. (Aquinas 2012, Q. 71, Art. 1, Suppl.)12
Because “wherefore all who are united together by charity acquire some
benefit from one another’s works,” through our memory we can live the
charity of our loved ones, continuing to develop the possibilities they
opened.
Temporality of Purgatorial Souls

What is the temporal dimension of purgatorial souls? They suffer for
their sins and wait for Heaven. This is a temporal condition in which
we can define a simultaneousness of past and future, suffering and wait-
ing. Because purgatorial souls are destined to go to Heaven, they are
addressed toward God and eternity. Because God has been their aim dur-
ing temporal life, God remains the ultimate aim of their love also in pur-
gatorial transition. What does it mean to have God as an aim? Aiming for
God means considering our happiness as transcendent of the mortal life,

so we await an achievement beyond the limit of death. Along the edge
between immanent and transcendent expectation of realization, there is
the difference between the theistic life and the a-theistic one. It is on this
edge that Dante, following Aquinas, sets the division between those who
deserve Hell and those who deserve Purgatory and Heaven.
Because each purgatorial soul looks upward to God, we can define
his view as openness toward an infinite relationship. And because those
who look for God await a future in God, we can define his expectation as
waiting for an infinite future with God. If his “eternal future” has not yet
been lived, we have to define what prevents him from living an eternal
future in Purgatory.
To study this aspect, we can consider our own experiences of sin and
regret. When we regret what we have done, it is as if our past is con-
tinuing to be present, not as an unrealized future, but as an unchange-
able past. Its evil impedes our possibilities, so it is a past which impedes a
future. If the sin is an unrealized good, the measure of its evil regards the
possibility of still moving toward the good. The measure of a sin regards
its openness or closedness toward the future. The sin committed to a
friend, for example, changes my relationship with him, and our possibili-
ties of being friends and loving each other become impossibilities. Our
future becomes less possible. The question of sin regards the future with
my neighbor and, in the same way, the future with God.
This unrealized goodness that obstructs my future goodness con-
stitutes the weight of my past at my future’s door. With this in mind,
we can similarly define the temporal dimension of the purgatorial soul.
His eternal happiness (future) is obstructed by some past choices,
which have changed some directions (possibilities, futures) of his path
of love. Because his neighbors and God have suffered because of him,
he cannot be happy. He sees himself as a reason for unrealized good-
ness. This is possible only because he wanted their happiness. On one
hand, he has chosen to love God and his neighbors, but on the other,
he has sometimes been mistaken, compromising the possibilities of these
relationships.
Therefore, if von Balthasar similarly defines eternal life in Heaven as
eternal future, and eternal life in Hell as eternal past, we could define the
temporary life of the purgatorial soul as the inexperienced eternal future,
because it is temporary and obstructed by his past. Each purgatorial soul
awaits his eternal future, but he does not succeed in living it. Only on
80 V. Lomuscio
the other side of their relationships (with God and with his neighbors), is
it possible to overcome the past. The compromised relationships can go
on thanks to the love given during the mortal life. God and living people
can continue to develop this given love.13
Conversely, we can consider that souls in Hell have lived by seeking
an aim beyond death. They have striven toward temporal life, toward a
finite happiness. If I look for finite happiness (for example a particular
social realization), I expect a finite realization in my future. Because this
expectation is characterized by finitude, it is determined as a close reality,
i.e. a past reality. I expect a future to be a closed possibility, as a being in
itself (Sartre 2012, 188–190); while I await it, for me it is a finite reali-
zation, a finite being. For me, it is like a past that I am awaiting. This
way, we can imagine that the eternal past of souls in Hell follows the
choice of a temporal aim. They succeed only in looking for finitude, they
can only live closed possibilities. They cannot expect anything other than
that which they have expected. Nobody can give anything to them, not
even God, as they cannot receive it.
Several Philosophical Considerations

Based on this consideration, several considerations about the metaphys-
ics of time can be developed. It is a very wide field of theories, with the
distinction between tenseless theories and tensed theories. The consid-
erations developed in this chapter do not allow for tenseless theories of
time, which argue that the present moment is not ontologically special
compared to the past and future (see Bourne 2011). Indeed, according
to our analysis, the present moment is the openness or closure toward
future possibilities, meaning the possibilities of the soul (faith, love,
memory, etc.). The most famous tenseless theory of time is McTaggart’s
(1908) motion of unreality of time, whereby the British thinker argues
that because the tense properties of past, present, and future (A-series)
pass over each other, they overlap and contradict themselves as reali-
ties. McTaggart argues that we can only consider the temporal catego-
ries before/after (B-series) to be objective, where we can only consider
a tenseless theory of time. The tense properties are unreal because the
same event is future in one moment and present or past in another. As
we know, the problem of this argument is that it considers tense dimen-
sions as realities in themselves (as masked non-tense realities), implying
that they must respect the principle of non-contradiction as tenseless
realities. The analysis of temporality of purgatorial souls has showed

that temporal dimensions reveal their meaning through the relationship
between possibility and actuality with regard to a relationship with the
others. In particular, each realized past reveals its temporality in relation-
ship with an ideal good to be realized. What I do either opens up or
prevents a future, depending on how it corresponds to the good. This
good to be realized constitutes a kind of ideal temporality, where what I
did not realize is still waiting for me. Each lost past remains as a possible
future. It is a kind of ideal temporality, or a transcendent one, because
my soul’s possibilities of goodness are always my future, my possibilities.
This tense transcendence seems very close to Vico’s argument about the
twofold temporality, or twofold history: our real history is always under-
stood in relationship with an ideal eternal history, in light of which we
can define the possibilities of historic development of each nation (Vico
1999, 124–133).
The relationship among diachronic events, and especially the rela-
tionship among diachronic people, gives rise to the question of causal-
ity through temporality. Can temporal relationships be reduced to causal
ones (see Reichenbach 1958; Grünbaum 1963; Mellor 1998)? In the
relationship between the dead and the living, there is a mutual causation:
purgatorial souls have given love to God and to their neighbors, their
penance (they do not succeed in living their eternal future happiness) is
overcome by God’s love and neighbors’ love (through their memory),
because they develop that unrealized good in their relationship. On one
hand, the goodness of the dead has preceded ours and, on the other, our
goodness is the cause of their goodness.
It seems that not only can the past influence the present, but also
vice versa. The causal relationship cannot be read in an univocal direc-
tion (see Faye 2001; Horwich 1987; Kutach 2011), but as a mutual rela-
tionship between past and present. This mutual relationship transcends
ordinary time, toward a dimension in which our soul takes part, close to
“duration” according to Bergson (2007, 233–298). This way, admitting
that causality is linked with time, it may be possible to admit that time
also has no univocal direction. Changing the past and a persistence of
past may be possible through our present. It is possible that a future can
be obstructed by past events. Here we can open a consideration: if a pos-
sibility of the past can be actual now, through our soul, it implies a free
causal relationship, in which the consequence is free to be consequence
of a given cause. The consequences of our loved ones’ past love do not
82 V. Lomuscio
necessarily follow in our life, because we first have to recognize their

love. We are consequences of those who precedes us, but because we are
free to recognize their love or not, we are free to be the consequence
of their love. And because recognizing their love means shortening their
purgatorial penance, being their consequences means being (con-) causes
of their salvation. This overlapping of past and present, this reciprocal
interaction between different temporal dimensions, seems to indicate an
overcoming of temporality toward eternity.
If the dead and the living can be mutual causes of their salvation, then
they must have a shared reality in their relationship. The common field
of relationship between a past reality (my grandfather) and a present
one (my present life) can only be their future. Only through a common
future—towards a communion of developing possibilities—can two dia-
chronic people have a relationship. This is the future that my grandfa-
ther’s love opened when I was a child and in which I continue to learn
and develop my ability to love.
In light of this suggestion, a hypothesis arises as to the question of
persistence through time. Currently there are three kinds of theory
about this question: endurantism, perdurantism, and exdurantism (see
Balashov 2011). Surely, the great role played by freedom relating to the
development of our possibilities, makes it difficult to follow endurantist
and perdurantist theories, because both consider persistent realities to be
somewhat already determined (tridimensionally or quadrimensionally). If
each person is free to develop his possibility of faith (or not), he may
be determined in terms of at least two different kinds of life: toward a
transcendent relationship or toward an imminent one. These two alter-
natives can establish two kinds of life and two kinds of afterlife. Aside
from all parts of our body that change during our mortal life, this seems
to be the only real condition to define a persistent identity: his aim. What
defines our persistence through the becoming of life, and what defines
our changing life direction can only be our metaphysical aim, the direc-
tion of development of our soul’s possibility.
Notes
1. For an overview about alternative models, see Walls (2012).
2. Council of Lyon II, 1274:
Because if they die truly repentant in charity before they have made satis-
faction by worthy fruits of penance for (sins) committed and omitted, their
souls are cleansed after death by purgatorial or purifying punishments, as

Brother John (Parastron O.F.M.) has explained to us. And to relieve pun-
ishments of this kind, the offerings of the living faithful are of advantage to
these, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, alms, and other duties of piety,
which have customarily been performed by the faithful for the other faithful
according to the regulations of the Church (Denzinger 2012, n. 856).
Council of Trent, Session VI, canon 30:
If anyone says that after the reception of the grace of justification the
guilt is so remitted and the debt of eternal punishment so blotted out to
every repentant sinner, that no debt of temporal punishment remains to
be discharged either in this world [131] or in purgatory before the gates
of heaven can be opened, let him be anathema (Denzinger 2012, n. 840).
Council of Trent, Decree Concerning Purgatory:
Since the Catholic Church, instructed by the Holy Ghost, has, follow-
ing the sacred writings and the ancient tradition of the Fathers, taught in
sacred councils and very recently in this ecumenical council that there is
a purgatory, and that the souls there detained are aided by the suffrages
of the faithful and chiefly by the acceptable sacrifice of the altar, the holy
council commands the bishops that they strive diligently to the end that
the sound doctrine of purgatory, transmitted by the Fathers and sacred
councils, be believed and maintained by the faithful of Christ, and be eve-
rywhere taught and preached (Denzinger 2012, n. 983).
3. This book is not included in the Protestant Bible.
4. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures 23: 5, 9:
Then we commemorate also those who fallen asleep before us, first
Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, that at their prayers and inter-
cessions God would receive our petition. Then on behalf also the Holy
Fathers and Bishops who have fallen asleep before us, and in a word of all
who in past years have fallen asleep among us, believing that it will be a
very great benefit to the souls, for whom the supplication is put up, while
that holy and most awful sacrifice is set forth.
5. Gregory of Nyssa, Sermon on the Dead:
If a man distinguish in himself what is peculiarly human from that which
is irrational, and if he be on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for
himself, in this present life he will purify himself of any evil contracted,
overcoming the irrational by reason. If he has inclined to the irrational
pressure of the passions, using for the passions the cooperating hide of
things irrational, he may afterward in a quite different manner be very
much interested in what is better, when, after his departure out of the
body, he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and vice and
finds that he is not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of
the filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire.
84 V. Lomuscio
6. John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians, 41, 5:

Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their
father’s sacrifice (Job 1:5), why would we doubt that our offerings for the
dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who
have died and to offer our prayers for them.
7. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons, 159, 1:
However, perfection of some kind is to be found in this life, and the
martyrs achieved it. That’s why, as the faithful know, Church custom has
it that at the place where the manes of the martyrs are recited at God’s
altar, we don’t pray for them, while we do pray for the other departed
brothers and sister who are remembered there. It is insulting, I mean,
to pray for martyrs, to whose prayers we ought rather to commend
ourselves.
The City of God, XXI, 13:
Temporal punishments are suffered by some in this life only, by some
after death, by some both here and hereafter, but all of them before that
last and strictest judgment. But not all who suffer temporal punishments
after death will come to eternal punishments, which are to follow after
that judgment.
Enchiridion of Faith, Hope and Charity, 29, 109–110:
As for the time between a person’s death and the final resurrection, souls
are kept in hidden place of rest or of punishment depending on what
each soul deserves because of the lot they won for themselves while they
lived in the flesh. Nor should it be denied that the souls of the dead are
supported by the piety of their loved ones who are alive, when the sacri-
fice of the mediator is offered for them or alms are given in the Church.
But such things only benefit those who during their lives have deserved
that they would later benefit them. For there is a way of living that is nei-
ther so good that these things are not necessary after death, nor so bad
that they are of no use after death: but there are those whose lives are so
good that they do not need them, and also those whose lives are so evil
that, after they have passed from this life, even such things cannot help
them.
8. We can interpret the sentence of Christ about “the greatest and the first
commandment” as declaration that our most radical possibility is the pos-
sibility to love God and our neighbors (“You shall love the Lord, your
God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This
is the greatest and the first commandment”, Matthew 22:37–38). This
indicates that there is a latent and always present possibility in the soul.
9. By this richness of development, everyone can aspire to a forgiveness of
their own sins, not only by God, but also by others. An evil inflicted to
my friend could be overcome if I still have a future with him. I could have a
possibility to remove that grief as long as I have a relationship with him.

Maybe in the same relationship, I can attempt to eradicate my particular
past (through his particular forgiveness).
10. There is an important indication of God’s judgement when Christ says:
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and
from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be
asked” (Luke 12:48). We will be judged according to what we will give,
but proportionally to what we have received. On one hand, it declares the
importance of each individual situation and, on the other, it affirms the
unreducible possibility to give in each situation.
11. Quinci comprender puoi ch’esser convene/amor sementa in voi d’ogne
virtute/e d’ogne operazion che merta pene.
12. By this two-fold development of Aquinas, we can understand the apparent
incongruence between all these biblical passages in which it says that the
father’s guilt will relapse on their sons (Exodus 20:5; Deuteronomy 23:3;
Leviticus 26:39; Isaiah 14:21) and the passage of Ezekiel 18:20: “the son
shall not be charged with the guilt of his father, nor shall the father be
charged with the guilt of his son. The virtuous man’s virtue shall be his
own, as the wicked man’s wickedness shall be his own.” The former set of
passages can be understood as “for something consequent upon a state,”
and the latter as “for acquiring a certain state.”
13. Clearly, we can only thinking of this continuity of relationships via analo-
giae, from their structure into this life, but we cannot understand them as
such afterlife.
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J. Salza (2009) The Biblical Basis for Purgatory (Charlotte: San Benedict Press).
J.-P. Sartre (2012) L’être et le néant (1943) H. E. Barnes (tr.) Being and
Nothingness (New York: Washington Square Press).
M. Tooley (1997) Time, Tense and Causation (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
G. Vico (1999) La scienza nuova (1744) D. Marsh (tr.) New Science (New York:
Penguin Books).
J. L. Walls (2012) Purgatory: The Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
CHAPTER 6
Indulgent Love
Neal Judisch
The Sanctification and Satisfaction Theories

of Purgatory
Here I address a current debate about the (Christian) doctrine of

Purgatory—the doctrine that there is a postmortem process through
which individuals destined for everlasting union with God are purified
and made fit for such union. My aim is to reconcile a buttressed ver-
sion of the theory of Purgatory I described in a previous article (Judisch
2009) with the possibility of acquiring “indulgences” for individuals in
the throes of postmortem purgation.1 I shall argue that belief in such
indulgences, and religious praxes related to this belief, are consistent
with the thesis that Purgatory is oriented toward personal holiness as
opposed to judicial retribution—toward sanctification of the individual as
opposed to sanctions laid against them.
The debate I wish to engage is therefore not, or not primarily, about
the reality of Purgatory. That there is such a thing (process, state) has
of course long been a point of contention between contrasting Christian
traditions, and this dispute marches still on. Indeed, as comparatively
tangential as it initially appears, the notion that the vast number of
N. Judisch (*) 
University of Oklahoma, Norman, USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_6
90 N. Judisch
Christians must suffer postmortem purgation—that they must suffer for

sins committed in life, despite having been forgiven of them—has been
vilified as a “horrid blasphemy” and a “deadly device of Satan” by no less
a luminary than John Calvin (see 1960, chap. 5); and some contempo-
rary philosophical theologians echo Calvin’s assessment of the doctrine,
at least when understood as Calvin understood it (see Barnard 2007,
325–329).
Nevertheless, it is not the reality of Purgatory as such I wish to adju-
dicate in this space. Rather, it is the purpose or function assigned to
Purgatory I will address, not least because the vehement rejection of
Purgatory (exemplified in Calvin’s rhetoric) takes rise from the appear-
ance of irremediable conflict between its alleged purpose, on the one
hand, and the essential elements of Christian Faith on the other. In
other words, what might be deemed merely more of the same unseemly
polemical excess shot through the history of Christian quarreling turns
out (as it so often does!) to be a battle waged for the very heart of
Christian religion, which is in this case vitiated by Purgatory’s supposed
raison d’être.
So: what is this supposed purpose of Purgatory? What makes the doc-
trine of Purgatory a satanic strike at Christianity in its vitals? An answer
emerges when we review the admittedly terse dogmatic pronouncements
about Purgatory, such as the following oft-cited decree promulgated at
Florence (1438–1445):
[The Council] has, likewise, defined that, if those truly penitent have
departed in the love of God, before they have made satisfaction by worthy
fruits of penance for sins of commission and omission, the souls of these
are cleansed after death by purgatorial punishments; and so that they may
be released from punishments of this kind, the suffrages of the living faith-
ful are of advantage to them, namely, the sacrifices of Masses, prayers, and
almsgiving, and other works of piety, which are customarily performed by
the faithful for other faithful according to the institutions of the Church.
(Denzinger 1954, 219–220)
So says the venerable Council. It agrees, in content and in language

both, with earlier pronouncements (made for example in 1 and 2 Lyons)
as well as later ones reiterated for example at Trent (ibid 180; 184; 298).
From these too we learn that (most) souls destined for Heaven must
first suffer punishment—or as Pope Clement VI (ibid 206) boldly put it,
6 INDULGENT LOVE 91
must be “tortured by fire”—so as to make penitential satisfaction for sins

ahead of their heavenly homecomings. And if something nearer our own
day is wanted, we may register that the Catechism of the Catholic Church
deploys precisely the same menu of terminological devices in its affirma-
tion of just the same doctrinal claims.
We may thus reasonably take it as dyed-in-the-wool Catholic dogma
that Purgatory exists, and that it exists for individuals (otherwise forgiven
and Heaven-bound) to make satisfaction for sins, where their efforts at
making satisfaction are glossed as judicial punishments or penances for
sins perpetrated in life. “And, verily,” we are solemnly warned, “they
shall by no means come out thence, till they have paid the uttermost far-
thing” (Matthew 5:26).
It seems evident that the language and tenor of these statements stand
in striking contrast to the celebrated Christian themes of mercy, grace,
liberty, and release. More damning yet, they appear to take back with
one hand what they’d given with the other. Jesus paid the penalty for
our sins—made satisfaction for them on our behalf—they assure us, but
for some reason we are expected to make satisfaction for those sins our-
selves: we are “forgiven,” perhaps, but we still owe God his pound of
flesh. So Purgatory, from this perch, looks to be little more than a tem-
porary taste of Hell, and Michael Stoeber’s depiction of it as such seems
apt:
From the official Vatican standpoint…Purgatory is understood as a realm

of physical or mental punishment, more in negative terms of painful ret-
ribution than in positive conceptions of spiritual learning and growth.
Indeed, though the latter function is not ruled out in the traditional for-
mulation, there is the sense that one can “burn off,” as it were, the actions
and effects of past moral improprieties, simply through passive suffering.
(1992, 167)
Let us call this retributive, passive-suffering view of Purgatory the

Satisfaction Theory of Purgatory.2 (I shall commandeer this name for a
different and more defensible construct in Sect. 2.) It is a startling and
troubling view. Calvin and those following him seem well within rights
to dismiss it with prejudice, since it apparently makes straw of Christ’s
atonement “for us men and for our salvation” whilst riding roughshod
over divine mercy‚ divine grace.
92 N. Judisch
Notice however that it is possible to reject the Satisfaction Theory of

Purgatory without rejecting Purgatory per se. For it remains possible to
view Purgatory as a process aimed at “spiritual learning and growth,”
and it is sensible to think some such process is salutary and even neces-
sary in the soteriological scheme.
There is a Master Argument to this effect, replicated just below, which
a number of Purgatory proponents have employed in some iteration or
another:
1. Pardon for sins notwithstanding, we cannot enter into and enjoy

full union with God without being completely and finally liberated
from the “dominion” of sin, having been made intrinsically pure
and unwaveringly upright of heart.
2. But hardly anybody we’ve heard of attains this degree of holiness
before death and frankly, to judge by the look of things, we prob-
ably won’t either.
3. Yet God cannot unilaterally and instantly sanctify us at the point of
death, no more than he can do so right now, right here in this life.
4. So, there must be a postmortem process whereby we are trans-
formed into the sorts of creatures who can enter into and cease-
lessly celebrate perfect and eternal union with God, in the life of
the world to come.
The strength of this argument rests principally on the plausibility of (3),

the claim that God cannot unilaterally make up what we lack in sanctifi-
cation by sheer divine fiat. Various supporting arguments for this prem-
ise have been offered, but there is neither space nor need to adumbrate
them here.3 What needs noting at present is that evidential support for
(3) need not and typically does not advert to such things as “penance”
or “satisfaction,” understood as attempts to pay off judicial penalties or
fines accumulated through life. To the contrary, the argument looks for-
ward to ultimate eschatological transformation, rather than backward to
past terrestrial sin.
Let us call this prospective perspective on Purgatory the Sanctification
Theory. On this theory, Purgatory is (to borrow from Pope Benedict
XVI) an intermediate state in which “purification and healing which
mature the soul for communion with God” takes place. It is a “fire”
through which they must pass “so as to become fully open to receiv-
ing God and able to take [their] place at the table of the eternal
6 INDULGENT LOVE 93
marriage-feast,” where the “fire” in question is identical to the “gaze”

and “the touch of [Christ’s] heart” which “heals us through an unde-
niably painful transformation” but which, “as it burns us, transforms
and frees us, allowing us to become truly ourselves” and “thus totally of
God” (2007, §§45–47). Union with God is its end, and vindictive retri-
bution plays no part within it.
The Satisfaction Theory: Redux

You will have noticed that Benedict’s presentation of Purgatory aligns
with the Sanctification Theory, but not (apparently) with the Satisfaction
Theory. Gone are the references to punishment and torture (though not
of pain, nor fire); omitted as well are any forensic categories implicating
guilt or debt repayment—the categories of penalty, penance, and satisfac-
tion. The juridical here gives way to the personal, to the relational.
Supposing Benedict sees himself as upholding and expounding
Catholic doctrine, charity urges that a series of word/concept dis-
tinctions might be drawn—that, in other words, the “Catholic” or
“Satisfaction” Theory of Purgatory may have more in common with the
Sanctification Theory than had previously met the eye, at least in content
if not in manner of expression. I shall argue that it does.
I will first present my case that the Satisfaction Theory is materially
equivalent to the Sanctification Theory (cf. Judisch 2009, 173–179). I
will then argue that the Satisfaction Theory may also accommodate ele-
ments of the payback model without theological opprobrium and with-
out conceptual violence. In the next section, I will consider the question
of indulgences as they relate to the theses of the present section.
Material equivalence between our two theories of Purgatory comes
cheap, in the sense that it involves more by way of translation than it
does argumentation. The Catechism of the Catholic Church inches into
the foray like this:
To understand this doctrine and practice of the Church, it is necessary to

understand that sin has a double consequence. Grave sin deprives us of com-
munion with God and therefore makes us incapable of eternal life, the pri-
vation of which is called the “eternal punishment” of sin. On the other
hand every sin, even venial, entails an unhealthy attachment to creatures,
which must be purified either here on earth, or after death in the state
94 N. Judisch
called Purgatory. This purification frees one from what is called the “tem-
poral punishment” of sin. (1992, §1472)
So Purgatory, according to the Catechism, exists to purify and free us

from the temporal punishment of sin. Such punishment “must not be
conceived of as a kind of vengeance inflicted by God from without, but
as following from the very nature of sin”(§1472). This is so because sin
“injures and weakens the sinner himself, as well as his relationships with
God and neighbor” (§1459). It creates “a proclivity to sin; it engenders
vice by repetition of the same acts” and “results in perverse inclinations
which cloud conscience and corrupt the concrete judgment of good and
evil,” which explains in turn how “sin tends to reproduce itself and rein-
force itself” (§1865).
What then about forgiveness, mercy and grace? “Absolution takes
away sin,” but it “does not take away all the disorders sin has caused.”
The sinner “must still recover his full spiritual health by doing some-
thing more to make amends for the sin: he must ‘make satisfaction for’
or ‘expiate’ his sins,” which “is also called ‘penance’” (§1459):
The forgiveness of sin and restoration of communion with God entail the
remission of the eternal punishment of sin, but temporal punishment of sin
remains. While patiently bearing sufferings and trials of all kinds and, when
the day comes, serenely facing death, the Christian must strive to accept
this temporal punishment of sin as a grace. He should strive by works of
mercy and charity, as well as by prayer and the various practices of pen-
ance, to put off completely the “old man” and to put on the “new man.”
(§1473)
Thus just as temporal punishment is equated with the corrosive effect of

sinning upon the individual who sins, the remedy for this disorder (“pen-
ance,” “making satisfaction”) equates to the inculcation of holy hab-
its that press against and finally replace the vicious dispositions sinning
brings in its wake.
We can perceive in these remarks a tight approximation to the
Sanctification Theory of Purgatory. The categories of satisfaction, (tem-
poral) punishment, and penance find a happy home within it once the
requisite translations are made, and the chasm between our two theories
diminishes to the point of disappearance. That is to say: there is sound
6 INDULGENT LOVE 95
reason to conclude that the Sanctification and Satisfaction Theories are

materially equivalent.
This argument for material equivalence seems to me quite sturdy.
But when we appreciate the multiply ambiguous nature of the central
terms—most notably the term ‘satisfaction’—misgivings about the con-
clusion may legitimately arise. To be sure, ‘satisfaction’ does carry the
meaning I attributed to it, even in the mouths of medieval Catholics like
St. Thomas. According to him, “satisfaction is to uproot the causes of
sins, and to give no opening to the suggestions thereof,” where
[b]y ‘causes’ we must understand the proximate causes of actual sin, which
are twofold: viz. the lust of sin through the habit or act of a sin that has
been given up, and those things which are called the remnants of past sin;
and external occasions of sin, such as place, bad company and so forth.
Such causes are removed by satisfaction in this life, albeit the fomes [the
“fuel” of concupiscence], which is the remote cause of actual sin, is not
entirely removed by satisfaction in this life though it is weakened. (Aquinas
1947‚ supp. III‚ q. 12 a. 3)
But as Jerry Walls has noted in reply, the sense of “making satisfaction”
is at least threefold in Aquinas’ analysis, as is his correlative threefold
account of “penance.” Here is Walls:
…Aquinas identified three damaging effects of sin that need to be dealt

with for our relationship with God fully to be restored. First, our mind and
thinking are disordered because the choice to sin is the choice to turn away
from our true good. Second, we incur the guilt of punishment because
God’s justice requires the punishment of every fault. Third, the natural
good of our nature is damaged because we become more prone to evil,
and more reluctant and resistant to the good. (2011, 63)
It is the second effect of sin, in particular, which suggests that the

Satisfaction Theory—at least as presented by Aquinas—cannot simply be
a reiteration of the Sanctification Theory in alternative verbal dress. This
is because the context of Thomas’ discussion makes clear that temporal
punishment is the punishment at issue, and the satisfaction appropriate
to this aspect of temporal punishment is determined by our obligation to
“maintain the justice of God”—where fulfilling this obligation is a debt
owed to justice, and penance pays down the debt.
96 N. Judisch
I see two available replies to Walls’ (initial) critique of my case for

material equivalence.4 Here is one: “So much the worse for Aquinas!
Dogma is one thing, and theoretical explications of dogma are another.5
So whereas Aquinas’ theory of Purgatory is permissible, it is not a proper
part of the doctrine as such; theories of Purgatory anchored in sanctifica-
tion alone are quite permissible, too.”
Here is another: “Maybe Aquinas has a point. Contrition is con-
comitant with the heartfelt desire to effect restitution, to make amends
and restore relations. To the extent a person’s sanctification progresses,
it is likely the strength of such desires will increase correlatively. Means
of making restitution, therefore, even when mediated by third parties
on one’s behalf, would provide welcome relief to the pain and shame
attending awareness of outstanding ‘debts’. And look: wouldn’t a good
person just want to make good on those debts, somehow or other?6
Supposing no avenues of restitution are available, might not suffering—
discomfiture, regret, the agony of remorse—be a natural consequence of
his unhappy plight?”7
From my perspective the second reply is preferable to the first. All due
respect to the “development of doctrine,” to the dynamism of “tradi-
tion” and to the difference between dogma and theology, it seems dis-
ingenuous to dismiss theologians of such stature elucidating dogmas in
(more or less) the same eras those dogmas received their formulations—
if, at any rate, one wants to do justice to the broader tradition from
which they arose.8 But more to the point, debt-repayment-satisfaction,
as a category, may be more defensible than at first appeared; at the least
it ought not peremptorily be stricken. And if material equivalence strikes
it out then perhaps a more permissive stance, which accommodates
Thomas’ second kind of satisfaction and penance alongside the others, is
in order.
I should like to maintain this permissive stance as a matter of record.
However, I will proceed under the strictures imposed by material equiv-
alence in what follows. For while indulgences for departed souls might
be accepted the easier when we permit debt-repayment senses of satisfac-
tion, I disagree with Walls that my claim of material equivalence—which
he otherwise finds convincing—cannot plausibly be conjoined with an
endorsement of this practice (Walls 2011, 87–88). In the next section I
explain why.
6 INDULGENT LOVE 97
Indulgent Love
The Council of Florence states that the suffrages of the faithful—Masses,
prayers, almsgivings and works of piety—are of benefit to souls in
Purgatory, in accordance with the institutions of the Church. The salu-
tary effect of these works, according to the Councils that reference them
in relation to purgation, is tied conceptually to the efficacy of indul-
gences gained on behalf of the departed under conditions set forth by
ecclesial authority, or the “power of the keys.”
Prescinding from the distinctively Catholic ecclesiology underlying
this contention, and setting aside questions of “divine justice” and of
“debt,” what shall we make of indulgences in the context of sanctifica-
tion? Supposing a person wants to maintain the material equivalence of
the Satisfaction and Sanctification Theories, must he on pain of contra-
diction reject the possibility of indulgences tout court? (Alternatively, if
he prefers a hybrid theory incorporating each Thomistic sense of ‘satis-
faction,’ can he find a role for indulgences relative to the first and third
senses—those bound up with sanctification—as well as the second one
centered on justice and guilt?)
Below I shall argue that sense can be made of indulgences as aids
toward personal sanctification. I begin by laying the parameters of a
defense (in Alvin Plantinga’s sense of “defense”) of this thesis, in order
to outline a model of indulgences set within the Sanctification Theory’s
framework. I shall then argue that the model is plausible as well as con-
ceptually coherent, from what I hope to be acceptably ecumenical
assumptions about the nature of sanctification itself.
John Paul II’s recent papal teaching on indulgences is a fine point of
departure for our purpose, since the conception of Purgatory with which
he operates is identical to Benedict’s.9 According to him, whereas the
believer bears no guilt before God he still “must be gradually ‘healed’
of the negative effects which sin has caused in him (what the theological
tradition calls the ‘punishments’ and ‘remains’ of sin)” prior to entering
Heaven. Union with God requires that every “imperfection of the soul
must be corrected” by Christ, who “removes from [them] the remnants
of imperfection” in preparation for their heavenly reception. The “tem-
poral punishment” of Purgatory therefore “serves as a ‘medicine’ to the
extent that the person allows it to challenge him to undertake his own
profound conversion,” which is at bottom “the meaning of the ‘satisfac-
tion’ required” of him (1999b, §§2–3).
98 N. Judisch
The task John Paul II sets himself on the heels of this account
is, therefore, to explain the function of indulgences under the mar-
gins established by material equivalence—to explain how the Catholic
Church’s indulgence-granting behavior fits the forward-looking purpose
of Purgatory as he describes it.
His suggestions take shape under two key assumptions, only one
of which I will ultimately put to use. First is the assumption that just
“as in their earthly life believers are united in the one Mystical Body,
so after death those who live in a state of purification experience the
same ecclesial solidarity” they enjoyed during their earthly sojourns;
and from this it follows, he says, that the Pilgrim Church on earth may
“offer up prayers and good works on behalf of brothers and sisters in
Purgatory”(1999a, §6).Second is the (no doubt more contentious)
assumption that under certain conditions, the Church has power to grant
“a remission before God of the temporal punishment due to sins whose
guilt has already been forgiven” (1999b, §4).
Sewing it all up: the mystical union of believers, in conjunction with
the Church’s intercessory power, makes it possible for the living to assist
souls in Purgatory by advancing their sanctification in nonstandard,
ecclesiastically sanctioned ways, but nonetheless in ways that do not dif-
fer in kind from praying for them. By contrast, the idea that indulgences
are forensic or pecuniary transactions that work to absolve sinners of
penalties and fines is singled out for explicit denunciation:
The Church has a treasury [that] is “dispensed” as it were through indul-

gences.This “distribution” should not be understood as a sort of automatic
transfer, as if we were speaking of “things.” It is instead the expression
of the Church’s full confidence of being heard by the Father when…she
asks him to mitigate or cancel the painful aspect of punishment by foster-
ing its medicinal aspect through other channels of grace. In the unfath-
omable mystery of divine wisdom, this gift of intercession can also benefit
the faithful departed, who receive its fruits in a way appropriate to their
condition.We can see, then, how indulgences, far from being a sort of
“discount” on the duty of conversion, are instead an aid to its prompt gen-
erous and radical fulfillment. (1999b, §4)
A full defense of the distinctly Catholic ecclesiology running through the

papal account is of course beyond the scope of this paper (to say noth-
ing of the paper’s author). Note however that personal union within
6 INDULGENT LOVE 99
the “Mystical Body” of Christ is not a uniquely Catholic affirmation,

nor generally speaking is faith in the efficacy of intercession or the pious
expectation that one’s duly dedicated efforts may “fill up what is lacking
in the afflictions of Christ” (Colossians 1:24) for the sake of another’s
well-being. I shall therefore employ only what I take to be the ecumeni-
cal assumptions below, and set the “power of the keys” et cetera aside.10
One more preliminary needs noting. The metaphysical scaffolding
of John Paul II’s account is unabashedly realist, and the same is true of
all that follows. A salient feature of realism in this context is that union
within the Mystical Body (“mystical union” for short) cannot be reduced
to (for example) empathetic solidarity with God’s aims or volitional
alignment with his will. Realism absorbs those meanings but does not
reduce to them, because “real” union is inherently personal-relational
and, metaphysically speaking, participatory. Thus communal union with
God, or “participation in the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4), is an organic
state better modeled on a vine and its branches than by, for instance, a
collection of atomic individuals whose beliefs and agendas more or less
coincide.11
It is no easy task to specify the nature of (real, participatory) mystical
union. But it is, to say the least, suspicious to gesture breezily at “unfath-
omable mysteries” while defending an enormously controversial thesis!
So sensitivity is required: the appeal to “mystery” cannot serve as a the-
oretical blank check; at the same time, a mystery that remains mysteri-
ous for all cannot gainsay any one theory that incorporates the mystery
but fails fully to penetrate it. (Thus a critic cannot properly fault Calvin’s
theory of union with Christ or of Real Presence for their mysteriousness,
when his own favored theories run up against the same impregnable
mysteries as well. In such cases, a problem for everyone is a problem for
no one.)
With these preliminaries in place, we may turn our attention to the
nature of sanctification, which has repeatedly been cast as the purpose
of Purgatory through these pages. Properly understood there is noth-
ing wrong with this identification, but it is potentially misleading if the
participatory framework in which it occurs is underappreciated. For
example, if sanctification is seen as the gradual acquisition of various
intrinsic qualities that make for holiness or righteousness of character, it
is tempting to suppose that the point of sanctification is judicial accept-
ance before the divine tribunal—a sort of meritorious entry ticket to the
kingdom of Heaven. But on the participatory perspective these intrinsic
100 N. Judisch
qualities of character are in reality penultimate to the final end of purga-

tion, which is the complete mystical communion of persons (human and
divine) in love.
On this point, I am deeply indebted to Eleonore Stump’s Thomistic
account of love, union, and progressive sanctification (see her 2010, chs.
5–8). According to the analysis she gives, “[s]anctification…generally
takes time. On the theological doctrine that Aquinas accepts, the process
of sanctification is not finished during a person’s lifetime” but is brought
to completion (if ever) “only in the afterlife” (2010, 161). But the frui-
tion of purgative sanctification must itself be seen through the lens of
Aquinas’ writing on love and personal union. On his account,
…the ultimate proper object of love is God; but since…God is, in some
very complicated way, the same as his goodness, it is also true that the ulti-
mate proper object of love is goodness. On Aquinas’s views, every human
being is made in the image of God and is the child of God, so that the
goodness of God is reflected in every human person. Consequently, the
proper object of love also includes human beings. (2010, 91)
It follows that “[t]he end of the love of persons—that is, the ultimate
thing toward which love is directed—is union with God shared in the
union with other human beings” (2010‚ 91). Thus according to Aquinas
the two desires of love, viz. the desire for the good of the beloved and
the desire for union with the beloved, find their fulfillment in union with
God first and foremost:
Union with God is shareable, and persons united with God are also united
with each other. Ultimately, then, the same thing—namely, union with
God—constitutes both the final good for each of the persons in a lov-
ing relationship and also their deepest union with each other. But God’s
nature is equivalent to goodness; and so it is also true, on Aquinas’s views,
that persons can be ultimately and deeply united with each other only if
they are united in goodness. Consequently, on Aquinas’s account, shared
union with God is the ultimate good for any human person. To this
extent, what is sought in the desire for the good of a person and what is
sought in the desire for union with that person must ultimately converge.
(2010, 95)
Now if full union with God and other persons in love is the goal of sanc-
tification, then whatever inhibits sanctification will eo ipso impede loving
6 INDULGENT LOVE 101
communion with God and with others. But since God is changelessly
loving and desirous of union with all, the impediments to union with
him and with others through him must be located in the wills of those
creatures whose sanctification is incomplete.12 Aquinas’ anthropology
therefore makes clear that the main obstacle to sanctification (thus to
union in love) lies in a certain sort of disharmony or a lack of integration
within the human being’s volitional structure, or (more carefully) the
hierarchy of ordered desires, values, and judgments that constitute the
relative state of his mind and his heart or will. Double-mindedness and
conflict between first- and higher-order desires are of course the princi-
pal enemies of internal psychic integration; but it is crucial to note that
Aquinas’ view of human nature is normatively optimistic, so that inter-
nal integration is achieved only in relation to a person’s real or objec-
tive good. This is why, to borrow a page from Augustine, human beings
must remain “restless till they find their repose” in God, and why a com-
promised relation to God exhibits itself in compromised relations to one-
self and to others alike.
The approach to sanctification here advanced is thus inherently rela-
tional, but more than that it is essentially triadic. Increase in personal
holiness is concomitant with deepening love of God and neighbor. But it
requires as well deepening love of self, for what thwarts sanctification on
Aquinas’ scheme is never loving oneself too much but rather loving one-
self too little. This is because sanctification by its nature involves psychic
integration around or as directed upon the good, which in turn entails
wholeheartedly wanting the good for oneself. And if internal disorders—
if conflicts of the mind and the will relative to the good—impede sancti-
fication, then transcending these internal divisions results in sanctification
and in self-unity both. But to desire the good for a person and to desire
union with that person is to love that person. Therefore, sanctification
entails self-love.
These insights suggest a way of understanding the dynamics of pain,
shame, and regret as features of temporal punishment in Purgatory.
Consider once more the plight of an individual who sorely wishes to
make restitution for his wrongs, and whose inability to do so issues in
agonizing remorse. Inasmuch as God has forgiven him of these wrongs
or “cancelled his guilt,” what remains to be dealt with is his own guilti-
ness, the painful awareness of personal culpability. That is, his unhappy
condition arises not from his knowledge that God doesn’t love or forgive
him, but from his hesitancy to love and to forgive himself.
102 N. Judisch
It is a familiar point that reticence to forgive oneself comes in some

cases from inordinate pride. But alongside inordinate pride, and at times
even in its absence, comes the fear of total vulnerability to those from
whom we seek loving acceptance. Refusing to forgive and accept oneself
erects barriers to the acceptance in love we desire from God and others,
and in such cases the barrier may be breeched only by stripping away the
vestiges of pride or of shame that stand in self-love’s way.
Imagine for example our purgatorial subject had defrauded a loyal
friend and confidant but could not bring himself to admit to it, nor to
seek forgiveness, for fear of wrecking a relationship he otherwise valued
immeasurably; and imagine he took this secret with him to the grave.
Now suppose that his son, who loves and admires him deeply, becomes
aware of his father’s transgression and desires to amend it in his father’s
name. The mortification he feels on his father’s behalf would be no
match for his father’s embarrassment and angst, supposing he knew that
his offense had at last been discovered by his beloved son and would
soon be revealed to his closest of friends. But let us imagine this story
terminates in the best of all possible endings: following his initial surprise
the friend laughs and embraces his erstwhile companion’s son, whose
countenance betrays the same endearing sheepishness and sorrow he
would have seen in the face of the man he had known and loved so well.
Were our protagonist somehow able to view the scene, what might
his reaction to this (mediated) reconciliation be? Initial humiliation, per-
haps—chagrin at realizing he was never seen as perfect anyway, that his
faults and defects were always better known by others than he thought.
But the tonic of acceptance and love guarantees humiliation of this kind
has a shelf life, that it is destined to expire. It is the love and acceptance
of him that he encounters in the stances of his son and his friend, and
such love operates as a final cause in the reflexive case of self-acceptance
as well.
The story is as saccharine as it is make-believe. But it is heuristically
helpful, because the relational movements it depicts are familiar and
real. In particular, it illustrates the triadic nature of communal union in
love with God. Our protagonist is brought by degrees to forgive and
accept himself, which furthers his sanctification (or self-love) by means
of increased openness to God and others. His son and his friend express
their love for him in mediated restitution and forgiveness, which rein-
forces their desire for his good and for fellowship with him around the
good; and this advances their own sanctification as well. Indeed, the
recipe can be indefinitely iterated: suppose the father’s friend has died,
and the son contributes in his honor to a foundation the friend had
established; or to the parish to which he’d belonged; or to the destitute
and needy in his old hometown; or….I think these works of piety instan-
tiate the “suffrages of the faithful” to which Florence appeals, and that
“indulgences” are ecclesiastically mediated extensions of the same.
But here are two problems with the illustration. For one thing, our
story is not straightforwardly and unproblematically applicable to peo-
ple in Purgatory. (They are, after all, dead. So why think they have any
earthly clue what the living might be doing on their behalf? Is the “mys-
tical union” of the dead with the living supposed to secure their aware-
ness of our suffrages on their behalf or the “indulgences” we acquire for
them, even though we evidently have no idea what they are up to? And
doesn’t the story I told rest on this dubious, play-theoretic assumption?)
For another thing, the illustration is somewhat long on the “union” and
short on the “mystical.” The mechanics borrowed from Aquinas are
perhaps quite illuminating philosophically, but it seems mystical (vine/
branch) union remains tantalizingly obscure and, in fact, entirely absent
from my account.
I think the first concern is reasonable, and I do not know how to
answer it. I simply have no view on what it is like to be in Purgatory
(or in Heaven, or in Hell). Indeed, answers to questions about “eschato-
logical epistemology” may be unavailable in the absence of a reasonable
analysis of mystical union, so the objections above are perhaps related.
But I do have something to say about the second and more important
objection, that mystical union remains unanalyzed but in some way pre-
supposed. I shall conclude this section with a brief explanation for this,
drawing once more from Eleonore Stump (see 2010, chs. 2–4).
Above I registered my conviction that stories like the one I told are
“heuristically helpful,” because they call attention to salient features of
our shared experience with others in such a way as to illuminate inter-
personal exchanges of a specific sort. Stump refers to these exchanges
as “second-person experiences.” Stories portraying such experiences are
“second-person accounts,” and their function is (inter alia) to convey a
peculiar kind of “second-person knowledge” through narrative.
On her reckoning, second-person knowledge cannot be reduced
without remainder to third-person (factual) knowledge or to first-per-
son (subjective) knowledge, nor can it be reduced to the conjunction
of them. So there are things we know through interpersonal experience
104 N. Judisch
that we cannot in principle adequately describe in third- or first-person

speech, from which it follows that reductive analyses of the content of
second-person knowledge will persistently fail. Our difficulty with mys-
teries—one reason we call them mysteries—like real, participatory union
with God and with others through him, arises from the fact that the
union bespoken is inherently interpersonal in just this way. The doctrine
of the Mystical Body of Christ, which both undergirds and frames the
context of indulgences or “works” on behalf of the dead, is thus simulta-
neously the central thing that needs theoretical explication and the thing
that makes explication intractable.13
So far as I can see this reply is a “cop out” only if there is no prin-
cipled reason to believe in irreducibly second-person experience and
knowledge, or none to believe that mystical union is a candidate for
second-personal categorization, or if categorizing it as such is objection-
ably ad hoc. But in my view none of these alternatives looks plausible.
Whether there is such a thing as mystical union and whether indulgences
are efficacious (or for that matter, whether there exists a Purgatory con-
taining souls to be indulged in the first place) are properly speaking ques-
tions for theological metaphysics, but the epistemological orientation
appropriate to them is not exclusively third-personal and juridical but is
(in appreciable measure) second-personal and relational. My hope is that
the remaining work to be done on these topics will proceed with one
foot in each stream.
Conclusion
I have argued that the purpose of Purgatory is personal sanctification,
and that sanctification is itself aimed at full union with God and with
other persons in loving communion with God. This view does not
exclude the possibility that judicial penalties and penances play some role
in the purgatorial scheme, but it does not endorse or essentially include
any sense of ‘satisfaction’ entailing that hypothesis.
Indulgences are extensions of suffrages or intercessions wrought by
the living on behalf of the dead, according to my view. I have offered
no account of papal or ecclesial jurisdiction over souls in Purgatory, nor
of the ecclesiological distinctives that form a proper part of the histori-
cal doctrine of indulgences, nor indeed of the historical abuses to which
the doctrine has given occasion. My relatively modest aim has been to
outline a model of indulgences, or a theoretical framework in which
indulgences make sense, under a minimal set of assumptions about the

nature of sanctification, personal union and love.
Mystical union, or participation in the Mystical Body, is a notion that
generally speaking resists sharp analysis. I have tried to explain why that
is so, in a way that is epistemologically principled and theologically ecu-
menical. Further analyses of mystical union may (let us hope) illuminate
things of far greater import than the peculiar doctrine of indulgences.
But my hunch is that the “indulgent love” of God and the treasury of
the communio sanctorum will also be illuminated thereby.
Notes
1. I shall assume some measure of background knowledge about the doc-
trine of Indulgences, which may be found (for example) in the relevant
entry of the Catholic Encyclopedia (1907). Historical abuses related to the
doctrine will not be addressed in these pages.
2. I borrow the nomenclature from Justin Barnard (2007).
3. For an overview of these arguments see Judisch (2009) and Jerry Walls
(2011).
4. His primary critique centers on my treatment of Indulgences, which is the
subject of Sect. 3.
5. Thus the doctrine of Real Presence is consistent with a plurality of theo-
retical accounts of the Eucharist; the doctrine of the Trinity, likewise, is
consistent with various Trinitarian theories. This is so because dogmatic
formulae define the boundaries of orthodoxy: they tell us what is “out,”
but not necessarily everything that is (theoretically) “in.” That’s what
theologians are for.
6. I owe this point to an attendee at Baylor University’s 2008 Philosophical
Theology Conference, whose name I’m abashed to admit has escaped
me. What I do recall is that it was pressed by a Protestant philoso-
pher, who (ironically) criticized my theory for ignoring the benefits of
debt-repayment-satisfaction.
7. Appeal to the demands of justice may buttress this line of thought, but
only on condition (as expressed in the Catechism) that temporal pun-
ishments associated with divine justice are not “understood as a kind of
vengeance inflicted by God from without,” but as “following from the
very nature of sin.”
8. Of course, there is sauce for the gander as well. Aquinas’ empha-
sis remains upon remedial aspects of making satisfaction in Purgatory,
and medieval contemporaries like St. Catherine of Genoa could not be
clearer about the distinction betweenguilt retribution on one side and
106 N. Judisch
sanctification/purgation on the other (see her Treatise on Purgatory III.5;

in McGrath 2016, sect. 10.15).
9. His description:
Purgatory is the process of purification for those who die in the
love of God but who are not completely imbued with that love.
Sacred Scripture teaches us that we must be purified if we are to
enter into perfect and complete union with God. Jesus Christ, who
became the perfect expiation for our sins and took upon himself
the punishment that was our due, brings us God’s mercy and love.
But before we enter into God’s Kingdom every trace of sin within
us must be eliminated, every imperfection in our soul must be cor-
rected. This is exactly what takes place in Purgatory. Those who live
in this state of purification after death are not separated from God
but are immersed in the love of Christ. Neither are they separated
from the saints in heaven—who already enjoy the fullness of eternal
life—nor from us on earth—who continue on our pilgrim journey
to the Father’s house. We all remain united in the Mystical Body of
Christ, and we can therefore offer up prayers and good works on
behalf of our brothers and sisters in Purgatory. (1999a, summary)
10. You may wonder whether you’ve just witnessed a bait and switch. For isn’t
all this about the power of the keys and the “treasury” of the “Romish
Church” at large essential to the doctrine of indulgences and therefore to
any defense of it? I don’t think so. However the latter ought ultimately
to be understood, it cannot be understood at all without a general theory
of purgatorial sanctification as aided by the efforts of the living, which is
the central contention upon which the possibility of the rest depends. My
present focus therefore lies on that which takes philosophical precedence.
11. See Pope Pius XII (1943) for a sense of the “organic” flavor of mystical
union in action.
12. Similar remarks apply to Aquinas’ treatment of justification, which is like-
wise teleological/relational according to Stump:
Both justification and sanctification are therefore essentially rela-
tional, and so is their goal. The point of justification and sanctifi-
cation is not the growth of intrinsic, morally desirable properties
in a human person Paula, even if such intrinsic increase in good-
ness is an outcome of these processes. The point of the process is
rather the establishment and deepening of a relationship of love
between Paula and God that is undermined by the absence of psy-
chic integration in Paula, and the ultimate end of these processes is
a union between Paula and God. A second-person connection of
love between God and a human person is thus what justification

and sanctification aim to affect. (2010, 171)
13. But see Benjamin McCraw, chap. 12 this volume.
References
C. Adorno/Catherine of Genoa (2016) Treatise on Purgatory, in A. McGrath
(ed.) The Christian Theology Reader (5th edition) (Blackwell: Oxford),
section 10.15.
T. Aquinas (1947) Summa Theologica (tr.) Fathers of the English Dominican
Province, URL = http://dhspriory.org/thomas/summa.
J. Barnard (2007) “Purgatory and the Dilemma of Sanctification”, Faith and
Philosophy 24:3, 311–330.
J. Calvin (1960) Institutes of the Christian Religion (tr. F McNeill) (Westminster
John Knox Press).
Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), URL = http://www.vatican.va/
archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM.
Catholic Encyclopedia (1907), “Purgatory”, URL = http://www.newadvent.
org/cathen/12575a.htm.
H. Denzinger (1954) Enchiridion Symbolorum (30th edition) (tr. R. Deferrari)
(Freiburg: Herder & Co.).
N. Judisch (2009) “Sanctification, Satisfaction, and the Purpose of Purgatory”,
Faith and Philosophy 26:2, 167–185.
E. Pacelli/Pope Pius XII (1943) “Mystici Corporis Christi”, URL = http://
w2.vatican.va/content/pius-xii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-xii_
enc_29061943_mystici-corporis-christi.html.
J. Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI (2007), “Spe Salvi”, URL  = http://
w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_
enc_20071130_spe-salvi.html
M. Stoeber (1992) Evil and the Mystic’s God: Towards a Mystical Theodicy
(University of Toronto Press).
E. Stump (2010) Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering
J. Walls (2011) Purgatory: the Logic of Total Transformation (Oxford: Oxford
University Press).
K. Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II (1999a) “General Audience, Wednesday, 4 August”,
URL =http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audiences/1999/doc-
uments/hf_jp-ii_aud_04081999.html.
K. Wojtyła/Pope John Paul II (1999b) “General Audience, Wednesday, 29
September”, URL =https://w2.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/audi-
ences/1999/documents/hf_jp-ii_aud_29091999.html.
PART II
Purgatory and Historical Considerations

CHAPTER 7
Leibniz, Purgatory, and Universal Salvation
Lloyd Strickland
Many of the canonical philosophers of the modern period had lit-

tle or nothing to say about the doctrine of Purgatory. One exception
is Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who discussed it in a number of writ-
ings in his extensive corpus. Moreover, his treatment of the topic is far
from routine. For one thing, Leibniz came to endorse the doctrine of
Purgatory not through either of the traditional routes—one based
on the consent of the church fathers, the other on the Christian tradi-
tion of saying prayers for the dead—but by a philosophical argument of
his own devising. He also developed an ingenious natural mechanism
through which he believed purgatorial punishment was administered, or
more accurately, self-administered. Curiously, while Leibniz’s views on
Purgatory have attracted a fair degree of scholarly interest, it is for nei-
ther of these innovations. Instead, scholars have typically been concerned
with whether Leibniz endorsed the doctrine of universal salvation, and
in so doing effectively reduced Hell to Purgatory. In order to get a well-
rounded view of Leibniz’s views on Purgatory, it is useful to consider
them alongside his views on eternal punishment, and accordingly in this
chap. 1 shall consider both. In the first section, I shall sketch out the case
L. Strickland (*) 
Department of History, Politics, and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan
University, Manchester, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_7
112 L. Strickland
for supposing that Leibniz endorsed both Purgatory and eternal punish-
ment, treating them as distinct outcomes for sinners depending on the
scale of their sins, and in the second section I shall consider the form and
mechanism of punishment involved in both. In the third section, I shall
consider the arguments of those who have suggested that Leibniz effec-
tively reduced Hell to Purgatory by endorsing universal salvation. I shall
conclude that while Leibniz stopped short of endorsing universal salva-
tion, and thus of actually reducing Hell to Purgatory, there are grounds
to suppose that he hoped the doctrine of universal salvation was true and
that therefore Hell would in fact reduce to Purgatory.
Leibniz’s Acceptance of Purgatory and Hell

Let us start with Leibniz’s endorsement of Purgatory. On the surface it
may seem surprising that he did endorse it; after all, Leibniz was a life-
long Lutheran who resisted numerous attempts by Catholic acquaint-
ances to convert him,1 and accordingly one might reasonably expect
him to have followed the orthodox Lutheran line on disputed doc-
trinal issues, and thus held amongst other things that the doctrine of
Purgatory was false.2 Yet in a letter written in 1692 to a Catholic cor-
respondent, Landgrave Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels, Leibniz confides: “I
personally hold that a certain temporal punishment after this life is rather
reasonable and probable” (A I 7, 325).3 Lest it be thought that this is lit-
tle more than a sop to the theological sensibilities of his correspondent,
it should be noted that similar expressions of sympathy toward the doc-
trine of Purgatory are found elsewhere in Leibniz’s writings, for example
in a letter to a Protestant correspondent from 1700 (LGR 317), in a text
written c. 1705 for his own personal use (LGR 248-9), and in a letter to
the Protestant Princess Caroline of Ansbach of 1706, wherein he writes:
“You will be surprised that I say, Protestant as I am, that a kind of purifi-
cation, or if you will, of Purgatory seems necessary for the perfection of
souls” (A I 25, 445).
But while Leibniz was often happy to indicate his support for the idea
of Purgatory, he rarely indicated the reasons behind it. He was certainly
not impressed by attempts to root the doctrine in the writings of the
church fathers,4 often complaining that the fathers did not have a con-
sistent position on it and tended to speak about it with hesitation (see
for example LGR 308-10 and 311-15). Leibniz was also unimpressed
by arguments that sought to ground the doctrine in the longstanding
7 LEIBNIZ, PURGATORY, AND UNIVERSAL SALVATION 113
Christian tradition of praying for the dead,5 arguing that it does not nec-
essarily follow from the practice of saying prayers for the dead that the
dead are actually helped by prayers, and that in any case the practice is a
natural human response and an expression of love (see for example LGR
309-10). Eschewing the traditional paths to the doctrine of Purgatory,
Leibniz instead appears to have reached it philosophically. Consider this
passage from c. 1705:
This remission of sins that delivers us from the pains of hell by virtue of
the blood of Jesus Christ does not, however, prevent there still being some
punishment in this life or in the other, and the one which is in store for us
in the other life, and which serves to purge souls, is called purgatory. Holy
Scripture insinuates it, and reason endorses it on the grounds that accord-
ing to the rules of perfect government, which is God’s government, no sin
should be left entirely unpunished. (LGR 248-9)
Thus stated, the argument is clearly incomplete and needs fleshing out.
The key claim is that no sin should be left unpunished, a point Leibniz
insists upon in numerous writings (see for example A VI 4, 2351;
LGR 136; R 105; L 360; SLT 152; L 590; LM 276). Yet the fact that
God will ensure no sin is left unpunished does not, in itself, establish
Purgatory: for that, it must also be the case that not all sins are pun-
ished in this life. As it happens Leibniz often claimed as much, stating
that “it is evident that far too often punishments are deferred to another
life” (LGR 284; see also Dutens V 391). There are in fact two separate
claims in this remark: the first is that not all sins are punished in this life;
the second that sins not punished in this life are punished afterwards. As
Leibniz holds both to be true, it is reasonable to suppose that the follow-
ing represents his argument for Purgatory:
P1. No sin is left unpunished.
P2. Not all sins are punished in this life.
P3. Any sin not punished in this life is punished after this life.
Conclusion. Therefore some sins are punished after this life.
This argument is entirely philosophical; the heart derives from one

of Leibniz’s core philosophical beliefs (P1) and an empirical observa-
tion (P2). The argument itself seems to be neutral as to whether the
114 L. Strickland
postmortem punishment is temporary or permanent in nature, though

Leibniz uses it only to establish temporary postmortem punishment. He
offers an entirely different philosophical argument for eternal punish-
ment, and it is to that we now turn.
In a number of writings, Leibniz defends the justice of eternal punish-
ment by claiming that as the damned persist in sin throughout eternity,
it is right that their punishment also be eternal. Hence he writes in 1708:
[E]ven if we should concede that no sin is infinite in itself, it can still be

said that the sins of the damned are infinite in number, because they persist
in sin throughout all eternity. Therefore if sins are eternal, it is just that the
punishments should be eternal too. Of course evil men damn themselves,
as the wise rightly say, since they are forever impenitent and turn away
from God. Given this, God cannot be deemed severe, as if his punishment
was disproportionate to the sin. (LGR 326)
The same argument is to be found in Leibniz’s work throughout his

life, from the early 1670s (e.g. CP 81-3), through to the 1690s (e.g.
LTS 104 and 111, A I 11, 21), the 1700s (HD 95, NE 96, GR 249)
and the Theodicy of 1710 (e.g. H 205, H 290). No doubt in an effort
to show that his argument was not unconventional,6 in the Theodicy
Leibniz claims that accounting for the eternal duration of punishment
by the eternal duration of sins has been a popular maneuver among
those of various Christian creeds. Among those who had used the same
argument, he claims, are the Protestant Johann Gerhard, the Calvinist
Zacharias Ursinus, and the Jesuit Father Drexler, who suggested (accord-
ing to Leibniz) that it was also held in high regard by Catholic theologi-
ans. He also finds echoes of his view in the work of more philosophically
minded thinkers such as Joannes Fechtius, Pierre Jurieu, Isaac Jacquelot,
Jean Le Clerc and William King (see H 291 and H 441).
In recent years, Paul Lodge has suggested that when Leibniz puts for-
ward his argument for eternal punishment, his intention is “to provide
an explanation of how the doctrine of eternal damnation is rationally
compatible with belief in a perfect God,” and that “there is no indication
from Leibniz regarding his own views about the truth of this particu-
lar revelation,” that is, the doctrine of eternal punishment (Lodge 2017‚
308). According to Lodge, Leibniz’s apparent acceptance of the doctrine
may well have been motivated by his desire to be seen to toe the ortho-
dox line, not because he was afraid of personal attacks from theologians
committed to the doctrine of eternal punishment, but because deviating

from the orthodox position could be dangerous. To support this read-
ing, Lodge cites the following passage from a letter Leibniz wrote in
1695:
All that can be said about that [i.e. the doctrine of universal salvation] is
that it would be true if it were possible, and if divine justice could allow it.
But as we do not know the depths of it [i.e. divine justice], it is safer not
to advance opinions which are not soundly established and can be harmful
since they are capable of keeping sinners in their security. (A I 11, 21)
The implication seems to be that the doctrine of eternal punishment

is not dangerous, and so is the safer one to teach. On the back of this,
Lodge argues that “the fact that Leibniz offered a defence of the doc-
trine of eternal punishment grounded in its safety [is] reason to be scep-
tical with regard to the further conclusion that he was himself committed
to the doctrine” (Lodge 2017‚ 320).
Might it be, then, that Leibniz defended the doctrine of eternal pun-
ishment on the grounds Lodge suggests, and so did not really accept
it himself? In order to make an assessment, we first need to understand
what Leibniz means when he describes one doctrine as being “safe” or
“safer” than another. As one might expect, he defines safety in terms of
not bringing about danger; hence he says that the Vulgate can be “safely
read” because “there is nothing in it from which danger may be able
to arise to those who read it” (LGR 229). What sort of danger does
Leibniz have in mind here? The danger is error, but in theological mat-
ters the danger isn’t simply being wrong, it is being wrong in a way that
endangers one’s salvation (see for example A IV 3, 236-7, LGR 229 and
237-8, H 177). Consequently, if universal salvation is deemed unsafe,
this is not because it might lead followers to sin, or because holding
the doctrine might be wrong, but because holding the doctrine might
endanger one’s salvation. This is presumably what Leibniz means when
he says that the doctrine is “capable of keeping sinners in their security,”
namely that sinners who believe in universal salvation feel that their salva-
tion is secure even though their error is such that their salvation could
in fact be in danger. Let’s now work through the implications of this. In
order for salvation to be meaningfully endangered, it must be possible
to miss out on it altogether, and not (say) just delay its onset for a time.
Presumably to miss out on it altogether would involve being condemned
116 L. Strickland
to eternal punishment; certainly Leibniz does not entertain any other

possible outcomes.7 In other words, to use the language of “safety” in
a theological context is to presuppose that there is such a thing as eter-
nal punishment. Recall now Lodge’s claim that “the fact that Leibniz
offered a defence of the doctrine of eternal punishment grounded in its
safety [is] reason to be sceptical with regard to the further conclusion
that he was himself committed to the doctrine” (Lodge 2017‚ 320). We
can now see that when Leibniz defends the doctrine of eternal punish-
ment (or indeed any other) based on its safety, he must be presupposing
the reality of eternal punishment, and thereby in fact be committed to it.
Of course it does not follow from this that anyone actually does undergo
eternal punishment, only that God has established it as the final outcome
in the event that there are those who deserve it. It is entirely consistent
with this that ultimately no one deserves it, and so no one undergoes it,
but of course the fact that it exists as a possible outcome means that it is
part of the Christian salvation story.
Since Leibniz clearly presupposes that eternal punishment is real in
the sense of being the outcome for those who deserve it, the question we
should ask is whether he believed that there would be anyone who does
deserve it, that is, whether he believed there would be any eternal recidi-
vists. There is certainly evidence that he assumed there would be. For
example, he writes in the mid-1690s:
And so it must be established whether it was indeed possible for all men
to be saved, and the fall of Adam prevented, but that has not happened,
because God, according to the nature of his wisdom, has willed to choose
the most perfect out of the infinite series of possibles. But the nature of
possible things makes it so that that series which contains an Adam who
does not fall, and in which all men are saved, is not the most perfect; I
judge this to be so from the outcome, since such a series was not chosen.
(GR 340–1)
And similarly, in 1705
God wills simply and in earnest that all be saved and that all use grace
rightly, but he does not will with the highest degree of will, that is, to
speak in a human manner, he does not will with the greatest effort.
Otherwise all would in fact be saved. (GR 255)
Both of these passages come from Leibniz’s private notes, which were
not intended to be shared with or seen by others. This is noteworthy
inasmuch as while it is possible to cast doubt on the sincerity of what he
says in his published writings or those intended for circulation to others
(for example, because he wanted to appear orthodox), it is much more
difficult to do so with his private notes. There is, after all, no obvious
reason why Leibniz would adopt views in his private notes that he did
not actually believe, as they would attract no censure or praise or scrutiny
of any kind. On this basis, then, I think it likely that Leibniz did assume
that some people would not be saved, and thus undergo eternal pun-
ishment. His assumption was no doubt based on deference to scripture,
which contains numerous passages often used to support the doctrine of
eternal punishment for the wicked.8
There is, then, a strong prima facie case that Leibniz accepted both
the doctrine of Purgatory and the doctrine of eternal punishment. We
turn now to consider the form and mechanism of the punishment in
both.
The Form and Mechanism of Punishment

Traditionally, both Purgatory and Hell have been thought of as involving
fire. In the case of Purgatory, this is a cleansing fire which removes one’s
impurities, while in the case of Hell it is simply a punishment, with no
cleansing effect. Leibniz does occasionally make use of the fire metaphor,
but as we shall see, it is highly doubtful that he believed either form of
punishment actually involved fire, or even sensations of being burned.
In an early work from 1668–9, Leibniz suggests that eternal punish-
ment consists only in being deprived of the beatific vision: “God pun-
ishes no one otherwise than privatively, insofar as he does not bestow
happiness upon them. In this way, the cruelty of eternal punishment
is undermined” (LGR 33). In a slightly later text, the Philosopher’s
Confession from 1672–3, Leibniz appears to take a different view,
describing how the damned are effectively tormented for all eternity by
their own frustrations and hatred of the world. He explains that those
who die discontented with God and the world carry their hatred with
them in the afterlife, where their hatred grows stronger and stronger
through a process of positive feedback:
118 L. Strickland
Whoever dies malcontent dies a hater of God. And now he follows along
the road on which he began, as if he were headed for the precipice; and
not being held back by external things, since access to his senses has been
closed off, he nourishes his soul, which has withdrawn into itself, with that
hatred of things already begun, and with that misery and disdain, and with
indignation, envy, and displeasure, all of them increasing more and more.
(CP 91)
Leibniz goes on to claim that the hatred, anger, and misery of the
damned person is not eased by the return of his bodily senses in the res-
urrection, because by that time he is so twisted that his pain is somehow
pleasing to him. Consequently, after being resurrected, he will deliber-
ately seek out things which incense him, and hence “he endlessly finds
new material for contempt, disapproval, and anger; and he is the more
tormented the less he can change and endure the torrent of things that
are displeasing to him” (CP 91). The upshot is that his hatred of God
and the world continues without end, as does the torment that this
hatred brings.9 There is a sort of bleak elegance to this idea, as it shows
that the wicked will be the authors of their own future misfortune simply
through the natural psychological processes that will occur in them after
death.
It is likely that Leibniz entertained a similar process operating on
those in Purgatory. He hints as much when he writes in a short text that
cannot have been written later than spring 1698:
The time of purification lasts as long as is needed for a soul to turn over in
its contemplations the wickedness of its former sin, and therefore this pain
consists in a vision of sin, evil and the devil, just as Heavenly joy consists in
the vision of God and the good. (LGR 315-16)
And when discussing purgatorial punishment in “An Examination of the

Christian Religion” (1686), Leibniz describes it as the “affliction of a
soul which reviews its own actions” (A VI 4, 2455). The chief difference
between the process of self-punishment that occurs to those in Purgatory
and those undergoing eternal punishment is that while the damned die
hating God and the world, those who are to be saved do not. Indeed,
they are essentially good people, but nevertheless not perfect, and will
end their lives with unexpiated sins and some relatively minor faults.
Given this, it is not unreasonable to surmise that it is these things which
dominate the thinking of those undergoing purgatorial punishment, that

is, they will focus on their sins and moral flaws, which will torment them
(since they are essentially good) and also cleanse them.
It is notable that the psychological process discussed above, which
involves postmortem punishment effectively being self-administered
through normal psychological processes, is outlined only in relatively
early writings (from the 1670s and 1680s). Thereafter it is not men-
tioned,10 leading one to wonder whether Leibniz accepted it in later
life. There are certainly grounds to think that he had not entirely ruled
it out, or at least something like it. For in an appendix to the Theodicy
(1710), Leibniz outlines a similar theory of postmortem punishment
that had been advanced by William King in De origine mali, and ends by
saying: “These thoughts are not to be despised, and I have sometimes
had similar ones, though I am careful not to make a decisive judgment
about them” (H 441). Yet even though the mature Leibniz was careful
not to make a decisive judgment about how exactly postmortem punish-
ment was to be administered, he continued to believe that it would take
place not through an intervention of God but through a natural process
in which the sinner somehow torments himself. Thus he writes in 1712
that God has established his laws in such a way “that the wicked is heau-
tontimorumenos [self-tormentor]” (Dutens V 389). Such a position is
entirely in keeping with, and in fact flows from, Leibniz’s doctrine of the
harmony of the kingdoms of nature and grace, which holds that there
is a concord between God’s roles as architect of the physical universe
and his role as monarch of the moral universe of minds, such that his
plans for minds are effected through the order of nature. Accordingly all
rewards and punishments are administered through the normal workings
of nature rather than through divine interventions (see Strickland 2016).
It is worth noting one text in which Leibniz appears to offer a strik-
ingly different view of postmortem punishment, or at least purgatorial
punishment, than that outlined above. In a letter to Princess Caroline
of 1706, Leibniz suggests that for some, the purification process might
be like taking a hot bath in which one is scrubbed with oil, while for
others it would be like being placed in a vessel made of embers (A I 25,
445-6). The suggestions should not be taken too seriously: Leibniz’s aim
in his letter is clearly to assuage Caroline’s fears about the purification
process by suggesting that it might in fact be quite agreeable, at least
for good people like her; in fact, he concludes his letter by telling her
“I believe that you will be purified like angel water placed in the sun”
120 L. Strickland
(A I 25, 446).11 Given Leibniz’s obvious pastoral aims here, there are no
grounds to suppose that he genuinely deviated from his lifelong belief
that all postmortem punishment involved psychological torment brought
about naturally.
But while there are clear similarities between the form and mecha-
nisms involved in purgatorial and eternal punishments, we also need to
be aware of some key differences. The most notable is that while in both
cases punishment is meted out to expiate sin,12 in the case of those in
Purgatory this also has a cleansing and restorative effect. This much fol-
lows from Leibniz’s assertion in a text likely written c. 1705 that “It is
true that blessed souls shall suffer it [Purgatory] with joy, just as we will-
ingly suffer a surgical operation that restores us to health” (LGR 249).
Consequently, while the actual purpose of purgatorial punishment is to
expiate a person’s sins, it also succeeds in correcting the sinner as well.
We may surmise that eternal punishment has no such effect, and is sim-
ply expiatory. A second difference between purgatorial and eternal pun-
ishments is that those undergoing the former adopt a different attitude
toward their punishment than those undergoing the latter. This is hinted
at in the passage just quoted, in which Leibniz explains that the purifica-
tion process, although not pleasant in itself, will be undertaken willingly
by those destined to it. In “An Examination of the Christian Religion”
(1686), he goes even further, arguing that when souls become “aware
for the first time of the imperfection of their past life” they are “touched
with extreme sorrow for the foulness of sin” and so “willingly submit
themselves to it [purgation], not wanting to attain the height of beati-
tude in any other way” (A VI 4, 2455; see also LGR 31). There is no
suggestion, however, that those condemned to Hell undertake their pun-
ishment either willingly or cheerfully, and Leibniz’s description of their
torment seems to preclude this.
Does Leibniz Reduce Hell to Purgatory?

In the preceding sections, we have seen that there is a clear prima facie
case for supposing that Leibniz accepted both the doctrine of Purgatory
and that of eternal punishment, developing distinct arguments to jus-
tify each doctrine and outlining a natural mechanism through which
both kinds of punishment would occur. The natural conclusion to draw
from this is that Leibniz thought of Purgatory and eternal punishment
as distinct outcomes or destinations. However, some scholars have put
forward an alternative interpretation, in which Leibniz held the view that

after death all sinners will undergo a temporal punishment, following
which they will be admitted to beatitude and reunited with God. On this
reading, Leibniz is a supporter of the doctrine of universal salvation, and
so effectively reduces Hell to Purgatory.13 Thus Gaston Grua writes that
“Leibniz is tempted by the hypothesis of reducing Hell to Purgatory,
the most attractive form of progress” (1956, 211). And in a similar
vein, Paul Rateau claims that “His [Leibniz’s] position on Purgatory (to
which Hell could ultimately be reduced) suggests a temporary punish-
ment of sinners and, eventually, the possibility of their return to God”
(Rateau 2015, 138). However, both authors reach this view in a differ-
ent way. Let us start with Grua.
Grua claims that while Leibniz does maintain the doctrine of Hell,
this is “only in conditional terms, thus as something legitimate rather
than certain in fact” (Grua 1956, 212). To support this, he cites
Leibniz’s letter to Electress Sophie of 1694, in which Leibniz writes:
“my view is that punishments would only be eternal because of the eter-
nity of sins. Those who will always sin will always be justly punished”
(LTS 104). Grua here appears to place a lot of weight on Leibniz’s
decision to use the subjunctive mood. Yet he overlooks the fact that in
a revised version of the same letter, Leibniz recast this part to remove
the subjunctive, writing “my view is that the eternity of punishments is
founded on the eternity of sins. Those who will always sin will always be
justly punished” (LTS 111).
Grua also sees evidence for Leibniz’s inclination toward universal
salvation in §272 of the Theodicy, where, he says, Leibniz “cites with
indulgence the hypothesis of the mitigation of Hell” (Grua 1956, 213).
There, Leibniz outlines a number of historical attempts to show that a
damned soul might still be saved, but ends by saying “one must admit
that all this detail is problematical, God having revealed to us all that is
needed to put us in fear of the greatest of misfortunes, and not what is
needed for our understanding thereof” (H 294). There is no evidence
of an inclination to universal salvation here, unless it is supposed that
Leibniz’s preparedness to discuss the doctrine somehow qualifies. I see
no reason why it would, however.
The final piece of evidence on which Grua seeks to ground Leibniz’s
apparent reduction of Hell to Purgatory is to be found in a letter to
Johann Fabricius of 1711 in which Leibniz details his plan for an epic
poem entitled Uranias. The poem was conceived as a project for Johann
122 L. Strickland
Wilhelm Petersen, one-time superintendent of Lüneburg and ardent sup-

porter of millenarianism and universal salvation. The plan is as follows:
It [Uranias] would have to begin with cosmogony and paradise, which

would be the subject of the first book, or even the first and second. The
third, fourth and fifth, if it were thought fit, would relate the Fall of Adam
and redemption of mankind through Christ, and touch on the history of
the Church. Then I would readily allow the poet to give in the sixth book
a description of the millennial reign, and to depict in the seventh the anti-
Christ invading with Gog and Magog, and finally overthrown by a breath
from the divine mouth. In the eighth we would have the day of judgement
and the punishments of the damned; in the ninth, tenth and eleventh, the
happiness of the blessed, the grandeur and beauty of the City of God and
of the abode of the blessed, and excursions through the immense spaces
of the universe to illuminate the wonderful works of God; one would also
add a description of the heavenly palace itself. The twelfth would end eve-
rything with the restitution of all things, that is, with the evil themselves
reformed and restored to happiness and to God, with God henceforth
operating all in all without exception. (LGR 300-1)
Grua supposes that Leibniz’s decision to include the doctrine of univer-

sal salvation in the plan for the poem reveals his sympathy for it (Grua
1956, 213). The thinking seems to be that Leibniz would not have pro-
posed its inclusion if he did not advocate the doctrine himself. Grua’s
reasoning, while hardly conclusive, does at least have a superficial plausi-
bility. However, if we accept it then we are surely obliged to accept also
that Leibniz was an advocate of millenarianism, as the topics Leibniz
suggests for the sixth and seventh books, namely the millennial reign
and the invasion of the anti-Christ, are core doctrines of millenarian-
ism; yet there is solid evidence from elsewhere to suggest that he was
not a millenarian.14 The upshot is that Grua’s reasoning is faulty: just
because Leibniz suggested that particular ideas or doctrines feature in his
epic poem, it does not follow that he personally subscribed to them. To
clinch the point, in a follow-up letter to Fabricius of 10 March 1712,
Leibniz explains that the last book of the proposed poem, on universal
salvation, “deals with an opinion which I do not condemn at all, but
which I am not willing to make my own” (Dutens V 297). In all like-
lihood, the inclusion of millenarianism and universal salvation in the
poem was a concession to Petersen, who was deeply committed to both
doctrines, and so one might reasonably suppose that he would be more

inclined to undertake the project if they were featured in it.15
Let us turn now to Rateau’s case for supposing that Leibniz favored
the doctrine of universal salvation and so ultimately reduced Hell to
Purgatory. Rateau sees hints of this in a late text, “Revolution” (1715),
in which Leibniz considers the future improvement of the human race.
Leibniz writes, for example:
Besides, it can actually be concluded from this that the human race will
not always remain in the same state, since it is not in keeping with the
divine harmony to always play the same chord. And it should even be
believed as a result of the natural principles of fittingness that things must
progress towards the better, either gradually or even sometimes by leaps.
For although things constantly seem to get worse, this should be thought
to happen in the same way that we sometimes step back in order to jump
with a greater impetus. (HD 74)
In this text, Leibniz is not concerned with the doctrine of universal sal-
vation or the restitution of things, but rather the question of whether
there will be progress in human knowledge. And to my mind, Leibniz’s
remarks about progress are intended to apply not to all humans in the
eternity to come, but to future generations of humans, and the advances
in knowledge that they will enjoy, for example in explaining the structure
of flies, understanding very complicated mathematical theorems etc.,
so that ultimately future generations will be able to understand things
“which are now beyond the capacity of humans” (HD 76). Rateau him-
self notes that Leibniz’s remarks in this text do not imply that all humans
will one day be blessed, and in fact are quite compatible with some of
them being damned to eternal punishment.
Nevertheless, Rateau suggests that Leibniz “doubtless favored the
hypothesis of universal salvation” and left clues to this effect rather
than an explicit declaration (Rateau 2015, 136). According to Rateau,
one such clue is §18 of the Theodicy (1710), in which Leibniz describes
“a theology well-nigh astronomical” developed by “a man of wit” that
involves inter alia the ultimate salvation of all, even those initially subject
to damnation (H 133). However, in order to read this as support for
universal salvation one has to ignore Leibniz’s explicit statement at the
start of §18 that he does not approve of the speculations of the unnamed
124 L. Strickland
“man of wit”, and another at the end that there is no need for that per-
son’s hypothesis, and that reason can find no value in it.16
Lastly, Rateau points to a number of texts in which Leibniz sides—
albeit conditionally—with the hypothesis of universal salvation. For
example, in a letter written in 1698, Leibniz indicates that if it was up to
him (“If I had the choice”), he would rather endorse Jane Leade’s vision
of salvation for all over Jakob Böhme’s claim that the damned remain
damned for all eternity (A I 16, 164). In another letter, from 1706,
Leibniz again indicates that if it was up to him (“If one had to choose”),
he would by far prefer Jean Le Clerc’s doctrine of universal salvation to
Pierre Bayle’s doctrine of Manicheism, since “the one tries to amplify
God’s goodness, and the other diminishes both the goodness and power
of the divinity” (G III, 310). While Leibniz’s preferences are clear, his
language suggests that the choice about what to actually believe is not
his to make. Although somewhat conjectural, we might suppose that this
is because he feels that universal salvation, for all its appeal, is not a piece
of revealed theology, whereas the traditional doctrine of eternal punish-
ment is, and so is the doctrine that one should believe in spite of whether
one personally finds it appealing or not. As partial confirmation of this, it
should be borne in mind that during the period in which these passages
were written, Leibniz continued to justify the doctrine of eternal punish-
ment and assume that it would be the ultimate fate of some humans (see
above, Sect. 1).
Nevertheless, the passages Rateau cites are suggestive that Leibniz’s
attitude toward universal salvation had softened in later life, even if not
to the point that he was prepared to commit himself to it. Other pas-
sages may be adduced to support this reading. For example, Leibniz tells
a correspondent in 1702 that a book about universal salvation contains
“some pleasant ideas” (A I 20, 817). And we have already encountered
Leibniz’s remark in 1711 that universal salvation is “an opinion which
I do not condemn at all, but which I am not willing to make my own”
(D V, 297). On the basis of such remarks, I do not think that one could
legitimately draw the conclusion that Leibniz actually did come to favor
the doctrine of universal salvation, or even that he inclined toward it.
But one surely could draw the more restricted conclusion that in later
life Leibniz ceased to think of the doctrine of universal salvation as dan-
gerous, and perhaps also that in later life he came to hope the doctrine
was true, and that Hell would ultimately reduce to Purgatory. If we read
Leibniz this way, we avoid having to paint him as duplicitous, because
it would be no reflection on his sincerity that he continued to publicly

endorse the doctrine of eternal punishment while simultaneously hoping
that universal salvation would actually be the true doctrine.17
Notes
1. See, for example, A I 6, 229; A II 2 (2nd ed.), 227. Leibniz was uncom-
fortable with the term “Lutheran”; see A I 7, 257.
2. For Luther’s denial of Purgatory, see Luther (1863), XX, pt. 2, 360ff.
3. I cite a published English translation where available. Where one is not
available, the translation is my own.
4. For a contemporaneous example of this, see Ward (1687).
5. The argument runs as follows: if the dead are helped by prayers, as
the practice assumes, then it follows that they are not yet either saved
or damned but in some intermediate state. The blessed, after all,
would not need any assistance, while the damned would be beyond it.
Consequently, those who are helped by prayers must be currently subject
to punishment that can be mitigated, which makes sense only if the doc-
trine of Purgatory is true. For a contemporaneous example of this, see
Pellisson-Fontanier (1686, III: 35–37).
6. A much more conventional philosophical way of justifying eternal punish-
ment was by arguing that sins are of an infinite degree because they are
committed against God, an infinite good, which makes it just that their
punishment should be infinite (i.e. eternal) as well. For a contemporane-
ous example of this, see J. C. (1687‚ 2). Interestingly, there is one text in
which Leibniz justifies eternal punishment using precisely this argument;
see LGR 316.
7. Limbo is the most obvious possible alternative outcome; traditionally,
those in Limbo are not punished, but they are denied the beatific vision
granted to the blessed. However, Limbo is usually reserved for unbap-
tized infants, and Leibniz understands it this way also. Moreover, he was
agnostic about the idea of Limbo (see H 173).
8. See for example Matthew 5:29, 8:12, 10:28, 13:42, 25:31–46, Revelation
14:11, 20:10, 21:8, and 2 Thessalonians 1:8. Leibniz was certainly aware
that some had challenged the scriptural basis for eternal punishment,
because in 1694 he copied out passages from a book ([Anon.] 1694)
which used hermeneutical analysis in an attempt to show that there was
no scriptural basis for the doctrine. See the unpublished manuscript held
by G. W. Leibniz Bibliothek, Hannover, under the shelfmark LH I, 5,
2, Bl. 30. An English translation is available: http://www.leibniz-trans-
lations.com/1694notes.html In his own work, however, Leibniz never
126 L. Strickland
repeats or even mentions any of the hermeneutical analysis from this

book, which suggests he was not convinced by it.
9. For a helpful discussion of this idea, see Horn (2015).
10. There are occasional hints of it in later writings, such as when he writes
to a correspondent in 1710: “it may be said that virtue brings about its
own reward, and crime its own punishment, because by a sort of natural
consequence of the very last state of the soul, according as it departs expi-
ated or unexpiated, there arises a sort of natural watershed, preordained
in nature by God, and consistent with divine promises and threats, and
with grace and justice.” (Dutens II 1, 229).
11. Angel water [l’eau d’anges] is a seventeenth century perfume made from
benzoin “tears”, Styrax resin, nutmeg and cinnamon, mixed with rose
petals.
12. Leibniz explains that meting out punishment for every sin is the fulfil-
ment of God’s avenging or vindictive justice, which is “a kind of justice
which has for its goal neither improvement nor example, nor even redress
of the evil. This justice has its foundation only in the fitness of things,
which demands a certain satisfaction for the expiation of an evil action”
(H 161). God thus punishes out of his desire to restore the moral order
which was put out of balance by sin.
13. There are also those who have made the more limited claim that Leibniz
endorsed universal salvation, without the further claim that this involves
reducing Hell to Purgatory. See for example Becco (1978), Carlson
(2001), Coudert (1995), and Wilson (1995). I have dealt with these
claims in Strickland (2009), and I refer readers to that.
14. For discussions of some of this evidence, see Cook and Strickland (2011),
and Antognazza and Hotson (1999).
15. One might wonder why Leibniz wanted the poem written at all, and why
he was prepared to allow it to promote doctrines that he did not person-
ally endorse. I have dealt with this in Strickland (2009, 330).
16. In his initial draft of the Theodicy, Leibniz reveals that he is acquainted
with the “man of wit” concerned, and concludes his discussion by saying
that “my friend will permit me to treat it [sc. the well-nigh astronomical
theology] as rather fanciful”, suggesting that the author of the hypoth-
esis did not take it seriously himself. Both claims were removed from the
final book. See the manuscript held in the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
Bibliothek, Hannover, under the shelfmark LH 1, 1, 1, Bl. 58r.
17. I would like to thank Daniel J. Cook and Markku Roinilla for helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this chapter.
References
[Anon.]. (1694) Verhandeling van de Helle (Groningen).
A. Becco (1978) ‘Leibniz et François-Mercure van Helmont: bagatelle pour des
monads’, Magis Naturalis 7: 119–42.
A. Carlson (2001) The Divine Ethic of Creation in Leibniz (New York: Peter
Lang).
A. P. Coudert (1995) Leibniz and the Kabbalah (Dordrecht: Kluwer).
C. Wilson (1995) “The Reception of Leibniz in the Eighteenth Century” in
N. Jolley (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press)‚ pp. 442–74.
C. J. Horn (2015) “Leibniz’s Stoic and Spinozistic justification for eternal dam-
nation‚” in B. W. McCraw and R. Arp (eds.) The Concept of Hell (Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan)‚ pp. 99–112.
D. J. Cook and L. Strickland (2011) ‘Leibniz on Millenarianism’‚ in
F. Beiderbeck and S. Waldhoff (eds.) Pluralität der Perspektiven und Einheit
der Wahrheit im Werk von G. W. Leibniz (Berlin: Akademie Verlag)‚ pp. 77–90.
G. Grua (1956) La Justice Humaine selon Leibniz (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France).
G. W. Leibniz (1768) G. G. Leibnitii Opera Omnia L. Dutens (ed.), 6 vols
(Geneva). = Dutens.
G. W. Leibniz (1923-) Sämtliche Schriften und Briefe Deutsche Akademie der
Wissenschaften (ed.)‚ 8 series‚ each divided into multiple volumes (Berlin:
Akademie Verlag). = A.
G. W. Leibniz (1948) Textes inédits G. Grua (ed.)‚ 2 volumes with successive
pagination (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France). = GR.
G. W. Leibniz (1969) Philosophical Papers and Letters L. Loemker (tr. and ed.)
(Dordrecht: D. Reidel‚ 2nd edn). = L.
G. W. Leibniz (1972) Political Writings P. Riley (tr. and ed.) (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press). = R.
G. W. Leibniz (1978) Die Philosophischen Schriften C. I. Gerhardt (ed.), 7 vols
(Hildesheim: Georg Olms). = G.
G. W. Leibniz (1985) Theodicy E. M. Huggard (tr.) (Chicago: Open
Court). = H.
G. W. Leibniz (1991) De l’horizon de la doctrine humaine M. Fichant (ed.)
(Paris: Vrin). = HD.
G. W. Leibniz (1996) New Essays on Human Understanding J. Bennett and
P. Remnant (trs. and eds.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press‚ 2nd
edn). = NE.
G. W. Leibniz (2005) Confessio Philosophi: Papers concerning the Problem of
Evil 1671–1678 R. C. Sleigh‚ Jr (tr. and ed.) (New Haven: Yale University
Press). = CP.
128 L. Strickland
G. W. Leibniz (2006) Shorter Leibniz Texts L. Strickland (tr. and ed.) (London:
Continuum). = SLT.
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(Toronto: University of Toronto Press). = LTS.
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(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press). = LM.
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(London: Bloomsbury). = LGR.
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History of Philosophy 17: 307–31.
L. Strickland (2016) ‘Leibniz’s Harmony between the Kingdoms of Nature and
Grace’‚ Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 98: 302–29.
M. Luther (1863) Martin Luthers Werke‚ 65 vols (Weimar: Böhlaus).
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Garnier).
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CHAPTER 8
Mirror Geography: On the Emergence

of Purgatory and the City
Defying the word of God is probably amongst humankind’s favorite

pastimes. Many of the disobediences of God’s commandments can be
understood by almost all of us without much difficulty. They, in fact,
concern the bodily pleasures, the uncontrolled and coarse usage of lan-
guage, and sometimes the belongings of our fellow men (whom we
thoroughly suspect as they look too much like us, and we know what
we ourselves are capable of). However, of the many divine precepts that
are often violated, there is one that might seem surprising as it does not
seem to concern any pleasant act(s). This “commandment” is, to cite
it following my own Catholic tradition and belonging, “[L]et the dead
bury their own dead” (Luke 9:60; Matthew 8:22).
True, in our contemporary society this precept seems to be followed
to the letter (unintentionally and unaware of it obviously). Death and the
dead—besides for the oligarchical caste of the morticians, the “undertak-
ers” or the modern mergers of coffin-builders/gravediggers, for whom
K.K.P. Vanhoutte (*) 
Department of Philosophy, Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy
K.K.P. Vanhoutte 
University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_8
130 K.K.P. Vanhoutte
death truly means money1 and for whom, as the eleven-twelfth century
bishop of Paris, Eudes of Sully, already remarked, only death and Hell was
reserved (Welter 1926, 83)—does and do not arouse particular excitement
today. In fact, death (that is, natural death), as has become ever more
evident in the past decades, is by now a major taboo in the ever more
Westernized world.2,3 Natural death is ever more insistently being replaced
by either artistic or touristic death. The ancient necropoli have become
tourist attractions (functioning like some sort of fetish) whilst the contem-
porary dead, if not completely left silent to be forgotten as quickly as pos-
sible, pose at most some kind of “urbanistic” problem. Death is no longer
about losing one’s life, but regards the challenge of optimization of space
and the problem of time (how long should the dead, or their remains,
be preserved?).4 Or, as Philippe Ariès wrote so perspicuously, we have on
the one hand “the cult of cemeteries and tombs,” and on the other, “the
interdict laid upon death by industrial society” (Ariès 1976, 2).
The faithful obliging of the death-commandment has, however, not
always been the case. There have been times, not even in a terribly dis-
tant past, when death, the dead, and their whereabouts in the afterlife
did create an enormous amount of interest. One of the times when death
and the dead did play a central role in the life of people, the one that
will be at the center of attention in this text, was the (second half of the)
twelfth century on continental Europe. And its interest in the afterlife
not only regarded the “creation” of a “new” circumscribed space of
afterworld dwelling, namely Purgatory, but also its governance.5
But the interest and importance of death and the dwelling of the dead
is not the only peculiar aspect of the (second half of the) twelfth century.
In fact, this historical period, was “a great century of creation” (Le Goff
1990a, 13), or, as Ivan Illich never stopped repeating, it can be considered
as a turning point for many things (Cayley 2005, 82). A whole number of
important changes took place in this period. Not least of all, and this will be
the second cornerstone of this chapter besides Purgatory, the twelfth cen-
tury saw the emergence, the taking shape and taking (becoming of a) place,
of the community-type living that will form the basis for the future city.
In what follows, I will argue that the parallel emergence of both
Purgatory and the (future) city, in the short period in which they did, is
not a coincidence. The mirroring of the antithetical Heaven and Hell—
monastic and rural dispersive feudal living—needed an “update” with the
emergence of this new type of congregational, communal living that was
the (becoming) city. Purgatory, and the continuous attempts to localize
8 MIRROR GEOGRAPHY: ON THE EMERGENCE OF PURGATORY … 131
it spatially (between Heaven and Hell), seems to be the necessary paral-

lel of the attempt to understand the full implications of the new form of
premortem living together in the newly formed communities that had
recently risen. The implications of this parallelism will be studied and the
possible implications of the understanding of the city-style living as pur-
gatorial will be investigated.6
Purgatory: Some Historical Aspects

The (geography of the) afterlife is not a Christian invention. Long before
Christianity climbed the steps to the stage of history, other religions and
civilizations had afterlives and even ordered and localized, or a localiz-
able, the hereafter.7 Also the religions-civilizations—religious civiliza-
tions as they mostly were—that directly preceded and highly influenced
Christianity, Judaism and the Greco-Roman world, had well-organized
netherworlds.8 Although generally they have been ordered in an opposi-
tional fashion, with Judaism supposedly holding firm to a monistic vision
of the afterlife (characteristic of the Deuteronomic view, which still holds
partial valence up to this day) and the Greco-Roman traditions as being
characterized by a dualistic way of organizing the hereafter, more recent
scholarship has claimed that in both ‘traditions’9 a division of the order-
ing of the dead occurred that functioned as some sort of reaction against
a more ‘original’ monistic vision (Bernstein 1993, 50). Judaism thus
originally had Sheol (the ‘grave’, or, by association, the ‘pit’). This some-
what neutral—it is neither a place of punishment nor a place of reward—
yet dark and sad continuation of life after death, later received with or
simply became (it greatly depends on the ‘author’ or tradition of the
Biblical writings that one follows) Gehenna, a place of punishment and
retribution (mainly for apostates and the powerful of the earth10), and
on a rare occasion (i.e. in the Book of Enoch or in Flavius Josephus’s The
Jewish War) even a (separate) place for the blessed is envisaged.11 Also
the Greco-Roman afterlife seemed to have started with an almost neutral
Hades to which, mainly due to Orphism and the Eleusinian Mysteries,
Tartarus and the Elysian Fields were added. This largely dualistic Greek
scheme (Tartarus was a section in Hades) was, in its grand lines, accepted
and translated by the Romans.
Early Christianity’s close relatedness with both the minority in
Judaism that more seriously played with the idea of a divided afterlife like
the Essenes and the philosophical schools of the Greco-Roman world
who, already since Plato, were always somewhat related to the Mysteries
and who, as such, had a similar preference for a less monistic hereafter,
made for it that Christianity almost spontaneously adopted the dualis-
tic model.12 However, already by the end of the fourth century the
idea of a pure dualistic vision had been put seriously into question by
some of the greatest Fathers of the Church. The idea of there just being
saved or condemned was too strict a model. If God was truly merciful,13
could one envisage that all sinners (the petty ones as well as the consoli-
dated and stubbornly repetitive ones) could simply be lost forever? For
this idea to develop and reach its maturity, however, a great amount of
time and thought needed to pass. In his quintessential work The Birth
of Purgatory, the French historian Jacques Le Goff studies the history
of this becoming, of this reaching of its maturity of the thought—
embryonic as it was in the fourth century—that a sheer dualism of the
afterlife did not suffice (and it did not suffice for a whole wagonload of
reasons) and that something, a middle, an intermediate, a third or even a
Third Place, was needed in-between Heaven and Hell.
It is not part of the obligations of this text to complete the ardu-
ous task of providing a summary of Le Goff’s history. It suffices, for
the merit of understanding what follows, to list and comment the two
aspects of Le Goff’s treatise that are of fundamental importance for the
development of this text.14 The first aspect that needs to be stressed
regards the fact, a fact that is shared by the author of, and is fundamen-
tal for, this text, that “Purgatory did not emerge automatically from a
‘diachronic’ series of beliefs and images” but rather it was the result of
“a history in which chance and necessity both played a part” (Le Goff
1990a, 17–18). The second aspect is the double importance of Le Goff’s
rather precise dating of 1) the birth of Purgatory as 2) a noun. In fact,
the noun purgatorium, which is a clear indicator of it having reached the
awareness of being an autonomous place (Le Goff 1990a, 3), did not
exist before 1170 (Le Goff 1990a, 135; 149) and was almost certainly
coined by Peter Comestor whilst he was working at the cathedral school
of the Notre-Dame in (the city of) Paris (Le Goff 1990a, 155–157).
Regarding the first aspect, I can be rather brief in my comments as
it will return in full in the fourth section. At this moment, it suffices to
clarify that Le Goff (and again, the author of this text follows him here)
does not believe in an evolutionary, or linear, history of Purgatory. In
fact, an evolutionary view of Purgatory could not be further from the
historical truth, according to Le Goff (1990a, 58). Purgatory did not
have an evolution but a development that “was neither uniform,” and

more importantly, “nor inevitable” (Le Goff 1990a, 58).
With reference to the second aspect, the dating of the birth of
Purgatory with the coining of the noun purgatorium in the second half
of the twelfth century in Paris, it should go without saying that not all
scholars agree with Le Goff. Some scholars disagree on the date of the
first usage of the noun, agreeing thus with Le Goff on the importance
of the noun purgatorium, whilst others are in complete disagreement.
Amongst the first group I can mention Joseph Ntedika who claims that
Hildebert of Lavardin (also known as Hildebert of Le Mans) was the
first to use the noun in 1133 (Ntedika 1966, 11), and amongst the sec-
ond group the Portuguese historian Isabel Moreira, seems most repre-
sentative. For Moreira (2010, 2015), Purgatory is already a sheer fact by
the middle of the eighth century: “[T]he idea of purgatory as a staging
post in the afterlife,” Moreira writes, “[…], burst on to the eschatologi-
cal landscape in the eighth century” (2010, 5). Without the intention to
underestimate the research of the scholars who disagree with Le Goff,
his argumentation remains the strongest and most reasonable15 (whilst
acknowledging his own proper “trans-” or “meta-historical” position—
something which is not always explicitly done).16 These, now, are the
historical borders within which that which will follow will be developed.
Purgatory: The in-Between

Considering this historical framework, the first question that needs to be
posed is the following: what made the second half of the twelfth cen-
tury so special, what was so peculiar about the decades 1160–1180, for
it to have finally been able to make purgatorium, the noun and place,
to emerge after all the centuries (at least seven if we start counting
from St. Augustine) of a rather common usage of the adjective purgato-
rius? Basically, to rephrase the question(s) a little bit: why did it take so
long for the noun to emerge and what was special about the historical
period of its emergence? If language is minimally the historical creature
as has been claimed over again,17 then the decades that made the sub-
stantive originate after almost seven centuries of adjective do need some
“justification.”
Before we can specifically focus on Purgatory’s emerging in this cen-
tury, it is necessary to stress that the twelfth century is to be considered, as
we already indicated, as a true “turning point” (Caley 2005, 82),
a “century of great advance” (Le Goff 1990a, 130) for Latin

Christendom—elsewhere, Le Goff even speaks of the “twelfth-century
renaissance” (1990b, 73). On a theological, or less strictly, on a religious
level, the twelfth century saw the “birth” and emergence of a whole series
of events and innovations. Just to mention some of the more impor-
tant changes that in one way or another are related to the emergence of
Purgatory: canon law saw the light of day in the twelfth century; scho-
lasticism also started to spread and it solidified in the “newborn” univer-
sities (the university of Bologna being the first one that was founded in
1088, but its ‘first’ real charter was from around the middle of the twelfth
century, and the university of Paris, which came forth from the cathedral
school of Notre Dame, where Purgatory emerged, dates also from around
the year 1150);18 the late twelfth and early thirteenth century also saw the
“birth” (a birth that, obviously, originates far back in time) of the instru-
mentum or sacraments; and finally—the last example of great religious
innovations within the Christian world that will be listed here19—the end
of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century also saw the birth of
both the Mendicant orders of the Franciscans and the Dominicans (who
will prove a wonderful means, in the thirteenth century and onwards, in
spreading the idea of this new third place in the afterlife called Purgatory).
If we now turn to Purgatory, we can take recourse to Jerry Walls who,
whilst following almost to the letter Le Goff’s preference for the emer-
gence of Purgatory in the twelfth century, offers the following summa-
rizing list of five factors that made the twelfth century ripe for it having
“given birth” to Purgatory.20 These five factors are:
(1) the replacement of binary patterns (be they double binary or sin-

gle) by ternary patterns21;
(2) new ways of thinking about time, space, and numbers;
(3) a new stress on justice as a ‘value’ of pivotal concern;
(4) a fundamental shift in eschatology;
(5) a new appreciation for the beneficial potential of (bodily) pain for
moral and personal formation (Walls 2012, 20–21).
Although these five factors do already give a clear idea about what is at
stake, and why these factors would have been fundamental for the emer-
gence of Purgatory, we believe that two others are necessary as well.22
They could be considered as implicitly present in Walls’s list, but we
believe it to be essential for them to be spelled out as well. Thus, a sixth
factor that was imperative for Purgatory to emerge in the twelfth cen-
tury, and a factor that was only formed in the beginning of the twelfth
century as well, regards the new kind of thinking about sin and penance
that formed. The concept of sin (and penance) is obviously not a twelfth-
century invention. However, sin had always been a rather vague concept.
The twelfth century saw a systematization and even a sort of “criminali-
zation” of sin (Caley 2005, 82). Sin was now distinguished from vice
and the concept of venial sin became common usage and, to which it is
intrinsically related, the search for (the sinner’s) ignorance and intentions
became important. Furthermore, and correlated to this highly innovative
distinction between sin and penance, a profound change (the seventh
factor) regarding the practice of confession for the confessant, who now
had to confess auricularly in a one to one situation with the confessor, as
well as the confessor for whom cleansing and not chastising became the
rule (Le Goff 1990b, 12) rapidly emerged in the twelfth century and the
Fourth Lateran Council (1215) saw auricular confession already as com-
pulsory at least once a year (Le Goff 1990a, 216).
So it is in this context that Purgatory, this new place and state in the
afterworld, emerged. This third place, closer to Hell than to Heaven to
which it nonetheless eventually always led, basically meant the possibility
of a second chance, a second chance to be completed after death but for
which the seeds needed to be planted before one’s final breath, to obtain
eternal bliss in the afterlife as the end of the world was no longer to be
considered as imminent. The mere possibility of this second chance was a
strong confirmation of man’s free will and sinfulness in combination with
a firm sign of justice and hope of a just, but nonetheless judging, God
who “needed” atonement23 but, when one was willing to take up one’s
responsibility, always gave leeway to hope. The ordeal through which one
had to go in Purgatory was limited in time and could even be abridged by
means of dispensations (the [in-]famous indulgences that could be bought
and which were probably the main stumbling block for Protestantism
to find peace with Purgatory) or intercessory prayers (the so-called suf-
frages for the dead) which allowed for the creation of a double bond, one
between the living amongst each other and, another one, between the liv-
ing and the dead. All of this allowed for a certain amount of actual control
and power by the Church on this sphere of the afterlife. This is Purgatory,
the intermediate place between Heaven and Hell and that emerged in
the city of Paris, rather close to the working place of the usurers,24 by the
hand of one of the masters at the Cathedral school/university.25
The City
This last sentence allows us to make a very easy transition to the second
important theme of this chapter: the city. In fact, theology, or less strictly
speaking religion, was not the only field where great innovations were
at play. Besides the fact that any separation between ‘state’ and religion
in this period would be utterly artificial (if not even blasphemy),26 some
important changes did take place on a more restricted socio-political
level and in the daily life of ordinary medieval man.
To describe medieval civilization in the same period as the one that
saw the emergence of Purgatory is a very daunting, if not impossible,
task (especially considering the limits imposed by the nature of this text).
Furthermore, doing it accurately would also need an incredible amount
of what is termed (in German) Fingerspitzengefühl. Where does one
start and how does one methodologically continue? In fact, as Le Goff
remarked in another groundbreaking piece of research, his Medieval
Civilization (Le Goff 1988), it is extremely difficult to distinguish cause
and effect in the evolution of Christian Europe as most aspects of this
process were both at once (57). As the intentions of this chapter are to
study the existing parallelisms between Purgatory and the city, both enti-
ties which, as we attend to render evident, mirror and (should continu-
ously) recall one another, a parallel narrative-line (which we will offer in
what follows) with the previous paragraphs on Purgatory might facilitate
understanding.27
Just like the (geography of the) afterlife was not a Christian invention,
neither is the city of Christian origins. The first “cities” existed already
approximately 8000 years ago: Catal Hüyük, in modern day Turkey,
and Jericho, in the valley of the river Jordan in today’s Palestine. This
concentrating phenomenon soon spread to the Orient and the Far East
and eventually also made its way to the cradle of the Western Society
in ancient Greece which had the polis (city-state). Rome maintained
the emphasis on cities in their geopolitical affairs. With the fall of the
Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, the concept of a nucleated
settlement did not vanish from the (still non-existing) maps of the old
continent, but many did vanish and those that remained suffered greatly
from the ‘barbaric invasions’ and economic uncertainty, surviving only in
a much depleted form.28 After some false starts, a whole new urban revo-
lution was well under way by the eleventh and twelfth centuries which
had the city at its center.
This revolution could not have happened without the coming about
of the feudal system in the ninth century.29 Harsh as the feudal system
was, its more stable form of government in combination with an almost
extraordinary agrarian and technological change that took place starting
from the eleventh century. There was a great expansion of iron produc-
tion, usage of water power was used for the first time for mechanical rea-
sons, an increase in intensity of cultivation was possible, ever more land
was cleared for agricultural purposes, etc.,30 allowing for an incredible
growth of population.31 This stability and technical “progress” which
brought along a growth of cultivation which, in the game of co-depend-
ency of cause and effect we already hinted at, allowed the growth of pop-
ulation, in turn allowed for the development (and the need) of greater
craftsmanship, which in its turn allowed for an even denser urbanization,
which, on its turn, allowed a greater observance of internal peace32 and a
decline in the sense of insecurity, which, once more, allowed for another
boost of the economy, etc.33 This almost perpetual movement of auto-
confirmation of the growth of population and of the economic system
was what made the medieval city rise and shine and spread very quickly
and reached its full maturity on the turning from the twelfth to the thir-
teenth century—almost coinciding thus with the emergence of Purgatory.
However, for as much as the medieval city we are studying could not
have formed “outside” the feudal system, it was, as Norman Pounds so
accurately notes, only as “a paradoxical institution” that this same city
could have formed “within” the feudal system. The city, in fact, “was an
exception to the feudal order of things” (Pounds 2005, 9). This paradox-
ical status of the city was offered by its charter, which granted the politi-
cal and economic/commercial liberties for the city.34 The medieval city,
in fact, lay outside of the political control of its lord and of the Church
as well. Just as the city lay outside the control of the noblemen and the
Churchmen, so did its inhabitants form a new category of men (homines
novi). These new men dwelled in the city and were intermediate between
the rural people (the noblemen35 and the farmers) and the ordained peo-
ple (who lived in the world—rural [the monasteries of the older orders]
or city [the convents of the new mendicant orders which in fact settled
in these newly formed cities]—but were not of the world). The citizen
originated in, and at times, even directly came from the fields, but they,
however, no longer occupied themselves with growing these fields. The
city and the citizen were “economic/commercial” creatures through and
through; or, as Henri Pirenne already wrote more than half a century
ago, the citizen and the city were “a [new] middle-class population and a
[new] communal organization” (Pirenne 1946, 56).36 The city, just like
Purgatory, was a new third and intermediate place and its inhabitants, the
citizens, formed an equally new-born third class.
According to Whose History?

I have now demonstrated how Purgatory and the city, at least, that
which had just become Purgatory and that which was becoming the
city, both found, not their origin but a new and particular emergence
in the (second half of the) twelfth century. That I write “not their ori-
gin but a new and particular emergence” is not without reason. Besides
the evident fact that neither Purgatory nor the city did originate but
emerged under different vests in the twelfth century, the often used and
stressed reference to the concept of emergence is also a (not so hidden)
reminder of a precise understanding, or hermeneutics, of history which
can be linked to a very precise proper name of a contemporary French
philosopher: Michel Foucault. In this final section, I will outline some
of the more important aspects related to the preferred usage of “emerg-
ing” in contrast to “originating” or being born. These considerations
are intended to stress the linkage and the interrelatedness between the
emerging of Purgatory and that of the city.
Foucault’s dissection of the difference between “origin” and “emer-
gence” can be pin-pointed to what has been described as his “passage”
from his archaeological phase to his genealogical phase.37 During his
renewed reading of Nietzsche,38 dating from the beginning of the ‘70 s,
Foucault dedicated a study on Nietzsche, “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History”
(Foucault 1984), to one of his more important teachers (Jean Hyppolite
to whose chair at the Collège de France he would soon climb) which is
largely dedicated to the important difference between these two concepts
when conducting genealogical research.39
Besides acknowledging the variety of concepts used by Nietzsche to
describe the beginning(s) of something generally (Ursprung, Herkunft,
Abkunft, Geburt, Entstehen, …), Foucault stresses (discovers) the oppos-
ing usage by Nietzsche of this search of “origins”—Ursprung (origin) vs
Herkunft (descent) or Entstehung (emergence)—that begins in his On
the Genealogy of Morals (Nietzsche 1997).40 Foucault individuates in the
preface to the Genealogy the moment when Nietzsche makes this oppo-
sition a first time (1984, 77). Foucault, in fact, accurately remarks that
Nietzsche, whilst commenting one of his precedent volumes (Human,

All too Human) had written that his “thoughts on the Herkunft (descent)
of our moral prejudices […] were set out […] [exactly in Human, All too
Human –]” (Nietzsche 1997, 44), but that up until then Nietzsche had
not used the word Herkunft but Ursprung to describe these thoughts.
This change, a change that not just befalls upon the preference for
Herkunft/descent but also includes a similar preference for Entstehung/
emergence (Foucault 1984, 80), as Foucault notes, cannot be arbitrary
(1984, 78).
The preference of Entstehung or Herkunft for Ursprung/origin has
a manifold of reverberations to which we cannot refer: for Nietzsche it
regards a profound critique on metaphysics, something which, by sim-
ply mentioning it, can be seen as going well beyond the scope of this
text. It suffices here to consider the main historiographical repercussions
of the priority given to Entstehung/emergence and which indicates “the
moment of arising” (Foucault 1984, 83). Some of the main, and major,
elements the interpretation that Foucault offers of the Entstehung is that
(1) we should not think of emergence as some sort of conclusion, as “a
final term of a historical development” (1984, 83); (2) “it is produced
through a particular stage of forces” (1984, 83); (3) it always occurs in
the interstice and its occurrence is always just as a single drama (1984,
85). To summarize, prioritizing “emergence” as historical concept is,
on the one hand, countering the reconciliatory nature, or undermining
the singular and necessary continuity and monotonous finality of history,
and, on the other hand, to put synchrony on the forefront of under-
standing and knowing.
Integrating these theoretical historico-philosophical aspects with our
preceding analysis of Purgatory and the city, phrases like the following:
“it seems reasonable to suppose that there is a connection between the
way Christian society lays out the other world and the way it organizes
this one, since the two are related by the ties that bind the society of
the living to the society of the dead” (Le Goff 1990a, 4), or, referring
to a period well before the one we treated in this text,41 “[I]t may even
be that the generations of the gods recounted in Hesiod’s Theogony
distantly reflect a shift of political influence from one group or region
to another” (Bernstein 1993, 88) not only seem reasonable historically
speaking but almost “necessary” when considered from the perspective
of the priority of emergence over origin.42 If, historically speaking, the
frontiers between this world and the afterworld were very porous, and if
the “birth” of Purgatory, as conceived in the second half of the twelfth

century, even established some sort of power-enclave in the netherworld
for the Church on earth that mirrored the new communal socio-political
gathering that was (becoming) the city, then all of this could only find
further and more profound confirmation when considered from the
“archaeological/genealogical” point of view. One could then even spec-
ulate and claim that the emergence of Purgatory and the emergence of
the city were part of one and the same single historical drama.
Extraduction: The Purgatorial City

Before we conclude this text with a final speculation/provocation let me
briefly summarize its major stakes. We started this text by studying—very
concisely—the idea of a localized and localizable netherworld in antiq-
uity. We discovered how Early Christianity had appropriated the dualistic
way of organizing the hereafter that had come to characterize the reli-
gions-civilizations (Judaism and the Greco-Roman world) that directly
preceded and highly influenced it. And although Christianity, due to
a variety of reasons, rather quickly started to realize that a pure dualis-
tic organization of the afterlife was incompatible with a just Divinity, it
would not be until the second half of the twelfth century that the noun
purgatorium, the existence of which is to be considered as a clear indica-
tor of it having reached the awareness of being an autonomous place,
came into existence. In fact, following Le Goff, Purgatory, this new third
and intermediate place between Heaven and Hell was almost certainly
coined by Peter Comestor whilst he was working at the cathedral school
of the Notre-Dame in (the city of) Paris. This was the first fundamental
discovery and affirmation of this text.
Leaving the theological/religious world behind (for as much as that
was possible in the Middle Ages), we discovered that at almost the same
time another third place was forming, that housed a new (third and inter-
mediate class of) men. This place was the city, and its inhabitant(s) were
the new “class” of merchant/commercial citizen(s). It rose, as we discov-
ered, as an exception to the feudal system which had known, starting in
the eleventh century, an extraordinary agrarian and technological revolu-
tion. This new intermediate place and these new intermediate men dwelled
between the countryside where the noblemen and the farmers resided and
the non-world (in the world but not of this world as the Gospel of John
[15:19] relates) of the monasteries or convents of the ordained people.
Having discovered two almost simultaneous and mirroring emer-

gences (Purgatory’s and the city’s) we have, in the final section,
attempted to demonstrate that what was at stake was not a mere coin-
cidence between their (time of) emerging. In order to do so we have
taken recourse to a text by Michel Foucault that interpreted Nietzsche’s
diversification and opposition between origin and descent or emergence
as it was present in some of his later work. We thus found philosophi-
cal confirmation of what we had posed as mere (non-theoretically based)
possibility, namely, the founded-ness of a meaningful historical synchrony
and co-emergence of two seemingly un-related co-temporal emergences
such as Purgatory and the city. The theoretical confirmation we thus dis-
covered of what initially seemed a purely speculative thesis, namely of
the existence of a necessary parallel between the newly formed way of
pre-mortem living together in the newly formed communities and the
newly formed way of postmortem living in the newly formed community
known as Purgatory, made us take the leap into the speculative conclu-
sion that the emergence of Purgatory and the emergence of the city were
part of one and the same single historical drama.
All of this has to suffice for our brief summary. What remains is the
final speculation. But before, a primary ‘maybe’ and a lot of ‘maybes’
will be present in these last sentences. So maybe, all of this can or has
to be considered as a mere parody. This observation would not be
mistaken at all. In fact, the parodic use of history was, to return once
more to Foucault’s reading of Nietzsche, part of the new historical
sense discovered from the priority given to emergence over origin (cf.
Foucault 1984, 93–94).43 But maybe more than a parody the image
evocated of a co-emerging of that which would become our most com-
mon form of cohabitation (the city) with that section of the afterlife
which is not yet Heaven but, fortunately as well, neither is it Hell, is a
provocation.
And so, in conclusion, let me spell this provocation out in full. Maybe
Dante was wrong. Maybe one should not think of Purgatory as a hill-
side to climb to reach Heaven. Maybe, and one final maybe, one should
simply think of Purgatory as a city. And, what should not be forgotten,
especially for us citizens who dwell in this place that is the mirror locus
purgatorium, is that while the only exit will lead towards Heaven, up
until arriving there we are in the hands of demons; or, said differently,
living in a city is, and notwithstanding the fact that it does not regard
Hell, living in demonically governed territory.44
Notes
1. This is at least the sad case in some of the “modern” Western countries.
2. For the sake of accuracy, it seems necessary to stress that the “death” we
are talking about is the “Western world’s death”. This Western death,
however, is, together with “democracy,” as if they interrelate (“democ-
racy” defeating death), being imposed in crescendo upon the non-Western
world.
3. Geoffrey Gorer could already “pioneeringly” write in (Gorer 1955) that
“[I]n the 20th century, however, there seems to have been an unre-
marked shift in prudery; whereas copulation has become more and
more ‘mentionable,’ particularly in the Anglo-Saxon societies, death has
become more and more ‘unmentionable’ as a natural process” (Gorer
1955, 50).
4. See, for example, Ana Naomi de Sousa’s article in The Guardian that deals
with the problem posed by people dying in the great cities of the world:
“Death in the city: what happens when all our cemeteries are full?” (de
Sousa 2015). A similar article was published some months later by John
McManus (2015) entitled “The world is running out of burial space.”
5. That such a precise date of the period of interest can be proposed does
not regard an attempt to demonstrate that one can discover in the sec-
ond half of the twelfth century the actual “birth” of Purgatory. This, by
the way, would be pretty darn wrong. However, neither is my precision
related to the actual “birth” of the noun “purgatorium”—that indicated
a place called as such, which was de facto coined in that period as Jacques
Le Goff has accurately demonstrated (cf. 1990a, 133–176). The rea-
son that I can pinpoint my period of interest so neatly is actually nega-
tive in nature. It regards the mere fact, and here I am following Michel
Foucault, that what is of interest to me is not the actual “birth” of some-
thing (Purgatory) but its “emerging.”
6. Prof. Iain T. Benson, my friend and co-founder of the Small Circle, has
very recently called my attention to Jacques Ellul’s The Meaning of the
City. Unfortunately, I have not had the time to integrate the repercus-
sions of my reading of Ellul’s work into this text. I would like to stress
though that nothing of the main argument here proposed would have
needed to be altered. In fact, if anything, my argument can be considered
as akin to Ellul’s and finds a number of interesting confirmations in this
intriguing volume. Just to mention one interesting affinity, similarly as Le
Goff was able to state that Purgatory consisted of one of history’s ironies,
Ellul claims that also the city is a rather ironic place: “[T]he city,” as Ellul
writes, is “the place where the immense irony of God hides” (Ellul 2011,
19). I would like to seize this moment also to thank three other partici-
pants of the Small Circle gatherings, Prof. Christo Lombaard, Dr. Carlo
Salzani, and Calvyn du Toit, who read early drafts of this text and offered
precious advice and comments.
7. Historian John Casey even claims that “[B]elief in an afterlife may go back
as far as we have knowledge of human beings. […] It is even possible that
belief in postmortem survival goes back to Neanderthal man; and burial
rites that could point to such a belief are of immemorial antiquity and
well-nigh universal” (Casey 2009, 13).
8. For this highly concise summary I base myself mainly on Alan
E. Bernstein’s (1993) and also Robert Henry Charles’s (1913) is still
(although it is not of recent date) a good introduction to the intricate
history of Sheol and Gehenna.
9. I write “traditions” in between quotation marks to stress two different
facts. First, claiming there is something as a Judaic and even a Greco-
Roman tradition is intended to be considered as a sort of (very large)
generalization. Second, it should not be forgotten that each of these “tra-
ditions” spans hundreds of years, and any form of monistic and evolu-
tionary considerations are to be taken with extreme caution. Considering
the harsh summarizing nature of the observations made, I do believe
these considerations to be allowed solely in their suspending nature
(bracketing) of the concept of tradition.
10. It is very interesting to note—something which I, unfortunately, cannot
further develop here—how the afterlife seems to have functioned, from
the very beginning, as some sort of powerful political weapon (this,
furthermore, will also be an important aspect in the development of
Purgatory).
11. Alan E. Bernstein is correct to insist on the fact that this separation of
places and fates in the afterlife is, historically speaking for the Jewish com-
munity, a minority point of view. It, however, became more and more
present in Judaism as time passed. And even though it found its way into
print only late, it did go back to oral traditions and legends that go back
to times of some of the Genesis verses (Bernstein 1993, 178–182).
12. This is not the time nor the place to make the first statements of this sen-
tence hard. There is a whole library of literature dedicated to the vicin-
ity (or not) of early Christianity with the Judaic sect of the Essenes. As
this literature is highly polarized I will not refer to any of the possible
works as reference (my positioning is, considering the sentence used, per-
fectly clear). Regarding early Christianity’s closeness to the philosophical
schools (a not less polemical field of studies), I can refer to my “How
Philosophical were the First Christians? The First Generation of Fathers
seen through Archaeological Glasses” (Vanhoutte 2014).
13. As Le Goff states (and Bernstein seems to agree with Le Goff on this
issue), it was the notions of justice and responsibility underlying all the
early attempts to describing what would become Purgatory. But they also
proved incapable of resolving the issue on their own (cf. Le Goff 1990a,
38).
14. These two aspects are to be considered as fully embraced in this text.
15. One of the stronger arguments that can be put forth in defense of Le
Goff’s thesis is that, to say it very crudely and somewhat exaggerat-
edly, before the twelfth century, Christian religious leaders and scholars
actually cared very little about the period of time (after one’s death and
before the final judgement) where any such possible ‘thing’ as Purgatory
would be located. These were mysteries that went above pure reasoning
and could easily lead the faithful in spheres smelling of heresy. So it was
better, as St. Augustine already advised his brethren, to not investigate
these things too much as we were not made to understand them.
16. Even a scholar like Jerry L. Walls, who has a very different scholarly and
religious agenda than Le Goff, agrees that “[T]he twelfth century was the
next significant period in the historical narrative of Purgatory, and indeed
this is where its birth can arguably be located with some precision” (Walls
2012, 17).
17. See, for example, Walter Benjamin or, more recently and following
Benjamin, Giorgio Agamben.
18. According to Le Goff, Purgatory emerged in the spring-time of
Scholasticism in the Parisian University and, the second fecund place
where it grew, in the many Cistercian monasteries where the great mas-
ters of Paris retired (1990a, 167–168).
19. Other changes and events that could have been mentioned are the grow-
ing importance of the commemoration of the dead (an activity that had
started already in the beginning of the eleventh century in Cluny) or the
rise of heresy in the twelfth century. Besides the occasional individual her-
etic, with, as we will see in the next section, the remarkable urban growth
and the considerable advance in all type of exchanges (economic, cultural,
and religious), obviously an “advance” that should never be understood
in our modern terms, the cases of Waldensian and Cathari heresies would
constantly grow.
20. Our insisting on Purgatory “emerging” in the twelfth century is, as we
will explain in the fourth section, to be understood differently than
Walls’s understanding of it as a natural “birth” (Walls 2012, 22).
21. As, again, Jacques Le Goff so poignantly explains, the change from a
bipartite to a tripartite society appeared already at the end of the ninth
century, but it only reached maturity and had become a common-
place in the eleventh and twelfth century. It corresponded to a (dou-
ble) new need, on the one hand the description and explaining of the
new social and political structures, on the other hand, it also regarded a
tool, an instrument, of action (intellectual, that is propaganda-wise, and

non-intellectual) (Le Goff 1980, 53–57).
22. Walls acknowledged there were more factors that could and probably
should have been mentioned, so this addition we offer is not intended as
a critique on Walls.
23. I am aware that by referring to this atonement or satisfaction model of
Purgatory I am “taking sides” in the Catholic versus Protestant “battles”
on Purgatory. We are, however, attempting to describe the twelfth cen-
tury model and every different description would be, although maybe
theologically acceptable, ahistorical.
24. It should not go unmentioned that, the new group of “intellectuals”
that would come forth with the rise and proliferation of the university,
would, just like the usurer, be in great need of its own rhetorical devices
to defend itself from very similar accusations as those made to the usu-
rer (instead of vendors of time they would be considered as vendors of
knowledge—and time and knowledge solely belonged to God) (Le Goff
1990b, 41). Both categories of men would find in Purgatory a “safe-
haven” away from certain Hell.
25. The cathedral school of Notre Dame in Paris is, in fact, the first of the
cathedral schools that turned into a university. The few other universities
that had been founded on the continent did not rise from a pre-existing
cathedral school. Paris was the first after which a whole number would
follow.
26. Just like antiquity can be characterized as forming a world full of gods,
also the Middle Ages can be considered similarly. The only difference
would be that the world was full of God (singular and capital G) and his
angels, his adversaries the demons, and the roaming dead (the number of
ghost-stories or stories of those who temporarily returned from the after-
life, was, and still is, impressive).
27. Besides the work of Le Goff, also Norman Pounds (2005) has been of
great help in the writing of this section.
28. The city-settlements that survived the “darkest” periods of late antiquity
and the early Middle Ages lacked two of the most fundamental aspects of
the city: it (that is its inhabitants) being almost exclusively dedicated to
commercial activity and it being endowed with legal institutions peculiar
to itself (cf. Pirenne 1946).
29. That the separation between religion and “state” was artificial finds con-
firmation in the fact that the feudal seigneuries were, first of all, partly
ecclesiastical ones, and, secondly, these same ecclesiastical feudal seigneu-
ries were, in the period we are talking about, amongst the most powerful
of all (cf. Le Goff 1990a, 131).
30. All of these elements more than probably came about not because of sheer
joy in technological discovery but out of sheer necessity to fulfill the
harsh demand of dues the peasants needed to “pay” their landlords.
31. Between the eleventh and mid-thirteenth century, the population of
Western Europe doubled.
32. The bellicose needs and desires were obviously not suppressed (it suffices
to think of the crusades); the battlefield-lines were simply displaced to the
“fringes” of “Western European Christianity.”
33. The story is formally very similar to the emergence of Purgatory. In
fact, also regarding the city, most of the factors that made it into what
it became did have much older origins but changed in intensity in the
period we are treating. Also here the specifications stressed by Le Goff on
the emerging of Purgatory can be used regarding the “birth” of the city:
“[Purgatory/the city] did not emerge automatically from a ‘diachronic’
series of beliefs and images”: it was the result of “a history in which
chance and necessity both played a part” (Le Goff 1990a, 17–18).
34. As Pounds summarizes well: “The primary function of a charter was to
allow its citizens to have their own form of government, separate and dis-
tinct from that of the surrounding countryside. […] There were also, as
a general rule, certain economic—specifically commercial—concessions”
(Pounds 2005, 101).
35. The ruling class had, in fact, settled in the countryside, becoming land-
owners; this “emigration” had been one of the main starting-shots of the
whole feudal system. Only rarely did the noblemen permanently live in
the (their) cities.
36. This has since also been re-confirmed by, for example, Le Goff (cf. 1988,
70–80).
37. Without having the necessary place to elaborate, we want to insist that
we consider Foucault’s philosophical work as a “unity.” The “passage”
between archaeology and genealogy is not to be considered, as it has
been done, as forming a rupture in his work, but as putting an empha-
sis on different aspects of the same historico-philosophical analysis
that is Foucault’s work. A proof of this “unity” can be found precisely
also in the suspicion of the concept of “origin.” In fact, already in his
Archaeology of Knowledge (Foucault’s methodological and theoretical
treatise par excellence of his archaeological technique) is the archeological
analysis described (its fourth principle) as “not a return to the innermost
secret of the origin; […]” (Foucault 2002, 156). Thus already fully part
of his analytical procedure, the suspicion of the origin will now, in his
“genealogical” phase, receive a greater emphasis than it had received in
the archaeological period.
38. A reading which can be described, along the lines written by Le Goff we
already reported, as a mixture of cause and effect of this passage from
archaeology to genealogy.
39. Gary Gutting (2011, 92) is quite accurate in insisting that this text was
written along the lines of the typical explication de texte- style which
Foucault must have used a manifold of times when studying under
Hyppolite. This means that we should not consider this text as containing
Foucault’s manifesto of what genealogy is. However, regarding the dis-
tinction that interests us, this consideration can somewhat be left aside—
also because of what we have written in note 37.
40. Nietzsche, as Foucault acknowledges (1984, 98 n10), also continues, in
his Genealogy, to use Herkunft and Ursprung interchangeably. But on
these occasions, still according to Foucault, Nietzsche is not truly pursu-
ing a genealogical research.
41. Thus confirming that what is at stake is actually a philosophical (not just a
historical) claim.
42. The attentive reader will also immediately realize that we have encoun-
tered a whole series of similar affirmations in the preceding sections.
43. There is another possible interpretation of the parodic as used here for
which we, unfortunately, do not have the place anymore. This other
reading, proposed by Giorgio Agamben in his “essay” entitled “Parody”
(2007, 37–51), does not regard a transformation of something previously
existing into something comical, but the rupture between two co-tempo-
ral elements which liberates a space para (besides it). This parody, how-
ever, is not portrayed by Purgatory but by Limbo (Agamben 2007, 44).
I will return to this concept of Limbo in my forthcoming book Limbo
Reapplied: On Living in Perennial Crisis and the Immanent Afterlife.
44. This might seem a very extravagant, even outrageous, claim, but all in all
it is rather a modest one—very modest even if one considers it merely on
eventual merits of originality. The statement that the city has something
demonic is, in fact, easily found already in the Old Testament, repeated in
the New Testament as well, and it is evidently one of the main storylines
in St. Augustine’s The City of God.
References
G. Agamben (2007) Profanations, J. Fort (tr.) (New York: Zone Books).
P. Ariès (1976) Western Attitudes Toward Death from the Middle Ages to the
Present, P. M. Ranum (tr.) (London: Marion Boyars).
A. E. Bernstein (1993) The Formation of Hell. Death and Retribution in the
Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (London: UCL Press).
J. Casey (2009) After Lives. A Guide to Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory (Oxford
and New York: Oxford University Press).
D. Cayley (2005) The Rivers North of the Future. The Testament of Ivan Illich
(Toronto: House of Anansi Press).
R. H. Charles (1913) Eschatology: The Doctrine of a Future Life in Israel, in
Judaism, and in Christianity; Or Hebrew, Jewish, and Christian Eschatology
from Pre-prophetic times till the close of the New Testament Canon (Eugene:
Wipf and Stock Publishers).
A. N. de Sousa (2015) ‘Death in the city: what happens when all our cemeteries
are full?’, in The Guardian, 21 January (https://www.theguardian.com/cit-
ies/2015/jan/21/death-in-the-city-what-happens-cemeteries-full-cost-dying,
accessed 30-08-2016).
J. Ellul (2011) The Meaning of the City, D. Pardee (tr.) (Eugene: Wipf&Stock).
M. Foucault (1984) ‘Nietzsche, Genealogy, History’, in P. Rabinow (ed.) The
Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books), pp. 76–100.
M. Foucault (2002) The Archaeology of Knowledge, M. Sheridan Smith (tr.)
(London and New York: Routledge).
G. Gorer (1955) ‘The Pornography of Death’, in Encounter, October,
pp. 49–52.
G. Gutting (2011) Thinking the Impossible. French Philosophy Since 1960 (Oxford:
J. Le Goff (1980) Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages, A. Goldhammer
(tr.) (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press).
J. Le Goff (1988) Medieval Civilization 400–1500, J. Barrow (tr.) (Oxford and
Cambridge: Blackwell).
J. Le Goff (1990a) The Birth of Purgatory, A. Goldhammer (tr.) (Alderschot:
Scolar Press).
J. Le Goff (1990b) Your Money or Your Life. Economy and Religion in the Middle
Ages, P. Ranum (tr.) (New York: Zone Books).
J. McManus (2015) ‘The World is running out of burial space’, in The BBC, 13
March, (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31837964, accessed 30-08-2016).
I. Moreira (2010) Heaven’s Purge: Purgatory in Late Antiquity (Oxford and New
York: Oxford University Press).
I. Moreira (2015) ‘Purgatory and History: Augustine and Bede’, in Michael
Root and James J. Buckley (eds.) Heaven, Hell, … And Purgatory? (Eugene:
Cascade Books), pp. 34–46.
F. Nietzsche (1997) On the Genealogy of Morals (Cambridge and New York:
Cambridge University Press).
J. Ntedika (1966) Évolution de la doctrine du Purgatoire chez Saint Augustin
(Paris: Études Augustiniennes).
H. Pirenne (1946) Medieval Cities. Their origin and the revival of trade,
F. D. Halsey (tr.) (Princeton: Princeton University Press).
N. Pounds (2005) The Medieval City (Westport and London: Greenwood Press).
K.K.P. Vanhoutte (2014) ‘How Philosophical were the First Christians? The first
generation of Fathers seen through Archaeological glasses’, in A. Brent, M.
Ludlow and M. Vinzent (eds.), Studia Patristica LXXII: Papers presented
at the Fourth British Patristics conference, at the University of Exeter, 5–7
September 2012 (Leuven-Paris-Dudley: Peeters) pp. 15–28.
J. L. Walls (2012) Purgatory. The Logic of Total Transformation (New York:
J. Th. Welter ed. (1926) Tabula exemplorum secundum ordinem Alphabeti.
Recueil d’exempla compilé en France à la fin du XIIIe siècle (Paris-Toulouse:
Occitania).
CHAPTER 9
Climbing up to Heaven: The Hermetic

Option
Stephen R.L. Clark
Prelude to Dante’s Purgatory

In Plato’s imagined Hades only a few are condemned to everlasting tor-
ment, just as only a very few can expect to escape the Wheel entirely.
Most of us are likely to suffer through a punishment or purgation of our
follies, before being re-embodied in human or animal form. Our pun-
ishments may be tailored to our sins—presumably indeed they must
be if they are to be considered curative or purgative in purpose. But it
does not seem that Plato or his authorities hypothesized a graduated
scheme or series. In another myth Plato implies that we may be sorted,
as it were, into different clans, each following her own peculiar god in
the cavalcade of Heaven, but this is for those who have escaped, or not
yet fallen.1 Who first introduced the notion that there may be levels of
damnation, or of purgation, is unclear. Our own conception of Hell, of
Purgatory Peak, or even of the ordered Heavens, has its proximate origin
in Dante’s Comedy, but he had predecessors.
S.R.L. Clark (*) 
Department of Philosophy, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_9
152 S.R.L. Clark
One possible source is the scheme of ascent (and corresponding

descent) through the planetary spheres imagined in the Hermetic Corpus
and in The Book of Enoch (see Barker 1988). Late antique hermeticists
described the ascent to “Heaven’’ as a progressive purging of planetary
influences (typically acquired during the soul’s earlier descent or fall to
Earth). Plotinus himself gestures to this notion in speaking of “stripping
off” in our ascent to the higher world “what we put on in our descent”
(I.6 [1].7, 5–6),2 but does not explicitly draw any important conclusions
from the different characters of the planetary spirits. The conclusion he
does openly draw—that we ourselves, our true selves, are what is left
once the planetary influences have been stripped away—is one to which I
shall return.
In the Timaeus the God who makes the world gives “the first principle of
soul’’, but the gods who are borne through the heavens “the terrible and
inevitable passions’’, ‘angers’, and desires and ‘pleasures and pains,’ and
the ‘other kind of soul’, from which comes passions of this kind. These
statements bind us to the stars, from which we get our souls, and subject
us to necessity when we come down here; from them we get our moral
characters, our characteristic actions, and our emotions, coming from a
disposition which is liable to emotion. So what is left which is ‘we’? Surely,
just that which we really are, we to whom nature gave power to master our
passions. (II.3 [52].9, 7ff; after Plato, Timaeus 69c5ff)
Each of us is double, he goes on to say, and our liberty lies in rising to

a “higher’’ world, beyond the planetary spheres or even the highest
heavens. Centuries later, Ibn Arabi also spoke of an ascent in which we
put off the garments we had, perhaps, acquired in an original descent
(Uzdavinys 2011, 59).3
How should we, nowadays, deal with these stories? They may always
have been read in a variety of ways: literal, moral, analogical and ana-
gogical (as traditional hermeneutics suggest: lettera gesta docet, quid
credas allegoria, moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia).4 The literal or
astrological meaning is now incredible, but this was never the primary
or determinative meaning: our ancestors believed the literal story of a
descent or an ascent through the heavenly spheres because it fitted their
moral sense, not vice versa. The allegorical meaning has to do with the
presumed stages of creation and dissolution or return—and this too may
now be of little interest. The moral and anagogical meanings represent
9 CLIMBING UP TO HEAVEN: THE HERMETIC OPTION 153
what faults or secret longings we may need to abandon if we are to act

rightly in this life or have any hope of redemption in the next.
The most famous of imagined Purgatories is still Dante’s. He does
refer to the planets’ influence on our character and circumstances (with-
out granting them any power to fix our fates),5 and writes that the climb
up Purgatory Peak takes him through seven ledges, each with its peculiar
vice: pride, envy, anger, sloth, greed, gluttony and lust are each purged
in the climb. Dante’s Purgatory differs, it seems, from earlier imagin-
ings in discriminating seven particular vices, each with their appropri-
ate penalty or purge, to be dealt with one by one. In the earlier stories
Purgatory’s pains differ from the infernal only in that they will one day—
perhaps at the Day of Judgement—have an end.6 He may have bor-
rowed part of his story from Byzantine sources: “the soul’s slow ascent
through the tollgates of heaven,—tested at each stage by the impreca-
tions of demons, uncertainly dependent upon the intercession of angels
or saints—became the most common Byzantine view of the afterlife”
(Dal Santo 2012, 124–125).7 The idea also appears in “Gnostic” texts:
Pistis Sophia speaks of distinct purifications for distinctive sins, adminis-
tered by successive demons, followed by forgetfulness at the hands of the
Virgin of Light—but there is a gap in the text, and the pattern is unclear
(though the sevenfold structure is perhaps hinted at). “Hereafter they
lead it [that is, the soul] to the Virgin of Light, who judgeth the good
and the evil, that she may judge it” (Pistis Sophia 1921, 312–314).8
But perhaps there was a more immediate source. It seems likely that
Dante had read Macrobius’ Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, or at
least the Dream itself: apart from his reference to the planetary spheres,
he also echoes Scipio’s gaze downward on the tiny earth below: “I
turned about to look once more through all the seven spheres and see-
ing there the globe, I smiled to see how small and cheap it seemed”
(Paradise 22.133–5).9 On the other hand, he follows Cicero’s text
(without comment) by placing the Sun the fourth planet upwards, rather
than—as Macrobius insisted after Plato himself—the second.10 Nor does
he trouble to associate the vices purged away with particular planetary
influences—though we could (obviously) link anger to Mars, sloth to
Saturn, lust to Venus and so on. Even if the thought had occurred to
him it would probably have been dismissed: he could not willingly asso-
ciate the planetary spheres with vice. Plotinus agreed that “the sun and
other heavenly bodies…communicate no evil to the other pure soul”
154 S.R.L. Clark
(II.3 [52].9, 35f). “Even if their bodies are fiery, there is no need to
fear them” (II.9 [33].13, 11–12). Dante also ignores Macrobius’, and
Cicero’s, conviction that the lands that we inhabit are only a fourth part
of the Earth: the inhabitants of the other quadrants are forever divided
from us and from each other by polar cold and equatorial heat. Like
Gregory Palamas (1988, 9–14) he disposes of non-Adamite Antipodeans
by supposing that the world beyond our lands is only ocean–except for
Purgatory Peak.
There is also a curious, partial resemblance to the account given in the
Hermetic text, Poimandres: in its ascent the soul
at the first zone surrender[s] the energy of increase and decrease; at the
second [zone] evil machination, a device now inactive; at the third the
illusion of longing, now inactive; at the fourth the ruler’s arrogance, now
freed of excess; at the fifth unholy presumption and daring recklessness; at
the sixth the evil impulses that come from wealth, now inactive; and at the
seventh zone the deceit that lies in ambush. (cited in Copenhaver 1992,
6)11
Servius the Grammarian, in his commentary on Virgil’s Aeneid 6.714,

offers a slightly different array of planetary vices, acquired in the soul’s
descent: “the astrologers claim that when the souls descend, they draw
with them the sluggishness of Saturn, the anger of Mars, the lust of
Venus, the desire for wealth of Mercury, the desire for power of Jupiter.”
Thadeusz Zielinski commented that it was “obvious” that the two other
familiar vices, gluttony and envy, should be associated respectively with
the “all-consuming Sun”, and “the pale Moon” (Tester 1997, 119; cit-
ing Thadeusz Zielinski Philologus 64.1905, 21ff).12 The seven planetary
rulers are of course a common feature of apocalyptic and “Gnostic”
texts: enemies of humanity and servants of a maleficent creator whom
the Saviour must bypass in his descent, and we in our ascent. Whether
the authors of those texts—for example, the Apocryphon of John—
intended any coherent narrative in naming and describing them we can-
not now discover (see Apocryphon of John 12.12–21 in Layton 1987, 37).
Perhaps the changing details matter less than the underlying
message—that there are a finite number of distinct vices, holding us
back from Heaven, and that they are all perversions of powers we
needed in our descent, whether or not we were right to descend. Even
in Poimandres, the archons of the planetary spheres are initially created
as part of the cosmic order, helping souls on their way.13 Macrobius pre-
ferred to speak rather of capacities than vices: by his account we pick up
“reason and understanding” (logistikon and theoretikon) in the sphere of
Saturn,
in Jupiter’s sphere, the power to act, called praktikon; in Mars’ sphere, a

bold spirit or thymikon; in the sun’s sphere, sense-perception and imagi-
nation, aisthetikon and phantastikon; in Venus’ sphere, the impulse of
passion, epithymetikon; in Mercury’s sphere, the ability to speak and inter-
pret, hermeneutikon; and in the lunar sphere, the function of moulding
and increasing bodies, phytikon. (Macrobius 1952, 136; see also Kissling
1922)
Lunar influence is not merely physical (as it might seem): below the
Moon is the realm of the transient, the mutable, and its power allows us
instability, for good as well as ill (see Lewis 1964, 3–5; 108).
Can we combine these various associations, including both Dante’s
Purgatory and his Paradise, and the planetary qualities we now remem-
ber? (Table 8.1)14
Comparing the relevant texts, there are some shared expectations,
but Dante’s Purgatory seems deliberately different. The account he gives
of vice depends rather on the scholastic story, of love perverted or mis-
placed (Purgatory 17.91–139). The vices purged in Purgatory—as well
as the slightly different collection punished forever in Hell—are the ones
identified by Gregory:
For pride is the root of all evil, of which it is said, as Scripture bears wit-
ness; Pride is the beginning of all sin [Ecclesiasticus 10.1]. But seven prin-
cipal vices, as its first progeny, spring doubtless from this poisonous root,
namely, vainglory, envy, anger, melancholy, avarice, gluttony, lust. (Gregory
(1844) Morals on the Book of Job XXXI, 86–87)15
This is also the order offered in Dante’s Purgatory, with only the
minor change that pride and vainglory are almost the same thing.16
The vices are to be purged in the same order as their production,
without troubling about their origin. So what would pagans think the
proper order of purgation, acted out in their fantasy of ascent through
the planetary spheres? Does it depend on thinking that one vice leads
to another?
156 S.R.L. Clark
Table 8.1 Planetary characters
Poimandres Macrobius Servius Paradise Purgatory
Moon Increase and Phytikon Envy? Inconstant Pride Lunatic or

decrease phlegmatic
Mercury Evil machination Hermeneutikon Avarice Ambitious Envy Mercurial
Venus Longing Epithymetikon Lust Lovers Anger Venereal
Sun Arrogance Aisthetikon Gluttony? Wise Sloth Solar
Mars Recklessness Thymikon Anger Warriors Greed Martial or
choleric
Jupiter Evil impulses that Praktikon Desire for power Just rulers Gluttony Jovial or sanguine
come from wealth
Saturn Deceit Logistikon Sluggishness Contemplatives Lust Saturnine or
melancholic
The Powers of the Planets

Commentators have no qualms interpreting Dante’s work as moral and
anagogical, but usually dismiss the pagan stories as being merely false, or
plainly superstitious. This is particularly so when they warn us of malevo-
lent archons in the heavens, “ousiarchs.” But there is more substance in
the stories, even if there are no “literal” archons, and even if the texts
which speak most often about those archons are unintelligible, to us.
Our progress “upwards” can be conceived as a successive stripping away
of the garments donned in the earlier descent from Heaven through the
planetary spheres.
The attainment [of the good] is for those who go up to that higher world
and are converted and strip off what we put on in our descent; (just as for
those who go up to the celebrations of sacred rites there are purifications
and strippings off of the clothes they wore before, and going up naked)
until passing in the ascent all that is alien to the God, one sees with one’s
self alone. (Plotinus, I.6 [1].7)17
Our essential selves—they thought—were immortal spirits, with neither

real beginning nor real end. Those selves belonged “aloft”, but needed
to acquire additional capacities if they were to manage the physical and
social worlds below. These were the lesser “parts” that Plato deduced
from our experience of conflict: chiefly the “spirited” and “desirous” ele-
ments, imagined in his Phaedrus as horses for the soul’s chariot, and in
The Republic as lion-like or yet more monstrous beasts (Plato Republic
9: 588c7, 590a9; see Plotinus I.1 [53].7, 18–21). Plotinus, follow-
ing Aristotle’s suggestion, reckoned that even intelligent reasoning was
a lesser capacity than Nous: something that might easily become mere
“cleverness”, dei notes or panourgia (see Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics
6.1144a23–27). So Macrobius’ list may not be far from his implicit view:
as we descend (as it were) from Heaven, we acquire both theoretical and
practical understanding, spiritedness, perception, passion, speech—and
the final need to build and mould our bodies. We need these if we are to
help the World Soul in her making and mending of the material world—
but they are easily corrupted.
What comes from the stars will not reach the recipients in the same state
in which it left them. If it is fire, for instance, the fire down here is dim,
and if it is a loving disposition (philiake diathesis) it becomes weak in the
158 S.R.L. Clark
recipient and produces a rather unpleasant kind of loving (ou mala kalen
ten philesin); and manly spirit, when the receiver does not take it in due
measure, so as to become brave, produces violent temper or spiritlessness;
and that which belongs to honour in love and is concerned with beauty
produces desire of what only seems to be beautiful, and the efflux of intel-
lect produces knavery (panourgia); for knavery wants to be intellect, only
it is unable to attain what it aims at. So all these things become evil in us,
though they are not so up in heaven. (Plotinus, II.3 [52].11)
Which particular planets, if any, Plotinus associated with the qualities

he described is unclear, or even what exactly those qualities amount to:
what is the distinction between “a loving disposition” and what “belongs
to honour in love and is concerned with beauty?” Does his reference
to “fire” have an ethical content? Does “the efflux of intellect” refer to
dianoia? That seems likely, since it is Nous (or the part of Soul that is the
closest to Nous) that comes directly from the divine, rather than from
planetary gods (though there is also an association of Nous and Kronos,
which I shall develop later). “Reasoning” of that ambiguous sort may
be derived from Saturn (Kronos) or perhaps instead from Mercury
(Hermes). The obvious source of fire (whatever is intended by it) is the
Sun, of “manly spirit” (thumos) Mars; and Venus (Aphrodite) promotes
both heavenly and vulgar desire. Jupiter (Zeus), “the God of Friends,
Suppliants, Strangers, Refugees” (Chrysostom 1939, 79–81) may be
responsible for “friendship,” associations good or ill (for philia is not the
same as eros, even if both, in some sense, count as “love”). The Moon,
we may assume, makes all these qualities transient and confused. Gall
(associated by others with Kronos) is balanced by sweetness (Aphrodite),
and the living fire of the Sun by the angry fire of Mars (Plotinus II.3
[52].12, 21–29). But these details, though they are present in the back-
ground of Plotinus’ thought, seem to have had little effect on him.
The Sun especially cooperates in the making of all living creatures,
perhaps, but neither the Sun nor any other star, whether fixed or wan-
dering, affects their substance (II.3 [52].12, 4–11; see Aristotle Physics
2.194b13). On the other hand, they are present in the background of
his thought, even if he did n’t use them openly as stages in the ascent.
Whatever, their origin there is still a link between our vices and the
virtues we should have instead. Hildegard of Bingen also insisted that
our vices conceal what once were virtues: “what is now melancholy in
man shone in him like the dawn and contained in itself the wisdom and
perfection of good works”. Before Adam fell “what is now gall in him
sparkled like crystal, and bore the taste of good works, and what is now
melancholy in man shone in him like the dawn and contained in itself the
wisdom and perfection of good works” (Klibansky et al. 1964, 80; citing
Hildegard of Bingen). And Ps-Dionysius: “their fury of anger represents
an intellectual power of resistance of which anger is the last and faint-
est echo; their desire symbolizes the Divine Love; and in short we might
find in all the irrational tendencies and many parts of irrational creatures,
figures of the immaterial conceptions and single powers of the Celestial
Beings” (2004, 34; see Louth 1989, 47). Gregory acknowledged the
same connection:
But [the soul of the Elect] takes thought, first, not to commit any evils,
and secondly, not to do good things inconsiderately; and, after he has sub-
dued wickednesses, he strives also to subject to himself his very virtues, lest
they should be converted into the sin of pride, if they should get beyond
the control of the mind. For since, as has before been said, evils frequently
spring from good deeds, through the vice of negligence; he observes with
watchful zeal how arrogance rises from learning, cruelty from justice, care-
lessness from tenderness, anger from zeal, sloth from gentleness. (Gregory
(1844) Morals on the Book of Job XXXI, 86)
Stripping Away Our Vices

So what are the Plotinian, or Neo-Platonic, virtues? The Platonic four-
some, since widely recognized as the “cardinal’’ virtues, are courage, self-
possession, justice and good sense (andreia, sophrosune, dikaiosune and
phronesis). To these any Platonist (including Aristotle) would add sophia,
as well as other lesser virtues such as courtesy or dignity. But there are
different versions of these virtues. Porphyry, and other later Platonists,
distinguished civic, purificatory, theoretic and paradigmatic “virtues.”18
The merely civic are accommodations to the world of our present real-
ity, and those thus virtuous may often be merely lucky in their circum-
stances: they have never been tried or tempted past their power, and
their motives are often at least confused. Even if they behave with civic
decency, this may be only an effect of their several conflicting vices! They
may even still be adolescent in their motivations: chiefly emulation and
embarrassment.19 Augustine was not unusual in saying that “among all
who are truly pious, it is at all events agreed that no one without true
160 S.R.L. Clark
piety—that is, true worship of the true God—can have true virtue; and
that it is not true virtue which is the slave of human praise” (City of God
V.19, 213). Those who act simply to look good, or to win pleasure or
profit, aren’t.
This is what the magic of nature does; for to pursue what is not good as
if it was good, drawn by the appearance of good by irrational impulses,
belongs to one who is being ignorantly led where he does not want to
go. And what would anyone call this other than magical enchantment?
The man then alone is free from enchantment who when his other parts
are trying to draw him says that none of the things are good which they
declare to be so, but only that which he knows himself, not deluded or
pursuing but possessing it. (Plotinus IV.4 [28].44)
“The civic virtues do genuinely set us in order and make us better by

giving limit and measure to our desires” (I.2 [19].2, 14–16). But this, at
best, allows the revelation of a higher good. Setting out on the path of
purity, dispelling the charms that bind us to this world, may at last allow
the god to draw us up into his own unending life, theoria, the enjoy-
ment of eternal good. And this is possible because we are all double: one
of us is the soul–body composite that needs an appropriate discipline
(VI.4 [22].14), and the other is—as Carl Jung put it—“the imperishable
stone” (1967, 59).20
Even before this coming to be we were there, men who were different,
and some of us even gods, pure souls and intellect united with the whole
of reality; we were parts of the intelligible, not marked off or cut off but
belonging to the whole; and we are not cut off even now. (VI.4 [22].14,
18ff)
Our fall into the world of our present experience, so Plotinus goes on to
say, involved “another man, wishing to exist” who came to wind himself
around us. Often, and perhaps almost always, we speak and feel along
with that other man, the composite, but it is still possible to remember
our original real nature. Maybe the god didn’t really “fall,” but came
along to help.
He himself is the god who comes Thence, and his own real nature, if he
becomes what he was when he came, is There. When he came here he took
up his dwelling with someone else, whom he will make like himself to the
best of the powers of his real nature, so that if possible this someone else
will be free from disturbance or will do nothing of which his master does
not approve. (I.2 [19].6, 8–12)
The qualities of the god himself aren’t virtues, as we ordinarily under-

stand such things, but “as it were exemplars.” Sophrosune, for example, as
seen by those who gaze on the divine beauty, is “not the kind which men
have here below, when they do have it (for this is some sort of imitation
of that other)” (V.8 [31].10, 14ff).
“The higher justice in the soul is its activity towards intellect; its self-
control [better, ‘its self-possession’] is its inward turning to intellect; its
courage is its freedom from affections [better, ‘passions’]” (I.2 [19].6,
23–26). Gods—and the god in us—have nothing to frighten them, nor
yet to tempt them (I.2 [19].1, 11–13).
The major difference between Dante and the pagan philosophers’
story is that the latter reckoned that we had all come down from
Heaven. “Philosophers whose views are correct do not hesitate to
agree that souls originate in the sky” (Macrobius 1952, 124). We have
been sent “down here” to look after the Earth and its inhabitants, and
may hope to be restored if we have done our duty. Christians on the
other hand insisted that “no one has ascended into heaven but he who
descended from heaven, the Son of Man” (John 3:13). We can only
ascend, if we ascend at all, with him—but again, what is the practical dif-
ference? After all, it is also part of Christian doctrine that we, collectively,
have fallen, and may hope to return from exile.
What is the route from the merely civil to the fully theoretic, or even
paradigmatic, virtues? Are we to retrace the pattern of our descent? Plato
describes, in The Republic, how the love of goodness may be gradu-
ally lost or twisted: to love, instead, of honour, and then, successively,
of wealth and pleasure, but this story does not seem to be repeated in
the later Platonic or Hermetic texts. Rather each vicious disposition is to
be opposed by one particular virtue, which may be achieved piecemeal:
courage by acting courageously, self-possession by bending our wishes
and acts away from what we too easily prefer, and so on. But there is
something to be gained by reconstructing the astral path as Plotinus
might have, playfully, suggested. It cannot be a matter simply of scrap-
ing away the influence of the planetary spheres: “despising the universe
and the gods in it and the other noble things is certainly not becom-
ing good” (II.9 [33].15, 33). On the other hand, we must in the end
162 S.R.L. Clark
dismiss all images if we are to reach the One: “take away everything
(aphele panta)” (V.3 [49].17, 39). The path to perfection, purity, leads
“uphill”, and has identifiable stages:
If a man is able to follow the spirit which is above him he comes to be

himself above, living that spirit’s life, and giving the pre-eminence to that
better part of himself to which he is being led; and after that spirit he rises
to another, until he reaches the heights. For the soul is many things, and
all things, both the things above and the things below down to the limits
of all life, and we are each one of us an intelligible universe. (III.4 [15].3,
18–23)
My reconstruction of the narrative that might lie behind Plotinus’ own

words is nothing that he ever explicitly said: it should be obvious that no
philosopher ever says everything in his mind, especially if it sounds too
much like the fantasies of people with whom he disagrees. The value of
the narrative is only to imagine the kind of ethical guidance that a good
Platonist might have intended.
We must begin by at least acknowledging, exactly, our imperfection.
This is the primary ethical role of dialectic: precisely to show us how
confused, how changeful, and how inaccurate we are!
Refutation is the greatest and chiefest of purifications, and he who has not
been refuted, though he be the Great King himself, is in an awful state of
impurity; he is uninstructed and deformed in those things in which he who
would be truly blessed ought to be fairest and purest. (Plato, Sophist 227c)
Without that salutary pain we are at odds with truth, very much as Eblis
(the Islamic name for Satan):
There is no sickness of the soul that’s worse than being convinced of your
perfection, sir! Much blood must flow out of your heart and eyes until this
smugness takes its leave of you. Eblis’ mistake was saying ‘I am better’ – all
creatures have this sickness in their selves. (Rumi 2006, 296–298)
So the first step back to Heaven is, symbolically, through the lunar
sphere, wherein we acknowledge that we are dependent beings, and that
our opinions are as changeful as Socrates suggested until they are fixed
firm by argument (see Plato, Meno 98a). Thinking ourselves into the
lunar sphere we may look back—like Scipio—on the little, lovely Earth,
and also feel ourselves warmed by the solar light. This anagogical exer-
cise may also have its ethical effect: we are not ourselves the centre of the
worlds, but must turn always towards our leader, as dancers in the cho-
rus turn towards their chief, who is the god “who sits in the centre, on
the navel of the earth, and is the interpreter of religion to all mankind”
(Plato, Republic 4.427c).
It is like a choral dance: in the order of its singing the choir keeps round its
koruphaion but may sometimes turn away so that he is out of their sight,
but when it turns back to him it sings beautifully and is truly with him; so
we are always around him - and if we were not, we should be totally dis-
solved and no longer exist - but not always turned towards him; but when
we do look to him, then we are at our goal and at rest and do not sing out
of tune as we truly dance our god-inspired dance around him. (Plotinus
VI.9 [9].8, 38ff)
Having acknowledged our dependence, or been purged of envy and

mutability, the next stage is to deal with Hermes (Mercury), the god of
thieves and merchants, lawyers and wayfarers. On Macrobius’ account
this sphere has given us powers of interpretation, but these are routinely
misused if we believe Poimandres: we are greedy for what we haven’t got,
and plot to gain it from its rightful owner (as Hermes did in the Homeric
Hymn). The Plotinian preference here must be to think of Hermes as the
interpreter, the psychagogos, leading from one life to the next. Once we
have learnt to believe that we may be mistaken we are in a better position
to understand what others say, and what the world itself is doing.
Venus (Aphrodite) is a familiar presence, whether for good or ill: all
witnesses attest that hers is the sphere of love or lust. For Plotinus this
is an awakening to beauty—but beauty is not the final goal, however
ardently we long for it. It is, like Being itself, a veil before the Good
(I.6 [1]. 9). And the planet, being both Morning and Evening Star,
is a light that heralds both sunrise and sunset. It is the Sun that is the
source of light for us. He is often used, by Plato and Plotinus, as the best
image of the One itself: at once the source of being and understanding
(and should really stand at the centre of the system, as Copernicus was
to insist). As such we might at first expect that he should stand for our
destination, our final participation in the dance of Heaven, or the divine
musician, Apollo, in the centre of our dance. But considered only as a
wandering star, the Sun is responsible for what turns in us to arrogance,
or even (if Zielinski guessed correctly) gluttony. Rulers whose task was
164 S.R.L. Clark
really to take care of their communities make tools or organs of their

friends, imagining themselves of a higher nature and with greater rights
than those they govern. The felt significance of the Sun may also be a
little different for people closer to the Torrid Zone: the Sun’s light and
heat are not entirely healthy! Imagining ourselves there, or allowing the
Sun’s statue to come to life in us, we may—by Macrobian standards—see
more clearly: the darkness can be no darkness where the Sun is shining.
But we may also feel ourselves empowered in ways that need restraint,
or that may lead (most probably will lead) to anger—which is to say, to
Mars. But these more pessimistic readings are not ones that Plotinus will
prefer: for him the Sun is indeed the centre—and yet not, in this astro-
nomical venture, our resting place.
Mars (Ares) is another obvious power: most hated of the Olympians,
but also one that shares with Love responsibility for all the ordered
cosmos. How can Plotinus venture a better reading, of a stage in our
upward progress? According to Ps-Dionysius, remember, its original is
“an intellectual power of resistance,” a fierce determination to hang on
to the truths we have discovered, not to be deterred by threat or fancy.
Anger, for most of us here-now, is a mist that covers up the truth, an
over-reaction to presumed injustice (mostly, of course, an injury to our-
selves): but this is not to say that it is always wrong to be thus angry.
There is also another way of reading these lower planetary spheres,
taking account of the different ways in which we might imitate virtue.
Aristotle indicated that adolescents (of whatever age) were animated
by aidos (shame, embarrassment) and zelos (envy, emulation) (Aristotle
Rhetoric 2.1388a30ff): “they are bashful, for as yet they fail to conceive
of other things that are noble, but have been educated solely by con-
vention” (2.1389a10). These fit the Moon and Mercury fairly well. The
next stage is the sort of altruism inspired by romantic love: briefly, at
least, we may actually wish the well-being of the beloved, and be willing
to suffer for it! Solar influence, in turn, may allow us to believe ourselves
beneficent, dispensing blessings for our own glory’s sake. And martial
influence, in turn, inspires a healthy anger at injustice. Yet all these states
and feelings may as easily turn to harm, and all are transitory.
Jupiter or Zeus has multiple associations: in other contexts Plotinus
uses “Zeus” to refer to Soul-as-Such, the eternal essence that has its mul-
tiple avatars in every living creature, including the whole cosmos (V.1.
[10].4, 8–10; V.1 [10].7, 33f).21 As the planetary star it seems to stand
instead for wealth and power, but also for a proper ‘politics’: the art of
ruling to benefit the ruled—or else, in its corruption, to benefit the ruler.
Here is the virtue that is closest to the highest, so to order mundane
life as to allow all creatures in its sway to flourish. Zeus is the source of
law for all us lesser mortals: those who reach this high, like Minos, may
bring down useful precepts, and some hint of what lies further up (VI.9
[9].7, 23–26). Here, at last we act for the sake of law, but only because
we have been given laws to follow. Nous is King (alongside the One),
“but we too are kings (basileuomen), when we are in accord with it; we
can be in accord with it in two ways, either by having something like its
writing written in us like laws, or by being as if filled with it and able to
see it and be aware of it as present” (V.3 [49].4.1–4). The former mode
is Jupiter’s; the latter Saturn’s, whose Greek name (so Plotinus claimed
after Plato) is formed from koros, satiety, and Nous (III.8 [30].11, 37;
V.1 [10].4, 8; V.1 [10].7, 33; V.9 [5].8, 8: after Plato, Cratylus 396b).
Where Zeus stands for Soul-as-Such, Kronos is the Divine Nous him-
self, such that to be inspired by him is to approach the One, to join the
dance, to be the god we are.
But Saturn (Kronos) also seems the most ambiguous of all, at once
the “theoretic” virtue, and the origin of deceit or wickedness or slug-
gishness. The “melancholic” temperament associated with Saturn may
issue in either (or both) depression and academic learning. The other
humours also have both good and bad results, and have their planetary
associations: the sanguine disposition with Jupiter, the choleric with
Mars and the phlegmatic either (improbably) with Venus or else with the
Moon (see Klibansky et al. 1964, 127–195). But it is Saturn that is at
once the greatest and the worst. “The Saturn to whom the lethargic and
vulgar belonged was at the same time venerated as the planet of high
contemplation, the star of anchorets and philosophers” (Klibansky et al.
1964, 158).
Is the final twist, that we are gods, exactly the sort of pride that
we must above all renounce? Isn’t this, exactly, “the deceit that lies in
ambush”? The tension exists for Christians as well as pagans:
Proud Christians, wretched and – alas! – so tired, who, feeble in your pow-
ers of mental sight, place so much faith in your own backward tread, do
you not recognize that you are worms born to become angelic butterflies
that fly to justice with no veil between? Why is it that your thoughts float
up so high? You, with your faults, are little more than grubs, chrysalides
(no more!). (Dante Purgatory, 10.121-9)
166 S.R.L. Clark
On the one hand we are caterpillars, grubs in the rotting tree of nature,
as Plotinus taught us (IV.3 [27].4, 26–30). On the other, we shall be
butterflies, psuchai, once we have broken out of the binding silk of
nature, giving up all these faculties or else purging them of taint. One
more engaging gloss about that tree: Shaw notes that Dante, in “an
arresting visual image [in Paradiso 27.118–120], describes time as a tree
with its roots in the primum mobile” (2015, 160). The image is drawn,
by whatever intervening route, from Plotinus: all things have a single
root, and “those that are closer to the root [which is to say, the stars]
remain forever (emenen aei), and the others are always coming into being
(egineto aei), the fruits and the leaves” (III.3 [48].7, 10–24).22
The Flight of the Alone

The flight of the alone to the Alone, as translators ever since the
Cambridge Neo-Platonists have preferred to translate the last phrase
of The Enneads (VI. 9 [9].11; see Smith 1660, ch. 6, in Patrides 1969,
180), is not a lonely affair: the point is not that we are to return to soli-
tary confinement. Rather it is the reverse: we fell because we were tired
of “being together” (IV.8 [6].4, 11f), and wanted our own way apart
from the Way of all things. The most self-willed of souls came down as
far as plants, to bury their heads in the earth (V.2 [11].2)! To return we
must put aside “the images of sense” as well as “the urge for generation
and the gluttonous love of good eating,” or else return as beasts, domi-
nated whether by greed or anger (III.4 [15].2, 12–22). Even if we suc-
ceed so far, we may only return as songbirds, eagles or other high-flying
birds. Materialist philosophers, perhaps, return as flightless birds (see
V.9 [5].1)! Even if we practice civil virtue we may miss the human, and
return as bees or the like (III.4 [15].2, 24–31). And the human itself is
only a stage on the hard road back to the stars, to “the dance of immor-
tal love” (Porphyry Life of Plotinus 23.36f). “Monos” does not mean
“alone,” let alone “lonely,” but something more like “pure” or “simple.”
The pagan sage Plotinus expressed the monastic ideal of purification

through detachment in terms that would have been familiar to educated
Christians: “The purification of the soul is simply to allow it to be alone;
it is pure when it keeps no company; when it looks to nothing without
itself; when it entertains no alien thoughts …when it no longer sees in the
world of images, much less elaborates images into veritable affections. Is it
not a true purification to turn away towards the exact contrary of earthly
things?” (Moreira 2010, 31–32; citing Plotinus III.6 [26].5, 16–18)
On the one hand it is vital for our spiritual health to realize that we
are not gods, that we are not immune to accident or evil, and that we
have no greater rights than others. On the other, pagans like Macrobius
insisted that we are gods “if indeed a god is that which quickens, feels,
remembers, foresees, and in the same manner rules, restrains and impels
the body of which it has charge” (1952, 76). And Christians too remem-
bered the Lord’s rebuke: “you are gods”, and had better behave like
gods (John 10:34; after Psalm 82:6).23 In both cases there was a dis-
tinction between the ordinary, empirical, soul–body composite that
needs to remember its mortality, and the Other, the immortal self, the
god that came down from Heaven and found itself “wrapped round” by
the fears and longings of our mortal self. Is there one such Spirit, the
centre to which we cling, or may there be many Spirits? Paul thought
it was one and the same Christ (Galatians 2:20),24 while Plotinus sup-
posed it was instead, for each of us, our own eternal spirit, the daimon
that Xenocrates declared would alone make us eudaimon (Aristotle Topics
112a37f).25 But that distinction may be difficult to maintain. “[Nous]
is the god in us—whether it was Hermotimus or Anaxagoras who said
so—and mortal life contains a portion of some god” (Aristotle 1952, 42;
see Betegh 2004, 284). So we are all “of one Mind”, even if our overt
differences disguise our substance. And maybe this is common knowl-
edge: “all men are naturally and spontaneously moved to speak of the
god who is in each one of us one and the same” (VI.5 [23].1; my empha-
sis). Conversely, Paul did not intend to claim a clear identity with Christ,
but only his obedience. So also Plotinus: Nous is King, “but we too are
kings (basileuomen), when we are in accord with it” (V.3 [49].4.1-4).
One who would live without that presence is “a multiple human being
and a beast (anthropos ho polus kai therion)” (VI.9 [9].8, 9–10).
Is there only one immortal self (as some have inferred from the sug-
gestion that all personal memories, all additional faculties as well as the
body itself are to be removed)? Christians have usually insisted that
there must still be many immortals, and have suspected that pagans like
Plotinus could not acknowledge the difference. But Plotinus himself
insisted that we would be able to recognize our friends:
168 S.R.L. Clark
For here below, too, we can know many things by the look in people’s eyes
when they are silent; but there all their body is clear and pure and each
is like an eye, and nothing is hidden or feigned, but before one speaks to
another that other has seen and understood. (IV.3 [27].18, 19–24)
Identity will not reside in memory, nor any bodily detail: each soul will
nonetheless be recognizably herself, one face among very many of the
“sphere all faces, shining with living faces” (VI.7 [38].15, 25).
Two distinctions with much greater force are that Christian doctrine
dictated, on the one hand, that only they can begin the climb who are
already assured of being saved, and that prayers for the dead may help
them through their purgation. Later Protestant Christians might con-
tend instead that those who are already assured of their salvation, who
already know that they have been forgiven, need no further trial, and can
gain nothing from the prayers of others. Pagans might doubt both doc-
trines: any of us may attempt the climb (and fail),26 and no one can help
us onward—except, as before, the daimon or the god who is our own
immortal self. In either case, it can be agreed that “unless above him-
self he can/erect himself, how poor a thing is man” (Daniel; quoted in
Whitaker 1923, 67).27 Either we attempt the climb up to Heaven, in the
hope of breaking out as butterflies, or we must relapse as grubs within
the rotten tree of nature. The birth, like all births, may be onerous.
Once free of nature we shall at first be stars (Proclus 1963, 307n2),28
and may be so eternally, even while our natural, sublunary selves are suf-
fering below. According to Plotinus there is a part of the soul that has not
“come down” (IV.7 [2]. 10, 19), or come no further than some fixed star,
our real and celestial self. Shall we be a new star when we have ascended,
or is it rather that we shall be reunited with an astral self that has been vis-
ible throughout the long years of our fall? Even as stars, freed from the
planetary influences and stripped of all accessories, we must have our eyes
‘aloft’: there is a life and beauty even beyond the empyrean, beyond all
spatial and temporal distinctions. And precisely for that reason we do not,
in the end, need any “vehicle” (okhema) to carry us “aloft.”29 “Flight,
[Plato] says, is not going away from earth but being on earth ‘just and
holy with the help of wisdom’; what he means is that we must fly from
wickedness” (Plotinus I.8 [51].6, 10–13, after Plato Theaetetus, 176–177).
Let us fly to our dear country. What then is our way of escape, and how
are we to find it? We shall put out to sea, as Odysseus did, from the witch
Circe or Calypso – as the poet says (I think with a hidden meaning) –

and was not content to stay though he had delights of the eyes and lived
among much beauty of sense. Our country from which we came is There,
our Father is There. How shall we travel to it, where is our way of escape?
We cannot get there on foot; for our feet only carry us everywhere in this
world, from one country to another. You must not get ready a carriage,
either, or a boat. Let all these things go, and do not look. Shut your eyes,
and change to and wake another way of seeing, which everyone has but
few use. (I.6 [1].8, 16–28)
But Purgatory Peak, whatever the precise order and implication of

its levels, remains a lively part of our moral imagination: can we really
expect merely to wake “another way of seeing” and be saved? Will not
that new sight reveal to us, exactly, what we need to purge, what to
abandon, what to clean? Knowing that we are wrong, and often in the
wrong, is not immediately to be alright! Even the imaginative exercises
that these various metaphors propose will not do much to help us with-
out the help of Athena (or maybe Beatrice) (VI.5 [23].7, 9f).
Notes
1. Plato Phaedrus 247a (tr. Benjamin Jowett):
Zeus, the mighty lord, holding the reins of a winged chariot, leads the
way in heaven, ordering all and taking care of all; and there follows him
the array of gods and demigods, marshalled in eleven bands; Hestia alone
abides at home in the house of heaven; of the rest they who are reckoned
among the princely twelve march in their appointed order. They see many
blessed sights in the inner heaven, and there are many ways to and fro,
along which the blessed gods are passing, every one doing his own work;
he may follow who will and can, for jealousy has no place in the celestial
choir.
2. See also IV.3 [27].15; Proclus, Elements, 307n2, on Proposition 209;
and J.M. Rist (1967, 190–191). All passages from Plotinus’ Enneads are
(apart from a few minor corrections) taken from Plotinus (1966–1988).
3. Abu Yazid also spoke of an ascent through the heavens, encountering
named prophets from Adam to Jesus (Uzdavinys 2011, 62).
4. Augustine of Dacia (1929) Rotulus pugillaris Angelus Walz (ed.) (Pont.
Institut: Angelicum: Rome); see also Angelus Walz (1954).
5. Alighieri (2012) Paradise 2.118–20: “the seven spheres below in differ-
ent ways dispose the essences each has within towards their proper telos,
seed and aim”; cf. Purgatory 16.73–8: “the stars initiate your vital moves.
170 S.R.L. Clark
I don’t say all. And yet suppose I did, you’re given light to know what’s
good and bad, and free will too, which if it can endure beyond its early
battles with the stars, and if it’s nourished well, will conquer all”.
6. See Jacques Le Goff (1990). Isabel Moreira’s (2010, 15–38) runs
through patristic material from Clement to Bede, without mentioning
any planetary associations.
7. After C. Mango (1980, 157); see also Dal Santo (2012, 124n) for more
detailed references.
8. The present (Coptic) text of Pistis Sophia (dating from the fourth century)
was not discovered by European scholars till 1773, but its ideas will have
had a wider provenance.
9. “From here the earth appeared so small that I was ashamed of our empire
which is, so to speak, a point in its surface” (Macrobius 1952, 72). The
Dream was originally composed as part of the fifth book of Cicero’s
Republic, but has not survived independently of Macrobius’ commen-
tary. Macrobius frequently refers to Plotinus, but may only have read
Porphyry, or else–like Augustine-selected texts translated by Marius
Victorinus.
10. See Macrobius (1952, 162), after Plato Timaeus 38d, Republic 10.616e;
but (1952, 136), which follows Cicero in presenting the Sun as higher
than Venus and Mercury.
11. On Ficino’s use of the story see Thomas Moore (1989).
12. See Maurus Servius Honoratus (1881).
13. Further on those archons see R.M. Grant (1959, 47–51; 61–66).
14. See Lewis (1964, 105–116) on planetary characters. I have added the
four associated humours: what other characters the remaining planets had
according to that latter theory I don’t know.
15. See Angela Tilby (2009, 23). Gregory goes on to detail the way that one
vice arises from another:
the first offspring of pride is vainglory, and this, when it hath corrupted
the oppressed mind, presently begets envy. Because doubtless while it is
seeking the power of an empty name, it feels envy against anyone else
being able to obtain it. Envy also generates anger; because the more the
mind is pierced by the inward wound of envy, the more also is the gen-
tleness of tranquillity lost. And because a suffering member, as it were,
is touched, the hand of opposition is therefore felt as if more heavily
impressed. Melancholy also arises from anger, because the more extrav-
agantly the agitated mind strikes itself, the more it confounds itself by
condemnation; and when it has lost the sweetness of tranquillity, nothing
supports it but the grief resulting from agitation. Melancholy also runs
down into avarice; because, when the disturbed heart has lost the satisfac-
tion of joy within, it seeks for sources of consolation without, and is more
anxious to possess external goods, the more it has no joy on which to fall
back within. But after these, there remain behind two carnal vices, glut-
tony and lust. But it is plain to all that lust springs from gluttony, when in
the very distribution of the members, the genitals appear placed beneath
the belly. And hence when the one is inordinately pampered, the other is
doubtless excited to wantonness (89).
16. But cf. Tilby (2009), after Evagrius Ponticus: “Vainglory remains a very
human temptation. It is essentially conceit, it feeds off admiration and
needs the good opinion of others. Vainglory is nothing without its mir-
rors. Pride, on the other hand, is a temptation which really only comes
into its own in relation to God” (161–162). “The root of pride is the
refusal to be subject to God and his rule” (Tilby 2009, 170).
17. See also Proclus (1963, 182): “[The soul] ascends by putting off all those
faculties tending to temporal process with which it was invested in its
descent, and becoming clean and bare (kathara kai gumne) of all such
faculties as serve the uses of the process.”
18. See Julia Annas (1999, 66–67) and Sebastian Gertz (2011, 51–58), dis-
cussing Porphyry Sententiae 32. Macrobius (1952, 121) plausibly attrib-
utes this same fourfold division of virtue to Plotinus (I.2 [19]).
19. See Aristotle (Rhetoric 2.1388a30ff) on zelos (envy, emulation) and aidos
(shame, embarrassment) as pre-virtues; “they [that is, adolescents] are
bashful, for as yet they fail to conceive of other things that are noble, but
have been educated solely by convention” (Rhetoric 2.1389a10).
20. “It was strangely reassuring and calming to sit on my stone. Somehow
it would free me of all my doubts. Whenever I thought that I was the
stone, the conflict ceased. ‘The stone has no uncertainties, no urge to
communicate, and is eternally the same for thousands of years,’ I would
think, ‘while I am only a passing phenomenon which bursts into all kinds
of emotions, like a flame that flares up quickly and then goes out.’ I
was but the sum of my emotions, and the other in me was the timeless,
imperishable stone.”
21. See also V.9 [5].8,8 and III.8 [30].11, 38–41 for the same association of
koros, fullness, and Nous. See Pierre Hadot (1981).
22. Armstrong’s translation (1967, 137) of “egineto aei” as “come into being
for ever” is misleading.
23. Though in the latter, the remark—addressed to the gods of the nations—
continues “but you die like men, and fall like one of the archons”, the
rulers of the planetary spheres. On theiosis in Christian tradition see
Norman Russell (2004).
24. “I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave
himself for me.”
172 S.R.L. Clark
25. See also Eudemian Ethics 1247a27f; Plato Timaeus 90.

26. Unless perhaps only those who were gods beforehand can attempt the
climb, and not all of us were gods?
27. After Seneca Nat.Quaest. i. praef 5: “o quam contempta res est homo, nisi
supra humana surrexerit” (see Brad Inwood 2001).
28. See also Rist (1967, 190–191) and Plotinus (IV.3 [27].15; II.3 [52].9,
7ff).
29. Though cf. III.6 [26].5, 30–31: “that in which it resides [once it has been
purified] is so fine that it can ride on it in peace” (see John Finamore
1985).
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CHAPTER 10
Poetry as Purgatorial: Dante and the

Language(s) of Purgatory
Giuseppe Varnier
Introduction
Whether or not he studied at the Sorbonne, beside Florence and
Bologna, Dante was a philosopher and a linguist too, the first in Europe
to broach the matter of the vulgari (national idioms), i.e. everyday lan-
guages as opposed to a Latin frozen into a “grammar.” His poetical mas-
terpiece, the (Divina) Commedia (“divina” was added by Boccaccio), is
also his philosophical and linguistic masterpiece. Dante, though a scho-
lasticus in more than one way, never shared the medieval tendency to
see the human world as completely expressed and bounded by the lim-
its of theology. Intermediate reigns, between evil and good (such as the
A good site with English translation is: http://thedivinecomedy.com/. I quote

however from The Divine Comedy (2012a, 2012b, 2012c). For the general background
I refer to Jacques Le Goff (1984). A good introduction to Dante’s times and works is
Emilio Pasquini (2006).
G. Varnier (*) 
Department of Social, Political and Cognitive Sciences (DISPOC),
Università degli Studi di Siena,
Siena, Italy

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_10
176 G. Varnier
reign of erotic but sublimated love), and between Heaven and Hell, or
Latin and Italian at that, were his natural environment. This man of the
Middle Ages showed a consummate taste for all that is merely human,
and the Purgatorio is perhaps the most moving of the three cantiche in
the “this sacred work/to which both Earth and Heaven have set their
hands” (Paradiso XXV. 1–2). The present contribution is a small attempt
at corroborating these two points, with reference to the problem of lan-
guage, and the linguistic character that makes the Purgatorio unique.
Languages and Speech
To Dante, the works and habitus of philosophy, the philosophica docu-
menta, are no less important than the documenta spiritualia pursued
in the Faculty of Theology. Art, music, poetry, and natural as well as
moral philosophy, were to Dante equally worthy accomplishments in
themselves. Their pursuit is natural and God-ordained, and as such not
inferior to theology, in the very logic of salvation—a point poetically and
personally, but convincingly, elaborated in the poem. Only excesses in
one direction or another are to be condemned as nonvenial sins (sins
that lead to Hell). To a large extent, Dante was possibly influenced in
this, as in other views, by the Parisian Aristotelians condemned in 1277,
and even by the doctrines of Averroës (condemned, in their alleged
Western versions, in 1270). He places Averroës in Limbo (Inferno IV.
144), and their foremost Christian representative, Master Siger of
Brabant, in Paradise (Paradiso X. 136).
One must not discount, however, Dante’s own independent, “earthy”
character and personal appreciation of all human virtues. At times, one is
tempted to think of intellectus quaerens fidem! (See Beatrice’s reproaches
to Dante-the-philosopher at the very conclusion of the Purgatorio.)
This leaves an imprint on his own highly syncretistic philosophy. But on
such liberal, if not downright radical, views, it became possible for him
to “invent” the character of Beatrice: thus making love for a woman
into the philosophical key to his own salvation. A text translated from
Arabic as The Book of the Stair (probably Kitāb al-Miʽrāǵ, of which only
the ancient, imperfect Latin translation is left, with a French version
(Longoni 2013)), describes Muhammad’s ascent to Paradise, may have
influenced Dante’s thought also as far as the structure of Purgatorio is
concerned: the very metaphor is transparent.1 It constitutes one of the
10 POETRY AS PURGATORIAL … 177
two main allegories of Purgatorio: the other one is that of the mountain
to be climbed, deriving from Bede.2
In the philosophy of Saint Bonaventure of Bagnoregio—probably
a major influence on Dante—via is also scala. It is the ladder or stairs
to God, in his sense. In Heidegger’s free rethinking of general medieval
thought about this metaphoric truth, homo viator (man on the road [to
God]) is man as unterwegs zur Sprache (on the road toward language),
which is also the title of one of his main later books (On the Way to
Language). But are we sure that in general terms, and quite apart from
Heidegger’s philosophy, this is only a free contemporary rendition? On
my view, for which I shall argue in what follows, Dante’s ascent through
the tria regna, though ending in the ineffability of divine light and
Beatitude of God in the highest part of Paradise, and exactly for this rea-
son, is indeed an ascent toward a more perfect form of human language
and, as far as possible, of artistic transfiguration of language itself both as
communication and as free expression. And this reexpression reaches the
status of impressionist characterization—or metaphysical dissolution—of
reality, even the character of pure music, at the end. A decisive passage
is, in this perspective, the following, about Beatrice transfigured into her
real self:
Splendor of living and eternal light!

who would not seem - though pale from studying
deep in Parnassian shade, whose wells he drinks -
still to be much encumbered in his mind,
endeavoring to draw what you then seemed,
where heavens in harmony alone enshadow you,
as you came forth and showed yourself in air? (Purgatorio XXXI. 139–145)
But let us focus on what comes before. For this also implies a mimesis,
in language, of the reality (including typical spoken linguistic expres-
sions) of all that Dante has “seen” during this diverse and dramatic
ascent—including a final paradoxical mimesis of the ineffability of the
word or lógos that is God, both Incarnate and in its pure Form (a meta-
phor equates it to a book that pervades the Universe: Paradiso XXXIII.
85–87). Now, this mimesis includes a great deal of poetic license. Dante
understood no Greek, it is clear that it is by a divine intercession, and
with the help of Virgil, that he can understand the words of Ulysses
in Inferno (XXVI). When faced with similar problems, in Hell and in
178 G. Varnier
Purgatory, Dante-the-Protagonist trusts Divine intervention, and Dante-

the-Poet basically reduces all to the Florentine Italian of his times. But
what a reduction! Register, style, cultural and literary allusions, emo-
tional and intellectual modes of speech, all are taken into account with
precious care and subtly recorded, so that the language spoken by the
characters is certainly not the same language Dante speaks and writes in
“normal” conditions.
This analysis might sound paradoxical and question-begging (how do
we know that Ulysses spoke Greek in Hell, after all?), were it not that
all the characters in Dante (most of them historical), including him-
self, are so vividly and independently realistic (as in Shakespeare, though
always projected from Dante’s own point of view), and the force of their
speeches is so plastic and distinctively personal, close to idiosyncrasy, that
we must treat them as existing entities somehow. In short: they have
Dante’s reality, but not Dante’s language or form of mind. Ulysses (still)
spoke Greek, in Dante’s logic, because he was not one of the Saved.
Dante understood, and could write down, in Italian because Dante was
chosen by special grace for redemption.
But, again, what kind of Italian? It is a language that in oratio recta
adapts to nuances and subtle differences in order to express a character’s
essence. It has both expressive purposes and the function to stress his or
her cultural and sociological dimension—a delicate enterprise in the case
of characters remote from Dante’s personal experience and scene, that
is, his contemporary Italy. Yet Dante is successful, even with Ulysses and
Virgil. Pier Paolo Pasolini, with reference to Gianfranco Contini, went
so far as to suggest that one could speak, for Dante’s so frequent pas-
sages in direct speech, of a metaphoric, symbolic form of discours indirect
libre (1972, 104–105). And, as a matter of fact, he succeeds in charging
his characters’ direct words with a sort of inexplicable oneiric certainty
that suggests personal words and thoughts well beyond an adaptation to
the Florentine dialect of his age, as if these words (and the actions) were
a surprise, first of all, to Dante himself. (This is especially clear in the
harsh words from Beatrice cited above, or when two characters meet, like
Virgil and Sordello, or Virgil and Statius.)
The language of Purgatorio in Dante is also, in a sense, self-reflex-
ive. Purgatory is in essence a passing scenario, as mortal life is, and as a
dialogue is. Ascent through it is also an ascent in language: progressive
purification is mirrored by a progress in the rarefaction and nobility of
the language used—first of all by Dante, but also by his characters in his
invocations and allocutions. Dante is also well aware that his task as a
poet, and as a man who received a special grace, becomes progressively
more demanding during the ascent: what language describes or directly
names is also a responsibility toward language itself, which is not present
in the Inferno, frozen in its realistic depictions of sufferings and com-
plaints, nor in the Paradiso, with all its hardly effable splendors to be
mirrored only by theological speculation, no more human speech and
feelings.
There is Latin in Hell, including the proudly blasphemous “Vexilla
regis prodeunt Inferni” (Inferno XXXIV. 1), which is Hell’s own mock-
ing version of a famous liturgical hymn. At the beginning of Canto VII
(1), Plutus shouts “Pape Satàn, pape Satàn aleppe!”: words in an unin-
telligible, possibly meaningless “language.” But the foreign languages
meaningfully used in the Inferno seem to be few, a further sign that
Dante thought he could make himself understood “directly” only by a
part of the damned (Italians, Romans, French)—from this we may infer
that all languages are spoken in Dante’s Hell, but in a chaotic way that
allows no real communication, only affirmation of obdurate individual-
ity, that is, individuality and speech in a negative sense. Uniformity in
languages too, as in the psychological definition of characters, with the
possibility of meaningful communication, becomes greater as we ascend
to Purgatory and then Paradise. But Hell is traditionally the realm of
utter dissimilitudo from God and natural law. Dante and Virgil are wel-
comed to the nethermost part of Hell, the seat of Lucifer and the “bot-
tom of the universe,” by terrible giants. Among them is Nembroth, or
Nimrod (Inferno XXXI. 80–81), only speaker of an incomprehensible
language (remember Plutus), and the originator of linguistic confusion
as a punishment at the Tower of Babel (of “Confusion”). This is cer-
tainly an intentional allusion, as many others. Nembroth is recalled by
Dante in his theoretical depiction of Babel in De vulgari eloquentia (I,
VIII 6–7) (see Genesis 11: 1–9). For his hubris, humankind was pun-
ished by linguistic division according to the division of workers at the
Tower—and the workers with the highest functions ended by speaking
the most barbaric idioms. (Only the descendants of Sem, who rebelled
against the construction, kept their language, Hebrew, pure.) This para-
lyzing confusion was aptly compared to the chaos of factions and opin-
ions in a medieval commune such as Florence, a chaos reflected in so
many “Florentine” lines of the Inferno (Conti 2013, 334).
180 G. Varnier
Dante’s guide (“Duca”) toward freedom from sin is Virgil, the best
representative of Latin civilization and its language. This means that
Dante still may hope for redemption, at the onset, because, so to speak,
the best part that is left of him in his mortal acedia is constituted by
his excellent mastery of Latin and his consequent talent as a poet, as
he avows (Inferno I. 85–87). It may almost seem that, ironically, in the
Inferno, where so many Florentines are relegated, the main means of
communication are vernacular Florentine (the basis of nowadays Italian),
and perhaps Latin (see my above remarks). In Canto XXVI, that ends
with the great “Satanic” monologue by Ulysses (a godless forerunner
of Dante in his flight toward Purgatory), Dante has to resort at first to
Virgil’s linguistic mediation (the Roman poet points out that Ulysses and
Diomedes, being Greeks, would be “schivi … del tuo detto,” refuse out
of spite or difficulties to understand him: Dante knew no Greek). We
have already discussed the general situation, we can only add that lin-
guistic problems are implicitly at the core of this Canto: Ulysses himself
is a flame that moves “as if this truly were a tongue that spoke” (Inferno
XXVI. 89).
The Canto XXVI of Paradiso, also ending with a monologue, is ded-
icated to the natural faculty of language and to the primary role of it
(the very first language, see again De vulgari Eloquentia I, VI), to the
point that an almost complete linguistic transparency seems to reign in
Heaven. Dante knew no Hebrew either, but we can imagine that the
blessed souls can communicate with each other without problems. The
Paradiso is comparatively nonproblematic on such regards.
But correspondingly, and not surprisingly, Canto XXVI of Purgatorio
contains the most significant passage Dante wrote in a foreign language
in the Commedia (partly, as we see, a multilingual work). This is Arnaut
Daniel’s long monologue, parts of which (Ara vos prec, per aquella
valor/que vos guida al som de l’escalinha/…) are well known to readers
of Pound and Eliot. Dante presumably had perfect mastery of langue
d’oc, but he also stresses, as in De vulgari Eloquentia (I, IX), the com-
munality between it and the “lingua del sì” (as with the langue d’oil),
by having the Canto ending with a marvelous Italian line: “Poi s’ascose
nel foco che li affina” (literally: “having said this, he hid into the fire that
makes them subtler (purer)”), in which “affina” rhymes with “esca-
linha” (stair). It is the fire that does not do any harm, but consumes
sin (cf. Virgil in Purgatorio XXVII. 19–30). Yet this means also sharing
with Arnaut, and others, especially other poets, a position in the salvation
process—through poetry and learning, which are as such “Pentecostal”

in themselves. Ascent in language(s) as on stairs is itself a purgatorial,
redeeming process, and this seems, as said, to extend to the whole work.
A Place in the Cosmos that Is also a State of the Mind

The whole Comedy itself is, though its centers seem to be Heaven and
Hell, a purgatorial poem, as is the (passing) status of Dante in it: he lives,
as we do as his audience, a process of purification, the same of the souls
he meets, but different because he is still alive, “in via.” Though it is
likely that Dante had visions of some sort (see just the conclusion of the
Vita Nuova), above all the very process of writing the great poem must
have been a deep, changing, and even cleansing experience—and I mean
this in a linguistic sense. (Objectively seen, not personally, this writing
experience laid the first solid foundations of modern Italian.) We say that
the language of Purgatory is self-reflexive in this perspective, for it is,
within the strife of the souls, a strife toward the purification of the lan-
guage that serves as a multiple medium of expression of sin and repent-
ance. We could even say that all the work itself reflects a purgatorial
image of man, though centered on one man and his virtuosic linguistic
abilities: Dante. Dante is alive in his journey; he must return and tell the
tale (he is invested with this political and theological mission by Beatrice
in Purgatory, see XXXII; XXXIII). The whole voyage is thus a sort of
Purgatory in life. As a further consequence, human poetry approaches
the dignity of a divine language that can be appreciated, but never fully
understood or written down. It is in Purgatory that languages, songs,
and hymns, almost at every Canto bloom, typically in Latin.
In the great eschatological economy of the Commedia, the Mountain
of Purgatory is a real place, a place on earth like Eden (on top of it), a
place that the souls reach leaving from the mouth of the Tiber (this has
a deep theological meaning, and Dante follows here Saint Bonaventura
and Saint Thomas; cf. Purgatorio II. 99–102). Dante describes a whole
cosmology, whose contours are well known. In the history of “purga-
torial philosophy,” this cosmology holds perhaps pride of place among
the many reconstructions that were attempted: it is solid, coherent, and
renders perfectly a medieval vision of the world(s). It is also a definitive
victory over many unsatisfactory visions of Purgatory, Heaven, and Hell,
from the preceding centuries. Purgatory becomes a localized third reign,
a well-defined tópos between the other parts of a theological cosmos.
182 G. Varnier
And yet it is also a state of the mind. What Le Goff possibly does not
see too clearly (but he devotes only a short, final chapter to Dante) is
that not only the two perspectives are compatible with each other, but
that considering Purgatory a state of the mind, while it was the source
of confusion and a way out of embarrassment in the many centuries
in which the geography of the hereafter was fuzzy (and the subject of
debates and misunderstandings), it acquires a whole new meaning in
Dante’s neat cosmology. I doubt that this cosmology was ever meant
to be scientific, in a modern sense that Dante was already partly able to
anticipate and appreciate. But he certainly was able to appreciate how
his precise description and classification of sins and punishments (both
eternal and temporary fire: “il temporal foco e l’eterno”) through locali-
zation offered a perfectly worked-out framework for a finally possible,
finely tuned psychological analysis of sins and sinners. And for a theory
of a modes of salvation that was centered not on God’s revenge, but on
the ability of the soul to repent, even in the point of death, in articulo
mortis.
Thus in my view Dante’s tendency to think that Heaven and Hell,
but especially Purgatory, are states of mind is, at the same time, both
old (it is present in the archaic phases of Purgatorial philosophy, since
early Christianity), and daringly new. Jorge Luis Borges (1982)3 writes
that Dante never believed that there were bodies tortured for eternity
in Malebolge, or that any complicated scenes he painted were literally
real. Stated this way, the claim is perhaps too bold, but I incline to
believe its substance. Dante himself hints at this interpretation in his
great Latin Epistula to Cangrande della Scala, and his son, Iacopo, put
it in these terms in his commentary: the great poem represents alle-
gorically the three modes of being of mankind. It is left, I think, to
the reader to consider that the second mode of being, the Purgatorial
one, is perhaps the most frequent, certainly the most intimately human
and psychologically typical, as it is reflected in culture, language, and
poetry itself. As we saw, it is the mode or state of mind in which, by
definition, Dante-the-narrator-and-protagonist is throughout the
poem.
Dante’s meditation on Purgatory, as that of his many predecessors,
starts from the mysterious words of Paul (I Corinthians 3:10–15):
10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, like a wise mas-
ter builder I laid a foundation, and another is building on it. But each man
must be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no man can lay a founda-
tion other than the one which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if any
man builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay,
straw, 13 each man’s work will become evident; for the day will show it
because it is to be revealed with fire, and the fire itself will test the qual-
ity of each man’s work. 14 If any man’s work which he has built on it
remains, he will receive a reward. 15 If any man’s work is burned up, he
will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
The main mystery of Purgatorial philosophy is centered on the mean-

ing of the final three words, “quasi per ignem” in Latin, and the related
implications of the concept of revealing fire.
But the general trend of Dante’s interpretation (though it bears
Augustinian influences), as of other theologians, points toward the idea
that not so much the sinner as the sins are consumed by Purgatorial
fire, if their sins can be pardoned (“straw”). This is an idea that is more
closely related to that of punishment, at least in Purgatory, as a state of
(the) mind, than to a conception of lasting torture, or extension of eter-
nal punishment to almost all sinners.
Dante’s cosmology depicts a world of light (the totality of the cosmos,
including the tria regna), of fire (eternal, torturing fire in Hell, tempo-
rary and somehow “safe” fire in Purgatory), and music (which reigns
in Heaven, but also the all-too-human dimension of art, achieved by
language in its purest expression). Music is all encompassing, but only
human music and words can be expressed by us now. The two types
of fire are but forms of light. Language, poetry, and art are eventually
approaching the state of music. In this order, light, fire, and music, we
shall try to explore the language of the Purgatorio in some of its aspects.
Light
Also on this topic Dante’s philosophical views are an original synthesis of
various sources and elements. Dante’s construction of the universe is at
least partly Neoplatonic, and though Purgatory should be a real place on
earth (at the antipode of Jerusalem), we are continually reminded that it
is a spiritual regnum that does not completely participate of God’s light,
or better reflects it but for a residuum (fire, or the incomplete redemp-
tion of the saved). For light emanating, in the center of the universe,
from God pervades all reality, and comes back to God. As he writes:
184 G. Varnier
La gloria di colui che tutto move
Per l’Universo penetra e risplende
In una parte più e meno altrove (Paradiso I. 1–3)
(…)
Glory, from Him that moves all things that are,
penetrates the universe and then shines back,
reflected more in one part, less elsewhere.
Perhaps there is a memory of a threefold distinction made by some theo-

logians: there is a consuming fire (embers) in Hell and a purifying fire
in Purgatory (fire proper, sometimes considered in a metaphoric way),
but in Heaven fire takes the purest form: sublime light. This light does
not really penetrate Hell, but because there is “inner” darkness in those
souls, not for a divine weakness. As this light proceeds downwards and
changes (also in its reflection), so do, I suggest, heavenly music and even
that union of sound and meaning that is language. There is no music
left in Hell, and language as sound but also as description, is ragged and
even brutal, corresponding to even more than terrestrial confusion and
violence. Language as a medium of communication is probably limited,
in Dante’s intentions, to the original tongue of each sinner. (There is
poetical fiction, however, as with the vulgar dialect spoken by demons
administering pain.) The chaos of Hell is properly Babel of diverse, deaf-
ening screams and lamentations. The inability of the damned genuinely
to communicate with each other is an essential part of their punishment.
The world of Purgatorio (both the Antipurgatorio, and the Mountain
of Purgatory proper) is, in contrast, a world of music, hymns, and
prayers, both from the sinners and their families on earth, praying that
their stay in Purgatory be as short as possible. Dante writes:
Ahi quanto son diverse quelle foci
da l’infernali! ché quivi per canti
s’entra, e là giù per lamenti feroci. (Purgatorio XII. 112–114)
(…)
How different from the thoroughfares of Hell

are those through which we passed. For here with songs
we enter, there with fierce lamentations.
In Paradiso, the description of the visio beatifica makes clear from the
start that the pure, direct light of God is beyond desire and expres-
sion and must end not in music but in silence, and with a return to the
human will in final adequacy to God’s. This last point is expressed in the
very last lines of the whole poem, but shortly before Dante had written:
E io ch’al fine di tutt’ i disii
appropinquava, sì com’ io dovea,
l’ardor del desiderio in me finii. (Paradiso XXXIII. 46–48)
(…)
And drawing nearer, as I had to know,
the end of all desires, in my own self
I ended all the ardour of desire.
(…)
And then:
O luce etterna che sola in te sidi,
sola t’intendi, e da te intelletta
e intendente te ami e arridi! (Paradiso XXXIII. 124–126)
(…)
Eternal light, you sojourn in yourself alone.
Alone, you know yourself. Known to yourself,
you, knowing, love and smile on your own being.
All this seems to point to a background idea that distance or nearness

from salvation means lesser or greater linguistic transparency (possibly
absence of it among the damned). As said, Purgatory enjoys an interme-
diate status: language not just as successful communication, but also as
186 G. Varnier
longing and purification, that is, too, as elegy (just consider the tone of
Casella and Arnaut’s words, for instance). Jacques Le Goff rightly con-
siders Dante the greatest of all theologians of Purgatory (Le Goff 1984,
13). But being a (subtle) theologian was—to Dante—always very close
to creating a language adequate to a theme or subject: to invent a form
of the Italian language that could speak about something still unheard
of in the brand new Italian volgare of his times. This unity of style and
thought is typical of Italian poetry. This is also why the Commedia was
not well named by its Author: far from being an example of “middle
style,” it embraces all conceivable modes of expression and writing.
Still in alliterations and repetition in “i” (“eeh”), and in vowels like
“s” and “f,” Dante describes and mimes in language the dynamics of
purgation and ascent toward God’s light. As a matter of fact, light in all
human beings that are not completely lost in sin finds a way to ascend
back toward its ultimate source, God, drawing the very souls toward this
source, through the Purgatorial state of fire if need be. Thus the circle is
closed, and the damned are outside it only because of their free decision
to refuse the gift of divine light.
Fire
Purgatory is, even before Dante, a reign of fire—“Purgatory” (purgato-
rium) derives from the expression “purgatorius ignis,” roughly “purifying
fire.” In the quoted passage (I Corinthians 3:10–15), Saint Paul begins
Purgatorial philosophy with quasi per ignem formula: “[saved]…but
barely, and through fire.”
But for Dante it is not such a fire as fire, and ice, in Hell, as described
in the Inferno. It does not sear and damage ever-regenerating flesh (what
flesh the souls in Purgatory had, if at all, with respect to the punishment-
receiving attribute of the Damned in Hell, was itself a major theological
problem). It rather makes the saved souls themselves subtler and purer,
keener on the achievement of complete repentance. Writes Dante, giving
the word to Virgil:
Volsersi verso me le buone scorte;
e Virgilio mi disse: « Figliuol mio,
qui può esser tormento, ma non morte.

Ricorditi, ricorditi! E se io
sovresso Gerïon ti guidai salvo,
che farò ora presso più a Dio?
Credi per certo che se dentro a l’alvo
di questa fiamma stessi ben mille anni,
non ti potrebbe far d’un capel calvo.
E se tu forse credi ch’io t’inganni,
fatti ver’ lei, e fatti far credenza
con le tue mani al lembo d’i tuoi panni. (Purgatorio XXVII. 19–30)
(…)
And both my trusted guides now turned to me.
And Virgil spoke, to say: ‘My dearest son,
Here may be agony but never death.
Remember this! Remember! And if I
led you to safety on Geryon’s back,
what will I do when now so close to God?
Believe this. And be sure. Were you to stay
A thousand years or more wombed in this fire,
You’d not be made the balder by one hair.
And if, perhaps, you think I’m tricking you,
approach the fire and reassure yourself,
trying with your own hands your garment’s hem.
And yet Virgil must mention how Beatrice is so near Dante, just beyond
the wall of fire, to convince him to face this ordeal. The pain [and it is
a terrible pain—“measureless” (Purgatorio XXVII. 51; 50)] is the pain
of temporary distance from bliss in Heaven, experienced as burning in
both distance and longing (longing also for Dante’s so human love). It
188 G. Varnier
is thus more like an alchemically transforming fire; it is not interior dark-

ness. This is often expressed by Dante, for instance, with the usage of
the vowel “i” (“eeh,” in Italian), with its acute, pointed sound, in the
lines describing the process, a poetical choice that reminds us how Dante
is always striving to adapt the signifiers to the represented images with
many similar means (according to the principle of convenientia). It is
roughly the same quasi-alliteration scheme that we saw in the two above
quotes from the Paradiso. This is a procedure that, when it succeeds,
as is often the case, allows him to reach results of unparalleled poeti-
cal beauty in sound and meaning. In Purgatory, it is language itself that
undergoes, also by such means and by various other stylistic choices, a
process of purification.
Language in the Inferno is above all the lamentation of damned
souls frozen for eternity in the eternal punishment of their sins. Dante’s
descriptions, and often harsh words in the dialogues, closely echo, also
on a phonosymbolic level, this situation of despair. The language is
sometimes rough and even vulgar, sometimes elevated and sublime, but
always confirming God’s eternal decision (even though, in such cases
as Paolo and Francesca, and Ulysses, we feel that Dante-the-humanist
shows a great deal of sympathy for the damned souls—the souls damned
by Dante-the-theologian). In comparison, in Purgatory there is progress
both in linguistic refinement and in the way in which communication is
(finally) achieved. The inquietude of ascent and expectation, the torture
of longing, the constant effort in prayer (and singing) of the souls, many
of them asking Dante to pray for them and have their family pray for
them, so that their stay be shortened, all conjure up an atmosphere of
suspension that was unknown in Hell: the rhythm of life.
One is tempted to say that all this—matching the feeling of open-
ness given by the fact that the stars and heaven are now visible—makes
the Cantica open-ended, perhaps self-reflexive in a further sense. And
certainly it is, so to speak, in large measure in the future tense, not just
from the point of view of Dante (who will come back “to the world”),
but also from the point of view of the ascending souls. Also Dante’s and
Virgil’s progress resembles now less an ordeal by fire than a real quest of
Heaven (though this is denied to Virgil, a plight which constitutes a psy-
chologically major thread in the poem).
This comparison between Purgatory and Hell is interesting and sug-
gestive, though we should always remember that in Purgatory redemp-
tion has been already achieved (but for Dante). Contrary to the
terrestrial world, it is not a place of real inquietudo, but rather of cer-

titudo, of (partial) exterior, not inner darkness, of pain but not hope-
less pain. Inquietude is what is left of our world, still so closely present
to the souls (this is why they are not perfect yet.) As the metaphors of
the mountain to be climbed and of the stairs to be ascended beautifully
express, there is movement and sound, but with a precise goal. There
is suffering, but with a final reward. And there are no demons admin-
istering suffering. Even in this break with a strong tradition, Dante’s
Purgatorio recalls the state of music orderly deploying itself toward an
awaited conclusion, while the listeners are still tense.
Before we come to this, we should observe the consequences of such
a complex situation on language, both in the sense of stylistic choices
and of the way in which communication is achieved in this Cantica.
Elegy and emotional exchange are frequent in the Purgatorio. It is also
the Cantica in which Dante turns back more often, not to the state of
sin and confusion that almost led him to lose his life and eternal soul
(as in the Inferno, since the very beginning), but, before, to his poeti-
cal beginnings, to a certain form of innocence of youth, to the company
of his fellow artists and masters in a period of formation. I would sug-
gest that this moving alternation of themes (there is also the idea of the
ephemerality of human fame in this world) might remind the contempo-
rary English reader of the attitude in Yeats’ later poems on such subjects
(see, above all, Purgatorio XII; XXIV).
Dante is in a position now to reconsider his past in a new, hopeful
way. Critics today agree that the Commedia is a plurilinguistic work.
This is true also, or above all, within the various registers of the Italian
language, and is proved true by the many intertextual references to
the works of others and to Dante’s past poetry. In particular, there are
many references to his “dolce stil novo,” the “sweet new style” in love
poetry, which was so baptized by Dante himself, but was introduced by
Guido Guinizelli and further developed by Dante’s great friend, Guido
Cavalcanti. Dante is both deeply grateful to these grand masters from
his past, but also conscious that he himself introduced a great, epoch-
making change in Italian poetry and language with his new work, the
Commedia itself. With it, the Italian language becomes able to handle
not just courteous love, but all subjects: tragedy, comedy, political con-
flict, history, and even philosophy and theology (and, obviously, elegy
about a lost, life-long love, that of Dante for Beatrice). On the other
hand, all the poetry in the Commedia is purgatorial, because this is how
190 G. Varnier
the protagonist experiences all three realms, not just Purgatory, whatever
subject is handled, human or divine.
Dante takes very seriously a tradition that was dominant in the twelfth
century, and culminates in William of Alvernia: Purgatory is reserved not
to culpa which must be already extinguished, nor to torment proper,
but to penitence for fundamental sins. This is always present in the back-
ground. Certainly Dante focusses, not only for dramatic reasons, on the
great sinners who repented in articulo mortis, and had time for com-
plete and sincere contrition (which is necessary), but not for penitence.
There was a great debate on this, and after all Dante represents himself
as someone who had been rescued, by the thought of Beatrice and by
the gift of poetry, from secure damnation in an utterly tragic period of
his life. (There is no reason to think he is not sincere in his judgement
about his previous life.) Otherwise most souls are punished for life-long
negative habits. The main reason for waiting in Antipurgatorio and
Purgatorio are not venial sins, contrary to the view of a large part of the
tradition.
It is my impression that Dante thought that punishment in his
Purgatorio is real, but does not really apply to the flesh, not even to
flesh in the sense in which there is human flesh suffering in Hell. The
purgatorial souls possess, after all, only a fictitious, “aerial” body: this
“Augustinian” solution to the similitudo corporis problem is explained by
Statius in a subtle and sustained digression about body and soul in Canto
XXV of the Purgatorio. It is their abiding impression of terrestrial suf-
fering, such as hunger (for those who committed the sin of gluttony),
or being under a weight that pushes them to the ground (for those
who sinned in pride) that projects a concrete image of suffering, and
even molds, so to speak, their outer appearance—which is pure appear-
ance. As a matter of fact, there is, for instance, no real food and no need
for food in Purgatory; what those souls experience in a terrible way is
a longing for material nourishment that, though it is mirrored in their
aerial bodies, resides only in a soul still influenced by past sin, perhaps by
the fact that their will is not yet completely purified, though no longer
free to sin, as Dante repeats. This is exactly what must be cancelled by
suffering as expiation, and the souls are fully aware of this. This is also
what keeps them tied to the past, and thus apart from the visio beatifica,
which can be accessed only by souls that are completely pure. Longing
for the full grace of God is the positive side of suffering because of past
errors; the fact that those embodied souls (that cast no shadows nor can
be materially touched) are, in perspective, already saved, is the positive

side of their necessary punishment in a fictitious, partly material, local-
ized environment. In this sense, which is “anagogical,” or a “sovrasenso”
(a “super-sense”), according to Dante’s theory in the Convivio, we see
that, beyond the literary representation of (weakly) embodied souls suf-
fering punishments, the Purgatorio represents above all a state of the soul
proceeding toward the beatitude of Paradise, not just a series of places
where the souls wait for punishment and atonement, or are punished in
various ways.
The final, metaphoric representation of all the various ways of pun-
ishment is—as said—fire. It is not just the specific punishment for those
(both homosexual and heterosexual) who committed the sin of lust. To
go beyond the end of the region of Purgatory, not only souls, but even
Dante, who is in his original flesh and body, must go through a wall of
living, searing flame, that, as we saw, definitively cleanses of sins (again,
“quasi per ignem”). The partly metaphorical status of punishments is evi-
dent here. Even Dante is not hurt in the least by this fire, though the
pain is great. The prize is the refreshing vision of the waters and grass
of the Terrestrial Paradise, and more: not only the impossibility of sin-
ning again, but also the final freedom from everything in the soul that
may lead to sin. The positive side, becoming worthy of the visio beati-
fica, and the negative side, suffering all the pain of culpa, and final atone-
ment, become one in a final dynamic of self-reflection after which the
soul had conquered itself, and is free in the sublime sense, that of being
caught forever in the process of God’s light returning back to itself. The
soul is thus ready for the harmony of the spheres that silently dominates
Paradiso.
Music
The final cantos of Purgatorio are again full of music, and of phrases in
Latin, the universal medium of knowledge, and Latinate expressions.
Music, hymns, and words merge here into each other. But there is,
before all, the moving episode of Virgil’s farewell to Dante, in which the
preceding journey is concisely expressed:
e disse: « Il temporal foco e l’etterno
veduto hai, figlio; e se’ venuto in parte

192 G. Varnier
dov’ io per me più oltre non discerno. (Purgatorio XXXVIII. 127–129)
(…)
lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce; (Purgatorio XXVIII. 131)
(…)
saying: ‘The temporal and eternal fires
you’ve seen, my son, and now you’re in a place,
where I, through my own powers, can tell no more.
(…)
Now take what pleases you to be your guide.
It must not surprise us that from now on the leading force behind
Dante’s ascent will be “pleasure” (also, Beatrice), including the infinite
joy of seeing Beatrice again. Heaven is the place of utter harmony of
one’s (human) will and freedom, and the guidance of God that fully real-
izes them—it is not a place of laws and duties.
In the ensuing Vision of Beatrice, Dante’s lines sound to us contem-
poraries as unusually impressionistic and even abstract, as the vision is so
complex and emotionally charged, and they tend to pure music. We are
now ready to reread them in the unsurpassable Italian original:
O isplendor di viva luce etterna
chi palido si fece sotto l’ombra
sì di Parnaso o bevve in sua cisterna,
che non paresse aver la mente ingombra,
tentando a render te qual tu paresti
là dove armonizzando il ciel t’adombra,
quando ne aere aperto ti solvesti? (Purgatorio XXXI. 139–145)
(…)
Splendor of living and eternal light!
who would not seem - though pale from studying

deep in Parnassian shade, whose wells he drinks -
still to be much encumbered in his mind,
endeavoring to draw what you then seemed,
where heavens in harmony alone enshadow you,
as you came forth and showed yourself in air?
We are far indeed from Hell, where the only music could be Dante’s
clever attempts at onomatopoeia to imitate the sound of raging fire and
breaking ice:
S’io avessi le rime aspre e chiocce (Inferno XXXII. 1)
(…)
If I had rhymes that rawly rasped and cackled
Still, the principle is the same: correspondence and adequacy between

facts and words, between what is depicted and the depiction. In Hell,
this conjures up a noisy chaos of conflict and tragedy. In Heaven, it all
ends up in ineffable music. The contrappasso principle, according to
which the punishment of sinners evokes the sin, is not far too from this
ideal of perfect objectivity.
The philosophical teaching of Purgatorio is, accordingly, that peni-
tence for our errors is a never-ceasing process in our lives and, in a sense,
after them, and that language is to be made as clear and transparent as
possible in order to enhance this process in the best way: it has to receive
a “purer sense.” Mundane, terrestrial experience in itself, especially when
it is about love and art and friendship, is in no way an obstacle to the
achievement of perfect happiness in Paradise through the visio beatifica,
and the union with God. Our thinking and our loving, not just our lives,
must be radically freed from sin, but not dissolved. Life is, after all, joy
in God. The souls of Purgatory, and by special grace Dante too, when
ready, are finally bathed in the two, same-sourced rivers of the Garden
of Eden, Letè and Eünoè, the second one an invention of Dante himself.
The first river cancels all memory of sins, all bad memories, the sec-
ond river restores only the memory of the good that one has done in
one’s life, all good memories. There is thus no radical transcending of
human life, rather it rises to its greatest power and glory. In this grand
194 G. Varnier
conclusion of the final self-reflection of the soul, and of Dante’s soul

in particular, human life has its greatest achievement, that redemption
which is already accorded fully to Saints. Dante, a soul saved from sin
but in no way a mystic, accepts these gifts with very human and mun-
dane tears. The real time and place of human life is to him not (yet)
Heaven or Hell, but Purgatory.
At the end of Canto XXXI of the Purgatorio we just read of the holy
and ineffable transmutation of Beatrice’s face when finally revealed in
the open air, and in the following Canto Dante comments that he had
longed to see again that face for a decade (XXXII. 2). There is, it seems
to me, more than a suggestion of an accompaniment of music to these
lines, both delicate and powerful, and to Dante’s stupefied reaction. In
the very last Canto of the Purgatory, a powerful psalm introduces a fur-
ther transfiguration of Beatrice, who quotes, possibly with reference to
herself, the words of Christ during the Last Supper (John 16:16):
‘Deus, venerunt gentes’, alternando
or tre or quattro dolce salmodia,
le donne incominciaro, e lagrimando;
e Bëatrice, sospirosa e pia,
quelle ascoltava sì fatta, che poco
più a la croce si cambiò Maria.
Ma poi che l’altre vergini dier loco
a lei di dir, levata dritta in pè,
rispuose, colorata come foco:
`Modicum, et non videbitis me;
et iterum, sorelle mie dilette,
modicum, et vos videbitis me’. (Purgatorio XXXIII. 1–12)
(…)
(‘Deus, venerunt gentes’,– alternating
three, then four–the seven donne, weeping

gently, sweetly, began to chant that psalm.
And Beatrice, sighing in compassion,
Listened and changed, to hear them, hardly less
Than Mary did when she stood by the Cross.
But when those other virgins granted her
A place to speak, she, rising to her feet,
Responded, fiery in her colour, thus:
‘Modicum, et non videbitis me;
et iterum, my most beloved sisters,
modicum, et vos videbitis me’.)
Beatrice will be the new guide of Dante in Heaven, a world in which

words themselves have the full transparency of music to all beings, and
an unlimited dialogue of the redeemed souls is finally possible. There will
be no more space for a state of the mind, which is itself a self-reflexive
consideration of states of the mind.
Conclusion
Such correspondences as we have seen among different Cantos—and
other works—are deliberate, and, for me, point to the background
theory (an enlargement of contrappasso, if you want) to the effect that
distance or nearness from salvation also mean lesser or greater linguis-
tic transparency (possibly absence of it among the Damned), culminat-
ing in a total Pentecostal Gift in Heaven (Dante converses with Adam),
as opposite to post-Babel Chaos in Hell. Purgatory enjoys, as is by now
clear, a highly interesting, intermediate, convoluted status. As I ana-
lyze it, it seems that Dante’s theory is partly of Neoplatonic (see again
Bonaventura), partly of Aristotelian origins. But it also springs from
personal conceptions as developed in the Commedia as well as in non-
poetical works as Convivio and De vulgari eloquentia. The reconstruc-
tion of the confusio linguarum seems to be, as his whole vision of Hell
and Purgatory, original with him. And the very idea of posing a linguistic
196 G. Varnier
problem about the tria regna seems to me brand new, as the invention of
a second, purifying river, Eünoè, that reactivates good memories.
After all, as also Le Goff stresses (Le Goff 1984, 334–335), Dante
was one of the earliest and most relevant theorists of what I would call
an independent “Purgatorial philosophy” (and of a “Limbo” open to the
great writers and heroes of Classical past). In my opinion, Purgatorial
philosophy makes with Dante a new, alternative start with respect to
the scholastic disputes from Paris and other centers (disputes which
were well-known to him, and from which he starts in his autonomous
reflections). As we have seen, Dante’s perspective on Purgatory is far
from the “infernalization” of Purgatory, a process Le Goff reconstructs,
and which will go on according to him in the centuries after the Middle
Ages (1984, 346). Purgatory is a place of purification and a state of the
human mind. So Dante represents both a brilliant culmination of the
debates of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and a new development
that points toward a Renaissance conception (and role) of Christianity,
or better, of religion in general as a principle not of authority but of
freedom.
Notes
1. There is an Italian translation with the Latin text, ed. by Anna Longoni (Il
libro della scala di Maometto) (Longoni 2013), with an important essay by
Maria Corti, “Dante e la cultura islamica”; Milano, Rizzoli 2013. M. Corti
established the great influence of Averroism on Dante in its full extent
(Corti 2013).
2. It is also in other ancient sources; see again Le Goff (1984).
3. Not verisimilitude, so Borges, but scholastic philosophy and the very struc-
ture of the poem—that is the way in which it is possible to speak about the
damned and the saved and their language(s)—require this topography.
Even more for the contemporary reader, a “suspension of disbelief” is
required.
References
D. Alighieri (1996) De vulgari eloquentia S. Botterill (tr.) (Cambridge:
D. Alighieri (2012a) Inferno, in The Divine Comedy R. Kirkpatrick (tr.) (London:
Penguin), pp. 3–158.
D. Alighieri (2012b) Paradiso, in The Divine Comedy R. Kirkpatrick (tr.)

(London: Penguin), pp. 320–482.
D. Alighieri (2012c) Purgatorio, in The Divine Comedy R. Kirkpatrick (tr.)
(London: Penguin), pp. 160–318.
D. Alighieri (2015a) De vulgari eloquentia, in Tutte le opere (Roma: Newton
Compton), pp. 1018–1066.
D. Alighieri (2015b) Inferno, in Tutte le opere (Roma: Newton Compton),
pp. 31–233.
D. Alighieri (2015c) Paradiso, in Tutte le opere (Roma: Newton Compton),
pp. 435–648.
D. Alighieri (2015d) Purgatorio, in Tutte le opere (Roma: Newton Compton),
pp. 234–434.
J. L. Borges (1982) Nueve Ensayos Dantescos (Madrid: Espasa Calpes).
M. Corti (2013) ‘Dante e la cultura islamica’, in Il libro della Scala di Maometto,
Anna Longoni (tr. and ed.) (Milano: Rizzoli Editore), pp. 325–347.
A. Longoni (ed.) (2013) Il libro della scala di Maometto A. Longoni (tr.)
(Milano: Rizzoli).
P. P. Pasolini (1972) Empirismo eretico (Milano: Garzanti Editori).
E. Pasquini (2006) Vita di Dante: I giorni e le opere (Milano: Rizzoli).
CHAPTER 11
Aquinas and the Possibility of a Probable

Reasoned Argument for the Existence
of Purgatory
Jeremy Bell
Thomas Aquinas follows Aristotle in claiming that the immateriality of

the human intellect is rationally demonstrable (Aristotle and Aquinas
2007, 404–405). He further claims that, on the basis of the intellect’s
immateriality, the immortality of the individual human soul is rationally
demonstrable (Aquinas 1981, 368). The soul does not die with the body.
As a faithful Catholic, Aquinas believes that departed souls will be reu-
nited with their bodies on Judgement Day. In the meantime, they are
either happy or unhappy, depending on their spiritual condition at the
moment of death. The souls of those who have died in mortal sin suffer
the pains of Hell. The souls of unbaptized children (who have died in
original sin only) are deprived of the supernatural happiness of Heaven
but are spared the sensible pains of Hell and enjoy a kind of natural hap-
piness.1 The souls of those who have died in a state of grace, but with
unrepented venial sin or an unpaid debt of punishment for repented
J. Bell (*) 
Campion College (AUST),
Toongabbie, NSW, Australia

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_11
200 J. Bell
venial or mortal sin, suffer the temporary pains of Purgatory before

being admitted to the happiness of Heaven. The souls of the fortunate
few who have died in a state of grace, without either unrepented venial
sin or an unpaid debt of punishment, enjoy immediately the happiness of
Heaven. After the Resurrection, those who had died as unbaptized chil-
dren will enjoy everlasting, perfect natural happiness in body and soul.
Those who had died as adults will either enjoy in body and soul the ever-
lasting supernatural happiness of Heaven or suffer in body and soul the
everlasting pains of Hell.
If Aquinas is right that the immortality of the soul is rationally
demonstrable, this prompts the question of what, if anything, unaided
reason can discover about the soul’s fate after bodily death. Is it possible,
in Aquinas’ view, to know anything of Hell, Limbo, Purgatory, Heaven
and the Resurrection without benefit of revelation?
Happiness and Unhappiness in the Afterlife

Aquinas seems in numerous texts to reject the possibility of a philo-
sophic inquiry into happiness after death. In his commentary on the
Nicomachean Ethics, he states that Aristotle’s concern in that work is
solely with “happiness as it is attainable in this life,” because “happiness
in a future life is entirely beyond the investigation of reason” (1993,
38). When treating of the doctrine of the Resurrection in the Summa
Theologica (IIIa Q.75, Art.3), he argues that the bodily resurrection is
“miraculous and not natural” and he states that “[f]rom natural things
one does not come by a demonstration of reason to know non-natural
things” (2866). Since he agrees with Aristotle that all of our natural
knowledge is derived in some way from our sensory awareness of natu-
ral things, it follows that the doctrine of the Resurrection is not, in his
view, susceptible of rational demonstration. Again, if unaided reason
cannot demonstrate any “non-natural” or supernatural truths, it cannot
demonstrate that the supernatural happiness of Heaven awaits the souls
(and, one day, the resurrected bodies) of those who have died in a state
of grace. Aquinas repeatedly affirms that the vision of God, whose attain-
ment is the essence of the happiness of Heaven and whose loss, for those
capable of it, is the chief of the pains of Hell, is not man’s natural end.
On the contrary, it “surpasses not only the nature of man but also of
every creature” (Ia-IIae, Q.5, Art.5; 612). Aquinas in this context cites
St. Paul’s declaration that “[e]ye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither
11 AQUINAS AND THE POSSIBILITY OF A PROBABLE REASONED … 201
hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for
those that love Him” (emphasis added).
Passages like these may seem to leave little room for doubt that
Aquinas considers unaided reason simply incapable of investigating the
prospects of happiness in the afterlife. If this were his position, we might
well expect him to consider unaided reason incapable of investigating
the prospects of unhappiness in the afterlife either. However, his posi-
tion is not so straightforward. In the Summa Contra Gentiles (III, Ch.
48), he argues at some length that “ultimate felicity” is not possible for
human beings in this life. Some of the considerations he adduces in sup-
port of this conclusion (for instance, our natural sorrow at the prospect
of death, the impossibility of our ever being entirely free from evils such
as hunger, thirst and “unruly passions”) are clearly independent of rev-
elation (Aquinas 1975b, 164). However, he continues, “it is impossi-
ble for natural desire to be unfulfilled,” citing the Aristotelian principle
that “nature does nothing in vain” (166). It follows that “man’s natu-
ral desire [for “ultimate felicity”] is capable of fulfilment, but not in this
life.” Hence, he concludes, “it must be fulfilled after this life.” A little
later, he acknowledges that this was not Aristotle’s view. In fact, Aristotle
“maintained that man does not achieve perfect felicity, but only a lim-
ited kind” (167). We might expect Aquinas to attribute this to Aristotle’s
ignorance of the Gospel, but he does not. He attributes it instead to a
certain “narrowness” in Aristotle’s otherwise “brilliant” mind.2 As is well
known, he very rarely criticizes Aristotle, which makes this remark all the
more striking. He is, in effect, faulting the man he considers the greatest
of pagan philosophers for not recognizing that perfect happiness must be
possible in the next life. In the Nicomachean Ethics commentary itself,
after saying that “perfect beatitude” is not possible in this life, he adds
that “[s]ince a natural desire is not in vain, we can correctly judge that
perfect beatitude is reserved for a man after this life” (Aquinas 1993,
66). (He does not, however, present this as a departure from Aristotle,
perhaps because he thinks that open disagreement would be unseemly in
a commentary.) In light of this, we must exercise caution in interpreting
his statement earlier in the commentary that happiness in the afterlife is
“entirely beyond the investigation of reason.” It is not immediately clear
whether he merely attributes this thesis to Aristotle or whether he also
endorses it. If he does endorse it, which seems likely, clearly the thesis
cannot mean that reason is simply incapable of investigating whether,
and under what conditions, happiness of any kind is possible after death.
202 J. Bell
Again, though Aquinas clearly implies in the Summa Theologica that

the doctrine of the Resurrection is not susceptible of rational dem-
onstration, in the Summa Contra Gentiles (IV, Ch. 79), he offers two
arguments in support of the doctrine that appeals solely to premises dis-
coverable by unaided reason. The first concerns the nature of the body/
soul union. It has two premises: (1) since human souls are immortal,
they “persist” when “released from their bodies;” and (2) “the soul is
naturally united to the body, for in its essence it is the form of the body”
(1975c, 299). Both premises are of Aristotelian provenance, at least as
Aquinas interprets Aristotle. Aquinas infers from them that it is “contrary
to the nature of the soul to be without the body.” However, he contin-
ues, “nothing which is contrary to nature can be perpetual.” Like the
thesis that nature does nothing in vain, this is a principle of Aristotelian
natural philosophy. It is, therefore, discoverable (Aquinas believes) by
unaided reason. The separation of soul and body cannot, then, be per-
petual. Consequently, “the immortality of souls seems to demand a
future resurrection of bodies.”
The second argument concerns the nature of human happiness. Its
two premises are likewise Aristotelian: (1) ultimate happiness is “the per-
fection of the happy one;”3 and (2) “the soul separated from the body
is in a way imperfect, as is every part existing outside of its whole.” It
follows that “man cannot achieve his ultimate happiness unless the soul
is once again united to the body.” Consequently, Aquinas implies, there
will be a resurrection of the body. He is evidently presupposing that it
must be possible for a man to achieve ultimate happiness—presumably,
on the Aristotelian grounds that man naturally desires perfect happiness
and that, since nature does nothing in vain, no natural desire can be inca-
pable of fulfilment.
The note of tentativeness in the first argument’s conclusion (“the
immortality of souls seems to demand a future resurrection of bodies”)
should serve as a warning that Aquinas is not purporting to offer a
demonstration of the doctrine of the Resurrection. As we have seen, he
denies that a rational demonstration of the doctrine is possible, since the
resurrection will be a supernatural event. The two reasoned arguments
just discussed are what he elsewhere calls “probable arguments” for an
article of faith. In the Summa Contra Gentiles (I, Ch. 8), he says that
“it is useful for the human reason to exercise itself in such arguments…
provided only that there be present no presumption to comprehend or
to demonstrate” (1975a, 76). When he says in the Nicomachean Ethics
commentary that happiness in the afterlife is “entirely beyond the inves-

tigation of reason,” he perhaps means only that reason cannot demon-
strate anything about happiness in the afterlife. He apparently thinks that
Aristotle rashly concluded from this that ultimate happiness cannot be
had in the afterlife. In fact, Aristotle’s “narrowness” prevented him from
seeing that his own principles permit the formulation of probable argu-
ments for the opposite conclusion.
Are there also probable arguments for the doctrine that man’s ulti-
mate happiness consists in the supernatural vision of God? Aquinas, of
course, believes that the existence of God is discoverable by unaided
reason. In the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.12, Art.1), he notes that, if a
created intellect could never see God, “it would either never attain to
beatitude, or its beatitude would consist in something else besides [the
vision of] God” (1981, 49). The opinion that a created intellect can-
not see God is, therefore “opposed to faith.” But, he adds, it is “also
against reason.” Since the possibility of the Beatific Vision is certainly not
demonstrable, the rational argument he proceeds to offer for this pos-
sibility must be intended to be merely probable. It runs as follows: there
is in every man “a natural desire to know the cause of any effect which
he sees” and if his intellect “could not reach so far as to the first cause
of things, the natural desire would remain void.” Here again, Aquinas is
clearly presupposing the Aristotelian principle that nature does nothing
in vain. He is also, of course, presupposing that God is the “first cause”
of every visible effect. His argument seems open to the objection that
the human intellect can indeed “reach so far as to the first cause,” but
without “seeing” God’s essence. (This is the conclusion of the second
of the Five Ways.) However, his discussion of happiness in the Summa
(Ia-IIae, Q.3, Art.8) shows how he would respond to this objection.
“If,” he says, “the human intellect, knowing the essence of some created
effect, knows no more of God than that He is,” then “the perfection of
that intellect does not yet reach simply the First Cause, but there remains
in it the natural desire to seek the cause.” Consequently, “it is not per-
fectly happy.”
Taken on its own, this is a probable rational argument only for the
possibility of the Beatific Vision, not for its possibility as man’s ultimate
end. However, it occurs as part of a more extended probable argument
for the latter, stronger thesis. This more extended argument (Q.8, Art.2)
has the additional premise that no created good can constitute (per-
fect) human happiness (595). The argument for this premise is itself a
204 J. Bell
probable rational one, as we shall see. From this premise, it obviously fol-
lows that, if perfect human happiness is possible, God must in some way
constitute it. As we have already seen, Aquinas thinks there are probably
philosophic reasons to believe that perfect happiness must be possible for
human beings, though not in this life. God must, then, somehow consti-
tute perfect human happiness—and the probable argument discussed in
the previous paragraph is supposed to yield the conclusion that nothing
less than the vision of God could perfectly satisfy the human intellect.
What, then, is the probable argument for the premise that no cre-
ated good can constitute perfect human happiness? Its first premise is the
Aristotelian thesis that (perfect) happiness is “the perfect good, which
lulls the appetite altogether.” Its second is that “the object of the will,
i.e. of man’s appetite, is the universal good; just as the object of man’s
intellect is the universal true.” From these, it follows that “naught can
lure man’s will, save the universal good.” (More precisely, nothing can
perfectly satisfy the human appetite, save the universal good.) But the
“universal good” can be found “in God alone” because a mere crea-
ture can have goodness only “by participation” in God’s own goodness.
This argument is not without its difficulties. Its quasi-Platonic language
(the “universal good” that is found in God alone, but in which created
beings “participate”) needs careful interpretation, since Aquinas follows
Aristotle in rejecting Platonic realism about universals. Its second prem-
ise is especially difficult to interpret. Its meaning seems to be roughly
this: whereas irrational animals know and desire only particular goods,
human beings grasp the concept of goodness as such and hence are able
to desire goodness as such. It is at least clear that Aquinas is making a
strictly philosophic claim about the nature of human desire and its fulfil-
ment. The contrast he draws between the “universal goodness” found in
God and the merely “participated” goodness found in creatures is appar-
ently equivalent to the contrast he draws earlier in the Summa (Ia, Q.6,
Arts.3–4) between God’s “essential” goodness and the “participated”
goodness of creatures (29–30).4 The arguments he there presents for
God’s being essentially good and for creatures’ being good only by “par-
ticipation” are purely philosophical. It is clear, then, that his argument
for the premise that no created good can constitute perfect human hap-
piness is a probable rational one.
There are well-known philosophical and theological problems with
the claim that the supernatural end of man is in any sense naturally
knowable or naturally desirable.5 It is difficult, for instance, to reconcile
this claim with the doctrine of Limbo as a place of perfect, but merely
natural, happiness. If a soul in Limbo is naturally capable of desiring the
vision of God but is deprived of this vision forever, does it not follow
that such happiness as it enjoys is necessarily imperfect?
Whatever the difficulties in Aquinas’ position, it is in any case clear
that he does not consider unaided reason wholly incapable of investigat-
ing the happiness for which we may hope in the next life. But what of
the sufferings that may instead await us after death? Would he allow that
these too are possible objects of philosophical inquiry?
The chief pain of Hell, as mentioned earlier, is the deprivation of the
vision of God.6 Indeed, this is the essential pain of Hell. Since Aquinas
thinks there are probably rational arguments for the Beatific Vision as
man’s ultimate, supernatural end, he would hardly deny that unaided
reason can at least entertain the possibility of a human being failing to
reach this end. Unaided reason can, then, recognize the possibility of
what Aquinas follows Catholic tradition in regarding as the essential pain
of Hell. But the pains of Hell have the character of punishment. The
notion of punishment clearly involves more than that of mere depriva-
tion. The deprivation of the Beatific Vision can only be called a punish-
ment if it is inflicted on a human being as a matter of retributive justice.
The pains of Purgatory, like those of Hell, are penal in character.
Indeed, according to Aquinas, all human sufferings, even in this life,
are in some sense penal (see Summa Theologica Ia, Q.48, Art.5, 252). If
probable rational arguments are available in support of Catholic teach-
ing about the sufferings that may await us after death, considerations of
retributive justice will necessarily feature in them.7
In the following section, I shall draw on elements of Aquinas’ natu-
ral theology and of his theory of punishment to construct a probable,
rational argument for the thesis that punishment of some sort awaits at
least some human beings after this life. Whether this punishment is to
be everlasting or merely temporary is a distinct question, which I shall
address in the final section. I shall there seek to show that Aquinas has
the resources to construct probable rational arguments both for the
doctrine of Purgatory and for the doctrine of Hell. I shall focus on
the former, partly because it is in some respects easier to construct a
probable rational argument for Purgatory than for Hell, and partly
because a probable rational argument for Purgatory has a special claim
on our attention. In the thirteenth century, few western Christians dis-
puted the doctrine of Purgatory. However, the Protestant reformers of
206 J. Bell
the sixteenth century vigorously rejected it, and (unlike the doctrine
of Hell) it remains a major point of contention between Protestants
and Catholics. While arguments about Purgatory typically and rightly
focus on the real or alleged biblical and patristic evidence favoring
the doctrine’s acceptance or rejection, a probable rational argument
in its support should nonetheless be of interest to both Catholics and
Protestants.
Punishment in the Afterlife

The following, probable argument has considerable intuitive appeal: if
there exists a just, all-powerful God, and if justice demands that wrong-
doers be punished, then God will punish them, if not in this life then in
the next. But there does exist a just, all-powerful God, and justice does
demand that wrongdoers be punished. Therefore, wrongdoers will be
punished. Moreover, since it seems clear that at least some wrongdoers
are not punished, or are insufficiently punished, in this life, it follows that
they will be (sufficiently) punished only in the next. I shall seek to show
that an argument along these lines can be drawn from Aquinas’ natural
theology and theory of punishment.
Unaided reason, according to Aquinas, can prove not only that God
exists, but that He has both intellect and will, and is supremely good,
omniscient, and omnipotent. All of these attributes are necessary for
the construction of a probable argument for punishment in the afterlife.
Within the confines of the present chapter, I cannot begin to do justice
to the richness and complexity of Aquinas’ natural theology. Book-length
studies exist of his proofs for God’s existence, and an adequate discus-
sion of his arguments for any one of the aforementioned divine attributes
might itself fill a book. For simplicity’s sake, in what follows I shall take
for granted his belief that unaided reason can prove the existence of God.
The fifth of the Five Ways (the so-called “argument from design”)
takes as its starting-point the Aristotelian thesis that “things which lack
intelligence, such as natural bodies, act for an end” (Ia, Q.2, Art.3; 14).
Whatever lacks intelligence, however, “cannot move towards an end,
unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intel-
ligence.” Consequently, “some intelligent being exists by whom all nat-
ural things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.” This
amounts to a proof not only that God exists and is possessed of intellect,
but that He “directs” all natural things to their end. In other words, it
amounts to a proof of God’s providence. In the Summa Contra Gentiles

(III, Ch. 64), Aquinas accordingly reasons from an almost identical prem-
ise (that “natural bodies are moved and made to operate for an end”) to
the conclusion that God “governs the world by His providence” (1975b,
211). Strictly speaking, this argument would establish only that natural
beings devoid of intellect are subject to God’s providence, as Aquinas him-
self recognizes. Both in the Summa Theologica and in the Summa Contra
Gentiles, he goes out of his way to show (in opposition to philosophers
such as Maimonides) that God’s providence is not restricted to natural
beings devoid of intellect.
Both the Fifth Way and the argument just limned for God’s provi-
dence over natural beings devoid of intellect manifestly call for some
elaboration, if they are to be formally valid. More importantly, the tele-
ological view of nature that underpins them is now widely believed to
have been discredited.8 In addition, Aquinas’ swift move from natural
teleology to the existence of an Intelligent Designer is certainly un-Aris-
totelian.9 Even contemporary philosophers sympathetic to a revival of
Aristotelian teleology may think this move illegitimate or, at least, pre-
cipitate. Whatever the possible merits of the Fifth Way and the related
teleological argument for God’s providence, contemporary readers will
likely wish to see them buttressed by arguments for God’s intelligence
and providence that are independent of Aristotelian teleology.
In the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.14, Art.1), Aquinas undertakes to
prove without appeal to revelation that there is knowledge, and hence
intellect, in God. His argument turns on the thesis, which has clear
Aristotelian roots, that “the immateriality of a thing is the reason why it
is cognitive” (Aquinas 1981, 72). He cites Q.7, Art.1 to the effect that
God is “in the highest degree of immateriality,” from which it would
then follow that God is in the highest degree cognitive. The argument
in the body of Q.7, Art.1 is complex and calls for some interpretation.
However, it is not necessary to pursue this task here. In the Summa
Contra Gentiles (I, Ch. 44), Aquinas similarly undertakes to prove
without appeal to revelation that there is intellect in God. One of the
arguments he presents is again premised on intelligence following imma-
teriality and on God’s being “absolutely immaterial” (1975a, 171).
Earlier in the same work (Chs. 16–17), he argues that there can be no
matter in God because matter is “in potency,” and there is no potency
in God, Who is “pure act” (101). I shall not discuss here his numerous
208 J. Bell
arguments for the thesis that God is pure act.10 This thesis is one of the
keystones of Aristotelian and Thomist metaphysics. Few students of
Aquinas who are sympathetic to his natural theology will wish to reject
it.
According to Aquinas, then, it follows from God’s being pure act
that there is intellect in Him. It does not directly follow, of course, that
God’s knowledge extends to beings other than Himself. The thinking
of Aristotle’s first Unmoved Mover apparently has no object beyond
itself.11 Aquinas himself affirms in the Summa Contra Gentiles (I, Ch.
48) that “primarily and essentially God knows only Himself” (178). He
argues, however, that God’s knowledge of Himself necessarily includes
knowledge of all things other than Himself. Since God is the first cause
of all things other than Himself, His power necessarily extends to these
things. If God knows Himself, then he knows His own power. But,
Aquinas says in the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.14, Art.5), “the power
of anything can be perfectly known only by knowing to what its power
extends” (1981, 75). In knowing His own power, then, God knows
everything to which that power extends. Moreover, since that power
is unlimited, God’s knowledge of beings other than Himself is likewise
unlimited. God is omniscient.
This argument gives the impression that God’s omnipotence can be
inferred from His being the first cause of all things. However, this is not
the way in which Aquinas argues for divine omnipotence in the Summa
Theologica. He instead presents this attribute as a further consequence of
God’s being pure act. It is “manifest,” he says, that “everything, accord-
ing as it is in act and is perfect, is the active principle of something”
(Q.25, Art.1; 136). To be actual, as such, is to be an agent. Since God
is pure, unrestricted act, “it is necessary that [His] active power…should
be infinite” (Q.25, Art.2; 137). From this, it directly follows that He is
omnipotent.12
Aquinas argues in the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.19, Art.1) that it fol-
lows from there being intellect in God that there is also will in Him.
Unfortunately, his reasoning here again depends, if only indirectly, on
Aristotelian teleology.13 In the Summa Contra Gentiles I, Ch. 72, he
likewise argues from there being intellect in God to there being will in
Him, but his reasoning here is in no way teleological. The key premise
is that “since the understood good is the proper object of the will, the
understood good is, as such, willed” (1975a, 239).14 Now, Aquinas says,
“the activity of [God’s] intellect is perfect” (240). He alludes here to
demonstrations earlier in the work, but presumably, this thesis also fol-
lows from God’s being cognitive in the highest degree. Since the activity
of His intellect is perfect, He cannot fail to understand the transcenden-
tal “good” as well as the transcendental “being,” and since “the under-
stood good is, as such, willed,” God must will the good He understands.
Hence, He must have will.
This argument is more readily intelligible if we take into account
Aquinas’ claim, which he seems to consider self-evident, that “[t]he
essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable”
(Summa Theologica Ia, Q.5, Art.1; 23). To be desirable is to be a possi-
ble object of the will. In the argument from the Summa Contra Gentiles
he is apparently assuming that to understand the qualification “good” is
to grasp something as a possible object of the will, and that it is not pos-
sible to grasp something as a possible object of the will unless one grasps
it as a possible object of one’s own will.
In the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.6 Arts.1–3), Aquinas seeks to dem-
onstrate rationally that God is supremely and essentially good. If we
accept his reasoning, we might conclude without further ado that God is
just, since justice is a kind of goodness. However, he also presents partly
independent arguments for God’s justice. Since it is specifically His jus-
tice, not His general goodness, which is relevant to our present topic,
these arguments call for some consideration. In (Q.21, Art.1), following
Aristotle, Aquinas distinguishes between commutative justice (justice in
exchange) and distributive justice, “whereby a ruler or a steward gives
to each what his rank deserves” (118). Commutative justice “does not
belong to God,” since no one can give God anything that is not already
His own.15 However, distributive justice does belong to God. “To each
one is due what is his own,” and it is good that each one is given what
is due to him. Being omniscient and omnipotent, God knows what is
due to each and has the power to give it. Since the understood good is
as such willed, “it is impossible for God to will anything but what His
wisdom approves.” God cannot but will, then, to give each his due. This
does not mean, however, that He cannot will to give anyone more than
his due.16 When God acts mercifully, He freely chooses to do “some-
thing more than justice” (Art.3; 119). Aquinas claims that, in doing so,
He is not “going against His justice.” Mercy “does not destroy justice,
but in a sense is the fullness thereof.” Since God’s justice consists in His
willing only what His wisdom approves, His mercifully giving a human
being more than his due is still a kind of justice, inasmuch as His wisdom
210 J. Bell
approves it. In being merciful to His creature, He is, as it were, being

just towards Himself.
God is omniscient and omnipotent, and He has at least the antecedent
will to give to each his due, even if He may sometimes mercifully choose
to give some more than their due. Aquinas believes that this much may
be established, apparently with certainty, by unaided reason.
Can unaided human reason also establish that a human being’s due
sometimes includes punishment? Aquinas would unquestionably say
yes. He subscribes to what is now often called a “retributivist” theory
of punishment, according to which the essential purpose of punishment
is neither deterrence nor rehabilitation, but the satisfaction of justice.17
It is “contrary to the order of reason,” he says, to desire “the punish-
ment of one who has not deserved it, or beyond his deserts” (Summa
Theologica IIa-IIae, Q.158, Art.2; 1833). Unaided reason, then, can rec-
ognize that punishment is essentially a matter of giving wrongdoers their
just deserts. Indeed, the punishment of wrongdoers is a dictate of the
natural law. “[T]he law of nature has it that the evildoer should be pun-
ished” (Ia-IIae, Q.95, Art.2; 1015). Since the natural law is the rational
creature’s “participation” in God’s eternal law (Q.91, Art.2; 997), which
eternal law, in turn, is “nothing else than the type of Divine Wisdom,
as directing all actions and movements” (Q.93, Art.1; 1003), it is clear
independently of revelation that one manifestation of God’s justice will
be punishment proportionate to a wrongdoer’s deserts.
This becomes still clearer if we consider Aquinas’ discussion a little
earlier (Q.87, Art.1) of what punishment essentially is. There he tells us
that
whatever rises up against an order, is put down by that order or by the

principle thereof. And because sin is an inordinate act it is evident that
whoever sins, commits an offense against an order: wherefore he is put
down, in consequence, by that same order, which repression is punish-
ment. (973)
He continues:
Accordingly, man can be punished with a threefold punishment corre-

sponding to the three orders to which the human will is subject. In the
first place a man’s nature is subjected to the order of his own reason;
secondly, it is subjected to the order of another man who governs him

either in spiritual or in temporal matters, as a member either of the state or
of the household; thirdly it is subjected to the universal order of the divine
government. Now each of these orders is disturbed by sin, for the sinner
acts against his reason and against human and Divine law. Wherefore he
incurs a threefold punishment; one, inflicted by himself, viz. remorse of
conscience; another, inflicted by man, and a third, inflicted by God. (973)
Aquinas is here saying more than that wrongdoing of any kind deserves
punishment and that God, in virtue of His justice, has at least an ante-
cedent will not let it go unpunished. He is saying that wrongdoing (sin)
of any kind is an offense against God’s order and therefore specifically
deserves Divine punishment, in addition to any human punishment it
may also deserve.
For confirmation that Aquinas believes unaided reason capable of rec-
ognizing wrongdoing as justly subject to divine punishment, we may
consider his discussion of penance near the end of the Summa Theologica
(IIIa, Q.85, Art.3). While his primary concern is understandably the sac-
rament of penance, he also considers the virtue of penance. One who has
this virtue “grieves for the sin which he has committed, inasmuch as it is
an offense against God, and purposes to amend” (2535). This virtue is
“a part of justice,” hence a moral (natural) virtue, and “not a theological
virtue.” Like the sacrament of penance, the natural virtue of penance has
three parts: contrition, confession, and satisfaction (Q.90, Art.1; 2557).
Contrition is the sinner’s grief for his sin, inasmuch as it is an offense
against God. This offense must be confessed. Satisfaction is a part of
making amends for the offense. To “amend,” Aquinas says, it is not suf-
ficient merely to cease to offend, but “it is necessary to make some kind
of compensation” (IIIa, Q.85, Art.3; 2535).
Since the virtue of penance is a natural virtue, we would expect con-
trition, confession, and satisfaction to be demands of the natural law.
While Aquinas does not expressly draw this inference about contrition
or satisfaction, he does about confession. Confession made directly to
God (rather than to a priest), by one who is inculpably ignorant of the
Gospel, is “according to the natural law” (Suppl. Q.6, Art.2; 2576). We
may confidently suppose that the other parts of penance are also accord-
ing to the natural law. Satisfaction, we should note, is a compensation
for sin that must be in some way penal, for “[t]hat which is due for sin is
compensation for the offense, and this cannot be done without punishment
212 J. Bell
of the sinner” (Suppl., Q.15, Art.1; 2610; emphasis added). This punish-
ment is “satisfactory” if it is undergone voluntarily and for the sake of
satisfaction, yet it remains a kind of punishment.
It is safe to conclude that, in Aquinas’ view, unaided reason can rec-
ognize that wrongdoers are justly subject to divine punishment. It seems
obvious that at least some wrongdoers depart this life without having
been sufficiently punished for their wrongdoing. Even without the ben-
efit of revelation, this is a sufficient reason (if Aquinas is right) to affirm
that punishment of some kind may await them in the next life. God may,
of course, be merciful to some of those who die without having been
sufficiently punished for their wrongdoing while alive. However, we
have no reason to assume that He will be merciful to all of them. Even
if He is, we have no reason to assume that He will go so far as to remit
punishment entirely for all of them. We have, then, a probable Thomist
argument for at least some punishment in the afterlife. But are there any
considerations independent of revelation that suggest either that this
punishment may be everlasting or that it may be only temporary?
A Probable Argument for the Existence of Purgatory

In the Summa Theologica (Ia-IIa, Q.87, Art.3), Aquinas poses the ques-
tion of whether any sin incurs a debt of eternal punishment. Since the
possibility of eternal punishment is an article of Catholic faith, he is
bound to give an affirmative answer. However, the argument he pre-
sents for this conclusion rests on his discussion, two articles earlier, of the
essential nature of punishment, from which I quoted at some length in
the preceding section. This discussion appears strictly philosophical. Sin
is an offense against one or more of the “orders” to which a man’s will
is subject and its punishment is the sinner’s “repression” by that order.
Aquinas reasons that “so long as the disturbance of the order remains,”
the debt of punishment “must need remain also” (975). He then con-
tends that disturbance of an order is “sometimes reparable, sometimes
irreparable,” because “a defect which destroys the principle is irrepara-
ble, whereas if the principle is saved, defects can be repaired by virtue
of that principle.” An eye in which “the principle of sight” is intact may
suffer defects, but nature or art may remedy these and restore perfect
sight. However, an eye in which the principle of sight is destroyed can
never see again, except by divine power. Now every man’s will is neces-
sarily subject to “the universal order of the divine government.” Aquinas
says that, if a sin destroys the principle of “the order whereby man’s
will is subject to God,” then the damage will be “in itself” irreparable
(though reparable by Divine power). This disturbance of order, in itself
irreparable, will last forever unless God repairs it, since the human soul is
immortal. Consequently, the debt of punishment will remain forever and
the sinner will be punished eternally.
The principle of the order whereby the sinner’s will is subject to God,
Aquinas says, is “the last end.” Every human being, in his view, has one
last end, for the sake of which he ultimately wills everything else.18 The
Aristotelian provenance of this claim is obvious. Moreover, as we saw
earlier, Aquinas offers a probable rational argument for the thesis that
nothing less than the vision of God could perfectly satisfy the human
intellect. Unaided reason can, then, discover probable grounds for the
belief that the vision of God is man’s proper last end. An offense against
God that destroys the wrongdoer’s orientation to the vision of God as
his or her last end incurs eternal punishment. By contrast, an offense that
does not destroy this orientation incurs merely temporal punishment. In
theological language, the first kind of offense is a “mortal” sin, while the
second kind is “venial.”
It is tempting to suppose that Aquinas has, in effect, presented a
probable rational argument for the existence of Hell that is simultane-
ously an argument for the existence of Purgatory. A wrongdoer’s dis-
turbance of the order whereby his will is subject to God may be either
reparable or irreparable. If it is irreparable, his punishment will be ever-
lasting. But if it is reparable, his punishment need only be temporary.
While Hell is a place of everlasting punishment, Purgatory is a place of
merely temporary punishment. However, it is not clear that Aquinas’
defense of the possibility of eternal punishment is strictly philosophical.
It is important to note that, when he identifies “the last end” as the prin-
ciple of the order whereby the sinner’s will is subject to God, he imme-
diately adds that man adheres to this end “by charity.” Charity is the
supernatural virtue that unites the man of supernatural faith with God.
Here Aquinas certainly parts company with the philosophers. Yet we
might suppose that, if unaided reason can discover probable grounds for
the belief that the vision of God is man’s proper last end, it can in con-
sequence also entertain the possibility of what the Catholic tradition calls
charity. Moreover, even apart from the possibility of supernatural charity,
Aquinas elsewhere claims that “to love God above all things is natural to
man” (Ia-IIa, Q.109, Art.3; 1125). (To be sure, he also maintains that
214 J. Bell
the corruption of nature due to original sin, of which unaided reason

can know nothing, makes us unable to love God above all things without
supernatural help.) To love God above all things is surely in some sense
to make Him one’s last end.
Whether or not Aquinas’ defense of the possibility of eternal pun-
ishment can plausibly be construed as (or perhaps developed into) a
probable rational one, it raises many questions. Some of special interest
concern the nature of the human will. If it is true that a human being’s
last end is that for the sake of which he or she necessarily wills everything
else, we might wonder how it is even possible for someone who has made
God his last end to destroy his orientation to this end and thereby incur
a debt of eternal punishment. Again, precisely if this is indeed possible,
we might wonder how the resulting disturbance to the order whereby
his will is subject to God can be in itself irreparable. When discussing the
difference between human and angelic wills, Aquinas says that a human
will, unlike an angelic will, “adheres to a thing movably, and with the
power of forsaking it and of clinging to the opposite” (Ia, Q.64, Art.2;
322). Why then is it not naturally possible for one who has sinned mor-
tally to repair this grave disturbance of the order whereby his will is sub-
ject to God?19
Clearly, then, the subject of eternal punishment presents special prob-
lems. If we confine our attention to the prospects of a probable rational
argument for temporal punishment in the afterlife, our task will be sim-
pler. Aquinas’ formal defense of the doctrine of Purgatory in the second
appendix to the Summa Theologica does, in fact, appear to be such an
argument. Referring the reader to his earlier discussion of penance, he
says that, “if the debt of punishment is not paid in full after the stain of
sin has been washed away by contrition…and if justice demands that sin
be set in order by due punishment, it follows that one who after contri-
tion for his fault and after being absolved, dies before making due satis-
faction, is punished after this life” (App.2, Art.1; 3010). Admittedly, the
allusion to (priestly) absolution indicates that Aquinas is here taking for
granted certain revealed premises. Nonetheless, if we bear in mind that
penance is both a sacrament and a natural virtue (a part of justice), it is
not difficult to adapt this reasoning into a probable rational argument
that, by Aquinas’ lights, should be acceptable even to those without
faith. If human beings do wrong while alive, repent of it, and, believing
in God, acknowledge their guilt before Him, they may die forgiven, yet
without having fully paid their “debt of punishment.” While God may
mercifully remit this debt, He may also justly require its payment in the
afterlife. Departed souls who are punished on this account will certainly
not suffer everlastingly, but they will suffer for a time. To deny this,
Aquinas concludes, is to “speak against the justice of God.”
Conclusion
I have sought to show that Aquinas has the resources to construct a
probable rational argument for the thesis that temporary punishment
awaits some human beings in the afterlife. This argument is not, of
course, an argument for the Catholic doctrine of Purgatory in its full-
ness. For one thing, it establishes nothing about the nature of the
pains of Purgatory. (Aquinas considers it a revealed truth that these are
caused by fire.) Again, it does not establish that temporary punishment
in the afterlife serves to prepare the soul for the Beatific Vision. In the
Summa Contra Gentiles (IV, Ch. 91), Aquinas emphasizes this aspect of
Catholic teaching, saying that “no rational creature can be elevated” to
the Beatific Vision “unless it is thoroughly and entirely purified” (1975c,
336). It is of course precisely on account of this aspect of Catholic teach-
ing that the temporary punishments of the afterlife are called “purgato-
rial,” and their place “Purgatory.”
Although the scope of the argument is thus limited in important ways,
its conclusion seems to me close enough to the Catholic doctrine of
Purgatory to justify calling it a probable rational argument for this doc-
trine. As Aquinas’ discussions of Heaven and the Resurrection indicate,
he is in general highly sympathetic to a probable rational inquiry into
what awaits us after death. Even though he does not expressly claim that
unaided reason can discover probable grounds for belief in Purgatory,
there is no reason to suppose that he would object to an argument along
the lines I have sketched. Whether this argument is strong or weak is
another question, on which I have barely touched in the present paper.
I have noted its intuitive appeal and I have attempted to show that it
follows directly from some of the most basic facets of Aquinas’ natural
theology and meta-ethics. At the very least, then, it is an argument that
contemporary Thomists should take seriously.
216 J. Bell
Notes
1. I say “a kind of natural happiness,” because perfect natural happiness
requires the soul’s reunion with the body.
2. In the Summa Theologica (Ia-IIae Q.3, Art.2, Rep. Obj.4), he states that
perfect happiness is “not attainable in the present state of life” (1981,
597). He remarks that this is why Aristotle, who “plac[es] happiness in
this life,” concludes that “[w]e call men happy, but only as men.” Then
he adds: “But God has promised us perfect happiness,” citing Scripture.
Here, unlike in the Summa Contra Gentiles, he gives the impression that
only divine revelation can assure us of the possibility of perfect happiness.
3. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Ch. 7.
4. In Art.4, he explicitly discusses Platonic realism about universals, which
he calls “unreasonable.” However, he adds that “it is absolutely true that
there is first something which is essentially being and essentially good,
which we call God” and that everything else “can be called good and a
being, inasmuch as it participates in [God] by way of a certain assimi-
lation.” This would seem to confirm that we may safely identify God’s
“universal goodness” with His “essential goodness.” At the same time,
it would explain Aquinas’ occasional willingness to co-opt Platonic lan-
guage, despite his anti-Platonism.
5. There is an extensive literature on this topic. For an excellent recent dis-
cussion, see Feingold (2010).
6. According to Aquinas (Summa Theologica, App.1, Q.1, Art.2), this is a
source of torment to adults who die in mortal sin, but not to children
who die in original sin only (3004–3005).
7. The vision of God, by contrast, is not due to any human being as a mat-
ter of justice, except inasmuch as God owes it to the righteous to fulfil
what He has freely promised them. But unaided reason cannot, of course,
establish that He has made any such promise. Considerations of justice
therefore have no place in probable arguments concerning the happiness
of the afterlife.
8. One contemporary philosopher of broadly Thomist sympathies who
argues for a revival of Aristotelian teleology is David S. Oderberg (most
recently in 2016) (Oderberg 2016).
9. The Aristotelian locus classicus for natural teleology is Book II, Ch. 8 of
the Physics, which is silent about the possible connection between natural
teleology and the existence of a supernatural intelligence.
10. In the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.3, Art.2), Aquinas claims to have shown
in the course of expounding the Five Ways that God is “pure act” (16),
though in the relevant article (Q.2, Art.3) he does not expressly say so. It
is not obvious what in this article is supposed to entail that God is pure
act. The only passage in the article that refers to actuality and potential-
ity is the exposition of the First Way. Aquinas was perhaps mindful that
Aristotle, from whom the argument for an Unmoved Mover is derived,
maintained that this Mover must be pure act.
11. The relevant text is Metaphysics Book 12, Ch. 9.
12. Having proven God’s infinite power in Art.2, Aquinas addresses the sub-
ject of His omnipotence in Art.3. The reason for addressing the two
apparently identical subjects separately, as his discussion makes clear, is
that the concept of divine omnipotence presents certain well-known dif-
ficulties. “All confess that God is omnipotent; but it seems difficult to
explain in what His omnipotence precisely consists: for there may be
doubt as to the precise meaning of the word “all” when we say that God
can do all things” (137).
13. The argument rests on a general thesis about the “natural aptitude” of all
things for their “natural perfection” (Aquinas 1981, 103).
14. In the Summa Theologica (Ia, Q.21, Art.1), he likewise declares that
“good as perceived by intellect is the object of the will” (118).
15. Elsewhere, Aquinas adopts a somewhat broader understanding of commu-
tative justice, which does not preclude divine justice from being partly
commutative as well as distributive. See Summa Theologica (IIIa, Q.85,
Art.3; 2535–2536).
16. See Summa Contra Gentiles (I, Ch. 93) for additional reasoned arguments
for God’s justice.
17. For a recent book-length exposition and defence of Aquinas’ retributiv-
ism, see Koritansky (2012).
18. See the ‘Treatise on the Last End’ with which the second part of the
Summa Theologica opens.
19. For an interesting discussion and vigorous defense of Aquinas’ treat-
ment of the doctrine of Hell, which addresses this question at length, see
Lamont (2011).
References
T. Aquinas (1975a) Summa Contra Gentiles, Book One: God A. C. Pegis (tr.)
(Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).
T. Aquinas (1975b) Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Three: Providence, Part I
V. J. Bourke (tr.) (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).
T. Aquinas (1975c) Summa Contra Gentiles, Book Four: Salvation C. J. O’Neil
(tr.) (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press).
T. Aquinas (1981) Summa Theologica, 5 Vols Fathers of the English Dominican
Province (trs.) (Allen: Christian Classics).
218 J. Bell
T. Aquinas (1993) Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics C. J. Litzinger

(tr.) (Notre Dame: Dumb Ox Books).
Aristotle and T. Aquinas (2007) Aristotle’s De Anima in the Version of William
of Moerbeke and the Commentary of St. Thomas Aquinas K. Foster &
S. Humphries (trs.) (Eugene: Wipf & Stock).
L. Feingold (2010) The Natural Desire to See God According to St. Thomas
Aquinas and His Interpreters, 2nd ed. (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press of Ave
Maria University).
P. Koritansky (2012) Thomas Aquinas and the Philosophy of Punishment
(Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press).
J. Lamont (2011) ‘The Justice and Goodness of Hell’, Faith and Philosophy 28:2,
152–73.
D. S. Oderberg (2016) ‘Finality Revived: Powers and Intentionality’, Synthése:
1–39. doi: 10.1007/s11229-016-1057-5.
PART III
Extending Purgatory
CHAPTER 12
The Body in Crisis: Contemporary

Articulations of Purgatory
Anne Cranny-Francis
In the secular West of the early twenty-first century many religious

images, ideas, and icons retain cultural, if not orthodox religious, mean-
ing and significance; Purgatory is one of these. A recent viewing of an
old CSI (2000) episode witnessed the following plea from CSI Officer,
Warrick Brown to his boss, Gil Grissom: “Hey Grissom. You got a sec-
ond?…Umm, I’m in Purgatory. Need some guidance” (Season 1, Ep
4). In this case, Brown was under pressure from a corrupt judge to
contaminate evidence in return for the judge not disclosing a compro-
mising exchange the officer had with the judge in an earlier case. For
Brown Purgatory signifies extreme stress, ethical compromise, fear, and
emotional pain. Brown confesses his problem to Grissom and the two
of them devise a way of exposing the judge. Brown is metaphorically
released from Purgatory when he tells the judge: “I told you…nobody
owns me.” No bodily pain is involved in the situation, though many of
us grew up with religious images of cleansing fire and the associated fears
of physical torment. Instead, Purgatory signifies a state of stress, anxiety,
A. Cranny-Francis (*) 
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Technology Sydney,
Syndey, NSW, Australia

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_12
222 A. Cranny-Francis
fear, or some other form of emotional pain, as well as the spiritual pain
caused by ethical compromise.
John Neumeier’s ballet, Purgatorio is a story of betrayal in mar-
riage based on the relationship between composer Gustav Mahler and
his composer wife Alma set at the time of Mahler’s composition of the
(unfinished) Tenth Symphony. This is when Mahler discovers that Alma
is having an affair with the aspiring young architect, Walter Gropius.
However, this is not a simple story of marriage infidelity, as is explained
in the audience notes to the ballet:
To me, the word Purgatory describes the core of the relationship between
Alma and Mahler. Both were racked by doubts when they entered the mar-
riage. From Mahler’s point of view, it was totally clear that he saw himself
first and foremost as an artist. Although Der Welt abhanden gekommen
[lost to the world], he still wanted Alma at his side as a companion, to aid
and organize his life as an artist. Alma surely must have imagined the mar-
riage differently. I think that in giving up her own art, she hoped that she
would be more intimately and intensely included in his work. (Purgatorio:
Audience Notes (2016))
The Purgatory in this relationship also involves emotional and spiritual

pain: Mahler’s emotional neglect of Alma as she is forced to abandon
her own creative work to care for him; Alma’s consequent loss of iden-
tity as her life is subsumed into his. And related to this pain is a sense
of betrayal that is realized by Alma’s sexual infidelity with Gropius. The
betrayal in their marriage is multiple and rests with Mahler’s devotion
to his own music—his emotional abandonment of Alma evident in his
failure to recognize her as an artist in her own right and also his impo-
sition onto her of his own mother’s emotional being. Mahler’s anguish
is described in the Audience Notes: “his voyage into hell took him fur-
ther back, to his early childhood and to his mother, whose ‘suffering’
mind he missed in his wife. Sigmund Freud diagnosed Mahler as hav-
ing a Mother fixation.” Mahler indicated his own state of spiritual cri-
sis when he wrote between the staves of the third movement of the
Tenth Symphony the words spoken by Christ on the Cross: “Oh God!
Oh God! Why have you forsaken me?” Mahler called this movement
‘Purgatorio’ and the Audience Notes interpret the Tenth Symphony as
an act of expiation: “Mahler seemed to be a cleansing of his soul, hoping
to win again Alma’s affection.” Again this modern vision of Purgatory
12 THE BODY IN CRISIS: CONTEMPORARY ARTICULATIONS OF PURGATORY 223
involves emotional, psychic, and spiritual pain rather than physical suffer-
ing—and it is conducted not in an after-world or other-world, but here
on earth.
In this chapter I address the interplay of body and soul, this world,
and other-worldliness, that is created by the concept of Purgatory and
which is arguably the reason for the cultural persistence of the term in
Western societies. Neumeier’s ballet is a useful touchstone, for this rea-
son, the physicality of ballet demonstrating for the viewer that emo-
tional, psychological, and spiritual experiences are not simply in the mind
but affect the individual bodily.
‘Believe It Poetry’: A Cultural History of Purgatory

Purgatory has a contentious place in Christian theology. English scholar
and theologian, William Tyndale (2013) wrote of Purgatory in his trea-
tise, An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue: “…because this is not
Gods word, nor like Gods doctrine, I think it no damnable sin to believe
it poetry” (loc. 1726). Tyndale argued that souls are “purged only by
the word of God, and the doctrine of Christ” and that “there is no such
worldly and fleshly imagined Purgatory” (loc. 2016). For sixteenth cen-
tury Reformers such as Tyndale and Martin Luther, whose work was a
great influence on Tyndale, Purgatory represented all that they saw as
corrupt in the Catholic Church: a doctrine propagated by Church theo-
logians that had no apparent Biblical source; used to frighten the young
and uneducated with threats of physical torture in the afterlife for them-
selves and their loved ones; and functioning as a source of income for
Church representatives who sold ‘indulgences’, a grant of remission for
periods of time spent in the purgatorial fires. The Reformers’ denuncia-
tion of this practice was a successful strategy in their rebellion against the
Catholic Church and by the end of the sixteenth century, the power of
the Pope in both religious and state affairs had dwindled substantially.
If Purgatory were simply a money-making practice for the Catholic
Church it seems clear that it would have vanished centuries ago,
along with the sellers of indulgences and fragments of the True Cross.
However, it has remained with us and perhaps Tyndale’s own words sug-
gest one reason for this—that it is poetic, “a gross and fleshly imagined
Purgatory” (617). That is, the main appeal and power of Purgatory are
imaginative, not doctrinal or theological. It appeals to us through the
senses and the emotions—bodily (fleshly) as well as through the mind
(imagined)—and its impact is a result of its capacity to interrelate all

aspects of our being—physical, sensory, emotional, intellectual, and spir-
itual. So how has Purgatory achieved this multiple appeal? One answer to
this question lies with the deep cultural history of the concept.
The Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions, for example, describes
Purgatory as “derived from second to first century BCE Jewish concepts
that persons will be judged by God according to their deeds and that the
faithful should pray that God shows mercy to souls” (934). It goes on
to note that the Catholic notion of Purgatory was based on Maccabees
12:45 and derived indirectly from New Testament sources though it was
not clearly defined as doctrine until the Council of Trent (1545–1563)
(934). The Encyclopedia also notes the existence of Hindu (711) and
Buddhist (1125) versions of Purgatory. Western cultural associations,
however, rest primarily with Catholic doctrine and preceding classical
and other non-Christian notions of gods and the afterlife.
In his extensive study of the idea of Purgatory for Hamlet in
Purgatory (2001), Stephen Greenblatt surveys a range of early literary
and visual representations of Purgatory, noting the parallels between
older, non-Christian and classical accounts of an otherworld or afterlife.
Greenblatt notes that the classical history of Purgatory was identified by
Protestant critics of the Catholic Church. He writes, for example, of a
text by French émigré, John Véron called The Hunting of Purgatory to
Death that refers in particular to St. Patrick’s Purgatory, a pilgrimage site
on Station Island in Lough Derg, co. Donegal, Ireland. Véron likens it
to the cave through which, in Greek legend, Trophonius enters the earth
and is transformed into a demigod or oracle:
Then, it is like unto the pit and cave of Trophonius, which is in Lebadia,
of the which hole or pit, the ancient authors have written in a manner the
same, that our dreamers have written of the Purgatory of saint Patrick.
Therefore, I doubt not, but that one fable did engender another. (Quoted
in Greenblatt 2001, 97)
As Greenblatt records, the Church itself became concerned at the use

of the Island as a pilgrimage site that seemed to offer relief and abso-
lution to travellers and the cave entrance was destroyed on orders from
Pope Alexander VI in 1497. Greenblatt notes: “The space of Purgatory
had returned to the precincts of the mind” (95). Nevertheless, decades
later Véron was still writing about it and indeed Station Island remains a
pilgrimage site to this day—though not literally considered the entrance

to Purgatory.
Véron argued that the notion of descent into a fabulous under-
world of travail and suffering had at least one classical precedent, and
we might add many others such as Orpheus’s quest to rescue his wife
Eurydice from death; Proserpina’s annual descent to the underworld;
Odysseus’s consultation with Tiresias in the Land of the Dead in Book
XI of The Odyssey; Aeneas’s journey to the underworld in Book VI of The
Aeneid; earlier still, Gilgamesh’s descent to the underworld in the Epic of
Gilgamesh; and the story of the soul’s journey to judgment in the ancient
Egyptian Book of the Dead. So the idea of Purgatory as a journey into
an underworld or otherworld carried a cultural weight not confined to
its Christian, and specifically (Roman) Catholic, theological and doctrinal
origins. Greenblatt writes of Protestant writers such as Tyndale, Frith,
and Latimer:
…Protestant polemicists know that violence is not enough to account for

the systematic exploitation of a whole society, from aristocrats and warriors
to the simplest of villagers, nor is the limitless venality of a well-organised,
complex, bureaucratic institution. The explanation, rather, lies in the way
that fables seize hold of the mind, create vast unreal spaces, and people
those spaces with imaginary beings and detailed events. The priests’ prin-
cipal power derives from their hold upon the imagination of their flocks.
(32)
With a wealth of earlier myths about journeys to an otherworld over-

laid with a narrative about posthumous judgment that both recalls earlier
myths (the joyless nothingness of the ancient Greek Hades; the laby-
rinthine journey through Duat to the Lord Osiris and the Weighing of
the heart ceremony in ancient Egypt; the ancient Roman underworld
Tartarus, which had its own region of terrors) and the everyday terrors
of life in a society in which torture was an accepted judicial tool and
burning at the stake (and worse), not an uncommon punishment, it is
not surprising that Purgatory should capture the imagination of so many.
Fear
Fear was the feature of Purgatory that most interested Protestant polem-
icists and doubtless occupied many of the endangered faithful as well.
Greenblatt traced the source of the fear in many visual representations
of Purgatory that he dates as beginning in the late thirteenth and early
fourteenth centuries. The fiercest of these images portray souls suffer-
ing in the cleansing fires of Purgatory, though Greenblatt quotes medi-
evalist Takami Matsuda’s conclusion in his study Death and Purgatory
in Middle English Didactic Poetry (1997) that “most of the representa-
tions of Purgatory in medieval art are in fact illustrations showing the
efficacy of intercession rather than of Purgatory itself. Typical are scenes
of intercession or of release from purgatorial fire” (Matsuda 1997, 107)
Greenblatt casts some doubt on this conclusion, arguing rather for
Vico’s assessment that “a primary motive in the poetic fashioning and
dissemination of religious belief was fear” (2001, 58). The purgatorial
fires were clearly a major element in that evocation of fear. Interestingly,
of the illustrations reproduced by Greenblatt most did not show souls
burning in flames but focused rather on souls being led out of Purgatory
by angels.
On a visit this year (2016) to London’s Victoria and Albert Museum,
a major repository of religious art, I looked for representations of
Purgatory. The only obvious example was in a cabinet of memento mori
artefacts that included a small wax sculpture, displayed behind glass in
a picture frame, and titled A Soul in Purgatory. Its date of production
is given as 1620–1630 and the sculptor; “Possibly Giovanni Bernardi
Azzolino.” The materials are described as “Coloured wax on painted
glass” and the inscription on the back of the piece, in Latin, is “Have
mercy upon me.” The sculpture is a bust of a young man completely nes-
tled into and surrounded by flames. He is gazing upwards, presumably
towards God in Heaven, and looks as if he is praying but not particu-
larly unhappy; certainly not as if he is in terrible pain. The cabinet con-
tained another sculpture possibly by Azzolino, “A Soul at Death” and
two other wax sculptures, both described as “In the style of Gaetano
Giulio Zumbo” and dated later as “About 1700.” One sculpture is titled
“A Blessed Soul” and is a bust of a young woman gazing upward as she
is bathed in golden light, the soul in Heaven. The other is “A Damned
Soul” and is a bust of a middle-aged man surrounded by fearsome devils
and backed by flame, screaming in fear and/or agony, the soul in Hell.
The cabinet thus shows the three possible states of the afterlife—Heaven,
Hell, and Purgatory—with the soul in Hell obviously in a state of distress
far greater than that of the soul in Purgatory.
Nevertheless, as noted, fear is conventionally seen as the key factor
involved in the representation of Purgatory. It is what induced the faith-
ful and fearful to buy indulgences and suffrages to lessen the time they
and their loved ones would spend in the flames and it kept them aligned
with the Catholic Church, which had the monopoly on these forms of
expiation. Terje Oestigaard writes: “Hell and purgatory played a minor
role in Christianity until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, but then
eschatology turned into the most dogmatic and gruesome system of
eternal suffering and damnation through fire” (2009, 319). He adds that
Purgatory is “a hell of limited time and suffering” (319). For Oestigaard
the real world analogue of this imagined afterlife is witch burning, which
reached a peak in Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. These
burnings provided a vision of what Hell and Purgatory would be like.
Oestigaard continues:
…the creation of the fiery hell may be seen as a non-intentional conse-

quence of witch burning. Everyone could fear the pain of being burnt alive
on the pyre since everyone has an experience of the pain caused by fire and
flames. Burning oneself on a candle triggers off an idea of how intense the
pain must be if one is being burnt alive. When medieval man saw these
pains or heard about these executions the concepts were elaborated and
became real and material…(324)
Oestigaard’s thesis adds specific historical events and practices to the

combination of imaginings that constructed Purgatory in the minds—
and bodily apprehensions—of medieval Christians.
Pleasure and Pain
Another kind of burning is associated with Purgatory, however, and
this is elaborated by Saint Catherine of Genoa in her text, A Treatise on
Purgatory, first published in 1551, 41 years after her death. For Saint
Catherine, the flames of Purgatory expunge the stain of sin so that the
soul appears spotless before God: “So it is with the rust of sin, which
is the covering of the soul. In Purgatory the flames incessantly con-
sume it, and as it disappears, the soul reflects more and more perfectly
the true sun that is God” (2013, loc. 40). Yet the flames described by
Saint Catherine are not the material flames of earthly experience and
she goes on to note that, being under the direct jurisdiction of God as
they undergo this process of purification, “these souls can never say their
pains are pains” (loc. 40). Their torment, as she goes on to elaborate in
Chap. 9, is the pain of separation from God.
I behold such great conformity between God and the soul, that when he
finds her pure as when his divine majesty first created her he gives her an
attractive force of ardent love which would annihilate her if she were not
immortal. He so transforms her into himself that, forgetting all, she no
longer sees aught beside him; and he continues to draw her toward him,
inflames her with love, and never leaves her until he has brought her to
the state from whence she first came forth, that is, to the perfect purity in
which she was created.
When the soul beholds within herself the amorous flame by which she is
drawn toward her sweet Master and her God, the burning heat of love
overpowers her and she melts. (loc. 133)
Saint Catherine’s vision of the relationship between God and the soul
recalls the story of Zeus and Semele, his mortal lover. Semele is tricked
by Zeus’s jealous wife, Hera into asking Zeus to appear to her in his
divine glory and, having promised his lover that he would grant her any-
thing, he reluctantly complies—upon which she bursts into flames. In
both the classical story and Saint Catherine’s Treatise the flames signify,
and materialize, the consuming love between the mortal being and her
God. Saint Catherine’s writing is filled with erotically charged language:
God’s love is “ardent;” he “inflames” her with love; within her is “amo-
rous flame;” she is overwhelmed by “the burning heat of love;” “she
melts.”
This erotic language continues through the Treatise. Chapter 9
ends with a description of the soul “impelled by the mutual burn-
ing love between herself and God” (loc. 149). In Chap. 10, Purgatory
is described as a “furnace of divine love” (loc. 153). In Chap. 11, the
soul is described as “inflamed with so burning a desire to be transformed
into God, that in it she finds her Purgatory” (loc. 167). In Chap. 12,
God’s effects on the soul “so pierce and inflame the soul that the body
which envelops her seems to be hiding a fire, or like one in a furnace,
who can find no rest but death” (loc. 180). These are not the flames
of torture or punishment but of intense desire. Saint Catherine’s vision

of Purgatory is far from that of the fire and brimstone preachers of
Catholic and Protestant traditions. The greatest pain suffered by those
in her Purgatory is separation from God with whom they are to become
one. It is the pain of the separated lover and any pain endured in the
course of being made suitable (pure) enough to become one with him:
“the greatest misery of the souls in Purgatory is to behold in themselves
aught that displeases God, and to discover that, in spite of his goodness,
they had consented to it” (Chap. 8, loc. 121). For the souls in Purgatory
their suffering is essential to their becoming one with God: “Thus have
these souls in Purgatory great pleasure and great pain; nor does the one
impede the other” (Chap. 12, loc. 180). Equally visceral, but without
the violence of the hellfire preachers.
Somatic Regime
Where the evangelists focus on the extremity of physical pain as a way of
terrifying parishioners into submission, Saint Catherine offers an eroti-
cally charged vision in which pleasure and pain are intimately linked.
Their approaches to Purgatory are in some ways diametrically opposed,
yet they share a heightened somatic awareness—an understanding of the
individual as an embodied being, in life and after death. Functionally, the
threat of burning in Purgatory cannot work if death marks the separation
of the soul from the body, and the soul is conceived as pure spirit; no
matter (body) to burn.
Carolyn Walker Bynum considers the relationship between body and
soul in her book, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and
the Human Body in Medieval Religion (1992). She notes the close rela-
tionship between body and soul assumed by many medieval theologians:
“…theorists in the high Middle Ages did not see the body primarily as
the enemy of the soul, the container of the soul, or the servant of the
soul; rather they saw the person as a psychosomatic unity, as body and
soul together” (222). Here she addresses many of the conventional ways
in which body/soul relationships have been depicted not only in the
writings of theologians but also in the “received wisdom” that “pious
folk in the Middle Ages were practical dualists who hated and attacked
the body” (222). Instead, she argues that medieval theologians were
concerned “to bridge the gap between material and spiritual and to give
to the body positive significance” (223). She relates this to the central
premise of Christianity, which is the “incarnation—the enfleshing—of its

God” (223).
Walker Bynum’s discussion focuses on medieval arguments about the
resurrection of the body, noting that many philosophers attribute the
emphasis on the body in these debates to Aquinas. However, she argues,
conservative theologians in the first half of the thirteenth century were
equally concerned with the role of the body in the individual’s final res-
urrection in God’s presence: “both conservative theologians and those
who followed Aquinas wanted to make the body integral to person”
(228). She goes on to claim that “those who differed from Aquinas,
following a more Platonic, Augustinian or Franciscan tradition, gave,
even more, importance to the body than did the Thomists” (229). She
notes that some theologians challenged the duality of body and soul by
regarding some bodily attributes as manifestations of the soul: “The gifts
(dotes) of subtlety, impassability, clarity and agility that characterize the
bodies of the saved were understood to be a flowing over of the beatific
vision—perhaps even a way in which soul expresses itself as body” (229).
Also that in their exploration of the possibility of bodily senses being
available to the resurrected soul, “a very profound conception of body is
adumbrated—one in which both innate and acquired physical differences
between persons, including biological sex and even the marks of human
suffering, are the person for eternity” (230). Again, she refers to both
popular and contemporary scholarly assumptions that medieval thinkers
were dualistic in their thinking, arguing instead that they often demon-
strate a notion of embodied being or embodied consciousness. “This
conception of the body as integral to person—indeed of the body as
being the conveyer of personal specificity—helps us to understand how
relics could in this culture be treated as if they were the saints” (230).
When Walker Bynum writes of Purgatory, she notes that the soul’s
experiences there “were imaged as bodily events” (234), even though
theologians described Purgatory as a realm of the soul. And though
acknowledging that bodily metaphors have been used in many socie-
ties to express spiritual states, she maintains that this intermingling of
body and soul is more than simply metaphorical. She notes, for exam-
ple, Aquinas’s description of Christ’s suffering: “…‘soul and body are
one being. So when the body is disturbed by some corporeal suffering,
the soul is of necessity disturbed indirectly as a result (per accidens)’”
(234) and she adds that the reverse is almost universally assumed in
the culture, “when the soul is disturbed, the body is disturbed” (234).
Walker Bynum summarizes her argument about the interrelationship of

body and soul in medieval thinking:
So many forces in the religious life of the period conspired to suggest that
persons are their bodies that preachers found it almost impossible to speak
of immortal souls without clothing them in their quite particular flesh. The
many tales of temporary resurrections of the dead, of corpses, bleeding to
accuse their murderers or sitting up to reverence the eucharist, of cadav-
ers growing or smelling sweet or even exuding food after death, point to a
widespread cultural assumption that person is a body as well as soul, body
integrally bound with soul. (234–235)
This is the medieval conception of integrated being; of body and soul

integrated as self, so that if one is affected, so is the other. Furthermore,
as Walker Bynum notes, the identification is individual and specific; the
resurrected body is not just clothed in the flesh but is the body which
lived on the earth. Perhaps the mid to late twentieth-century rejection of
dualistic Cartesian notions of consciousness is not so much a break with
the history of Western theology and philosophy, but rather a re-discovery
of integrated (bodily) being that has been (with) us culturally all along.
Furthermore, the idea of Purgatory is seen by some writers as associ-
ated with the development of a modern sense of the individual. Again
this is related to notions of sin and repentance, including Purgatory, that
require the individual to engage in regular examinations of their own
spiritual being, to monitor the effects of their sensory, emotional, and
intellectual actions and desires on their spiritual standing, and to con-
template their afterlife experience. Zora Zbontar notes that “a change in
Christian imagination gradually occurred in the seventh century” (2015,
77) and she quotes Peter Brown’s conclusion that
“… the result was nothing less than a new view of sin, of atonement, and
of the other world, which, in turn, laid the basis for a distinctive notion
of the individual person and of his or her fate after death. These remained
central concerns of western Christianity up to the Reformation and
beyond.” (quoted in Zbontar, 77)
Therefore, the contemporary Western notion of individual embod-

ied being is, arguably, not the post-Enlightenment invention it is
often assumed to be, but is rooted in medieval notions of a self that is
comprised of an introspective, self-examining body/soul; a body that

lives on after death; a body that is also the soul.
In: Purgatorio
With this cultural history, it is not surprising that Purgatory retains its
significance in the West even after the spiritual beliefs that created it
and the institution that deployed it have waned in influence. When CSI
officer Warrick Brown finds himself in a situation of ethical compromise,
his concern is not that he will go to Purgatory after he dies, but that he
is already there: “I’m in Purgatory.” In other words, he feels within him-
self the torment of being unworthy to face God, which Saint Catherine
specified as the worst pain of Purgatory. In Brown’s case, ‘God’ is the
ethical behavior and moral integrity that has been transgressed in his
dealings with a corrupt judge.
As viewers, we witness Brown’s dilemma enacted physically in his
body language, in his hesitations and sighs as he tries to force himself
to perform the corrupt action (of destroying evidence) required by the
judge. Physically as well as morally, his body is rebelling. His emotional
unease is evident in his facial expression and bodily tension, again in
rebellion against the judge’s demand, as is his mental and moral anguish
as he weighs up the freeing of a rapist (that will be the result of his
action) against the judge’s blackmail, which may result in him losing his
job. This is not an intellectual game for Brown, nor a problem in theol-
ogy; it is a moral engagement that will determine his future being, body
and soul. And we see that engagement performed for us.
When Brown asks for help, he has already been trapped by the judge;
the stain is already in his soul, which is also his body. His response, under
Grissom’s direction (as we later learn), is part of his reparation, though
we know by the end of the episode that he is still not completely free. In
his final scene of the episode we see this exchange:
GRISSOM Y
ou know I can only help you out so much. After that, it’s
up to you.
WARRICK Yeah, I know.
Brown’s demons remain with him and he, more than the other charac-
ters, enacts a sometimes losing battle with temptation, in the form of
gambling. The particular issue enacted in this characterization is the way
that engaging in a dangerous activity—gambling beyond his means—
opens Brown up to blackmail. So he risks placing himself back into
Purgatory—or signifies that perhaps he has not yet escaped.
Brown’s character enacts not only the contemporary dilemma of an
officer of the law in a modern state, faced with his own human weak-
ness and how it can be manipulated by those outside the law but also
the introspection of a tortured soul facing his own moral weakness. And
that weakness is manifested in his loss of bodily integrity—wholeness—
as he physically, emotionally, and mentally enacts a state of distress and
dissolution.
In the second contemporary example, John Neumeier’s Purgatorio
we again see Purgatory enacted on earth, which was always its “somatic
effect,” as Stephen Greenblatt notes: “not the actual agony of being
burned but the sickening dread of what might come” (2001, 69). That
is, the state of Purgatory is as much the earthly experience of anguish,
dread, and fear and the effect of that on embodied being (the inter-
related body/soul), as it is an afterlife or otherworld place or state or
experience. In Purgatorio, as noted earlier, there are multiple sources
of anguish that all focus on acts of betrayal. The Purgatory suffered by
Mahler and Alma is their attempt to find integrity within this emotional
maelstrom that has been created in large part by the demands upon them
both of their own creativity: Mahler’s demand that she should serve him
and his art, as his mother had done; Alma’s loss of selfhood when faced
with Mahler’s negation of her emotional and artistic being. Mahler is
unable to write; Alma unable to sustain a relationship with him.
Ballet is a form of communication through the body. And again, as
in the CSI example, the Purgatory—and, to some extent, the purga-
tion—is enacted by the body, which is also the soul or mind; the indi-
vidual being. As choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui said: “It is the same
thing—the body, the mind—I hate this kind of separation” (Cools 2013,
17). Ballet demonstrates for the audience the interrelation between the
physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual—in the expressive bodies
of the dancers. In a video from the opening night gala Lloyd Riggins,
who danced the part of Mahler, says: “I think that what the ballet did
tonight is take the sort of mythological thing and bring it down to a
more human level. That’s a wonderful thing…dance can do because it’s
just the human body speaking to another human…”. The audience is

invited to not only observe but also empathize or feel with the danc-
ers as their physical pain, emotional trauma, and mental anguish is mani-
fested in the movement of their bodies. In this way, the dancers enact
for us the body/soul that is at the core of individual being and which
governs our wellbeing. If we become unwell or behave badly or unethi-
cally, then our body loses its integrity and we are left in a state marked by
fear and pain—the realm of Purgatory. The dancers’ embodiment of this
state and the introspection that accompanies its recognition constitutes
the somatic regime of Purgatory.
Body in Crisis
When I first considered what would constitute a contemporary vision
of Purgatory, I did not immediately think of a text about Purgatory or
named for Purgatory but of the video of Ukranian ballet dancer, Sergei
Polunin dancing to Irish singer, Hozier’s song, Take Me to Church. The
song evokes the same concern as the contemporary texts discussed above
that evoke Purgatory—a situation in which an individual is told to act in
a way that denies their basic identity or selfhood and which compromises
their integrity: ethical practice for Warrick Brown, creativity for Alma and
Gustav Mahler and, in this song, the natural expression of sexual love.
Furthermore, the song directs this challenge to the Catholic Church,
recalling many of the criticisms of the Church’s doctrine on Purgatory
and its use of fear to ensure the obedience of worshippers. In Take Me to
Church the fear that Hozier exposes is the individual’s fear that physical
expression of love or desire will lead to denunciation from the pulpit and
social ostracism and vulnerability.
Hozier has explained in interviews that he wrote the song as a
response to the rise in intolerance and homophobia he witnessed in
Ireland at the time of the marriage plebiscite. The title of the song sug-
gests that his particular target is the Catholic Church with its weekly ser-
mons denouncing those who are different: “Every Sunday’s getting more
bleak/A fresh poison each week.” In an interview with Julianne Escobedo
Shepherd in The Cut Hozier explains:
An act of sex is one of the most human things. But an organization like
the church, say, through its doctrine, would undermine humanity by suc-
cessfully teaching shame about sexual orientation—that it is sinful, or that
it offends God. The song is about asserting yourself and reclaiming your
humanity through an act of love. (Shepherd 2014)
Asked whether the Catholic Church in Ireland is openly homophobic he

responds: “Not so much from the church still, but there is that kind of
public relations, the tactical retreat of saying, ‘We love the sinner, but we
hate the sin.’ It’s a backhanded way of telling someone to be ashamed of
who they are and what they do.” The following line of the song, “‘We
were born sick,’ you heard them say it” is an indictment of Church teach-
ing that constructs an individual’s essential being (gay or straight) as the
grounds for moral judgment. Used with race it would be seen as rac-
ism; with gender, sexism. In the narrative of the song, it is related to the
desire between two heterosexual lovers, though the reference to birth
explicitly extends the scope to non-heterosexual lovers. Furthermore, the
official video of the song on Hozier’s website shows two young gay lov-
ers and their harassment and physical assault by a gang of homophobic
thugs. The chorus is a ringing condemnation of Church practice:
Take me to church
I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies
I’ll tell you my sins and you can sharpen your knife
Offer me that deathless death
Good God, let me give you my life
Hozier identifies the blind submission required of church-goers with

that of a dog and Church teachings as lies. He describes confession not
as a source of relief but as a way for the Church to establish domination
and control over the supplicant (“sharpen your knife”). Instead of succor
for those in distress, it demands that people deny their own wishes and
desires, their own essential being, which he identifies as a living death
(“deathless death”). For those condemned by the Church for their natu-
ral being their Purgatory is their everyday life—a somatic regime that we
might argue is the essence of Purgatory as a doctrine and a practice.
Sergei Polunin dances to this song inside the shell of a wooden
church, which physically constrains his movement. Within that space he
moves between grounded states—on the floor, against the wall—and the
extraordinary leaps for which he is known and which in this context seem
to articulate the desire to move beyond the constraints represented by

the enclosing space. Bodily, Polunin’s many large tattoos, forbidden to
ballet dancers as they require covering makeup and damage costumes,
represents rebellion against a different kind of authority—the classical
ballet world that he found so constricting, artistically and personally. He
embodies the song’s sense of bodies and identities in a crisis, not of their
own making but resulting from the way they are constituted by particu-
lar societies and belief systems. The use of conventional ballet movement
within this unconventional space and with popular, rather than classical,
music—and even the use of some relatively clichéd physical movements
or gestures to articulate stress—create a text that confronts a highly reg-
ulated system (of beliefs, of movement) with a non-conforming body.
And the video focuses very directly on Polunin’s body—lithe dancer’s
physique, classically beautiful bone structure, almost nude costuming,
and tattoos—to bring the meaning back to its locus in the body—of
Polunin, of lovers, straight or gay.
As dance theorist John Martin noted in 1936, “through kinesthetic
sympathy we actually reproduce [movement] vicariously in our pre-
sent muscular experience and awaken such connotational associations
as might have been ours if the original movement had been of our own
making” (quoted in Foster 2011, 117). More recently Deidre Sklar
(1994), Carrie Noland (2009), and Susan Leigh Foster (2011) argue a
connection between kinesthetic empathy, cultural values, meaning and
being, with Foster noting: “Choreography, kinesthesia, and empathy
function together to construct corporeality at a given historical and cul-
tural moment” (13). Watching Polunin, his embodied trauma becomes
our trauma; we experience the same tension between earthbound despair
and heavenward flight, the desire to leave the constraints of belief sys-
tems that deny our identity and being.
Purgatory is a concept and a metaphor, both Church doctrine and
poetry, its principal effect on believers the evocation of fear although for
some, like Saint Catherine of Genoa, its main torment is separation from
the goodness and light that is God, union with whom is the fulfilment
of being. The first two contemporary examples tell of characters who
find themselves separated from the source of goodness and light in their
lives—the ethical probity, love, creativity that completes them as individ-
uals—gives them integrity in every sense. Without this, they exist in a
state of personal anguish—emotional, mental, and ethical—that they also
experience physically. This representation of embodied anguish is located
fittingly in the every day as this is where the somatic regime of Purgatory
operates; where it functions as a mode of continual self-examination that
can be seen as typical of the individualist subject.
The final example is an explicit critique of Church doctrine. The con-
trol this doctrine gave the Church over people’s lives—their own sense
of self and identity—is the same power that the concept of Purgatory
gave the medieval (and later) Church over followers; to subject them to
a regime of continual self-examination with associated emotional, men-
tal and spiritual anguish that is also experienced in the body. Polunin’s
performance to the song brings the bodily experience of this Purgatory
to viewers. This denial of being, which alienates the individual from the
source of goodness and truth appropriate to that being, is a contempo-
rary purgatorial state. It is the state described by Saint Catherine where
the body/soul’s main torment is a denial of the presence of God. And it
is a state constructed by others, by belief systems from which individuals
may be excluded simply for how they were born, their own embodied
being.
References
Britannica Encyclopedia of World Religions (2006) (Chicago: Encyclopedia
Britannica).
St. Catherine of Genoa (2013) A Treatise on Purgatory (Potosi,: St Athanasius
Press).
G. Cools with S. L. Cherkaoui (2013) bodylanguage # 1: The Mythic Body
(London: Sadler’s Wells).
C.S.I. (2000) Series 1, Episode 4. USA: Jerry Bruckheimer Television, CBS
Productions, Alliance Atlantis Productions.
S. L. Foster (2011) Choreographing Empathy: Kinesthesia in Performance
(London & NY: Routledge).
S. Greenblatt (2001) Hamlet in Purgatory (Princeton: Princeton University
Press).
T. Matsuda (1997) Death and Purgatory in Middle English Didactic Poetry
(Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer).
C. Noland (2009) Agency and Embodiment: Performing Gestures/Producing
Culture (Boston: Harvard University Press).
T. Oestigaard (2009) ‘The Materiality of Hell: The Christian Hell in a World
Religious Context’, Material Religion, 5:3, 312–331.
Purgatorio: Ballet by John Neumeier, audience notes, Hamburg Ballett, viewed
on 5 October 2016 at: http://www.hamburgballett.de/e/_10_mahler.htm.
J. E. Shepherd (2014) ‘Q&A: Irish Musician Hozier on Gay Rights, Sexuality,

& Good Hair’, The Cut, March 11, 4.30 pm, viewed on 5 October 2016 at:
http://nymag.com/thecut/2014/03/qa-hozier-on-gay-rights-sex-good-
hair.html.
D. Sklar (1994) ‘Can Bodylore Be Brought to Its Senses?’, The Journal of
American Folklore 107:123, 9–22.
W. Tyndale (2013) An Answer to Sir Thomas More’s Dialogue (Seattle: Amazon
Digital Services LLC).
C. Walker Bynum (1992) Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and
the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books).
Z. Zbontar (2015) ‘Locating the Self in the Early Medieval West’, Summa 5,
72–87.
CHAPTER 13
Praying for the Dead: An Ecumenical

Proposal
Benjamin W. McCraw
Introduction
Prayers for the dead, or ‘suffrages’ as they are traditionally termed, form
part of Purgatory’s historical backbone. As Jacques Le Goff notes in his
landmark history of the middle place, the well-documented commitment
of early Christians to the efficacy of prayer for the dead “began a move-
ment of piety that culminated in the creation of Purgatory” (1984, 11).
Though much analyzed in medieval philosophical theology, one finds
very/no little contemporary philosophical discussion of the concept, its
practice, and issues surrounding it.1 However, the notion of prayer (in
general) and petitionary prayer (in particular) have stirred up consider-
able philosophical examination over the past few decades. In this chapter,
I look at the possibility of extending some of the recent philosophical
discussion on prayer—specifically petitionary prayer and prayer for the
past—to suffrages. And if this extension is possible, as I shall argue is the
B.W. McCraw (*) 
Department of History‚ Political Science‚ Philosophy‚
and American Studies, University of South Carolina Upstate,
Spartanburg, SC, USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_13
240 B.W. McCRAW
case, then how can the literature on prayer guide the philosophical dis-
cussion of suffrages?
In what follows, I aim to situate various philosophical reflections on
the nature of suffrages, how they may be potentially problematic, and
a range of possible responses to those problems. I shall defend the view
that we have some reason to think that suffrages are effective, given the
state of the philosophical debate on the efficacy of both petitionary and
past-directed prayer, and perhaps surprisingly, that one can have such
reasons absent a doctrine of Purgatory. My thesis might surprise contem-
porary philosophers of religion—especially those that are Protestant—
but my claim is doubly modest. I argue, only, that (a) one has some
reason to think suffrages are efficacious and (b) such reason is contingent
on the cogency of certain approaches to petitionary and past-directed
prayer. My argument appeals to two distinct lines of discussion regarding
two other types of prayers: prayer for the past and petitionary prayer. The
former gives us very strong reason to think that suffrages are possibly effi-
cacious and the latter provides some (albeit weaker) reasons to think that
suffrages actually are efficacious, and surprisingly, I shall argue that one
can accept both claims even if agnostic on the doctrine of Purgatory.
Why find this surprising? Well, first, there seems to be an argument
from traditional Protestantism against the efficacy of suffrages stem-
ming from its rejection of Purgatory. On this view, “prayer for the
dead is pointless because all the dead are either fully saved by God or
else hopelessly damned” (Walls 2012, 155). The Protestant line of argu-
ment, then, seems to imply that suffrages are effective only if there is a
Purgatory. If my argument succeeds in undermining this implication,
then we have an important philosophical claim that is not only surpris-
ing (at least, to those who may be inclined to the Protestant argument
above) but also ecumenical (in that belief in suffrages becomes open
even to a Protestant who may reject Purgatory).
The ecumenism is important. Even though this chapter is neutral on
the doctrine of Purgatory, it shows that an element of theistic religious
practice that is closely tied to Purgatory, at least historically, extends its
reach. Thus, the sphere of Purgatory’s influence is expanded even to
those who may not accept the doctrine at all. So, this chapter has a place
in the philosophical discussion of Purgatory, even if takes no explicit
stand on the doctrine—it shows how philosophical reflections on purga-
torial topics can lead to viable and fruitful work even in ways that extend
beyond the explicit doctrine itself.
13 PRAYING FOR THE DEAD: AN ECUMENICAL PROPOSAL 241
We also see how contemporary philosophical views can ‘enliven’ top-

ics that seem to be ‘dead’ to the current dialectic. Indeed, if suffrages
are prayers for those that are no longer alive, ones meant to shorten or
improve the dead’s route to a completed state (in Heaven), then this
chapter is itself a suffrage for suffrages—an attempt to move a once ‘live’
topic from a ‘dead’ state to one more fully developed and perhaps with
an even brighter future than past.
Praying for the Dead

What is it to pray for the dead? Just what is the essence of a suffrage in
the first place? Often in Western theistic practice, prayers for the dead
are directed for the benefit of those in Purgatory, i.e. for those that are
in neither Heaven nor Hell but bound for the former. However, I shall
argue below that taking suffrages to be efficacious does not necessarily
commit one to a doctrine of Purgatory—much less the Roman Catholic
version thereof. Of course, my claims do not count against the doctrine,
either. I take my argument(s), thereby, to be thoroughly ecumenical and
conciliatory with respect to a wide range of theistic commitments.
Let’s try to develop the notion of a suffrage in some precision.
Clearly, a suffrage is a prayer—it is a prayer for the dead, after all. Scott
A. Davison (2012) says of prayer that “[w]hen people pray, they attempt
to communicate with special persons or entities, such as a God or gods,
or dead relatives, or exemplary human beings who are believed to occupy
some special status.” Thus, even a broad notion of prayer highlights the
emphasis on (attempting to effect) communication with some religious
object(s). Also, suffrages are prayers for the dead—not prayers to the
dead,2 prayers about the dead, etc. In some way, then, we should con-
strue suffrages as aimed for the benefit of the dead. Putting this together,
we can say that a prayer is a suffrage only if it is an act of attempted com-
munication, either direct or indirect, to some divine reality/ies aiming to
benefit some dead person or group of dead people.
Petitionary Prayer
This sketch of a suffrage is quite broad and rough, but it allows us to see
how the concept of a prayer for the dead links to other types of prayers.
Obviously, if a suffrage is a prayer for something, it connects to the
notion of a petitionary or impetratory prayer. Thinking about petitionary
242 B.W. McCRAW
prayer requires a distinction from the outset. Davison (2009) distin-

guishes two different ways to consider a petitionary prayer: a “counter-
factual dependence” model and a “reasons account.” According to the
former, “it must be the case that if the person had not prayed for the
event in question, then it would not have occurred” (288). Hence,
a prayer is petitionary only if (God’s causing of) the event in question
would not have occurred had the prayer not been offered—the relation
is both counterfactual (i.e. ‘would not’ have happened) and dependent
(i.e. ‘without’ the prayer, no event). However, as Davison argues, this
model will not work. One reason is that it is too weak. The effect of a
self-fulling prayer (e.g. I pray for my own psychological well-being, and
as result of the act of praying itself, I feel better) will counterfactually
depend on the prayer, but it will hardly be maintained that God answers
that prayer. But it is also too strong, it seems to me. If God’s actions
counterfactually depend on petitions, then there is some sense in which
God is determined by those prayers. Plausibly supposing that God has
some significant degree of freedom qua agent, this consequence is unac-
ceptable. Hence, I follow Davison in what he terms a “reasons” account:
a successful petitionary prayer means that God must bring about “the
thing in question at least in part because the person prays for it” (288;
emphasis mine).
The “because” is the key here. God answers a petitionary prayer only
if that prayer becomes a reason (at least, in part) why God does what
God does. If there are efficacious petitionary prayers, then the commu-
nication provides God with a motivation, reason, etc., to act in certain
ways. Caleb Murray Cohoe (2014) connects this with an explanation:
“[t]o be efficacious, the request must play an explanatory role in bring-
ing about the thing requested” (35). Hence, a petitionary prayer only
really succeeds as a petition if the asking offers some kind of explanatory
reason for God’s action. This gets us closer to an adequate notion of a
petitionary prayer, one can we can use to inform a more precise account
of a suffrage.
What Is It to Pray for the Dead?

Such an account is easier to formulate if we model it on another sort
of prayer. Consider, for instance, a prayer for the past or, following
Timpe’s (2005) usage, past-directed prayers. These are prayers offered
to God about or for a person, time, or situation earlier than the prayer
itself. Timpe has the following four conditions for what he calls a “past-
directed impetratory prayer” (PIP):
(i) the prayer is offered by an agent A at a time t2;

(ii) the prayer requests that God bring about some state of affairs S at
time t1 (where t1 is prior to t2);
(iii) the prayer for state of affairs S is brought about by God, at least
in part, as a result of A’s prayer; that is, God’s knowledge of A’s
prayer is one of the reasons [God] has for bringing S about; and
(iv) God desires to be about S only if A prays for S, such that if A
does not pray for S, then God will not bring it about. (2005,
307)
(i) and (ii) specify that the prayer be past-directed while (iii) and (iv) pick
out its impetratory nature. However, merely giving or making a prayer
(petitionary, past-directed, for the dead, or whatever) will be inadequate.
God must answer that prayer for it to be effective. Hence, we need to
consider what it would take for a prayer for the dead to be efficacious.
Such considerations, though, easily follow from the “reasons” account
above—to be efficacious, a prayer for the dead must serve as a reason or
explanation for God’s action with respect to the state of the deceased for
whom one prays. Thus, we can alter (i)–(iv) to define efficacious prayer
for the dead.
P is an efficacious prayer for the dead (suffrage) if and only if:
(1) Some agent A offers P for some agent B (where B is deceased as

of A’s making P);
(2) P requests that God bring about some beneficial, good, positive,
etc., state of affairs S for B;
(3) God brings S about, at least in part, as a result of A making P;
that is, God’s knowledge of P is one of the reasons God has for
bringing S about;
(4) God does not fully settle whether to bring S about or refrain
without A offering P; and
(5) Ceteris paribus, P would provide a sufficient motive for God to
bring S about.
I take (1) to specify that a suffrage must be a prayer for the dead and (2)
that the suffrage must intend some good effect on the person for whom
244 B.W. McCRAW
the prayer is offered. (3) remains only slightly changed from Timpe’s
account. I intend it to note the petitionary or impetratory element of a
suffrage: the suffrage aims to (partially, at least) influence God’s treat-
ment with respect to the (dead) person for whom the prayer is made.
Timpe’s condition (iv), however, reflects a commitment to a counter-
factual dependence condition on successful impetration, so I must leave
that out. My analysis uses (4) to express the idea that the petitioned
action is not something God has settled absent the prayer; for, if the
action is determined or if God would do the action regardless, it is hard
to see how the prayer for it could be efficacious. I add (5) to capture
the idea that the prayer makes some non-trivial contribution to God’s
reason(s) for the action. Hence, (1)–(2) specify the suffrage element of
the analysis whereas (3)–(5) specify what could make such a prayer effec-
tive. Our account of a suffrage, then, preserves the general guiding idea
that a prayer is communicative and suffrages are intrinsically petitionary
or impetratory. However, if a suffrage is a species of petitionary prayer,
then the philosophical reflection on impetration in general leads to a seri-
ous problem—one to which we turn in the following section.
Problems with Prayer
In this section, I shall raise two important philosophical objections to
efficacious prayer: one for petitionary prayer in general and one for PIPs
specifically. Seeing how philosophers address both problems in this sec-
tion opens two different lines for an argument for me: the claim that
one can believe in possibly efficacious suffrages (independent of a com-
mitment to Purgatory) and my main conclusion that we have reason to
grant that actually are efficacious suffrages. Let’s begin with the problem
of petitionary prayer.
The Problem of Petitionary Prayer

Recent philosophical reflection on petitionary prayer has boomed
ever since Eleonore Stump’s (1979) landmark article aptly named
“Petitionary Prayer.” In short, the problem of petitionary prayer
attempts to show that, if God really has the various perfections stipulated
in the Western theistic tradition, then it is “pointless” (Stump 1979, 85)
or “superfluous” (Murray and Meyers 1994, 312). The argument can
run a few different ways; depending on the divine attributes in question.
In the interest of space, we’ll focus on the primary divine attribute that
drives much of the work on the problem: God’s perfect goodness.
Stump’s (1979, 83–85) argument frames the problem as a variant of
the generic problem of evil. Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder (2010)
give a more general (and less complicated) version of the problem while
capturing the main line of reasoning. They call it “The Argument:”
1. Either doing something is the best God can do or it is not.

2. If it is the best God can do, then your asking would not make any
difference to whether [God] does it.
3. If it is not the best God can do, then your asking would not make
any difference to whether [God] does it.
4. So, your asking would not make any difference to whether God
does it. (45)3
How does [The Argument] threaten petitionary prayer? Well, if the

conclusion of [The Argument] is true, then no petitionary prayer can
serve as a reason or explanation for why God does anything God does.
Instead, God acts on the basis of God’s perfectly good nature and facts
about the goodness (or lack thereof) pertaining to any putative divine
action. If the action in question is something that a perfect Being
would/should do, then that fact provides the reason for God to do it,
and if the action question is something that a perfect Being would/
should not do, then that fact provides the reason for God not to do it. In
neither case, though, will any agent’s prayer serve as a reason for God’s
action, and hence no petitionary prayer can be efficacious.
Does [The Argument] bear a resemblance to the generic problem
of evil? Well, that seems plausible; the problem of evil takes the divine
nature to be somehow either incompatible with or unlikely given the
(extent of) evil we find in the world. Similarly, [The Argument] of the
Howard-Snyder attempts to show that God’s nature (qua perfectly good)
cannot account for answered prayers. The similarities get stronger if we
assume, as do many theists of varying stripes, that answering prayers is
good. If this assumption granted, it might be the case that Stump under-
appreciates the connection between the problems of petitionary prayer
and evil. If answering prayer is good and if [The Argument] (or some-
thing like it) is sound, then it seems like there is some bad thing about
the world—i.e. that no petitionary prayer is or can be answered—that is
inconsistent with or unlikely given God’s nature qua omnibenevolent. If
246 B.W. McCRAW
this gloss on the problem holds, then it seems like the problem of peti-
tionary prayer is a particular instance of the wider problem of evil.4
We must clarify one key distinction right away. The problem here does
not imply that there is no efficacy to petitionary prayer at all. No matter
whether God responds to the prayer (in the sense of taking one’s pray-
ing for X as a reason motivating or a cause explaining God’s bringing
X about), the prayer can have a significant impact on the person pray-
ing or another agent who may know about the prayer. For instance,
suppose that Smith sees some injustice in her community and prays to
God for the opportunity, means, strength, etc., to help fight it. No mat-
ter whether God grants the request, the prayer itself can give Smith the
wherewithal to fight the injustice. Such prayer would certainly be effi-
cacious: it would cause some positive change relevant to the achieve-
ment of the petition in question. Yet, it is doubtful that the prayer is
an efficacious petitionary prayer. As we noted above, the crucial point
in a petitionary prayer is that it be impetratory; i.e. that it provides a
reason for God to act or serves as (part of) the explanation for God’s
action. In cases like Smith’s, there is no impetration—there is an effect
to the prayer but it is not because the prayer gives God a reason to act or
explains God’s action. Hence, the prayer may be efficacious, but it is not
an efficacious petitionary prayer.
The Problem of Past-Directed Prayer

Although we can see, accordingly, the general problem of the efficacy of
any petitionary prayer, it appears that past-directed prayers face a much
more exacerbated version of the problem. I discuss this problem for two
reasons. First, Timpe’s PIP account forms the backbone of my account
of a suffrage. Hence, worries for one might threaten the other. Second,
and much more importantly for my purposes, seeing how we can address
the problem of past-directed prayer directly informs my argument that
one can have reason to believe that suffrages are efficacious even if non-
committal on Purgatory. To see that move, however, we need to see the
problem to which the response is offered.
Moving away from the general problem with petitionary prayer,
Thomas Flint (1997) notes the worry with past-directed prayer nicely.
Most of us believe that the future is open in a sense that the past is not.
Actions we perform now can have a causal impact on what happens in
the future. The past, however, is closed: it is over and done with; it is
completely immune to any interference by our current activities…Perhaps

our prayers can have an impact on the future, but isn’t it preposterous to
think that they can affect…the past? In short, however, natural retrospec-
tive prayer may appear, is not such activity essentially irrational? (63)
If we suppose that the past has become necessary qua past, then it
seems that any past-directed prayer is pointless or inefficacious (suppos-
ing, again, that even an omnipotent God cannot alter necessary truths).
Given Flint’s worries about past-directed prayer, we can see a similar
worry for suffrages. If suffrages are meant to be petitions on behalf of
the dead, then we might worry that qua deceased, our prayers cannot
possibly bring about any change for them. Insofar as the dead are dead,
their lot in life is fixed.
That is, unless—the worry goes—we accept Purgatory. If we suppose
that those in Purgatory receive suffrages and that one’s time or experi-
ences in Purgatory can be impacted by such prayers, then we might have
a way out of this worry. Since these suppositions imply that the experi-
ence of those in Purgatory is not fixed and potentially open to our influ-
ence, we can escape Flint’s worry for past-directed prayers. This would
be to claim, in effect, that prayers for the dead are not past-directed but
merely either present-or future-directed with respect to states of affairs
over which we have at least some control or influence. That is, the suf-
frage is not a prayer for the past but a petitionary prayer that God as
of now do something for a person in Purgatory. How, then, can I hold
to my ecumenical claim that belief in the efficacy of suffrages does not
necessarily commit one to a doctrine of Purgatory? To see how, we need
to make an important distinction about what exactly is so problematic
about past-directed prayer.
Even though past-directed prayers threaten a serious problem, it is
not the problem that we cannot alter the past. The way Flint frames the
question inclines us to think that the problem at root concerns a PIP’s
commitment to power over the past. Michael Dummett (1978) empha-
sizes this initial, but ultimately misguided, a way of framing the problem.
It is blasphemous to pray that something should have happened, for,

although there are no limits to God’s power, [God] cannot do what is log-
ically impossible; it is logically impossible to alter the past, so to utter a
retrospective prayer is to mock God by asking [God] to perform a logical
impossibility. (335)
248 B.W. McCRAW
Dummett, though, realizes that this framing misses the point of the
problem—I mention it only as a foil to the proper way to understand the
genuine problem of past-directed prayer. But, if the problem about PIPs
is not about the absurd commitment to power over the past or, perhaps
even worse, the power to alter necessary truths, what is it about?
The trick is to grasp an important distinction implicit in what exactly
we think a PIP is asking. Timpe highlights this key distinction well: “a
[PIP] is not a request that God now do something about the past …
Rather, past-directed prayers, as I understand them, are requests for God
to have done something at a time prior to the time of the prayer” (2005,
308). The absurd way to parse the problem of PIPs frames the prayer
thusly: A prays to God at t2 to alter the events of t1 as of the praying at
t2. However, Timpe’s understanding of a PIP (and I follow him here) is
to parse the prayer as follows: A prays to God at t2 to have the events of
t1 occur in a certain way as of God’s acting at (or prior to) t1. The prob-
lem, in short, regards the efficacy of prayer rather than a worry that such
prayer commits one to power over the past. Shifting the problem of the
past-ness of past-directed prayers to worries about their efficacy brings us
to the more general worry for any petitionary prayer.
Making this distinction, Timpe argues, allows us several routes to
avoid the problem Flint describes. Timpe’s claim is that, with this dis-
tinction kept in mind, there are “certain views in philosophical theology
[that] can intelligibly defend the existence” of PIPs (2005‚ 308). In the
following, I shall examine Timpe’s discussion of these views in a bit more
detail; in particular, I’ll show how he argues that these views make PIPs
potentially efficacious. I shall show how Timpe’s positions on potentially
efficacious PIPs imply the same for suffrages even without Purgatory.
Past-Directed Prayer, Prayer for the Dead,

and Purgatory
How does Timpe defend the claim that PIPs are potentially effica-
cious? He surveys different positions on God’s providence and relation
to time to show that God can arrange the world so that God responds
to a prayer no matter its petitioner’s temporal location. In particu-
lar, he examines whether simple foreknowledge, eternalism, Molinism,
and Open Theism can account for someone’s praying for X and God
responding to X, even if the prayer is later than X. His point is to
catalogue most of the major players in the philosophical discussion of

God’s relation to time and divine providence to show how there is con-
ceptual space in them all for efficacious PIPs. If so, then there is good
reason to think that theists espousing a wide variety of potential views
can also have reason to think that PIPs may be efficacious. Since my aim
is to transition from his discussion of PIPs to suffrages, our review of
how he examines these positions will be very brief.
Simple Foreknowledge and the Efficacy of Past-Directed

Petitionary Prayers
The proponent of simple foreknowledge “holds that God is a tempo-
ral being and necessarily has complete and infallible knowledge of all
future events, including the actions of free agents, and that [God] uses
this knowledge to exercise [God’s] providential control over creation”
(Timpe 2005, 310). Timpe argues that if God has this sort of foreknowl-
edge, then nothing would prevent God from arranging the details of the
world prior to a PIP on the basis of God’s (fore) knowledge that the
prayer will be made later.5 If my prayer now can motivate God to act in
certain ways in the past, then it is possible that the prayer is efficacious.
Eternalism and the Efficacy of Past-Directed Petitionary Prayers

The eternalist, unlike the proponent of divine foreknowledge, rejects
that God has any temporal properties or ‘location’ and instead affirms
“that God is an atemporal being, outside of time as well as space”
(Timpe 2005, 312). A bit more detail on what the eternalist affirms
helps understand how PIPs can be efficacious on the view. The eternalist
should, in William Alston’s (1985) words:
think of God as performing one all-inclusive act of will. That will take care
of everything: the existence of the temporal world in all its details and
the appropriate interlocking of creaturely activity and divine action, with
“responses” on each side to the other…On this story, there is obviously no
need for temporal succession in the divine activity. One creative act of will,
together with God’s awareness thereof, will be sufficient. (16)
Alston’s characterization of an atemporal Deity has straightforward

implications for God’s potential response to prayer. Again, for Alston,
250 B.W. McCRAW
“once we fully grasp the point that a timeless deity can be all-at-once
simultaneous with every temporal state of affairs, we can see that there
is no logical impossibility in God’s creating the world, ‘hearing’ Moses
ask a question, and answering that question, all in the same timeless
now” (1985, 17; emphasis his). Although Alston’s focus is on a human-
to-God dialogue, his point easily generalizes to include a way that God
may answer prayer. For God, being timelessly eternal, the prayer for X
and X itself are simultaneous even if, for us, being temporal creatures,
the prayer occurs later in time than X. Hence, eternalism actually under-
mines the notion that there are any past-directed prayers for God at all;
any such prayer will be, sub specie aeternitatis, co-temporal or simultane-
ous with every other prayer and the events about which those prayers are
offered. If one affirms eternalism, then one can accept potentially effica-
cious PIPs.
Molinism and the Efficacy of Past-Directed Petitionary Prayers

Central to Molinists’ view of divine providence are what they term
“counterfactuals of creaturely freedom” and God’s resultant “mid-
dle” knowledge of them.6 On Flint’s account, any such counterfactual
has the form: “[i]f person P were to be placed in circumstances C, P
would freely do A” (1997‚ 64). The Molinist claims that God’s “mid-
dle” knowledge captures all such counterfactuals, giving God an exhaus-
tive knowledge of how every creature would freely act across a complete
range of scenarios. This knowledge guides God’s creation and providen-
tial control over the world: “it would inform [God] as to precisely what
kind of world would result from the activity of any set of free creatures
and circumstances [God] might decide to create” (Flint 1997, 64). Flint
realizes the implications for PIPs. If we suppose, as Molinists do, that
these counterfactuals are eternally true/false, they can inform how God
may (or may not) respond to prayers. Suppose Smith prays for X at t2
and X occurs at t1. God’s knowledge of the counterfactual “if Smith is
placed in circumstances C at t2, Smith will freely pray for X” can inform
God’s actions from the creation of the world. God can, thereby, respond
to Smith’s prayer in using eternally true counterfactuals no matter how
Smith’s prayer and the X that is prayed about relate temporally: making
PIPs possibly effective.
Open Theism and the Efficacy of Past-Directed Petitionary Prayers

Finally, a central thesis to Open Theism is the claim that the future
does not (yet) exist such that facts about the future have no determi-
nate truth-value (at best, they are only more or less likely to be true or
false). Thus, “God is a temporal being and knows at a particular time, via
[God’s] omniscience, all and only the propositions that are true at that
time…Since presently contingent future propositions do not now have
a determine truth-value, such propositions are not among the objects of
God’s knowledge” (316).7 Timpe discusses how an Open Theist might
approach God and the future: “the openist, thinks that the most God
can know of future actions is the probability of their occurrence” such
that “this knowledge is sufficient for God to be responsive to prayers”
yet, for Timpe, “such a suggestion will not work for an account of past-
direct prayers” (317). Why? Recall Timpe’s third condition on successful
PIPs: “…God’s knowledge of A’s prayer is one of the reasons [God] has
for bringing S about…” (emphasis mine). This condition requires that
God’s response to prayer be grounded in knowing (presumably in ways
that rule out probabilistic bases) the prayers of the future. But since the
Open Theist rejects that God can know such facts since there are not any
truths corresponding to such facts, Timpe’s (iii) can never be satisfied,
and thus God can never answer a PIP. No such prayer can be efficacious,
then, on Timpe’s view.
However, perhaps the Open Theist does not need an overly strict con-
ception of infallible knowledge, i.e. perhaps one can modify (iii) here.
Open Theism might argue that all we need is a probabilistic notion to
inform the reasons God acts. John Sanders (1998), for instance, argues
that the Open Theist is committed to God’s providence being inherently
risky, since there is no certain foreknowledge to inform God’s providen-
tial actions, so I’m not sure that an Open Theist would have any ante-
cedent motive to read (iii) as strongly as Timpe, anyway. So, if the Open
Theist—a paradigmatic example of a theist who may be less rigorous
with respect to the knowledge informing divine providence—can weaken
(iii), then Timpe’s objection to the view with respect to PIPs may be
off the mark. Thus, there is a way for the Open Theist to countenance
potentially efficacious PIPs.
Obviously, the list of philosophical views on divine providence and
the relation of God to time examined in this section is far from exhaus-
tive, but the discussion does lay out many (most?) of the major players in
252 B.W. McCRAW
those contemporary debates. Thus, if Timpe’s arguments (and my modi-

fication of his argument regarding Open Theism) work, then we have
good reasons to think that, from a variety of positions in philosophi-
cal theology, that PIPs may be efficacious. In the rest of this section, I
extend Timpe’s arguments to prayers for the dead.
Do Suffrages Require Purgatory?

Historically, suffrages have a place in the Roman Catholic doctrine of
Purgatory but also in a range of non-Catholic theistic practices and com-
mitments.8 However, I shall argue that Timpe’s arguments about PIPs
give us reason to think that prayers for the dead can be efficacious even
if one does not accept this doctrine. What is more, I do not think the
maneuvers here are hard to see at all, once we get clear on Timpe’s argu-
ments in the preceding discussions.
Let’s describe a very general (and impoverished, I’m sure) scenario for
a potential suffrage outside of the context of the doctrine of Purgatory.
To be sure, this is just one way among many ones can frame a potential
prayer for the dead. Suppose that some person, Smith, who is alive, prays
at t2 for a recently deceased friend, Jones, that God provided grace at
t1 to Jones in a way effective for Jones’ salvation and, thus, that Jones
comes to be in communion with God at t2.9 How might the various
views in philosophical theology sketched above account for that prayer’s
potential efficacy? In any event, the condition I hope to show that these
views may satisfy is my condition (3)10 above; namely, that God brings S
about, at least in part, as a result of A making P (i.e., God’s knowledge
of P is one of the reasons God has for bringing S about).11 All I aim to
show is that (3) is possible here; that God may answer a suffrage. Nothing
I defend in what follows suggests that God does in fact so respond
because I’m merely attempting to argue that suffrages are potentially effi-
cacious. The stronger argument is for the subsequent sections.
The simple foreknowledge view is straightforward. If God is tempo-
ral and possesses both exhaustive and infallible knowledge of the future,
then God could respond to Smith’s prayer (at t2) for Jones at t1 (where
Jones’ pre-mortem salvation occurs).12 In this scenario, it is possible
that Smith’s prayer plays an explanatory role in why God might give
salvific grace to Jones. Hence, the proponent of simple foreknowledge
can endorse (3). We can also extend Timpe’s argument for eternalism: I
see no reason why God cannot—from God’s abiding ‘now’ of timeless
eternity—hear Smith’s request, grant Smith’s petition, and enjoy com-
munion with Jones. For Smith (and perhaps for Jones—I’m going to
abstain on whether Heaven is temporal), t1 ≠ t2 (with respect to their
temporal ‘location’ or relation), but, from God’s timeless perspective, all
times—including t1 and t2—are simultaneous. Hence, there is no special
problem of t2’s being later than t1; meaning that the eternalist can accept
(3). Timpe’s arguments about Molinism, too, have an easy extension
for suffrages. If counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are “complete,”
as Flint (1997, 64) argues, then such conditions would include details
about future prayers regarding God’s grace. Hence, God can arrange the
world—via God’s middle knowledge—to effect salvific grace for Jones at
t1 knowing that circumstances will arise closer to t2 wherein Smith would
make the prayer in question. So the Molinist has no special problem
in accepting (3). Finally, can the Open Theist (given my modification)
endorse (3)? Well, if we modify my (3) in a similar manner as Timpe’s
(iii), I see no reason to reject this possibility. Given an open future, God
can act on God’s probabilistic knowledge to arrange things so that the
salvific grace is made available, actual, etc., for Jones at t1 in light of how
God perceives the world will very likely be at t2. Hence, the Open Theist
may have to accept only a modified (3), to parallel a modified (iii) from
Timpe, and we get a view on suffrages that I think is close enough to effi-
cacious prayer for the dead that is consistent with the Open Theists’ view
of time, God’s nature, and the inherent risks God must take in light of
an open future.
So, what we find is an exactly parallel argument for each philosophical
view regarding providence and God’s relation to time for suffrages as for
PIPs. For each of the positions in philosophical theology discussed, we
find that they can endorse (3). Hence, it is possible that (ceteris paribus)
the adherent of simple foreknowledge, eternalism, Molinism, or Open
Theism can affirm the efficacy of suffrages. And since these four views
reflect a large swath of theistic approaches (at least in the Western tradi-
tions), this means that a very large majority of Western theists can accept
that prayer for the dead may be answered effectively, and none of the
argument here requires accepting any doctrine of Purgatory.
254 B.W. McCRAW
The Efficacy of Petitionary Prayer

Our discussion so far concludes that a theist can accept potentially effi-
cacious prayer for the dead. But, what positive reasons might one have
to think suffrages are actually efficacious? To answer that question, we
must first look at ways to argue that petitionary prayer, in general, may
be effective. This is the task of the current section, and in the one that
follows, I shall argue that the reasons applying to efficacious petitionary
prayer overall can apply specifically to (petitionary) prayer for the dead.
Recall from earlier that Stump and many others frame the problem of
petitionary prayer as a variant of the problem of evil. Taking this sugges-
tion as instructive, we can categorize many of the main response to the
problem as variations of influential responses to the general problem of
evil. Out of the many responses to the problem of evil, we can categorize
a few general families with admittedly fuzzy boundaries and debatable
inclusion/exclusion issues: the free will defense, the soul-making theod-
icy, and the greater good response.13 Let’s discuss each in turn and how
a version of them can respond to the problem of petitionary prayer.
The Free Will Responses to the Problem of Petitionary Prayer

In a rough sketch, the free will defense to the problem of evil claims that
God grants us free will, being a free (moral) agent is tremendously valu-
able, and that, once granted, being robustly free entails that God cannot
unilaterally guarantee that a free agent would not misuse that free will
do to evil. Hence, there can be the world (which may describe the actual
world) in which there is a perfect Being and yet evil.
Several philosophers defend the efficacy of petitionary prayer by
appeal to God’s preservation of our free moral agency. The Howard-
Snyder give such a response to [The Argument]. They argue that the
general practice of answering prayer helps us to bear significant moral
responsibility. That is:
if God sets things up so that [God] brings about some good states of
affairs if and only if it is up to us to ask and we ask, we exercise moral
responsibility for our own welfare and that of others and the reach of our
love is extended. That is what makes the institution of petitionary prayer
valuable. (2010, 52; emphasis mine)
On the face of it, this does not sound like the free will defense; there is
no mention of “free will” at all. Yet a deeper look gets us in the neigh-
borhood if we realize just what does the philosophical heavy lifting here;
namely, the exercise of moral responsibility. The same motivations in
favor of free will underwriting this sort of defense, I suggest, leads one to
connect being morally responsible with the free moral agency, and thus
the Howard-Synders’ answer to the problem of petitionary prayer hinges
on the value of such agency, very much like a standard free will defense.
Other defenders of efficacious petitionary prayer appeal to very similar
reasoning. For instance, Smith and Yip (2010) argue that
[b]y engaging in partnership [with God via us giving and God answering
prayers]…we participate in positive moral agency in a way that would not
be possible in [a world with no answered petitions], for in [that world]
nothing good would really be ours to achieve…In [the world where God
answers petitions], however, we collaborate with God, as much as is possible
for human beings, in God’s good works. (406)
Thus, much like the Howard-Snyders, Smith and Yip see efficacious peti-
tionary prayer as a necessary condition for the robust moral agency and
our bearing real moral responsibility. Prayer allows joint responsibility
with God for good deeds. Similarly, Masek (2000) argues that “petition-
ary prayer allows creatures to exercise their power to cause goodness in
each other” (276). If these arguments work, then God’s answering of
prayer goes a long way in preserving our free moral agency, autonomy,
etc. Thus, we have some reason to think that God does, in fact, answer
petitionary prayer (in general).
The Soul-Making Responses to the Problem of Petitionary Prayer

John Hick (1966) defends what he calls a ‘soul making’ theodicy of evil.
On this approach, evil exists to develop our souls through suffering.
Elsewhere, I (2015) have argued that we should think of Hick’s claim
about development as the inculcation of virtue. Consider, for instance,
the virtue of courage. Can one develop this ostensibly valuable character
trait without something bad or fearful to overcome? That seems dubious.
So, if God values the responsible development of our (virtuous) charac-
ters, God has good reason to permit evil.
256 B.W. McCRAW
Michael J. Murray and Kurt Meyers (1994) give similar considerations

in support of efficacious petitionary prayer.14 They actually defend more
than one way that efficacious petitionary prayer can lead to our develop-
ment. First, they claim that “practicing petitionary prayer keeps the peti-
tioner from a form of idolatry” (1994, 313). While non-idolatry is not
a virtue, one can easily see it as the avoidance of inculcating something
vicious. And, while lacking vices is certainly not the same as possessing
virtues, the claim remains that, by avoiding idolatry, petitionary prayer
has some positive effect on one’s character even if it is simply avoiding a
bad one. This point seems to put their view into proximity with a soul-
making response. Second, they argue that
[o]ne reason why God may make provision of certain goods contin-
gent upon corporate requests is because [God’s] creatures assisting one
another…generates interdependence among believers—an interdepend-
ence that fosters the sort of unity God demands of the church. (1994,
327)
While this response is similar to the greater goods defense we’ll examine
below, there is still good reason to think of it as a soul-making response.
It is not just that prayer promotes unity but that it fosters the personal
“interdependence” among members that makes such unity possible.
Hence, the value of prayer is not just that it promotes the community
(as we’ll discuss below) but that it develops the characters of the agents
involved. Hence, we have something approaching a soul-making defense
here.
Other philosophers give similar accounts defending impetratory
prayer. Much like Murray and Meyer’s second point above, Cohoe
argues that “[r]eceiving these goods [asked for in prayer] strengthens
[the petitioner’s] trust in God’s providence and further develops her
relationship in [God]” (2014, 40). Now, assuming that trust or faith in
God is virtuous,15 Cohoe’s defense will appeal to character development
as one reason God responds to petitions. Isaac Choi (2016) draws all
of these threads together: “prayerlessness often betrays a lack of trust in
God, possibly accompanied by the delusional sense of self-sufficiency or
idolatry of one’s wealth, relationships, or social institutions…These are
morally culpable attitudes” (40; emphases mine). If sound, these argu-
ments show that God has reasons based on our positive character devel-
opment to answer petitionary prayers.
The Greater Goods Response to the Problem of Petitionary Prayer

Finally, the greater goods defense claims, unsurprisingly, that God has
some goods, more valuable than that of the evils in question, to jus-
tify God’s allowing evil or inaction to prevent bad states of affairs.16
Plausibly, this sort of maneuver is Stump’s own in her original (1979)
article. She argues that petitionary prayer safeguards the friendship that
God wishes to promote between Godself and creatures. Similarly, if we
recall the argument above from Murry and Meyers regarding (group or
corporate) petitionary prayer and the community of believers, we have a
plausible greater goods defense. For them, efficacious petitionary prayer
“serves the more direct purpose of making the community of believ-
ers aware of each other’s needs so that they can themselves meet them”
and “praying for one another develops a pathos among the members of
the community that again disposes them towards interdependence and
away from independent self-reliance” (1994, 327). The argument goes
beyond the development of individual virtues and moves towards claim-
ing that prayer promotes the good of community, moral agency in that
community, and conscientiousness among members of that community.
Presumably, these pick out valuable goods that God has some reason to
promote. So, given these arguments, the theist as some reason to think
that God does, in fact, answer petitions.
Efficacious Suffrages
Let us take stock at this point. Given our discussion of the nature of suf-
frages at the outset of this chapter and the problem threatening prayer in
the subsequent section, we have examined ways to respond to this prob-
lem. Additionally, I argue, using Timpe’s account of PIPs that one can
potentially view suffrages as efficacious. Referring to my formalization in
the first section, I have argued in subsequent sections that (3) is possibly
true. In this section, I want to use the arguments from the directly pre-
ceding section to show that we have reason to think that (3) is in fact
true. Before getting into all of that, I want to make two important quali-
fications. First, I’m stressing my argument here as a defense of (3); i.e.
we have some good reason to think (3) is true, but this reason falls short
of a knock-down argument. Second, my arguments in this section hinge
on those from those immediately prior that petitionary prayers (merely)
could be efficacious: if the arguments for efficacious petitionary prayer
258 B.W. McCRAW
in general fail, then we shall have no reason to think that (petitionary)

prayers for the dead are answered, either. So, given the framework above,
how can we extend those arguments to suffrages?
Can effective prayer for the dead promote or preserve our robust
moral agency as the Howard-Snyders‚ Smith and Yip, and Masek argue
above? I see no reason why not. If we take a theist in question to sup-
pose that s/he belongs to a community of believers including those that
have passed into direct communion with God, then suffrages can work to
preserve one’s agency with respect to that heavenly context in an exactly
similar way to our mundane, earthly moral community. If our prayers
give God some reason to benefit the dead, then we can extend our
moral community and the reach of our love or moral agency even fur-
ther than we might suppose otherwise. Effective suffrages, then, provide
even more robust moral agency, responsibility, freedom, etc., than if God
never did or could not respond to them. So, if God wants to not only
preserve but develop or promote our moral agency (as seems plausible‚
especially for those attracted to the free will defense in the first place),
then we have good reason to think that our prayers for the dead give
God a reason to benefit them, i.e. that (3) is true.
A soul-making defense of suffrages dovetails with this realization, I
suggest. Not only is our moral reach extended (beyond the grave, as it
were) but an increased moral agency would plausibly extend our moral
development as well. Even if a person in communion with God is com-
plete or perfected, we who pray for them can realize greater depths of
love, compassion, concern, etc., if we think our reach extends post-mor-
tem. We have not only the capacity to benefit those who have passed, but
that realization can reasonably lead us to develop that capacity in love
and charity more and more. Here we can keep in mind and reempha-
size Murray and Meyer’s point about the development of the individual’s
interdependence with and fit into a moral community through prayer.
My argument here is exactly similar: we only need to increase that com-
munity to include the community of believers both present and past.
Thus, if God wishes to promote our moral development, we have reason
to think God grants suffrages. Again, we have some good reason(s) to
accept (3).
Finally, what of the greater goods defense? Stump’s appeal to the
friendship prayer promotes between God and believers seems particularly
relevant here. Also following Smith and Yip’s point that prayer preserv-
ers “partnership” with God, our relation to God in prayer extends to
include concern for the whole of the moral community—even those that
have died. Our partnership is deepened and our friendship has even more
possible dimensions to grow, flourish, and develop.
My conclusion is straightforward, given the arguments of the prior
section: the reasons given to think that petitionary prayer is efficacious
provide the same (or even stronger) reasons to grant that prayer for the
dead is effective, as well. What’s more, this conclusion seems to follow
easily and directly, given the claim (from the first section) that suffrages
are a species of petitionary prayer. What is true of the genus is true of
the species here. I conclude that, since we have reason to grant (3), we
have reason to think that there are actual efficacious prayers for the dead.
Thus, we have reason to accept efficacious suffrages.
Notes
1. I use “philosophical” here principally to note that theologians or scholars
of religion may have more to say on the topic. My exclusion of them here
is not to be taken as a value judgment; rather, it is simply a reflection that
the volume in which this paper is situated explicitly and consciously works
towards a philosophical treatment of purgatorial topics.
2. Lawrence Masek (2000, 280–282) discusses the efficacy of praying to
the saints, so there is some space to talk of praying to the dead. Yet I take
this to be distinct from praying for the dead (even if they are related).
3. One important note: the problem here is not that there is some prayer or
group of prayers God does not/cannot answer. I have serious doubts that
any theist would affirm that God grants all petitionary prayers. The con-
clusion, rather, is either the claim that God never does or cannot answer
petitionary prayers—depending on the modal strength of the conclusion
required.
4. Much like the problem of divine hiddenness (as McCraw 2015 argues),
Descartes’ problem of error in his fourth meditation, Keller’s (1995)
moral argument from miracles, and any problem facing God’s nature
with something “bad” (McCraw 2015; Keller’s (1995).
5. Dummett notes this potential response: “[s]o my retrospective prayer
makes sense, too, because at the time about which I am praying, God
knew that I was going to make this prayer, and may then have granted it”
(1978, 337; emphasis mine).
6. There is no need to go into detail on the theoretical apparati here:
Thomas Flint’s (1997) work is a major originator of the contemporary
version of the theory, inherited from Luis de Molina (hence the name,
260 B.W. McCRAW
Molinism), and the (historical and current) debates between Molinists

and non-Molinists regarding providence is vigorous.
7. Timpe is quick (and in my view‚ correct) to note here that denying God’s
knowledge of future continue propositions is not and does not entail a
denial of omniscience. If there are no such propositions to know, requir-
ing God to know them would be to require God to know something
logically impossible to know. And, unless you areDescartes or one of his
ilk in affirming God can actualize impossible states of affairs, the inabil-
ity to know something impossible to know does not threaten omnisci-
ence. Instead, we should view the Open Theist as restricting the scope of
omniscience rather than denying omniscience.
8. For instance, consider C. S. Lewis.
Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but
inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it
would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would
survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age the majority of
those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I
have if what I love best were unmentionable … (quoted in Walls 2012,
155). Hence, Lewis binds praying for the dead inextricably with prayer
simpliciter. Hence, there is no reason not tie the practice of offering suf-
frages to a specifically Roman Catholic religious commitment.
9. Again, we must keep in mind the key distinction about PIPs; namely,
that they are not for God to do the impossible task of changing the past
but, rather, for God to have done something in the past already. Hence,
Smith’s prayer is that God have given grace to Jones or that God have
saved Jones—not that God save Jones now.
10. I aim only for a relatively weak claim; namely, that God has some reason(s)
to grant suffrages. I do not intend to argue that these reasons count deci-
sively. Thus, the conclusion is that we have some good reason to grant
efficacious suffrages but not that we have decisive, overwhelming, con-
clusive, etc., reason(s).
11. More exactly, we can let A = Smith, B = Jones, S = that Jones receive
salvific grace, and P = Smith’s prayer at t2 that Jones’ salvation obtains.
12. It makes no difference, here, regarding the temporal location of t1 and t2
so long as t1 occurs before t2. I point this out so that there is no confu-
sion about as to whether my account requires predestination or not. My
argument is consistent with affirming predestination—such that t1 picks
out a time prior to the creation of Jones, Smith, or even the world—and
denying it—such that t1 may reflect a time in the life of Jones to which
Jones freely responds to God’s grace in a non-predetermined way.
13. For more on this, see McCraw and Arp’s (2015) introduction.
14. Interestingly enough, Murray (2002) gives a Hick-inspired soul-making

response to the problem of divine hiddenness as well.
15. I defend the view that trust is epistemically virtuous in my (2012a) and
(2012b), Robert M. Adams (1987) argues for the moral virtue of faith,
and traditionally speaking, faith is one of the three theological virtues.
16. Perhaps, however, the free will and soul-making defenses above just are
versions of the greater good defense: taking free moral agency and our
responsible character development (respectively) as putative ‘greater
goods’ God may wish to promote or preserve in allowing evil. We need
not worry about the taxonomy of responses to the problem of evil here,
though.
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J. L. Walls (2012) Purgatory. The Logic of Total Transformation (New York:
CHAPTER 14
On the Metaphysics of Economics

and Purgatory
Michaël Bauwens
Introduction
This chapter is an enquiry into a first philosophy, i.e. a metaphysics, of
Purgatory. How could, and why would, Purgatory be a part of the reality
we find ourselves in? Apart from divine revelation, are there indications
and arguments for the existence of a place or a state with the properties
traditionally ascribed to Purgatory? Is a natural theology of Purgatory
possible? Since God is often portrayed as a judge, with the realities of
Heaven and Hell closely related to judgment, sin, punishment and
reward for breaking or maintaining divine laws, the metaphysics of legal
and political institutions and practices might be the first candidate for
such an enquiry.
Instead, this chapter starts from the metaphysics of economics as a
more promising route towards a metaphysics of Purgatory. Since eco-
nomic reality inherently depends on a legal and institutional framework,
developing a metaphysics of Purgatory out of a metaphysics of eco-
nomics gives the classical role of God as judge and lawgiver its full due.
M. Bauwens (*) 
Research Unit of Systematic Theology and the Study of Religions,
Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_14
264 M. Bauwens
But at the same time, economic reality harbors a kind of necessity of its
own, independent of what a voluntarist lawgiver or judge might decide.
It has proven to be utterly impossible to outlaw poverty by decree or to
obtain a general increase in wealth by fiat. Economic reality, therefore,
harbors a space for free human choices—as well as, importantly, their full
consequences like profit gained or debt incurred—with a specific kind of
relative independence from a lawgiver or judge.
It is precisely this kind of autonomous necessity of the economic
realm that can serve as the foundation for a metaphysics of Purgatory.
Even given the judgment of salvation, the reality of one’s life lived and
the free choices made on earth will nevertheless necessitate a certain
price to be paid, an amount of restoration to be done, by oneself, for
oneself, so as to live out all the consequences of one’s life. Rather than a
place or state of cruel and arbitrary punishment, the reality of Purgatory
is the highest respect paid for the reality of human freedom, and the irre-
ducible reality-determining-aspect of free, contingent human choices.
Hence, what follows will be an exploration of how Purgatory, as a place
to personally pay off one’s freely incurred debts, is grounded in the same
metaphysical framework as economic reality—the latter being merely a
minor, and more often than not unreliable, prelude to the former.
There are some scriptural loci classici linking economic realities to
Purgatory, e.g. Matthew 5:26 (“Amen I say to thee, thou shalt not go
out from thence till thou repay the last farthing”) and Matthew 18:34
(“And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he
paid all the debt”), but this chapter will not rely on—although some-
times refer to—scriptural authority and make a metaphysical argu-
ment instead, as an example of a speculative metaphysical theology of
Purgatory. Speculation and metaphysics have a bad reputation, especially
when joined together, but speculation can be more academically cor-
rect described as “forming hypotheses,” which are subsequently tested
for their explanatory power instead of their empirical corroboration. As
for metaphysics, we all have and use metaphysics, the only difference
is between those who develop, inspect, and expound their metaphysics
consciously and explicitly, and those who do these things unconsciously
and implicitly: “Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite
exempt from any intellectual influence, are usually the slaves of some
defunct” [metaphysician] (Keynes 1936, 383).1 The point is not that we
can be doing only armchair speculation, but we should have a healthy
balance, a reflective equilibrium where the one can correct the other.2
14 ON THE METAPHYSICS OF ECONOMICS AND PURGATORY 265
This chapter consists of three sections. The first section develops the
rudimentary metaphysical framework used and further developed in the
next two sections. Three notions will be introduced (quality space, fit-
ness peaks, and affordances) without being given an adequate founda-
tion—all argumentation has to start somewhere. The second section uses
and develops this framework in relation to the metaphysics of economic
reality. The final section extends the resulting framework to include the
supernatural realm of Purgatory.
Setting up the Framework: The Quality Space,

Fitness Peaks and Affordances
The Quality Space

The first aspect of our metaphysical framework is that of a qual-
ity space.3 A quality space is a spectrum or a dimension within which a
change occurs, as a background against which an object or property is
positioned. Think of a simple physical property like temperature. When
a room or object undergoes a change by cooling off or warming up, it
‘moves’ within or along that quality space of temperature. It is also pos-
sible to have multi-dimensional quality-spaces (Cf. Mumford and Anjum
2011, 44–45), whereby for example an object can change its tempera-
ture and color at the same time—think of iron when it becomes suffi-
ciently hot—and hence moves across a two-dimensional quality space.
Actions or events can then be described as movements within such a
(possibly n-dimensional) quality space. Not all entities, events, proper-
ties, etc., belong to all such (possible) quality spaces. Numbers, for
example, as abstract entities, cannot change their color or temperature.
The next step is to link this notion of a quality space to the classi-
cal transcendentals—truth, oneness, goodness, beauty—as themselves
making up an all-encompassing absolute or transcendent quality space.
Quality is henceforth used as a generic term encompassing these classical
transcendentals,4 implicitly relying on their mutual convertibility. Human
persons are, unlike animals or plants, assumed to be able to discern qual-
ity—the very activity of argumentation relies on the ability to discern the
quality of an argument—and hence are positioned and can move within
that absolute quality space.
Humans, or persons in general, are always in this quality space as a
spectrum between the absolute highest and the absolute lowest point of
266 M. Bauwens
quality. Here on earth, we are always somewhere within that spectrum

because regardless of our situation, it is always possible for it to be worse
or better than it currently is. The greatest possible experience here on
earth of pain, sorrow, falsity, lies, ugliness, dividedness etc. (an absence
of quality), or of happiness, joy, beauty, truth, unity or bliss on the other
hand (the presence of quality) can always be augmented by intensity or
duration. The two limit cases of the total and eternal presence or total
and eternal absence of quality are commonly referred to as Heaven or
Hell. This quality space is transcendent because the extremities of its
spectrum cannot be reached within the natural realm, by our natural
powers.
Fitness Peaks
The next element of the rudimentary framework is the notion of a fit-
ness landscape of possibilities, with fitness peaks and fitness valleys. It is
derived from evolutionary biology,5 where it is used to capture the rela-
tive differences in fitness that a range or landscape of possible genetic
variations in a genotype would offer. Evolutionary dynamics would then
tend to move towards these fitness peaks and away from the valleys. The
notion of fitness is replaced here with the more general notion of qual-
ity in the meaning given to it in the previous subsection, although the
original meaning definitely falls under it. Fitness as reproductive success
is (ceteris paribus) more qualitative than lack of reproductive success.
To live, continue life, and reproduce life are good, i.e. of higher qual-
ity than death or extinction. Moreover, instead of using the landscape as
representing a range of genetic possibilities, it is here used to represent a
range of action possibilities for persons.
Hence, when persons perform any action, i.e. (not) do or (not) think
or (not) say anything at all, they act towards a local optimum, i.e. a
nearby quality peak that gets the person as close as possible to that trans-
cendent state of absolute quality. An action can be very brief and simple,
like drinking a glass of water or be a very long, complex concatenation
of actions involving millions of people, like putting a man on the moon.
It is a local optimum because it is relative to nearby action possibilities.
We drink water when we’re thirsty, but we would not drink water if we
see a child drowning. Hence, time is of the essence, and as has also been
noted in the context of evolutionary biology, it might be better or at
least useful to talk about seascapes instead of landscapes. What might be
a quality peak within the next 24 h might turn out to be a deep quality
valley within a timeframe of 48 h.
This landscape or seascape of action possibilities is also dynamic
beyond the changes happening independently through time because
quality peaks can also come and go, grow and diminish, through our
very own actions. Tourism can destroy tourism because the very presence
of tourists can diminish the touristic quality of a place. One can dedicate
an entire lifetime to a cause or a project or an organization of high qual-
ity only to see it crumble before one’s eyes by the actions of others—
or even through one’s own faults or shortcomings. Some quality peaks
can grow by being used (language skills, trust between friends), others
will become depleted by being used (fossil fuel, scarce resources in gen-
eral). Some quality peaks will grow the more people use it (a language
is more useful the more people speak it, or consider network effects in
general), and others will sharply decrease if others use it as well (think
of passwords, the Enigma code, and exclusive goods for conspicuous
consumption).
Affordances
The third and final borrowed concept, this time from ecological psychol-
ogy, is that of affordances. Gibson (1986) coined the term ‘affordance’
as follows:
The affordances of the environment are what it offers the animal, what it
provides or furnishes, either for good or ill…I mean by it something that
refers to both the environment and the animal in a way that no existing
term does. It implies the complementarity of the animal and the environ-
ment. (Gibson 1986, 127)
A water surface affords walking for a water strider but not for humans. It
is not an ‘objective’ property of water but implies the complementarity
of the animal and the environment. A 30-cm high chair affords sitting to
a 3-year-old, but not to a 30-year-old. Whether or not the 30-cm high
chair affords sitting is not an ‘objective’ property of the chair, although it
is the objective properties of the chair that determine whether it affords a
child or an adult to sit on it.
Connecting affordances to the previous subsections, a quality peak
affords relatively more quality than surrounding possibilities, within a
268 M. Bauwens
certain landscape of action possibilities. The purpose of this connection is

to ensure that quality does not get stuck in the subject–object divide, but
arises out of the interaction and complementarity of subject and object.
Gibson himself already hints in this direction,6 and Anjum, Lie, and
Mumford more recently make a similar point:
value would be described as a mutual manifestation between perceivers and

objects. The value does not belong to either the perceiver or the object
exclusively but is produced by them jointly as a result of them coming
together. (Anjum et al. 2013, 245)
Hence quality, as a generic term including beauty, is not in the eye of the
beholder but is jointly produced by the specific properties of the eye and
the object as a result of them coming together.7 As such, the existence of
the very possibility of the manifestation of quality, as a disposition, pre-
cedes any manifestation of it and remains fully real even in the absence of
its manifestation.
Gibson also argues that this notion of affordance can sublate the dis-
tinction between natural and artificial environments and objects.8 When
humans change their environment, they thereby merely change what the
environment affords them. It does not become a new, different world,
but merely one where certain possibilities are realized that afford us
more quality. Gibson, therefore, defines the niche of an animal or a spe-
cies as a set of affordances—a relatively concentrated set of affordances
that provide shelter, food, etc.
A niche as a set or bundle of affordances already provides a route to
economics. The value of a good or service is likewise highly determined
by the niche of surrounding goods and services. An iPhone cover is valu-
able because it affords protection for an iPhone, but an iPhone itself is
only valuable because it affords access to millions of Apps, to the inter-
net, to the taking of pictures, to music, etc. Similarly, the internet and
applications like Facebook rely on iPhones for their permanent accessibil-
ity. It is neither the devices that give value to the applications, nor the
applications that give value to the devices, but value arises in the com-
plementarity of both of them in an astoundingly complex case of niche
construction, whereby humans alter their environment to suit their
needs—so as to afford communication, data storage, commercial transac-
tions, etc.
Affordances are also used by Gibson to capture inter-subjective rela-

tions: “The richest and most elaborate affordances of the environment
are provided by other animals and, for us, other people” (1986, 135).9
Hence, other people, and the social, cultural and institutional realities
that structure our interactions with other people, are affordances that are
even more complex and fascinating than the material affordances of our
environment. They afford higher quality peaks and deeper quality valleys
than our natural environment—murder is more disturbing than a deadly
disease, and the love and intimacy of another human being affords more
quality than beautiful sunsets.
The Metaphysics of Economics
Some Robinson Crusoe Economics

At a certain point in time, Crusoe is at a definite point in the quality
space. Certain biological necessities will determine the structure of his
landscape of action possibilities, where eating food will afford his qual-
ity to a certain extent, but less so after a certain amount. However,
these dynamics are not what economics studies. Economics studies
the dynamics of how his forgoing a certain level of quality—his ‘walk-
ing past a quality peak’ of consumption, i.e. walking through a relative
quality valley—in order to save and invest instead, enables him later on
to reach a quality peak that is higher than what would otherwise have
been the case. Going through a quality valley of saving and investing,
whereby one temporarily forgoes the higher quality higher consumption
could have brought, can later lead one to a higher quality peak of capital
accumulation and subsequent higher consumption. Capital accumulation
is then a form of niche construction whereby we modify the available
affordances (i.e. our environment, our own physical or mental abilities,
or both) in such a way that it affords us more quality at a later point.
Building a canoe might require Crusoe to forgo days of counterfactually
higher consumption (e.g. in the form of leisure) but the capital would
subsequently afford him to catch—and consume—fish easier or more
abundantly.
Making a profit happens when one reaches a higher level of quality
than what otherwise would have been the case. Making a profit is there-
fore not relative to a preceding point in time, but relative to the level
270 M. Bauwens
of quality that an alternative possible action would have afforded at the

same point in time. The amount of profit is the difference between the
level of quality reached, and the level of quality that would otherwise
have been the case. Since the quality space is transcendent, it also tran-
scends any human measurement system and cannot be expressed in car-
dinal numbers, but only in ordinal numbers—the latter only require an
ability to discern differences in quality, an ability we assumed persons to
possess. One makes a loss when one ends up at a lower level of quality
than what otherwise would have been the case, even when one makes a
gain relative to a point preceding in time.
The choice as to which action possibility to realize is an entrepreneur-
ial judgment, which assesses and decides upon the course of action that
affords the highest level of quality relative to a certain timeframe or some
other frame that delimits the range of options under consideration. This
choice then has to be realized or executed through work or labor. One
can see the two ideal types of entrepreneur and worker there, but strictly
speaking, every individual is always doing both. A worker is just as much
an entrepreneur who makes entrepreneurial decisions about which
courses of action would afford most quality, and even the simplest tasks
of manual labor require judgments and choices to be made. An entre-
preneur likewise has to exert effort even if only by writing and talking—
there are no armchair entrepreneurs, and even armchair philosophers are
making decisions and executing them. Labor is the loss suffered from
forgone alternative action possibilities with higher levels of quality while
executing an action possibility, in order to save and invest for a quality
peak later on. One can modify the environment (Crusoe builds a canoe)
so that it affords more quality, one can modify oneself (learning how to
catch better fish), or one can modify social or institutional affordances
(acquiring more money on a bank account).
Types of Quality Peaks

The existence of different types of quality peaks was already briefly
touched upon. Certain quality peaks will grow the more they are used,
others diminish. Some grow the more people use them, others dimin-
ish the more people use them. If a lot of people strive after a relatively
large and high-quality peak, their efforts to get there—constructing
affordances—might aid each other. Building a road between two towns
affords easier transport not just for the one who built the road but for
all other people wanting to travel between the two cities as well. People
aiming at different quality peaks might nevertheless benefit from jointly
working on some intermediate steps along their partly common direc-
tion. A company manufactures pencils, and although the goals of the
customers and employees of the company in using and producing pen-
cils might differ widely, the company affords them all a quicker or better
access to the quality peak they’re trying to reach—drawing a squirrel or
paying back a mortgage.
Hence, what is especially interesting for economics beyond Crusoe
economics are the kind of quality peaks that can ‘grow’ by being
‘mined’, i.e. in acting upon certain action possibilities that afford a high
level of quality, a niche or capital structure of affordances is constructed
that affords even more quality for even more people. For consumers,
pencils might afford better writing opportunities than alternatives. For
the entrepreneur, the pencil industry therefore affords higher profits than
other industries. For the employees, the pencil factory, therefore, affords
higher wages or better working conditions than other companies. This
further depends on whether the environment affords wood for encasing,
graphite, etc., on whether the institutional environment affords property
protection, contract enforcement, etc. A hole in the market is, in fact,
a (theretofore) unknown quality peak that is able to grow and sustain a
relatively large niche.
However, pencils are made of scarce resources, so there are inherent
limits to that kind of quality peaks. In a music school, on the other hand,
the infrastructure, administration, skills of the teachers, etc., all contrib-
ute towards students ‘mining’ the quality peak of their musical poten-
tial. A trumpet might not afford a lot of quality for a six-year-old boy,
but the music school affords him the development of his abilities so that
over time the trumpet affords him (and the people around him) very
high quality. Whereas touristic spots and graphite are inherently scarce,
music as a quality peak—and beauty in general—is in an important sense
not so. The infrastructure itself is, of course, a scarce resource, just like
instruments and music teachers, but the music itself is not. The necessary
and scarce infrastructure of a music school leverages an infinite potential
for beauty. What music schools do for (musical) beauty, universities can
do for truth and courts for justice. These institutions, dependent as they
are on scarce resources, nevertheless afford something with a seemingly
infinite quality potential.
272 M. Bauwens
This is an important distinction for the typology of quality peaks, i.e.

those that allow for infinite mining and infinite growth, and those that
do not. We cannot run out of beauty, truth, or justice in the way that
we can run out of graphite and wood. Moreover, the more these qual-
ity peaks are used, by the more people, the stronger and higher they
become. The notion of a common good can be introduced here, as a
quality peak that gets higher and stronger, affording more quality, the
more it is used by the more people. Such a quality peak may, however,
require a very specific structure made with very scarce resources. What
the precise structure of universities, courts, parliaments, etc., ought to
be so as to afford the highest level of inexhaustible quality is a complex,
delicate, and highly contested matter.
Heaven as the Perfect Quality Peak

Furthermore, in such a typology of quality peaks, the best one is argu-
ably the one that affords the highest level of quality, eternally, necessarily
(not a peak in a seascape but in a landscape), regardless of the number of
other people striving towards it, etc. The single most perfect quality peak
would, therefore, be not only one that affords an inexhaustible amount
of quality in the way that music, truth, and justice are inexhaustible, but
one that also affords an infinitely high level of quality together with the
infinite, i.e. eternal enjoyment of that infinitely high level of quality. That
is what is commonly referred to as the Beatific Vision in Heaven. The
claim of the catholic Church is then that She is the only institutional
structure that affords this quality peak, even more specifically by offering
communion with the Eucharist: “He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh
my blood, hath everlasting life” (John 6:65).
Add furthermore the assumption that all quality peaks but one are
bound to disappear, because for whatever reason in a very fundamental
way the world is falling apart and all quality peaks but one will disap-
pear—“this world is passing” (1 Corinthians 7:31). Even on a weaker
note, at least our own life is falling apart, i.e. upon our death all quality
peaks will disappear because there will be no more action possibilities left
for us. Hence, only a quality peak that can procure eternal life for the
one attaining it has ultimate value. All others will at least lose their value
at the moment the life of the agent ends, they will turn out to be illu-
sions, reduced to nothingness.
We make an entrepreneurial error if we dedicate time and resources

to attain a quality peak that affords less quality than what an alterna-
tive quality peak could have afforded. Every action possibility we real-
ize brings us closer towards or further away from the attainment of this
highest quality peak. Like most if not all quality peaks, it requires certain
decisions and effort in order to reach it. The effort and decisions needed
might be primarily about modifications of our own constitution or dis-
positions. Hence, for Heaven, or for obtaining a higher place in Heaven,
it is worth enduring no matter how much suffering or forgoing no mat-
ter how much pleasure. Every valley of quality here on earth endured
with the intention of investing that price paid in Heaven will render an
abundant profit in Heaven. Conversely, any action that counterfactually
affords less quality in Heaven will be a loss. You chose a course of action
that ultimately affords less quality than what would have been the case if
you had acted upon the grace received. You wasted a profit opportunity
to add to your account in Heaven.
The Metaphysics of Purgatory
Creation, Capital, and Original Sin

Economic ‘land’ is the original capital provided by God’s work of crea-
tion, an enormous landscape of quality peaks and valleys, which affords
us survival, procreation, enjoyment, etc. Creation is both inherently
good as affording quality, but also structurally fallen, bankrupt, and bro-
ken in a way beyond the possibilities of human repair due to the Fall.
The Fall is an enormous ‘loss’ once suffered due to the error of Adam
and Eve, which has impacted the capital of creation ever since. Due to
this Fall, the situation on earth no longer affords a quality peak that
reaches up to Heaven. If there are no pianos and it is impossible to con-
struct them, it is impossible to reach the quality peak of listening to the
Moonlight Sonata. If you want to afford the quality of music, having an
infrastructure of music schools helps enormously and is for all intents
and purposes necessary. If Beethoven would have been born in 10,000
BC, he could not have created the Moonlight Sonata, he could not have
afforded it, the necessary capital was not there to reach this level of musi-
cal quality. Similarly, the needed niche or set of affordances for reaching
Heaven is lost due to the entrepreneurial error once made.
274 M. Bauwens
The convertibility of being and goodness enters the stage here. “The

wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23), and the wages of economic debt
is broken buildings, broken factories, broken families. What we do in
the ‘moral’ realm ripples through the ‘material’ realm because there are
not two realms to begin with. There are different action possibilities and
some of them create or manifest a hitherto invisible abundant niche rife
with affordances, others make affordances disappear and cause, or sim-
ply are, destruction with ensuing suffering. Conversely, when someone
repays our debt and opens a credit line, this ripples positively through
our factories, buildings, bodies, and souls. There is a whiff of truth in the
‘gospel of success,’ in that faith as having found the path toward Heaven
can begin to manifest itself outwardly in the restoration of the created
order, albeit always partial and temporary.
Due to original sin, we are all born bankrupt. Adam and Eve made
a fateful choice in Eden and now we have to wander far removed from
the quality peak that is Heaven. We cannot afford eternal life and we will
sooner or later die—unable to sustain the permanent losses our earthly
body suffers as a result of the damage inflicted on the capital structure of
creation. We are in a situation where we are incurring more losses than
we can ever gain in profit. Whatever we do, the structural losses to our
capital are greater than our gains, so we cannot even afford to maintain
our capital. Imagine you place a tractor on Crusoe’s island, where it is
needed to bring forth whatever meager fruits of the earth when Crusoe
is farming at subsistence level. Whatever he does or refrains from doing,
if there are no facilities to maintain or repair the tractor, he is consuming
capital. Sooner or later, the tractor will break down, and there is no way
he can save to build up the capital structure to repair the tractor. Like
Crusoe, we are in a situation where we are consuming capital, incurring
losses, and are unable to save or even maintain our current capital struc-
ture. If Judgment Day comes, we will be declared bankrupt.
Salvation, Death, and Judgment

Imagine further that an infinite credit line has been opened up, because
someone—e.g. Christ—paid an infinite price for each and every one
of us. In order to avoid bankruptcy, all that is needed is to accept that
offer, but it is strictly necessary to voluntarily accept it in order to gain
access to the credit—the existence of the offer itself is not sufficient,
since economic transactions are strictly voluntary so an offer by one

person requires the acceptance by another person for the transaction to
take effect. Moreover, what is also needed to turn a bankrupt business
into a profitable one is to restore all the capital to its proper order. With
an infinite credit line, Crusoe knows that his farm cannot go bankrupt
and that it can eventually become profitable, but he does have to make
it profitable by restructuring and repairing what needs restructuring and
repairing. His machines are worn out, the buildings of his farm almost
collapse, his tractor is broken down. He can afford to repair everything,
but he still has to do the actual work.
Since tractors cannot go to Heaven but persons will, the question
is ultimately not whether his farm affords a profit but whether Crusoe
affords Heaven. At any point in our life, we can either afford Heaven,
or we cannot. A quality peak only offers a certain level of quality rel-
ative to a certain person. A perfect trumpet is of no use if the trum-
pet player is worthless. When we cannot afford Heaven at the moment
we die or at the moment that the world (i.e. all other quality peaks)
falls apart, we’ll fall into the absolute quality valley, i.e. Hell. When we
are bankrupt, we operated our life on earth at a loss—which is always
already the case given Original Sin—at least without divine credit line.
In Hell, we are forced into debt prison, in Purgatory we are forced into
debt slavery where you can afford to pay, but you have to work in order
to pay. You received a credit line, but you still have to restore your
company to the point where it operates at a profit, you have to exert
the labor.
Labor, Purgatory, and Suffering

When we are working, we suffer first of all the loss of the forgone alter-
natives, e.g. leisure. What labor adds to land is a transformation of land
as the original configuration of creation. Labor is, taken as a whole,
the application of the capital of our humanity (our bodily and intellec-
tual powers) to land (or the combination of land and previously formed
capital). To the extent that labor is the mere application of our human
capital, it is like the ‘labor’ of a car engine. Is an engine ‘suffering’ to
propel a car? The engine is simply doing what it is disposed to do. That
is presumably the way work used to be in paradise, where we would have
simply chosen a certain action possibility and applied our bodily and
276 M. Bauwens
mental capital to realize it. The only cost would have been the forgone
alternatives.
But the Fall turned work into something painful—“In the sweat of
thy face shalt thou eat bread” (Genesis 3:19). There is a pain, a sensible
punishment, which adds to the loss of forgone alternatives. As we have
seen, the realization of an action possibility on a quality peak can lead
to the subsequent build-up of an entire niche affording ever more and
higher quality. Conversely, pain or suffering happens when an existing
niche is faced with the realization of action possibilities in a quality valley,
leading to an ever deeper digging down in that valley. Pain is a metaphys-
ical attack on the capital of creation, the ripple effect of immoral actions
whereby not only better alternatives are forgone, but existing realities are
harmed and ultimately destroyed. Hence, the pain and suffering of work
as distinguished from the mere loss of forgone alternatives is the perma-
nent fall-out of Original Sin as it continues rippling through creation.
This is a transfactual causality, i.e. exerting a downward tendency on all
quality peaks, on all upward processes of niche construction, even with-
out any actual suffering.
In brief, work in general merely involves the suffering of the loss of
forgone alternatives. In paradise, it would further merely imply the exer-
tion of our general capacities. The Fall and subsequent Original Sin exert
a permanent valley of quality on the entire capital of creation, thereby
causing pain and suffering. The error once made, the realization of that
fateful action possibility in a quality valley, adversely affects the exist-
ing capital structure instead of merely implying a counterfactual loss of
quality. The specific pain of work or labor on top of the loss of forgone
higher levels of quality is thereby the specific pain one undergoes as a
result of the Fall in performing labor—instead of the neutral exertion of
our capacities following the choice for a certain action possibility. Who
will be the one to undergo the suffering—and when and where—remains
to be seen. One can release toxic assets in the financial system and hope
that you will not be hurt when their toxicity becomes manifest. One can
postpone the suffering, or try to load the obligation on someone else’s
shoulders, but some day, someone will have to pay and suffer.
The implication of the Fall is not merely that creation no longer
affords Heaven, but that even after the Incarnation and given the means
of salvation available in the Church, work and suffering remains to be
done in order to restore our own—and other’s—human capital so that it
may afford Heaven. The sacrifice of Christ ultimately affords us Heaven,

but we still have to do the work of restoring our own capital structure.
We have to “work out our salvation.” (Philippians 2:12) It is metaphysi-
cally strictly and fully enabled by the sacrifice of Christ, but we have to
fulfill it. We are enabled by Christ in our working, so whether ‘we’ do
it or ‘Christ’ does it is a false dilemma. Everything we do is enabled by
Christ, and yet it is really we who are doing these things, in Christ and
through Christ. There is no competition between God and us.
However, after death, the entrepreneurial element in choosing a
course of action in restructuring ourselves is over since we no longer pos-
sess our bodily capital or the general capital of creation and the means of
salvation to do this work. Repairing buildings or a tractor is much easier
with the right tools or external help, but after death the capital of crea-
tion is gone. Doing something wonderful is easy if you have a lot of capi-
tal since there are already high-quality peaks available which you can use
to make all this profit—there is all this infrastructure to help you afford
God sooner and better. But after death, the only thing that is left to do
is to suffer the exact amount of all the labor and suffering that you have
left undone during your life on earth to the extent that it would have
enabled you to afford Heaven, i.e. communion with God. You can no
longer speed up the process of restructuring by making profits. Instead,
you have to pay everything back through suffering.
In Purgatory you pay the price, through suffering, of Original Sin,
and your own sins added to that, in its full destructive and painful conse-
quences. The total cost of these accumulated sins or debts will be dimin-
ished by the amount of work, profit and suffering already accomplished
on earth—and paid with that precise intention. All that you have left
undone on earth will have to be done now in Purgatory, but without
recourse to good entrepreneurial profit-making decisions or the available
capital on earth to help you accomplish that work, but only by undergo-
ing all the suffering once avoided, without the mitigating effects of our
own human capital on that suffering. Purgatory is liberating and purify-
ing in that we can there finally become the person God intended us to
become. God allows us to finally use His means of salvation—one has
to be saved as a precondition for entering Purgatory at all—in order to
restore the creation of our human capital, i.e. to restore the imago Dei
in us so that we can afford Heaven. It was our choice, our acceptance
of the offer of Christ that first of all enabled this, and it will be through
278 M. Bauwens
our suffering in Purgatory that we slowly and painfully become who we

ought to be. Indulgences as institutional phenomena mediating between
persons on earth and persons in purgatory with the former donating
to the latter, can aid in that process but even there it is purely human
choices and actions that influence what happens. God takes our freedom
more seriously than we ourselves would often realize or want.
Conclusion
Orthogonal to the Earth

Heavenly profits and losses can all be quite orthogonal to earthly eco-
nomic realities. There are clear scriptural references warning that earthly
riches are likely more of an impediment than a help for attaining Heaven.
On the other hand, although poverty is an evangelical council, it is a
mere means to an end, not something worthy for its own sake like God
Himself—“You will always have the poor with you, but you will not
always have me” (John 12:8; Matthew 26:11; Mark 14:7). The goal is
rather to practice detachment from earthly realities in order to use them
strictly and efficiently for heavenly gains—“what does it profit a man if
he gains the whole world, but loses his soul?” (Mark 8:36). Or consider
the parable of the pearl in the field (Matthew 13:45–6), since it tran-
scends all earthly quality it merits a complete offering up of all earthly
quality in order to obtain it.
Our body can suffer and we can live in poverty while we are stacking
up riches in Heaven. Someone who looks wealthy can actually live off
debt and capital consumption. Another person who looks poor can actu-
ally be very wealthy. Someone’s true wealth is not revealed by clothes,
cars, or cash, but before a judge who looks at the total balance sheet.
People who look poor in the eyes of the world may have sources of
wealth nobody ever thought of. How could pieces of paper (e.g. stocks,
bonds, etc.) look like wealth to an economically illiterate person, and
how can penance and prayers look like the real sources of wealth for a
worldly person? In the latter case, it all depends on a judge whose exist-
ence the worldly person might not know of or believe in. But one’s true
wealth is revealed on judgment day, not on the place m’as-tu vu.
Notes
1. The full quote by Keynes originally reads:
The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are
right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly
understood. Indeed, the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who
believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence, are
usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who
hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scrib-
bler of a few years back. I am sure that the power of vested interests is vastly
exaggerated compared with the gradual encroachment of ideas (1936, 383).
2. “The ideal, we maintain, would be a reflective equilibrium. While neither
the empirical nor the metaphysical dictates to its opposite, our understand-
ing of one can be enhanced by an understanding of the other” (Mumford
and Anjum 2011, 215).
3. The notion is derived from (Mumford and Anjum 2011, 23–27), who got
it in turn from (Lombard 1986, 113–120).
4. This is a nod to Robert Pirsig’s notion of a “Metaphysics of Quality”
(Pirsig 1974).
5. It was originally introduced by Wright (1932).
6. “Note that all these benefits and injuries, these safeties and dangers, these
positive and negative affordances are properties of things taken with refer-
ence to an observer but not properties of the experiences of the observer. They
are not subjective values; they are not feelings of pleasure or pain added
to neutral perceptions. There has been endless debate among philosophers
and psychologists as to whether values are physical or phenomenal, in the
world of matter or only in the world of mind. For affordances as distin-
guished from values, the debate does not apply. Affordances are neither
in the one world or the other inasmuch as the theory of two worlds is
rejected” (Gibson 1986, 137–138).
7. This is also one of the main points of Robert Pirsig’s “Metaphysics of
Quality,” to which we already referred.
8. “Why has man changed the shapes and substances of his environment? To
change what it affords him. He has made more available what benefits him
and less pressing what injures him. […] This is not a new environment—an
artificial environment distinct from the natural environment—but the same
old environment modified by man. […] There is only one world, however,
diverse, and all animals live in it, although we human animals have altered
it to suit ourselves” (Gibson 1986, 130).
280 M. Bauwens
9. He continues:
Behavior affords behavior, and the whole subject matter of psychol-
ogy and of the social sciences can be thought of as an elaboration of
this basic fact. Sexual behavior, nurturing behavior, fighting behav-
ior, cooperative behavior, economic behavior, political behavior—all
depend on the perceiving of what another person or other persons
afford, or sometimes on the mis-perceiving of it. (Gibson 1986,
135)
References
R. L. Anjum, S. A. N. Lie, and S. Mumford (2013) ‘Dispositions and Ethics’
in R. Groff and J. Greco (eds.) Powers and Capacities in Philosophy: The New
Aristotelianism (New York: Routledge), pp. 231–247.
J. J. Gibson (1986) The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception (New York:
Psychology Press).
J. M. Keynes (1936) The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money
(London: Palgrave Macmillan).
L. B. Lombard (1986) Events: A Metaphysical Study (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul).
S. Mumford and R. L. Anjum (2011) Getting Causes from Powers (Oxford:
R. M. Pirsig (1974). Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into
Values (New York: HarperCollins).
S. Wright (1932) ‘The Roles of Mutation, Inbreeding, Crossbreeding and
Selection in Evolution’, Proceedings of the VI International Congress of
Genetrics, 356–366.
CHAPTER 15
Issues of Impermanence: Christian and Early

Buddhist Contemplations of Time
Christopher Ketcham
Introduction
Purgatory was developed by the Roman Catholic Church in Middle
Ages Europe to provide a locus for the souls of people who die before
completing penance for venial sins. It is a metaphysical place where souls
await final judgment. It is neither Heaven nor Hell but space somewhere
in between. One importance of Purgatory to the Church and its believ-
ers is that living relatives, friends and parishioners can pray for the dead
who have not completed penance for earthly venial sins. These prayers,
it is believed, will help position the dead more towards Heaven. Though
the Church will not say specifically who will go to Hell, it is assumed that
unforgiven mortal sinners are likely destined for Hell.
Medieval Roman Catholic soteriology, as Carlos Eire says, explains
that sin is a fact of existence beginning with Original Sin. All sins can
be forgiven but only by God. However, penalties for sins must be paid
before they are forgiven: “[U]nforgiven sins are paid for eternally, in
Hell” (2010, 119–120). One question that Purgatory was formulated to
C. Ketcham (*) 
University of Houston Downtown, Garnet Valley, PA, USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_15
282 C. Ketcham
try to resolve was, what happens if you die before all your venial sins are
forgiven? If there is no way to pay down all your venial sin debt before
dying, why not just lead a just-short-of-mortal-sin hedonistic lifestyle?1
This question was also a concern in India at the time of the Buddha.
The Buddha lived during the fifth century BCE in northern India. Say
Daigan Matsunaga and Alicia Matsunaga, some local fatalistic belief sys-
tems at the time of the Buddha, produced a rationale, “if one’s life was
already predetermined, why bother to labor or practice virtue” (1972,
22). Other belief systems turned to devas (gods who are not omniscient
nor are they immortal). Say, Matsunaga and Matsunaga, “if a deity could
be invoked to solve all the human problems, the only concern would be
in attempting to please the deity and direct responsibility to oneself for
one’s own actions could be avoided” (1972, 22). The Buddha faced the
same challenges as the Roman Catholics to find ethical reasons for the
general population to live morally.
While there are many similarities between the ethical constructs of
Early Buddhism and Roman Catholicism, Purgatory is not one of them.
Jacques Le Goff says that Buddhism, with its belief in rebirth, “cannot
accommodate the idea of a Purgatory” (1984, 5). Buddhism takes a dif-
ferent approach to address issues of time and impermanence.
Buddhism explains that we are born into a state of impermanence.
What is unsatisfactory is that in our ignorance we try to make imperma-
nent things permanent: this is dukkha. The word dukkha which many
translate into suffering or ill is also understood as unsatisfactoriness. As
Linda Blanchard (2012) explains Buddha’s teachings on ignorance, there
are three levels: we are born ignorant, we do not know whether anything
came before us, and, “on a third level the Buddha is saying that we are
born unaware of how we operate or why; in particular, we are ignorant
of what brings our sense of self into being, ignorant of how we become
to behave as we do” (46). Therefore we try to attach to ourselves things,
ideas, beliefs, and thoughts that lead us to believe we have a permanent self
or soul. This effort only increases our ignorance. The Buddha explained
that the acknowledgement of impermanence leads towards the end of
existence in dukkha: “The perceiving of impermanence, brethren, if prac-
ticed and enlarged, wears out all sensual lust, all lust of rebirth, all igno-
rance wears out, tears out all conceit of ‘I am’” (Rhys Davids, 1980, 132).
Death, of course, is after life. The period between life and the
Resurrection in Christianity is a state of impermanent duration. Since
it is uncertain when Judgment Day will be, the question is what is the
15 ISSUES OF IMPERMANENCE: CHRISTIAN AND EARLY BUDDHIST … 283
state of the person’s soul who has died before Resurrection?2 It is also
this question that Roman Catholic purgatory tries to resolve. One other
problem for the Roman Catholics is that most persons die without com-
pleting penance for their earthly sins. An associated question with the
state of the dead before resurrection that became relevant in the purga-
tory discussion was, ‘Is there a way to help these souls after they die?’
It is my thesis that Early Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and the
Protestant Reformation developed constructs independently to address
impermanence and unsatisfactory problems associated with time. While
there is technically no Buddhist Purgatory, the goal of Early Buddhism
is towards resolving the general state of unsatisfactoriness—dukkha which
comes not only from ignorance of impermanence but also an excess of
desire, including the desire to be reborn again and again within the cycle
of samsāra (Ketcham 2015, 119). Rather than rely on the prayers of oth-
ers or monetary donations, some of the Roman Catholic practices to miti-
gate one’s penance debt after death, Buddhism promotes process oriented
personal practices and insights intended to achieve nirvana, or enlighten-
ment, for the living which ultimately is freedom from rebirth and igno-
rance (Ketcham 2015, 113). Floyd Ross (1953) quotes the Buddha:
“[T]he person who has been released from the ordinary forms and entan-
glements of sensory life is ‘deep, unmeasurable, unfathomable, like the
mighty ocean. To say that he is both reborn and not reborn would not fit
the case. To say that he is neither reborn nor not reborn would not fit the
case’” (96). The Buddha would not speculate in what state the enlight-
ened one is in after death because there has been no enlightened one who
has reported back from death (Ketcham 2015, 125).3
Roman Catholicism’s Purgatory aims to prepare the soul of the dead
for entrance into Heaven. The period between death and the resurrec-
tion is not a permanent state because the soul will be reunited with the
body at the Resurrection, but the duration of this period is uncertain and
cannot be altered by humans. The unsatisfactory existence in death with
venial sins for penance has not been completed means that some souls
might spend a considerable amount of time in Purgatory. How long is
uncertain because the date of judgment is unknown.
Le Goff notes that during the Dark and Middle Ages:
life…was regulated by a variety of time schemes: liturgical time, calendar

time, which the Church controlled, the daily routine marked by the ringing
of bells, rural time, largely determined by natural rhythms but punctuated
284 C. Ketcham
by partially Christianized annual rites…feudal time punctuated by the

springtime ost and the dates when rents fell due, and the great assemblies of
Pentecost. Time was repetitive, not to say circular. (1984, 190)
Scholars associated with theological discussions regarding Purgatory

began to realize that repetitive and even circular notions of time in
church practices were becoming inadequate in a changing society.
Longer and better lives mean more opportunity to sin without complet-
ing penance. Without something like Purgatory, the Church’s steward-
ship of the sinner’s soul ends at death, leaving even ‘good’ souls to be
brought to judgment by God before penance can be completed. Le Goff
explains that extending time linearly from birth through death and to the
end of time at Judgment Day proved to be a more satisfactory solution
(1984, 230).
Buddhist nirvana is achieved while one lives; Roman Catholic sin-
ners must die to enter Purgatory and then ascend to Heaven. Buddhist
nirvana is achieved by personal improvement; Roman Catholic penance
for sins can be met during one’s lifetime. However, one likely will die
before paying down the penance debt. Help with penance for earthly sins
in Purgatory can involve the efforts (e.g. prayers, works, masses, etc.) of
others who live. Despite the diverse constructs, the underlying message
for both religions is the same: lead a righteous life in order to end the
unsatisfactory state as quickly as possible.
Nirvana is not Heaven. The states of existence in Buddhism both liv-
ing and between rebirths are complex, as are the Roman Catholic states
of existence for the soul. However, Buddhism does this without the belief
in a separate self or soul.
This chapter will use a comparative approach to explicate the thesis
that impermanence is a problem that the Roman Catholic Church, the
Protestant Reformation, and Early Buddhism want to solve. To illumi-
nate this theory, I will explore briefly how Purgatory came to be, and
why the Protestants denounced Purgatory. I will then contrast Christian
ideas of impermanence with that of Early Buddhism.
Next, Early Buddhism brings to the discussion the idea of imperma-
nent continuity without the existence of a separate soul.4 Carlos Eire
raises the question whether Protestantism also means the end to the
soul (2010, 152–153). Whether continuity is feasible in a version of
Christianity without a soul will be juxtaposed against Buddhist concepts
of continuity without a separate soul.
Finally, what impermanence reveals is the question of time.5 Roman

Catholicism, Protestantism, and Buddhism have had to confront issues
of circular time and linear time and the notion of the end of time. Of the
three Protestantism is the most linear. Roman Catholicism was forced
to confront its own liturgical practices that fostered circular time with a
more linear time that people began to experience after the Middle Ages.
However, the circular nature of Purgatory was retained. Buddhist time,
while it challenges many aspects of circular time, is ultimately a construct
that is between linear and circular. Finally, Christianity and Buddhism
both have differing views as to the notion of the end of time.
Creating Purgatory
Purgatory is not explicitly mentioned in the Bible. Jesus lay the ground-
work for his disciples and believers to embrace the idea of immortal-
ity and their own resurrection on the Day of Judgment whenever that
would come. Christians have only one life to live. For Roman Catholics,
when you die there will be a judgment of how you lived your life. In
early Christianity, this could only take place at Judgment Day for sinners.
Mortal sinners who have not repented will likely be judged adversely and
the assumption is they will go to Hell straight away or on Judgment Day
(depending on one’s particular eschatological views).
Time became the issue that weighed on theologians beginning in the
second to fourth centuries CE. The fourth century marked the begin-
ning of the Dark Ages with the fall of the Western Roman Empire where
the landscape of Europe was ravaged by wars for power and land. Then
there were plagues that decimated populations. Most of the important
ancient Greek works from philosophers like Plato and Aristotle had been
lost. People lived hard lives and died young. The promise of eternal sal-
vation in a hopeful place like paradise was set in stark contrast to the
struggle for existence in life.
However, during the Middle Ages in the twelfth through fourteenth
centuries time itself began to take on a new meaning. Le Goff says that
one function of the emerging concept of Purgatory was, “to alter time
in the afterlife and hence the link between earthly, historical time and
eschatological time, between the time of existence and the time of antic-
ipation to do these things was to bring about a gradual but nonethe-
less crucial intellectual revolution. It was, literally, to change life itself”
(1984, 2).
286 C. Ketcham
What had become unsatisfactory was not that people lived, died, and
sinner’s souls would all be judged together at some uncertain future
date, but the long period between the date of death and Judgment Day
had yet to be formally addressed. There had long been vivid depictions
of Heaven and Hell but not that period between death and the resurrec-
tion of the souls. What was the eschatological experience of the afterlife
before the final Judgement Day? If the soul was continuous, did it pos-
sess a substance, something that did not leave in the transition from the
body through the time until the end of time and then into the last judg-
ment which is beyond time itself? If God would not be doing much of
anything with these souls until the final Day of Judgment, under what
jurisdiction would these in-between souls fall?
The state of nature in the afterlife where all souls would be out for
themselves certainly would not be a good solution to a population that
was becoming accustomed to robust clerical and secular codes of law. If
the soul and body were to be separated until the Resurrection, and God
was silent as to the condition of the souls until Judgment Day, the bril-
liance of the idea of Purgatory, as Le Goff explains, is to give the soul
substance, “Once separated from the body, the soul was endowed with a
materiality sui generis, and punishment could then be inflicted upon it in
Purgatory as though it were corporeal” (1984, 6). Purgatory became a
form of (material) existence.
The secular laws of the state begin with birth and end with death.
With Purgatory, the ecumenical law of the Church can now extend from
the birth of the soul all the way until the moment of the final judg-
ment at the end of time. The unsatisfactory condition of indeterminacy
where there is no law covering the sinner’s soul in the afterlife is resolved
through Purgatory by the extension of the realm of the Church to the
sinner’s soul in the afterlife. The requirements of obeisance in all things
spiritual to the Church now embraces the sinner’s soul from birth all the
way through death and up and until the end of time itself. The Church
can now claim a permanent domain over the sinner’s soul. Permanent,
because if the Resurrection marks the end of time, then there is nothing
after the end of time that anyone who is human can ever understand.
Infinity is now the realm of the Church if infinity means all and every-
thing up until the last moment of time.
As conditions improved during the Middle Ages, living in the world
became more precious. Le Goff poses a rhetorical question which I para-
phrase, “Did the death of Christ still mean that the end of the world is
near?” (1984, 290). Rather, improving standards of living might mean

this time could be the golden age of Christ rather than dark ages just
before the end of time. Also, time before the birth of Purgatory, as Le
Goff explains, was “repetitive, not to say circular”, where, “[h]uman life,
moreover, was regulated by a variety of time schemes: liturgical time, cal-
endar time, which the Church controlled, the daily routine marked by
the ringing of bells, rural time, largely determined by natural rhythms but
punctuated by partially Christianized annual rites” (1984, 290). Circular
time for the living is unsatisfactory if any sort of progress is to be made.6
With people living longer, endless repetition no longer held captive
the congregation who saw more to life than toil and a welcomed death.
A new way of thinking about time could extend it linearly from what had
been (beginning with the creation) up until the end of what will be (the
Resurrection). The Church could now control time and sinners’ souls
from the beginning of time to its end. The ambiguous period between
death and resurrection could be defined with a new way of measuring
time. With the attachment of a substance to the soul, the soul would
maintain its continuity whether or not it was in the living body, in
Purgatory awaiting final judgment, or preparing for its final uniting with
the body at the time of the Resurrection.
What the Church wanted was a mechanism to engage its authority
over the souls of the dead as well as the living. There was already one
judgment day at the end of time. However, says Le Goff, with Purgatory
the Church proclaims that there is now a second judgment day that
occurs at death (1984, 5). This Day of Judgment is within the jurisdic-
tion of the Church itself. The Church has jurisdiction over the soul for
sins with few exceptions. Even as a time for the living becomes more lin-
ear, the practice of prayers for the dead in Purgatory retains a modicum
of repetition, of circularity. While Purgatory serves as a bridge between
the living and Judgment Day, it retains a temporal notion of circularity
even as it purports to produce a more linear process with both a begin-
ning and ultimate end.
Within the Church’s purview are venial sins that the Church will regu-
late in ways that include punishment and penance much in the same way
as the authorities of the state can punish and require restitution for viola-
tions of secular law. Death separates the control of the state over the body,
but clerical law through Purgatory extends into the sinner’s soul in the
afterlife because most will die without completing penance for the venial
sins they commit during their lives. However, only God can forgive sins.
288 C. Ketcham
Though the Catholic Church can now claim temporal dominion over
the souls of sinners, in practice, it cannot speak to the souls in the after-
life or demand anything from them. However, the Church can influence
the living to act on behalf of the dead. The flowering of Purgatory comes
through convincing the masses that they can directly assist their dead rel-
atives and loved ones by working off the penance the deceased have not
completed during their lifetimes.
Through their own personal prayers, the living is given license by the
Church to aid these uncompleted sentences and purify the path for their
loved ones to final judgment. One becomes thy dead brother’s keeper, so
to speak. The Church assists by providing group prayers and other rituals
to do the same. All of this can be helped along by donations, tithes, and
other beneficence to the Church itself.
The Church through Purgatory completes both time and its domin-
ion over the sinner’s soul until God reclaims all souls at the end of time.
Not only is the unsatisfactoriness of the impermanence of cosmological
circular time-resolved in favor of linear time, the Church also lays claim
to the sinner’s soul until the end of time itself. Thus, the Church mends
the time gap in the Bible without interfering with the biblical teaching or
the word of God or Jesus. As Le Goff says, “Purgatory gave rise to the
citizenship of the other world, to citizens of the time between death and
the Last Judgment” (1984, 233).
In many ways, Purgatory is a master stroke of ecclesiastical logic.
However, Le Goff notes, it took more than a millennium for the idea
of Purgatory to become officially part of Catholic doctrine. In fact, it
took the Councils of Florence (1439) and Trent (1562) to make the case
before Purgatory was ‘enshrined’ in Roman Catholic doctrine (1984,
357). As Purgatory began to take hold, an emerging faction in the
Church began to question the idea.
John Calvin explains (through Eire), “the annual rents that sup-
ported most of the clergy would not exist as all were it not for the belief
in Purgatory since such income was drawn from bequests that funded
masses and prayers for the dead” (Eire 2010, 125).
The Reformation Rejection of Purgatory

Beginning even before the end of the Roman Empire, the Catholic
Church partnered with the state in the shared governance of the popu-
lace. The Church exercised authority society beyond that which concerns
the Bible. Claims of extra-biblical ideas and the Church’s corruptions of

power and wealth fueled the Protestant Reformation that began in the
sixteenth century.7
Early Protestants were a conservative lot. They wanted to return
Christianity to the Bible and end all of the nonsense they saw in the
extra-biblical constructs of Catholicism, of which one of the most das-
tardly was what Martin Luther called “the third place” or Purgatory (Le
Goff 1984, 1).
Turning back the canonical clock to that contained within the Bible
returned the dialectic about the nature of eternity, says Eire, from the
philosophical to where, “the Protestants now focused on the ethical,
practical effect such concepts should have on the believing Christian”
(2010, 128).
Eire, said that Martin Luther, “saw mortality and eternity as inescap-
able horizons, and a basic starting point for understanding human nature
and the relationship between God and the human race… [and Luther
speaking about God] ‘He wants to preserve our soul from destruc-
tion and to grant us eternal life’” (Eire 2010, 129). Luther and the
Protestants aimed to return the relationship between the human and the
soul to one mediated directly through Jesus and God, not through the
Church first.
For purposes of this chapter, Christian eternity is understood as the
dimension of when time is. Eternity does not change in duration under
Protestantism—it remains between the creation and the Resurrection.
However, as Eire says, “the Protestant dead, therefore, inhabited another
dimension in eternity, and were totally segregated from the living” (Eire
2010, 125). Without Purgatory, eternity is no longer a continuity con-
trolled by the Church. Humans are responsible for their conduct dur-
ing life and life only. The living cannot intercede on behalf of the dead.
The dead, in fact, are no longer of any concern to the living. Says Eire,
quoting a sixteenth-century jurist, “after death a person is freed from
all human authority and stands in God’s judgment alone” (2010, 123).
God is given back overall control of temporality, permitting will and per-
sonal judgment to exist only while one lives. The Protestant Reformation
restores the idea of one life to live and takes away the community’s
power to provide for the individual in the afterlife: The dead are gone
and are in the realm of God.
Protestantism splintered into many different denominations. For
some, salvation could never be earned; for others, predestination meant
290 C. Ketcham
that one could only hope that by living ethically it would sit well with
God. Addressing each of these differences is beyond the scope of this
chapter. The common element that Protestantism removed was the
Church and its parishioners as an intermediary between the individual
and God.
Any semblance of second chances is removed by the Protestant denial
of Purgatory. The harshness of the Protestant sentence is that there is
no theological wiggle-room. There is no Purgatory to perfect a path
away to Heaven, and no rebirth like in Early Buddhism to better hone
a being’s trajectory towards enlightenment and the end of the cycle of
rebirth. Protestant linearity is straight and the penalties cannot be cor-
rected through a mechanism like Roman Catholic Purgatory or in a sub-
sequent Buddhist rebirth. In Protestantism, one cannot compensate or
remunerate human interlocutors, whether through the group or family
prayers, to prepare one for one’s eventual destiny before God. This is
between you and God only. The Protestant church provides guidance on
appropriate intentions and behaviors; the rest is up to you.
As we transition the discussion into Buddhism we will need to under-
stand life, death, and time all without the existence of a separate soul. If
the Buddha is successful in posting his soteriology without the existence
of a separate soul, could the same idea be possible for Christianity?
Like the Protestants locating salvation (sanctification, etc.) solely
within the individual and during one’s lifetime, the Buddha located the
state of enlightenment within the intellectual power of the individual
alone, which ultimately means altering both consciousness and the indi-
vidual’s relationship to the karmic flow.
Time and Buddhism
Siddhārtha Gautama began his quest to understand the nature of duk-
kha better and how to cure it when he became both enlightened and
the Buddha while in deep meditation under the Bodhi tree. As Stephen
Collins (1996) explains, he came to understand that all things have a
prior cause, paticcasamuppada (or in Sanskrit pratityasamutpada,) or
what has become to be known as dependent origination (488). As a
result, everything that is subject to dependent origination is imperma-
nent. The logic of this is that everything changes. Our minds and our
bodies are continuously changing. There can be no permanent and
unchanging thing that we might call self or soul (anātman, no soul).

Jianjun Li (2016) consulted author Tat Wei to explain, the paradox of
time in connection to consciousness:
…since before the beginning of time this consciousness has been one
in which from moment to moment effects are born and causes perish.
Because these effects are born, it is not impermanent; because these causes
perish, it is not permanent. To be neither impermanent nor permanent:
this is the ‘principle of conditional causation or dependent origination’
(pratityasamutpada). This is why it is said this consciousness is in perpetual
evolution like a torrent. (Li 2016, 51)
Therefore, as Li offers, consciousness can be thought of as a continuum

but not a continuum that is selfsame, but one that is constantly evolving
in substance, albeit in a torrential fashion which implies a certain amount
of chaos, not perfect linearity (Li 2016, 51). As a result, time and con-
sciousness are inextricably intertwined.
Consistent with current ideas of consciousness, Linda Blanchard
explains that what is past is past, what is future is not known, therefore
there is only the present (2012, 42).8 If there is only living in the present,
then letting the mind wander into the past or future only adds clutter
to the mind and does not help the mind see clearly. From this idea of
living in the present, the concept of mindfulness is born. The present is
momentary, however, and the next moment is derived from paticcasam-
uppada.9 Dependent origination in Buddhism means that change ulti-
mately is not arrowed straight, it is more like the branches or roots of a
tree, the next level of growth determined by the last. Humans living in
dukkha, however, exist in the very unsatisfactory circular time. Blanchard
explains this in terms of the false idea of a permanent self (ātman), “[i]t
is what passes for ātman that goes on the rounds, and it is that which
the Buddha is identifying here as ‘impermanent, transient, non-eternal,
incomplete, subject to passing away, born, aging, dying, passing away and
reappearing’” (2012, 58). In other words, we keep going back again and
again trying to perfect a permanent self which is not possible to do. The
Buddha explains this recurrence of cause through contact with ignorance.
In the untaught many folk, brethren, nourished by the feeling that is born
of contact with ignorance, there arises craving: thence is born that activity.
Thus, brethren, that activity is impermanent, willed, arisen from a cause.
292 C. Ketcham
That craving is impermanent, willed, arisen from a cause. That feeling is

impermanent, willed, arisen from a cause. That contact, that ignorance is
impermanent, willed, arisen from a cause. Thus knowing, brethren, thus
seeing, one can without delay destroy the asavas. (Rhys Davids, 1980, 83)
Bart Dessien (2016) posits Buddhist time as between circularity and linear-
ity (18). This is an apt description because the cycle of a being’s rebirth is
cyclical while at the same time the experience of consciousness is a contin-
uum that cannot return to a previous position because it is always evolving:
even a memory of an exact memory is a new memory.10 Our experience of
time is of this moment which suggests that time is neither circular nor linear.
Impermanence is expressed in the circularity of the rebirth cycle called
samsāra. It is also, as has been explained, the circularity of trying to per-
fect a permanent self. The paradox that the Buddha had to overcome is
how to express this circularity without having a permanent soul become
the continuity that passes between the phases of the rebirth cycle. The
phrase that Frank Hoffman uses, “continuity without identity of self-
same substance” (Hoffman 1987, 53) is an appropriate description of
the process of rebirth. The last thoughts of the dying person ‘enters’ the
karmic flux. The karmic flux somehow ‘understands’ karma produced by
the dying person and finds a suitable embryo into which the dying per-
son’s continuity can flow. Karma is never lost and somehow the karmic
forces ‘know’ how much good and bad karma each dying sentient being
has accumulated.11 Karma is not ‘attached’ to the embryo, but its record
follows from rebirth to rebirth. One’s karmic account is ‘tallied’ from
accumulated good and bad intentions and deeds. As Collins explains, a
bad intention that is not acted upon is just as bad as a bad intention that
is acted upon (1996, 492).
No God sits in judgment over the person in Buddhism. The kar-
mic flux ‘performs’ the task of ‘tallying’ an individual’s karma. Say,
Matsunaga and Matsunaga, Heaven, Hell, and rebirth into different lev-
els of existence are all possible results of the ‘calculation’ of the karmic
account (1972, 40). None of these existences is posited to be permanent
as is the Christian Resurrection.
Impermanence is in one respect the cycle of rebirth. Rebirth,
Buddhist Hell, and Heaven are all impermanent states which can
be nearly indefinite in duration as long as the sentient being does not
become enlightened.12 Impermanence is also the practice of performing
rituals and clinging to false beliefs and activities to perfect a permanent
‘self’ which keeps us in the unsatisfactory and repetitious state of dukkha.
There is no accountability date in Buddhism like the Christian

Judgment Day to put a halt to the whole process for all sentient beings.
Rather, only the individual can end ignorance by following a process
called the noble eightfold path. As the Buddha said, he will not become
again. Dessien explains the Buddha’s message with, “[o]nly those who
have attained wisdom that is free from any bond to the world can return
to the timeless origin. In this process, one does not destroy time but lib-
erates oneself from time” (Dessein 2016, 18).
Unlike the Bible’s creation story, the Buddha had no answer for the
first cause. When asked, says Ross, “Gautama refuses to spin out another
theory for his questioner” (1953, 95). Nor did the Buddha have an
answer what would happen to him after he died; only that he would not
become again. After this final death, there is only continuity: as in conti-
nuity without the identity of the self-same substance. Paticcasamuppada
does not conclude with enlightenment, but the enlightened one’s
actions no longer produce negative karma. The enlightened one’s con-
sciousness has moved into a higher plane. Timelessness is achieved by
the ending of ignorance and of the cycle of rebirth. Collins explains the
timelessness of nirvana: “Nirvana is permanent, constant, eternal, not
subject to change. It is in this sense that nirvana is endless: not that it is
characterized by an unending temporal duration, but that, being time-
less, there are no ends in it” (1996, 141). Nirvana is not only an exist-
ence with a new form of ‘consciousness’ without the ignorance of living
in dukkha, but it is timelessness and this is timeless because it has no
ends, it simply is.
If one can achieve enlightenment or perfection during one’s lifetime,
why live on after? The Buddha said that when he became enlightened he
thought about becoming a solitary meditator who would stay in nirvana
without much contact with others. Rather, he said, it was better to teach
others the process for achieving nirvana. Damien Keown makes it clear
that the Buddha saw that compassion towards helping others is a practice
worth pursuing (2001, 42).
Soulless Christianity
The Buddha said that the ‘karmic balance’ that every sentient being
‘accumulates’ transitions from one lifetime to another without the exist-
ence of a separate soul. The karmic flux ‘maintains’ continuity without
the identity of selfsame substance from rebirth to rebirth.13
294 C. Ketcham
Christians use the durability of the soul to explain continuity. At the

end of time for Roman Catholics, God determines the final disposition
of the souls of sinners: Heaven or Hell. There is no agreement on how
one lives one’s life will inform God’s judgment. Protestants are divided
about whether one can influence God with good works. However,
nobody can predict what God will do. This idea is not dissimilar to the
karmic flux of Buddhism where no one can predict how the karmic
forces ‘will determine’ the level of rebirth the dying unenlightened one
will be born into.
The question asked by Eire earlier whether the Protestant elimination
of Purgatory was the beginning of the end for the soul deserves con-
sideration in light of the idea that Buddhism does not need a soul to
provide both continuity and the ‘judgment’ of intentions and acts that
one commits during one’s lifetime. If, as the Buddha suggested, we are
but change and the result of a chain of causes, then how is a separate and
permanent substance even possible?
We must, however, understand that the Buddha refused to enter a
discussion of the metaphysical. The defeat of ignorance by the enlight-
ened one is not towards a metaphysical understanding of the world, as
Matsunaga and Matsunaga say in this lengthy but important statement,
but towards a perfect mental condition:
When the Enlightened One speaks of having conquered birth and death,
it symbolically refers to overcoming suffering; it does not mean that he
has ceased to be a product of constantly changing conditions. He has
merely destroyed the world of human sufferings or the circle of Paticca-
samuppāda as it describes the existence of the ignorant man. In the same
respect, it is said that the Enlightened One has become free of karma. This
does not mean that his actions no longer have any result, but rather that
the result is outside the circle of ignorance and ‘birth and death.’ Since his
mental state of ignorance has been completely overcome, now his actions
can only lead him on to higher and purer mental conditions. The new cir-
cle becomes a round of purification and increasing freedom. (Matsunaga
and Matsunaga 1972, 38)
Any Protestant salvific or sanctifying process is for the living only. There
is nothing that can be done by the dead or the living to help the dead.
The dead are permanently cut off from the living. What survives death
in both Buddhism and Christianity are deeds one commits while one is
alive. Like the Buddhist karma, the Christian sinner’s soul when it passes
into death takes with it the ‘measure’ of good and evil accumulated dur-
ing one’s lifetime.
Early Buddhism, Roman Catholicism, and Protestantism require the
individual to control one’s ego to live an adequate life. Whether the
individual can control one’s fate, meaning whether one has free will or
not, has been subject to great debate in Christianity. I will assume with
John Duns Scotus the thirteenth-century Catholic scholar, that there is
some free will. Duns Scotus explains that “God has immutable knowl-
edge of our contingent future” (Scotus 1994, 26). Meaning, God knows
every possible action we could take, but does not choose how we will act:
therefore, humans have some free will. Not all agreed with Scotus; some
even have taken a strict fatalistic approach where the will is under both
authority and control of God. While assuming that there is some free
will, I acknowledge the discourse that there is not, but continuing that
discourse is beyond the scope of this chapter.
The Christian Bible includes ethical precepts for believers to fol-
low. It also includes revelations from God and from God’s son Jesus.
The Bible does not lay out a process to reach Heaven. While the books
of the Pali Canon are purported to be the words of the lessons of the
Buddha, we cannot be sure, because the Buddha wrote nothing down.
A principal thread throughout his teachings is towards engaging one
to follow the process of the eightfold path to achieve nirvana. Nirvana
is not heaven, but a state of consciousness outside the unsatisfactori-
ness of dukkha. The Buddhist enlightened one who has defeated igno-
rance has followed the noble eightfold path to where say Matsunaga and
Matsunaga, “his actions can only lead him on to higher and purer mental
conditions” (Matsunaga and Matsunaga 1972, 38). As in Buddhism, the
path towards an ethical existence for the Protestant begins in restrain-
ing the ego. The Buddhist practitioner tries not to add bad karma. The
Protestant refrains insofar as one is able from sin.
The paradox of freedom in Buddhism that Matsunaga and Matsunaga
point out as the end of ignorance is the cessation of clinging and craving
impermanent things, ideas, and beliefs—even to life itself in the craving
of rebirth and of the perfection of a separate soul. Restricting the ego
leads one towards a higher plane of consciousness and if freedom can be
defined in terms of ignorance, the end to ignorance is the beginning of
freedom to be what one can be.
296 C. Ketcham
The Protestant restrictions against sin are not altogether different for
they force one to concentrate on the present and the path towards living
a life without sin. Once sinful activities are set aside, one achieves a new
birth of freedom from egoistic intentions and resulting acts. Neither in
Early Buddhism nor in Protestantism can the individual have assistance
from others for task one’s penance, which is what Purgatory purports to
a limited extent to do.
Living an existence beyond ignorance is no easy task for both
Buddhists and Protestants. Few Buddhists become enlightened; no
Protestants (or persons, more generally, on most orthodox Protestant
theological views) die without having committed sins. Buddhism says
that one can become enlightened even after committing a lifetime of
sins.14 While the karma that one has created over the many cycles of
rebirth does not go away, enlightenment means that, as Matsunaga and
Matsunaga say, the karmic result, “is outside the circle of ignorance and
‘birth and death’” (1972, 38).
What about those who do not become enlightened or do not live
the purest life? The Buddha promised that even if one cannot achieve
enlightenment in this lifetime, by living an ethical life according to
the tenets of the eightfold path, one can position oneself for a better
rebirth, but there are no guarantees because the karmic flux cannot be
understood by humans. Roman Catholicism has also taken a pragmatic
approach with Purgatory, providing some assistance to the dead from the
thoughtful prayers of those who live.
There is no such Protestant compromise. If the dead are completely
separate from the living, one must again ask whether such a thing as a
soul could pass from one plane to the other. Like Buddhist karma,
Protestant deeds committed during one’s lifetime do not ever disappear
and are subject to the sinner’s judgment (not by the karmic flux but)
by an omniscient and omnipotent God who determines (not the level of
rebirth but) the ‘permanent’ disposition of the soul on Judgment Day
(predestined or not). Permanent is an inexact term because what occurs
on Judgment Day is after the end of time.
The countdown to Christianity’s Judgment Day is uncertain. In other
words, we cannot know when Judgment Day will bring the end of time.
Because of this, one begins to wonder whether the Protestants and the
Buddhists both follow a similar path. Perhaps it is not an individual’s
soul that passes with time, but the accumulation of good and bad karma
or good and bad deeds. Humanity is doomed to live on the earth which
means to suffer as long as we are not free (ignorant,) meaning we are

controlled by our egos (agreeing again with Scotus) to do what we may.
Perhaps we are simply pushing back the Day of Judgment with every
moment that humans continue to live desperate lives driven by willful
and unrestrained egos. What is also left unanswered is whether Purgatory
as an idea contributes to the continuing suffering of humanity or serves
to mitigate that suffering towards an earlier judgment day.
The End of Time

Christianity is anthropocentric. Time ends at the Resurrection when all
human souls not (already) in Heaven or Hell are consigned to their eter-
nal state. Presumably, this is the end of the universe because the Bible
explains that God created the universe and gave life to humans and oth-
ers (Isaiah 42:5) and made man in his image (Genesis 1:27). Whether
God has a predetermined moment to end time, or, as was proposed ear-
lier, is simply waiting for humanity to become righteous, we cannot say.
Buddhism believes that all life is sacred. While the Buddha never said
that all sentient beings have the potential to become enlightened, Sallie
B. King explains that the later Mahayana branch of Buddhism developed
the idea of Buddha nature to do just that (1991). One can then logi-
cally say that once all sentient beings become enlightened there will be
no more rebirths, but this teleology few believe. Sentient beings do not
include plants, bacteria, and other life for which consciousness is not pos-
sible even in the most minimal sense of the word. Just as the Buddha
refused to discuss the first cause, he also refused to discuss when and
how the universe would end. Rather than position these two silences
as flaws in the knowledge of an omniscient Buddha, we might suggest
that the Buddha has given all beings that are sentient the opportunity
to end dukkha in the world. Since death after enlightenment severs all
cognitive and phenomenal ties with the living world, there is no way that
those in the state of parinirvāna (after the final death) can communi-
cate what the circumstances of the state are. As such they are beyond
the understanding of humans…as is the condition of existence after the
Final Judgment in Christianity. What the Buddha understood was that
the enlightened one, already with a higher form of consciousness, will, as
Collins explained, exist in a timeless state. Beyond that hypothesis, noth-
ing else can be understood by humans. Collins and his idea of timeless-
ness without end, however, gives us a clue as to the nature of nirvana
298 C. Ketcham
and that is an existence without time whether time in the state of dukkha
is imaginary or not. Without time there cannot be, as Collins explains,
any end to the experience of nirvana.
Both Buddhism and Christianity have discovered that there is a state
outside of time: nirvana and Heaven. Both are considered timeless states.
The Roman Catholics discovered a hole in temporality and filled it with
Purgatory. The Protestants determined that there was no need to fill this
hole and that waiting for God to call the Resurrection was an adequate
solution. The Resurrection for both Catholics and Protestants means
the end of time (if you are in Heaven). The Buddha saw the circularity
of samsāra and the practice of ignorance clinging to false and imperma-
nent things as the cause of dukkha and resolved to solve the circularity
problem with a timeless state one could walk towards on the eightfold
path. Nirvana, like Heaven is also a timeless state. The problems associ-
ated with impermanence and the problems of eternity as a construct of
(unfathomable) time are resolved if there can be a state of timelessness
towards which one can aspire: Heaven or nirvana.
How Soon Is the End of Time?

Christianity has through poems, plays, art, and discourse tried to
describe the paradise of Heaven and the horrors of Hell. These are but
pure speculation. After the Resurrection, there will be no one left living
to report the experience too. What is beyond the end of time is simply
speculative because it is beyond the knowledge of humans.
What we may extrapolate from this discussion of the end of time
is only this. If God is waiting to call the Resurrection until a point in
time where humans are living lives with the least amount of sin possi-
ble other than Original Sin and the occasional peccadillo, then the end
of time may be sooner than for Buddhism. It likely will take cosmically
longer (if ever) for all sentient beings to be reborn into levels of existence
where they have a realistic prospect of becoming enlightened. However,
as more and more sentient beings become enlightened they will enter the
timelessness of nirvana. The state of existence for enlightened sentient
beings in parinirvāna, is both eternal and timeless, but nothing has been
said in Buddhism whether the universe will end if or when all sentient
beings become enlightened. Therefore, we cannot make any prediction
from the idea of enlightenment of when time itself will end or at least
evolve into Collins’s state of timelessness. This is, of course, subject to
the belief that time does exist. If time does not exist and the true experi-
ence of the enlightened consciousness is without time—timeless—then is
time in dukkha only an illusion which is another reason for why imper-
manence and contingent being are unsatisfactory? Alas, that is the sub-
ject for another paper.
Notes
1. One of the issues Max Weber explains that the later Calvinists and Baptists
had to deal with was predestination (2002, 57). While predestination will
not get much attention in this chapter, it does point to the fact that the
different sects of Protestantism have very different ways of looking at eth-
ics (Weber et al. 2002, 57).
2. Roman Catholicism sends martyrs and saints directly to Heaven (Le Goff
1984, 2).
3. Collins explains the issue of a beginningless beginning:
The absence of a cosmogony in Buddhism means that there is no system-
atic articulation, no overt saying, of how such sequences of conditioned
consciousness came into being, originally, in a metaphysical sense: what is
beginningless cannot have a beginning (1996, 206).
4. Says Mark Siderits, the Viabhās͎ika tradition of the Abidhamma main-
tains that, “all conditioned things are momentary” (2007, 136). Says
H. S. Prasad, Time in Buddhism is not a substantive reality (1991, 11)
(Siderits 2007, 136 and Prasad 1991, 11).
5. About his own fate The Buddha said only, “I will not become again.”
However, he said about the experience of time, “The past should not be
followed after, the future not desired. What is past is got rid of and the
future has not come. But whoever has vision now here, now there, of a
present Thing.” (Horner, 1999, 233).
6. While time was extended linearly, the practice of Purgatory is quite cir-
cular in nature. Le Goff explains, “The system of solidarity between the
living and the dead instituted an unending circular flow, a full circuit of
reciprocity” (1984, 357).
7. The Buddha saw incurable issues with the underlying Vedic belief of puri-
fying the self: ātman (separate self) and the rituals that revolved around
the same. However, he was also against the whole idea of the caste system
that had grown up in Indian society of the time.
8. Yet Blanchard does not suggest that consciousness is being born and
dying in this process (2012, 42).
9. The scope of this chapter does not permit delving into the considerable
discourse surrounding just what the present moment is.
300 C. Ketcham
10. What complicates Buddhist time is the idea of living in the moment and
whether that gives any shape or direction at all to time. At the same time
the Buddhist concept of dependent origination requires that what is now
has been derived from prior causes, giving ideas for direction (order) but
not shape of time. Whether Buddhism ultimately posits that there is no
such thing as time as we traditionally understand it will not be explored
here but deserves further consideration.
11. The karmic forces are difficult to explain without using active verbs.
How one describes the karmic forces will not be resolved in this chapter.
Rather the use of ‘’ marks in the active verbs will denote the difficulty of
describing just how the karmic forces are to be thought about.
12. Matsunaga and Matsunaga explain that in Buddhism, Hell is not a perma-
nent state. Hell is technically not Purgatory because there is no soul in
Buddhism (Matsunaga and Matsunaga 1972).
13. Coomaraswamy uses a billiard ball example to explain the transmigration
of rebirth, “‘[h]ere precisely is Buddhist transmigration: the first moving
ball does not pass over, it remains behind, it dies; but it is undeniably the
movement of that ball, its momentum, its karma, and not any newly cre-
ated movement which is reborn in the foremost ball” (Ross 1953, 103).
14. In an off-cited story, the Buddha meets the robber–murderer Angulimala.
After listening to the Buddha, An̊gulimāla casts of his old ways and
becomes enlightened.
Pali Canon Buddhist Texts Referenced

I. B. Horner (tr.) (1999) The Middle Length Sayings, Vol. III (Oxford: Pali Text
Society).
C. Rhys Davids (tr.) (1980) The Book of the Kindred Sayings, Vol. III. (Oxford:
Pali Text Society).
References
L. Blanchard (2012) ‘Burning Yourself: Paṭicca Samuppāda as a Description of
the Arising of a False Sense of Self Modeled on Vedic Rituals’, Journal of the
Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 2, 36–83.
S. Collins (1996) Nirvana and other Buddhist Felicities (Cambridge, UK:
B. Dessein (2016) ‘Progress and Free Will: On the Buddhist Concept of ‘Time’
and Its Possibilities for Modernity’, Asian Studies 4:1, 11–33.
C. M. N. Eire (2010) A Brief History of Eternity (Princeton: Princeton
University Press).
F. J. Hoffman (1987) Rationality & Mind in Early Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal

Banasaridass).
D. Keown (2001) The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (New York: Palgrave).
C. Ketcham (2015) ‘Meaning Without Ego’, Journal of the Philosophy of Life 5:3,
112–133.
S. B. King (1991) Buddha Nature (Albany, NY: SUNY Press).
J. Li (2016) ‘What is Time? Yogācāra-Buddhist Meditation on the Problem of
the External World in the Treatise on the Perfection of Consciousness-only
(Cheng weishi lun)’, Asian Studies 20:1, 35–57.
P. Marshall (2015) ‘After Purgatory: Death and Remembeerance in the
Reformation World’ in T. Rasmussen and J. O. Flaeten (eds.) Preparing for
Death, Remembering the Dead (Gottingen: Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, GmbH
& Co.), pp. 25–44.
D. Matsunaga and A. Matsunaga (1972) The Buddhist Concept of Hell (New
York: Philosophical Library).
H. S. Prasad (1991). Essays on time in Buddhism. Delhi, Sri Satguru Publications.
F. H. Ross (1953) The Meaning of Life in Hinduism and Buddhism (Boston:
Beacon Press).
J. D. Scotus (1994). Contingency and Freedom: John Duns Scotus Lectura I 39
A. Vos Jaczn, H. Veldhuis, A. H. Looman-Graaskamp, E. Dekker, N. W. Den
Bok (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers).
M. Siderits (2007) Buddhism as Philosophy: An Introduction (Indianapolis:
Hackett Publishing).
M. Weber, R. Baehr, and G. C. Wells (2002) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism And Other Writings (New York: Routledge).
CHAPTER 16
The Purification of Doubt: Is It Better

to Exist in Purgatory?
Nicolas Michaud
Purgatory may not be that bad. In fact, it might well be the case that
existence in Purgatory is, for numerous reasons, preferable to existence
in Heaven. Such a statement, however, seems irrational at best. Most
readers, outside of those with a flip sense of humor, are likely to regard
a statement asserting Purgatory’s preferability as cute, comic, or perhaps
“click bait,” i.e. “click here and read on so that you may be astounded.”
I, however, make no claims to a particularly astounding realization.
Rather, I wish to suggest that our understanding of Purgatory’s inferi-
ority to Heaven has far more to do with our own understanding of our
epistemic positioning than it has to do with any particular metaphysical
facts.
At first blush, my claim that Purgatory may well be superior to
Heaven seems to require an equivocation. “Of course,” one might
think to oneself, “he does not mean actual Purgatory.” But I do. And
an assault on that metaphysical position will be my end game. To begin,
however, requires not an equivocation but the acknowledgement of
N. Michaud (*) 
Florida State College Jacksonville, Jacksonville,
USA

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0_16
304 N. Michaud
Purgatory’s rather interesting ontological status. Simply, there is the

metaphysical Purgatory (the epistemic understanding of which would
suggest there is or is not a place to be occupied by individual agents) but
there is also the metaphor Purgatory which indicates that one is in a par-
ticular epistemic position—a state of in-betweenness. The connotation of
this “ePurgatory” (as by which I mean the epistemic position Purgatory)
is a place in which one is mentally stuck, unable to act because of some
cognitive hindrance—one is trapped in a prison of the mind.
Purgatory as Metaphor
The vanguard of my assault on the betterness of Heaven than Purgatory
will begin with that notion of ePurgatory. To say that one is in
“Purgatory” is a metaphorical positioning. We, of course, do not mean
when we say, “I am in Purgatory,” that we are actually in Purgatory.
But, rather, that we are in a position such that we cannot move one way
or the other. We are perhaps caught between the horns of a dilemma
in which both alternatives have unappealing consequences or a situa-
tion such that there are no right answers. We are stuck in a state of “in-
betweenness” unable to commit to a particular event, proposition, or
circumstance. Or, the position of ePurgatory may simply be a situation
of waiting, unable to act yet as a particular piece of knowledge is still
missing. What all of these various kinds of ePurgatory seem to have in
common is that there is a waiting that must take place, which, of course,
is consistent with the notion of metaphysical Purgatory (or mPurgatory).
Anecdotally, the version of ePurgatory which seems most common
in our colloquial parlance is the idea that to be in Purgatory means to
wait for someone else to make a decision of some kind. For example,
one may be waiting for a lover to accept a marriage proposal. Perhaps,
however, the proposed is not completely confident yet, and so they have
asked for more time to think about accepting. In that case, the proposer
may feel as if they are in Purgatory, awaiting a decision. Notice, that one
may suggest that this is not a true instance of “ePurgatory” because if
by “epistemic Purgatory” I mean that one is stuck between two cogni-
tive positions, the proposal event described above does not seem to fit.
However, ePurgatory does not mean that one is necessarily sucked in
one’s own decision making, it means that one is stuck because of a lack
of epistemic certainty. In the case of the marriage proposal example one
is lacking a crucial piece of information, namely if the proposal has been
16 THE PURIFICATION OF DOUBT: IS IT BETTER TO EXIST IN PURGATORY? 305
accepted, so one lacks the ability to be epistemically certain—one cannot

act without this crucial piece of information, so one must wait. Thus,
this form of ePurgatory is perhaps the clearest, as it is direct recognition
of a lack of epistemic certainty—one lacks knowledge deemed necessary.
In all cases, however, what is clear about the notion of ePurgatory is
that it is a state of epistemic dissonance: one is unsure, unclear, or unable
to act because knowledge is in conflict, missing, or violates one’s intui-
tions. To be in this ePurgatory is not pleasant, though it is not necessar-
ily terrible. To have to wait for the acceptance or rejection of a marriage
proposal may seem hellish, but it is likely preferable (at least for a limited
duration) to a flat out rejection. Of course, the caveat must be added
that many assert that they prefer knowing, even in the case of rejection,
then having to wait for an extended period. That may well certainly be
true. However, even if the hellish state of ePurgatory is, in fact, worse
than the Hell-like state of rejection or failure for some, many, or even all,
there is great merit to the state of ePurgatory.
It is specifically the cognitive dissonance created by ePurgatory that
I suggest is desirable. To do so requires something of an extended
metaphor, one that I hope can be shown to be sufficiently powerful
as to be meaningful in a literal way as well. ePurgatory is, in essence, a
state of “disequilibrium.” That is to say that it is a state in which one
has come to realize that the state of things as they are is problematic;
i.e. something must change. That necessity of change need not be rec-
ognized consciously, yet it remains a consistent quality of all forms of
ePurgatory—the occupier of ePurgatory cannot escape unless the state
of affairs, whether physical or actual changes. She must gain a new piece
of information, come to a different conclusion, or identify a solution that
had been previously ignored. Until she does so, and exits the state of in-
betweenness in order to be once again at ease, in equilibrium, she is in a
rather uncomfortable state of disequilibrium, which likely accounts for
why, when we describe ourselves as being in Purgatory, we are suggest-
ing that we are uncomfortable, stressed, and hope for change in the near
future so that we may exit that state of cognitive dissonance.
Purgatory and Piaget
The idea of ePurgatory, then, is effectively understood in metaphori-
cal relation to Jean Piaget’s learning theory. In his work, The Origins
of Intelligence in Children (1952) Piaget develops his understanding of
306 N. Michaud
learning as a process of “schema” development. Piaget defined a schema

as, “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions
that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning” (7).
Note Piaget’s mention of a “core meaning,” a notion to which I wish to
return later. These schemas are largely described by Piaget as particular
series of actions that are in essence “saved” in the brain for use when
a particular stimulus is encountered. When that stimulus is encountered
the brain repeats the already learned series of actions in order to address
the circumstances to which the stimulus gives rise. In early childhood
development, this may mean that a toddler who is walking on the side-
walk with his mother begins to approach an intersection and reaches his
hand out to her. The child knows, seemingly reflexively, that the appro-
priate action sequence to crossing a road is to reach out his hand, which
will be grasped by the mother, who then will continue to hold that hand
as they cross the street. As long as the parent continues to grab the hand
in that circumstance, the child will exist in a state of equilibrium, at least
in regards to crossing roads with his mother.
There may come an age, however, in which the parent no longer feels
the need to hold her child’s hand as they come to cross the road. It is
conceivable, then, to imagine a moment in which the child reaches out
his hand and the parent rejects it as they begin to cross the road. That
moment may cause an experience of disequilibrium for the child. The
child must now adjust his schema in such a way as to account for the
fact that the schema no longer seems to function properly in response
to the particular stimulus. In effect, the child can be described as being
in a position of ePurgatory, if only briefly, as the disequilibrium requires
some new information to be processed in order to adjust the schema in
order to continue to function effectively in the world. The child may, for
example, ask the mother why they are not holding hands. She may reply,
“Well you are older now and so you do not have to hold my hand every
time we cross the road.” The child then adjusts his schema to account
for the fact that he is older and seeks to recover equilibrium.
The adjustment necessary to recover equilibrium, as described by
Piaget, requires that one either assimilate or accommodate new infor-
mation. The disequilibrium caused by the rejection of the hand holding
requires that a change is made. In the case of assimilation, no significant
change to the schema itself is necessary; the repeatable action can con-
tinue on as previous with only the addition of the new information. This
is not the case, however, of the hand holding, as the repeatable action
must change. Assimilation is the addition to the schema of information

in such a way as to continue forward—reestablish equilibrium—with-
out rewriting the schema. One may, for example, drive a manual 4-speed
transmission. If one, however, were to borrow a friend’s car that hap-
pens to be a 5-speed there might be some initial confusion, disequilib-
rium. However, once one comes to recognize that the friend’s car is a
5-speed rather than a 4-speed, the repeatable action is sufficiently similar
that one only needs to add “there is an additional hand motion to move
into fifth gear” that the schema is not rewritten in any significant way.
In other words, one need not reconsider one’s understanding of driving
as a whole in order to assimilate to the new stimulus. However, if one
does not drive a manual transmission, and rather, drives an automatic,
and then borrows a friend’s manual transmission, of any kind, one must
rewrite one’s understanding of car driving in significant ways.
To rewrite one’s schema so that the series of responses can now
address new stimulus is “accommodation.” Accommodation is, of
course, a more intensive process than assimilation. To accommodate
to new information may require that one make significant changes to
a schema, to the point of unrecognizability. As the schema has served
to work in the world before, or simply because it takes a great deal of
energy to make a significant change, it seems as if humans attempt to
make as little change as possible in the accommodation process. To write
a new schema requires significant neural pathway development, so it may
well be the case that humans when accommodating their schemas, seek
to maintain as much of the original series of actions as possible. Keep in
mind that the motivation for accommodation is to return to a state of
equilibrium, as maintaining the state of disequilibrium is uncomfortable
and likely high-energy.
That state of disequilibrium until sufficient change is made to accom-
modate the new information that enables the person to address stimulus
in the world is a state of ePurgatory. New information must be brought
into the schema, but the schema itself cannot continue to exist as it was
in order to accommodate the new information necessary for the develop-
ment of an appropriate response sequence to the stimulus. Consider the
following anecdote as an example of accommodation and the significant
rewriting that may be necessary. I recall being young and often sitting
on my grandfather’s lap at family gatherings. I cannot recall, however,
how old I was when I was no longer allowed to sit on my grandfather’s
lap. I do remember that my family was at a bowling alley, and when I
308 N. Michaud
went to sit on his lap and he looked immediately horrified, explaining

that I was not allowed to do that anymore because I was a boy. The
moment was sufficiently disequilibrating to have stuck in my mind for
many years. Until that point, the appropriate response to being around
my family and grandfather was to sit on his lap. Now, however, the stim-
ulus had changed and the response reaction was no longer appropriate
to the stimulus provided, and, in fact, the stimulus had changed. Notice,
though, that this was not a case of simply accommodating the new infor-
mation by rewriting the script for family gatherings. I also had to revisit
a series of other schema that involved not just my appropriate interaction
with the world, but how boys are supposed to interact with the world,
and what love and affection with my grandfather must now look like.
Notice that Piaget’s work fits neatly into a coherentist picture of
knowledge and learning. The schema themselves are described as “tightly
interconnected,” but, I believe, that we can easily move beyond under-
standing Piaget in simply a behavioristic way and understand his model
in terms of knowledge in general. Certainly, his theory is a useful model
for understanding reflexive responses to stimuli, but it is also useful for
understanding how we engage in knowledge that is not behavioristic,
but cognitive and constructionist. As in the case, I described with my
grandfather my schema re-writing was not just a matter of reconstruct-
ing the appropriate physical interactions with my grandfather, but also
my own understanding of maleness and male interaction with the world.
Piaget’s work, by suggesting that the schema are oriented around a core
meaning, makes the theory easily applicable to the coherentist picture
of our own understanding of the world as a web—each schema is com-
prised of pieces of information and responses that are interconnected,
like points on the web that when taken as a whole can be understood
in terms of meaning. For example, through this chapter I am attempt-
ing to generate a series of tightly interconnected points, centered on
the idea of disequilibrium, that can be taken to mean that disequilib-
rium, ePurgatory, is, in fact, a good thing. These schemas themselves,
I believe, also act as points on a larger web of our construction of the
world. Each schema provides for our understanding of certain aspects of
the world, these schemas in conjunction interconnect in the larger web
of our understanding to produce our understanding and the meaning of
the world as a whole.
ePurgatory and World Construction

With the notion of a web of schemas in mind, we can apply our under-
standing of schema in purely cognitive terms. I may have an under-
standing, for example, of the solar system as having nine planets. My
schema then can be understood in two parts. I have the smaller solar-
system-schema in which when asked what planets are in our solar system
I reply, “Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune,
and Pluto.” In knowing that fact I am in equilibrium. No one argues
with me if I give that answer; it is verified if I open a textbook, or search
online. When, however, the scientific community decides that Pluto is
in fact too small to be a planet and allowance of Pluto into the cate-
gory “planet” requires that we recategorize numerous other bodies that
seem clearly not to be planets (as planets), and my answer is no longer
met as correct by the community, textbooks, and the internet, I must
now address the disequilibrium caused by my understanding of Pluto as
a planet. If this was simply a matter of accommodation and schema were
isolated from each other, I could just slip Pluto out of my schema and
provide a new response reaction to the question, “How many planets
are there?” However, such a response is insufficient, because I must now
address a series of other disequilibrium as the schema of the nine planets
solar system is connected to others, such as my belief in the correctness
of my childhood science teachers, my belief in my ability to know the
truth, and the fact that the scientific community can simply make sig-
nificant change in my understanding of my world without consulting me
first. Thusly, I cannot assimilate, I must accommodate, and I am not just
accommodating one schema, I must now reorient the way my schemas
interact with other schemas in my web of understanding of the world.
To do so much cognitive reconstruction is likely why I still know
adults who refuse to acknowledge the change of Pluto’s status and
why the scientific community received so much backlash in making the
change that they have since, to a small degree, tried to pacify the public
by continuing to call Pluto a planet of a kind. Understanding the pub-
lic’s response to something as unimportant as the categorization of a
cosmic body that the vast majority of us have never actually seen, none-
theless interacted with in any meaningful way is a struggle unless we con-
sider the way our internal schemas interact with each other. People who
had learned the solar system in their youth had saved their automatic
response schema, but also a series of other schema as oriented around
310 N. Michaud
the idea that their schooling and upbringing generally led them to cor-
rect and largely immutable answers. They were now required to do a
great deal of schema reorientation and rewarding to accommodate the
new information. For some such rewriting was too much and resulted
in what Piaget describes as ignoring the new information. If too much
accommodation is required, we simply ignore the new information and
maintain our equilibrium by pretending that the offensive stimulus is in
fact false.
Such ignoring, on the whole, is not irrational. Notice that there is a
point in which a particular piece of information might be so decimat-
ing to our schema of schema, to our understanding of the world in its
entirety, that it simply makes more sense to reject the singular piece of
information than rewrite the world. This, I believe, is what we mean that
something is counterintuitive. When a piece of information requires that
we rewrite too much, and the rewriting seems to require that we reject
pieces of information that themselves seem to be true in conjunction
with each other, we reject the new information as false. This, to some
degree, is how we deal with the construction of ethical systems. We may,
for example, reject the Kantian system because it seems to allow for the
murderer at the door scenario (in which I tell the murderer my mother
is home). This allowance requires that I rewrite so much of my schema
that it is simply easier to reject Kant. Rather than reconstruct the way I
weigh lies versus murder, the importance of my mother, the responsibil-
ity I hold to my family, appropriate interaction with axe-murders, and
so forth, I simply call Kant “counterintuitive” and seek out an ethical
system that does not require that I tell the truth in such a circumstance.
The cognitive dissonance, the ePurgatory, caused by Kant, however,
should not be ignored. In the case of Kant’s ethical system, it seems
easy to reject the system because it is counterintuitive. I cannot reject it,
however, without also recognizing that I am rejecting an extraordinar-
ily logical and consistent system. To do so requires that I recognize I
am ignoring the system despite my own believe that logic and ration-
ality should dictate ethics, not personal bias. So, in this case, I am still
required to rewrite a schema. I am placed in the unenviable position of
recognizing that I must rewrite my schema either way. Either I rewrite
in order to change my response to the murder at the door scenario or I
rewrite my response to logical argumentation and objective reasoning.
I now exist in ePurgatory, unable to act unless new information is pro-
vided. That disequilibrium, however, may not be as bad as it seems.
The Power and Value of Purgatory

Consider one further example of the disequilibrium scenario: the rejec-
tion of the Ptolemaic picture of the universe. For those who grew up
with the knowledge that the Earth was the center of the universe, the
Copernican picture was anathema. Note, though, that it was not just a
matter of what they learned in their sixth-grade science class, their very
eyes and bodies, as well as their faith, community, and upbringing all
told them that the sun rotated around the Earth. As such, the rejection
of the Ptolemaic picture required being in sufficient ePurgatory to make
the necessary extensive changes. In other words, the people most likely
to make the change were the ones who understood enough about phys-
ics and mathematics to themselves experience disequilibrium when posed
with the observations and proofs provided by Galileo. They were placed
in a position of ePurgatory; i.e. reject what their eyes were telling them
(and thusly an extremely extensive series of schema dictating that one’s
eyes can be trusted, the community of faith is always correct, one can feel
movement, one can trust one’s educational upbringing and parents, etc.)
or reject core principles of mathematics, reason, and parsimony that con-
struct a coherent picture of science. For those who had no such invest-
ment in science, did not understand enough physics, and did not know
mathematics, there was no reason to reject the Ptolemaic picture because
the rewriting necessary was extensive, but the rejection of Galileo’s work
came at no cost, so the proposition was simply ignored.
This is all to arrive at a very simple conclusion already articulated
by Piaget; disequilibrium leads to learning. It is disequilibrium and the
desire for equilibrium that leads on to assimilate and accommodate.
Greater disequilibrium motivated more change and the revision of
those schemas that comprised the smaller schema. As in the case of the
Copernican universe described above, some learning seems to only take
place if disequilibrium is so extensive that rejection of the new knowl-
edge also requires accommodation. It is when stuck between the horns of
the dilemma that we are most willing to rewrite what we think we know.
For those whom it comes at no cost to ignore new knowledge, no learn-
ing is necessary. It is for that reason I suggest that the position of dis-
equilibrium is extremely desirable. It is when in disequilibrium that we
are most likely to learn, and conversely, it is when we are most certain,
and in a place of heavenly equilibrium that new knowledge is most likely
to be ignored.
312 N. Michaud
The Value of ePurgatory as Skepticism

Thus, I propose an entirely different kind of argument for skepticism.
Most epistemic engagement with the skeptical problem revolves around
our ability to know that we know. Whether engaging Descartes or
Pyrrho, we tend to assume that the skeptical position is one that allows
for less knowledge, by definition, and thusly we often seek to prove the
skeptic wrong because she is denying us knowledge (and thusly I believe
placing us in a position of disequilibrium). She may argue that we might
be dreaming or part of a computer simulation or that we cannot know
that what we see are actually cleverly constructed two-dimensional barns,
but in the end the skeptic is telling us that we must have a reason to
believe that what we know is, in fact, indubitable, and since we cannot
know that, we cannot know anything. The flippant response is, of course,
to say that such criteria for knowledge are asking too much, we cannot
know that we can know, but we can know, and the skeptic should not
just give us reason to doubt our meta-knowledge of knowledge, but if
she is going to do so she should give us reason to doubt that which we
actually know.
Such arguments have their value, but notice that they seem to ignore
coherentist and pragmatic pictures of epistemology. The coherentist and
the pragmatist, in fact, have often been seen as bastions of more cer-
tain knowledge if what we mean by more certain is “safer from skep-
tical thought experiments.” The coherentist does not require that our
knowledge correspond to some actual truth and the pragmatist defines
knowledge in instrumental ways. I suggest, however, that the coherent-
ist, and as such the pragmatist picture are also an excellent reason to take
skepticism seriously. Simply, while it may be true that the skeptic denies us
knowledge, she, somewhat paradoxically, provides us with the best posi-
tion for learning.
The state of disequilibrium is the state in which we are most moti-
vated to learn. To engage in the analogy, it is as if the web of beliefs
that constructs our world is in vibration and each point that constructs
it is less certain, and therefore not inviolable, and we are more willing to
move it. As long as we are in equilibrium we have no reason to change
the schema nonetheless the meta-schema constructed by individual
response-reaction schemas. When we are placed in the ePurgatory posi-
tion of disequilibrium, whether we accommodate or ignore, we engage
in learning, bring in new information, rewrite the individual schema and
reorient the meta-schema. As such, skepticism provides a very pragmatic

service commensurable with the coherentist picture of knowledge: it pro-
vides us a constant reason to be sufficiently uncertain, a perpetual state of
disequilibrium that makes learning, though not knowledge, easier. The
coherentist does not require knowledge if it means a kind of inviolable
“capital T truth,” and so she is not harmed by the lack of such knowl-
edge caused by the skeptic, and the pragmatist has a very good reason
now to accept skepticism whereas it was most reasonable to reject it
before. The acceptance of skepticism enables more learning, easier access
to the points which make up our web of beliefs, and promotes interac-
tion with the world in a more reasonable way (insofar as we may believe
that acceptance of schema-challenging concepts such as the Copernican
universe is reasonable).
Consider the example of Pluto or the Ptolemaic picture of the uni-
verse. In both cases the pragmatist likely wants us to accept the change
required by the scientific community. Simply, as we continue to inter-
act with an increasingly smaller yet more complex universe our ability to
engage bodies without dogmatism will make dealing with them easier.
Our understanding of such mathematics makes, for example, landing
on the moon much easier. So, as we interact with the world, the instru-
mental value of science is tremendous, and to reject it is to make such
interaction more difficult, and thus anathema to the pragmatist thesis. As
such, the skeptical position is exactly what enables not just the public to
continue to move with science, as assuming that what one knows about
the world is inviolably true makes learning new science impossible, but
it also is what motivates much of the best science. A scientist who knows
the truth is likely to suffer from confirmation bias, complacency, and per-
haps even laziness. This is not to say that the dogmatic scientist may not
also do great work; Einstein’s unwillingness to accept quantum mechan-
ics, while seemingly resulting in a tremendous waste of time, also pro-
duced prodigious work, some of which may yet turn out to be correct.
Often, however, it is more problematic than helpful to have to drag sci-
ence and the public in particular along kicking and screaming every time
we have to categorize a planet. Worse yet, such certainty can result in
imprisonment, intolerance, and violence as is evidenced by our engage-
ment with the Copernican universe or today with evolution and global
warming.
The paradox, of course, of my suggestion is problematic. How can
one both be more capable of coming to the truth while at the same
314 N. Michaud
time believing that the truth is not attainable? It is here that the meta-
phorical relation between Purgatory and skepticism becomes most apt.
Purgatory is understood in the Catholic tradition as not just a state of
in-betweenness but a state of purification. At the same time, the belief
that one belongs in Heaven is not a state of grace, it is a state of arro-
gance. Thus, in a similarly paradoxical way, one is far more likely, at least
so theology tells us, to achieve Heaven when one believes Heaven may
not be achievable.
Achieving Purgatory
Consider the work of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards famously wrote
on salvation and epistemology as a Puritan theologian in the 1700s.
His understanding of salvation was particularly puritanical insofar as it
did not allow for one to achieve salvation through effort. One was, in
essence, already saved or damned given God’s omniscient nature. God
already knows what we will do; thusly our damnation or salvation is
already scripted, we just do not know the outcome. The result is that
Edward’s work is beautiful in his attempt to understand his relationship
with God, but also wonderfully skeptical because of his recognition that
he cannot know it, and in fact, such feeling of “knowing” is arrogance
and evidence of being damned.
To read Edwards work is easily misunderstood in terms of reading in
circles. Edwards reflects deeply and, in so doing, does not attempt to
achieve worthiness or simply exist as worthy and feel the contentment
and equilibrium that accompanies the state of salvation. Edwards wrote:
I know certainly that I have very little sense of my sinfulness. What I have
had turns of weeping for my sins, I thought I knew at the time that my
repentance was nothing to my sin…The very thought of any joy arising in
me, on any consideration of my own amiableness, performances, or experi-
ences, or any goodness of heart or life, is nauseous and detestable to me.
(Edwards [1739] 2004, 30)
Notice, here, Edwards’s awareness of his own lack of knowledge, a com-

mon theme through his personal narrative. Notice as well the sense of
repetitiveness, not just of sinfulness but of the sense, that even by vir-
tue of recognizing his sinfulness he is engaging in sinfulness as it a form
of pride. Edwards, like Descartes’ engagement with knowledge in his
Meditations on First Philosophy, seems to recognize that there is a differ-

ence between “knowing” that one is saved and in fact being in the state
of salvation. Similarly, Descartes seems to suggest through his work that
“knowing” the truth is epistemic while simply being true is ontological.
Simply, to reflect on the cogito is to engage in syllogism and thusly to
engage in a logical practice that itself is dubitable. However, it almost
seems as if there is a state, not of syllogism, but of meditative awareness
of the cogito, a state of thinking, but not logically thinking about that
thinking, in which one knows one exists. To put it into words, however,
as I am doing, already brings in epistemic tools that themselves are dubi-
table and undermines our knowledge. Similarly, Edwards seems to suffer
from the problem of bringing epistemic weapons to an ontological bat-
tle. One is or is not saved, as such one can simply exist, in equilibrium, as
saved. As soon as one reflects on such salvation though, one brings a ter-
rible skeptical problem for Edwards, one of arrogance.
To be brazenly brief, Descartes’ problem of knowledge is perhaps
made most clear by David Lewis in his brilliant “Elusive Knowledge,” in
which he points out that we can know plenty until we do epistemology.
That act of trying to reflect on our own knowledge destroys knowledge.
To quote Lewis:
What is epistemology all about? The epistemology we’ve just been doing,
at any rate, soon became an investigation of the ignoring of possibilities.
But to investigate the ignoring of them was ipso facto not to ignore them.
Unless this investigation of ours was an altogether atypical sample of epis-
temology, it will be inevitable that epistemology must destroy knowledge.
That is how knowledge is elusive. Examine it, and straight-way it vanishes.
(1996, 559–60)
Given that what we realize is that there is a thread leading all the way
from Descartes to Lewis in epistemology by realizing that one can have
knowledge but one cannot reflect on it. Of course, there are many issues
that can be taken with such an assertion, but I do wish to point out that
this Lewisonian argument is wholly commensurable with my proposition
regarding learning, disequilibrium, and skepticism. Simply, epistemology
is an attempt to learn, as such, it is a state of placing what we know in
disequilibrium. Thus, and by definition, to engage in epistemology, as
a learning enterprise, is to engage in a knowledge destroying the pro-
cess. Of course, what I have just said above is highly contentious. In
316 N. Michaud
asserting my syllogism, I have asserted that not only does epistemology

destroy knowledge, but that learning itself destroys knowledge. Perhaps
it would better if I stated that learning requires that we do reconstruct
some knowledge, even when in mild cases of assimilation, and this is
made possible when we are in the disequilibrium that casts doubt upon
that which we already know. If we do not doubt what we know, we do
not even have reason to engage in assimilation nonetheless accommoda-
tion. Or, I could reply that perhaps rejection of my thesis will likely be,
for many, better than rewriting what we know about knowledge, as such
accommodation would require accepting the value of the skeptical enter-
prise, if not its “rightness.” Either way, however, whether through rejec-
tion, assimilation, or accommodation, engagement with this thesis, that
learning deconstructs knowledge (but perhaps constructs meaning) acts
demonstrative of Piaget’s learning process, and perhaps evidences my
point, the state of ePurgatory, while unpleasant, does something useful.
Having said all of this, I wish to make one final point in defense of
ePurgatory, the state of doubt, as valuable, desirable, and perhaps bet-
ter than Heaven. It is here that I lay my claim to the very possibility that
mPurgatory, itself, may be better than Heaven. There are few things
that seem to make human beings genuinely happy. Those things seem
to involve love and growth. We tend to let ourselves believe that what
makes us happy is money and things, but, anecdotally, my observation is
that we are at our most content, in equilibrium, when we are with those
we love, yet, paradoxically, also growing and learning, which seems to
require disequilibrium. As such, there is a reason to believe that the very
notion of Heaven itself is in the way of our happiness. Because, while we
are animals that seek the contentment and complacency of Heaven and
the equilibrium of being around those we love, we also seek to grow,
develop, and change, and to do so seems, if not to require being in dis-
equilibrium, is highly likely to cause disequilibrium as we encounter the
world, new stimuli, and new knowledge.
Simply, one may reject entirely my proposition that knowledge and
learning are generated by disequilibrium, at least solely. One may instead
argue that there are plenty of cases in which a person in equilibrium is
driven to learn regardless. Perhaps. Even so, the theological, philo-
sophical, mathematical, logical, and scientific endeavors to learn about
the world all seem to lead to the same problem: as one learns about
the world, one is likely to encounter that which challenges our schema
and places us in disequilibrium. Those who are comfortable with such
disequilibrium are far more likely to continue moving forward and are
willing to engage those stimuli, those events, those knowledge that chal-
lenge them and make them uncomfortable. Perhaps part of the comic
irony for Jonathan Edwards is that, as a result of the fact that he could
not become complacent in his salvation because his knowledge of his sal-
vation suggested arrogance, which required that he rethink his knowl-
edge of self, was that he became a better person. By Edward’s lights, of
course, such becoming better could not earn salvation, yet, and regard-
less, his unwillingness to be certain of his salvation seems, at least his
writing suggests, to have driven Edwards to continue to better himself.
Similarly, I suggest that those most comfortable with ePurgatory are
those who may be most comfortable with learning, growing, and chang-
ing. As such they may have access to a kind of happiness that equilibrium
and eHeaven, or perhaps even metaphysical Heaven cannot provide,
the happiness of improvement. I cannot help but wonder if it is our
very belief that the best place to be is a place of perfection, and thus
no growth, that often leads us not just to complacency but comforta-
bleness with dogmatism and partisanship. If the best place to be is not
in growth, but in “rightness” then we have no real need to genuinely
consider the possibility that we are wrong (the other side) and we can
comfortably rest in the belief that the wrongness of the other is certain,
perhaps even to the point of justifying violence. Compromise becomes
a weakness. Certainly, in many recent politics in the U.S., we have seen
a movement against compromise, literally: politicians have said they are
unwilling to compromise and we laude them for their integrity.
It is with that final thought that I wish to leave this work. The reali-
zation that the state of Heaven is not a state of compromise. In fact, to
equivocate the word “compromise” itself seems to suggest a weakness, as
in the case of doing harm to the structural integrity of a thing. But ePur-
gatory, the state of disequilibrium, is a state of not just being willing to
compromise, but a state of being compromised. One’s schema is rattled,
in distress, and one feels a need to restructure it so that it can withstand
the onslaught of nonsensical stimuli thrown at us through our experience
in the world. “Compromise” thus, is essential not just in terms of being
willing to engage the thoughts of others, but essential to the process of
learning as one’s schema must be compromised, we must actively change
it to engage in learning. For that reason, perhaps even mPurgatory is
better than Heaven, as to me it means a place where one can still grow,
learn, and change.
318 N. Michaud
References
J. Edwards (2004) Selected Writings of Jonathan Edwards H. Simonson (ed.)
(Long Grove: Waveland Press).
D. Lewis (1996) ‘Elusive knowledge’, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74:4,
549–67.
J. Piaget (1952) The Origins of Intelligence in Children (New York: International
Universities Press).
Index
A Atonement
Adam, 116, 122, 159, 195, 261, 273, Christian Doctrine of, 24, 25, 27
274 Augustine, St. (of Hippo), 4, 9, 20,
Affordances, 265, 267–271, 273, 274, 29, 71, 76, 84, 101, 133, 144,
279 147, 159
Agamben, Giorgio, 144, 147 Auvergne, William of, 35
Alexander VI (Pope), 224 Averroës, 176
Ambrose, St., 77
Anaxagoras, 167
Anglicans/Anglicanism, 19 B
Ansbach, Caroline of (Princess), 112 Ballet, 222, 223, 233, 234, 236
Anselm of Canterbury, 24 Balthasar, Hans Urs von, 69, 70, 79
Apostles’ Creed. See Creed, Apostles’ Barthes, Roland, 2
Apparition/Apparitions Bayle, Pierre, 124
Marian, 37, 38, 41, 44, 47 Beatific Vision (of God), 22, 56, 65,
Aquinas, Thomas St., 4, 20, 25, 34, 117, 125, 203, 205, 215, 230,
73, 78, 79, 85, 95, 96, 100, 101, 272
103, 105, 106, 199–217, 230 Beatitude, 120, 121, 177, 191, 201,
Aristotle, 54, 63, 64, 66, 157–159, 203
164, 167, 199–204, 208, 209, Beatrice, 169, 176–178, 181, 187,
216, 217, 285 189, 190, 192, 194, 195
Atemporal Beethoven, Ludwig, 273
God. See Eternalism Benedict XVI (Pope), 92
process, 64 Bergson, Henri, 81
Athanasian Creed. See Creed, Blasphemy, 71, 90, 136
Athanasian Blondel, Maurice, 76
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017 319

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-57891-0
320 Index
Boccaccio, 175 Contrappasso, 193, 195

Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, St., 177 Contrition, 14, 23, 46, 96, 190, 211,
Borges, Jorge Luis, 182, 196 214
Buddha, 282, 283, 290–300 Council
Buddhism, 12, 282–284, 290–292, of Florence, 97, 288
294, 295, 297–300 Lateran IV, 135
of Lyons, 20, 90
of Trent, 20, 70, 83, 224, 288
C Creed
Calvin, John, 24, 90, 91, 99, 288 Apostles’, 24
Catechism of the Catholic Church, 31, Athanasian, 24
34, 91, 93 Nicene, 24
Cathari, 3, 144 Crime Scene Investigation (CSI), 221,
Catherine of Genoa (St.), 105, 227, 232, 233
236 Cross, the, 2, 24, 28–30, 45, 52, 195,
Catholic Church (Catholicism), 10, 222, 223, 306
41, 223, 234, 281, 288 Cyril of Jerusalem, 71, 83
Cavalcanti, Guido, 189
Choreography, 236
Christ, 19, 22, 24, 25, 28–31, 37, 45, D
53, 56, 57, 65, 69–73, 83, 84, Damn/Damnation, 7, 46, 114, 123,
91, 93, 97, 99, 104, 106, 113, 151, 190, 227, 314
122, 167, 183, 194, 222, 223, Dante (Alighieri), 8, 36, 37, 74, 79,
230, 274, 276, 277, 286 141, 151, 153–155, 161, 165,
Christianity, 3, 12, 53, 71, 90, 131, 175–196
132, 140, 143, 182, 227, 230, Death, 3, 9, 11, 24, 31, 34, 36,
231, 284, 285, 289, 294, 295, 37, 44, 51, 56–58, 60, 61, 63,
297, 298 70, 71, 75, 79, 80, 83, 84, 90,
Church of England, 19 92–94, 98, 106, 118, 121, 129–
Cicero, 153, 154 131, 135, 142, 144, 182, 187,
City, 1, 2, 15, 20, 84, 122, 130–132, 199–201, 205, 215, 224–229,
135–142, 145–147, 160 231, 235, 266, 272, 274, 277,
Clement of Alexandria, 14 282–284, 286–290, 293, 294,
Clement VI (Pope), 90 296, 297
Coherentism/Coherentist), 53, 55, Debt, 27, 28, 33, 46, 83, 93, 95–97,
97, 154, 181, 308, 311–313 105, 199, 212–214, 264, 274,
Comestor, Peter, 3, 14, 132, 140 275, 278, 282–284
Communion Descartes, René, 259, 260, 312, 314,
with God, 7, 9, 31, 70, 92–94, 101, 315
104, 252, 258, 277 Dickens, Charles, 53, 54
Confess/Confession, 37, 76, 117, Disequilibrium, 305–313, 315–317
135, 211, 217, 221, 235 Divine Comedy, 175
Index 321
Dogma, 2–4, 10, 46, 56, 69, 90, 91, Foreknowledge, 248, 249, 251–253
96, 105, 227, 313, 317 Forgiveness, 8, 10, 22, 25, 53, 77, 84,
Dominicans, 134 94, 102
Drycthelm, 36–38 Foucault, Michel, 138, 139, 141, 142,
Dukkha, 282, 283, 290–293, 295, 146, 147
297–299 Franciscans, 134, 230
E G
Eastern Orthodoxy, 10, 11, 46 Galileo/Galilee, 311
Economics Gehenna, 11, 15, 131, 143. See also
metaphysics of, 263, 265, 269 Hell
Ecumene/Ecumenism, 83, 97, 99, Geography, 12, 129, 131, 136, 182
105, 239–241, 247, 286 Ghosts, 2, 35, 42–44, 46, 54, 83, 145
Edwards, Jonathan, 31, 314, 317 Gnostic/Gnosticism, 56, 153, 154
Eschatology, 51, 134, 227 God
Essenes, 131, 143 justice of. See Justice of God
Eternalism, 248–250, 253 knowledge of. See Omniscience
Eternity, 2, 32, 53, 70, 75, 78, 82, power of. See Omnipotence
114, 117, 121, 123, 124, 182, Grace, 5, 8, 10, 11, 33, 69, 83, 91,
188, 230, 253, 289, 298 94, 98, 119, 126, 178, 179, 182,
Evangelical/Evangelicalism, 52, 55, 190, 199, 200, 252, 253, 260,
61, 278 273, 314
Eve, 273, 274 Greek (Orthodox) Christian Church,
Evil, 4, 53, 72–74, 79, 83, 84, 94, 95, 10, 11, 14, 34, 53, 70
114, 118, 122, 126, 153–155, Gregory of Nyssa, 71, 83
158, 167, 175, 201, 210, 245, Gregory Palamas, 154, 155, 159
246, 254, 255, 257, 261, 295. Guilt, 24–26, 72, 83, 85, 93, 95, 97,
See also Sin 101, 105, 214
problem of, 245, 254, 261
H
F Hades, 131, 151, 225. See also Hell
Fall, the, 28, 29, 38, 116, 122, 136, Hannover, Sophie von (Electress), 121
273, 275, 276, 285, 286. See also Happiness, 79–81, 122, 199–205,
Original Sin 216, 266, 317
Fatima, 41, 42, 45, 47 Heaven, 2, 4, 7, 8, 11, 33, 34, 37,
Fire, 2, 8–11, 13, 20, 21, 23, 29, 38, 40, 42, 46, 51, 70, 71, 75,
83, 91–93, 117, 157, 158, 180, 77–79, 83, 91, 99, 106, 130,
182–184, 186–188, 191, 193, 140, 141, 151–154, 157, 158,
215, 221, 226–228 161–163, 167, 168, 176, 181,
Fitness peak/Fitness peaks, 265, 266 183, 187, 192, 194, 200, 226,
322 Index
241, 266, 273, 275, 277, 278, Josephus, Flavius, 131

284, 290, 294, 298, 299, 303, Judaism, 11, 61, 131, 140, 143
304, 314, 316, 317 Judgement
Heidegger, Martin, 76, 177 day of, 37, 122, 153
Hell, 2, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 22, of God, 74, 85, 289, 294
23, 29, 31, 34, 36, 39, 47, 48, Jung, Carl, 160
60, 70, 79, 80, 103, 112, 113, Justice
120, 121, 126, 130, 131, 145, commutative, 209
151, 155, 176, 179, 181, 182, distributive, 209
184, 186, 193, 195, 200, 205, of God, 95, 215
213, 227, 263, 275, 281, 292, retributivist (theory of). See
300 Retributivism
Hermetism, 151, 152, 154, 161 Justification, 83, 106, 133
Hermotimus, 167
Hesiod, 139
Hessen-Rheinfels, Ernst von K
(Landgrave), 112 Kant, Immanuel, 53, 66
Hildegard of Bingen, 158, 159 Karma, 7, 292, 294–296, 300
Hindu/Hinduism, 12, 224 Keynes, John M., 264, 279
Hume, David, 29 Kibeho, Rawanda, 37, 38, 45, 47. See
also Apparitions, Marian
I
Ibn Arabi, 152 L
Illich, Ivan, 130 Labor, 270, 275, 276, 282
In-between/In-betweenness, 2, 6, 7, Lavardin, Hildebert of, 133
9, 132, 133, 281, 286, 304, 305, Le Goff, Jacques, 2–4, 6, 9, 10,
314 13–15, 22, 35, 46, 132–134,
Incarnation, 230, 276. See also Christ 140, 142–147, 175, 186, 196,
Indulgences, 3, 10, 20, 23, 24, 52, 89, 282–289, 299
93, 96–98, 103–106, 121, 223, Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 111, 125,
227, 278 126
Inferno, 176, 177, 179, 180, 186, Lewis, C.S., 46, 60, 64, 155, 260, 315
188, 193 Life
Innocent IV (Pope), 3, 25, 26 eternal, 11, 70, 75, 79, 93, 160,
Islam, 11, 12 272, 274, 289
Limbo, 11, 40, 125, 147, 176, 196,
200, 205
J Locke, John, 27
Jesus (of Nazareth). See Christ Lombard, Peter, 3, 279
John Chrysostom, 71, 84, 158 Lough Derg, 14, 224
John Paul II (Pope), 97–99 Love
Index 323
of God, 74, 90, 101, 106 O

of self, 101 Old Testament, 46, 70, 147
Luther, Martin, 125, 223, 289 Omnipotence, 208, 217
Omniscience, 63, 251, 260
Open Theism, 248, 251–253
M Origen, 3, 14, 24
Macrobius, 153–155, 157, 161, 163, Original Sin (the Fall), 199, 214, 216,
167 273–276, 281, 298
Mahler, Gustav, 222, 233, 234 Orphism, 131
Manicheism, 124
Mass/Masses, 8, 10, 37, 48, 59, 83,
90, 97, 284, 288 P
Medjugorje, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Pain, 9, 10, 21, 22, 39, 64, 91, 93,
37, 38, 47. See also Apparitions, 96–98, 101, 113, 118, 134, 152,
Marian 153, 162, 184, 187, 189, 191,
Mercy, 8, 10–12, 25, 72, 91, 94, 106, 199, 200, 205, 215, 221–223,
224, 226 226–229, 232, 234, 266, 276,
Millenarianism, 122 278
Molinism/Molinist, 62, 248, 250, Pali Canon, 295
253, 260 Paradise, 153, 155, 206. See also
Moreira, Isabel, 4, 15, 133, 167 Heaven
Museum of the Souls in Purgatory Paranormal, 34, 43, 44
(Museo delle Anime in Parinirvāna, 297
Purgatorio), 2 Passions, 83, 152, 161
Music, 176, 177, 183–185, 191–194, Patristics, 71, 206
222, 268, 271–273 Paul, St., 20, 21, 71, 73, 167, 186,
Mysteries, 60, 99, 104, 131, 132, 144 200
Mystical Penance, 23–25, 30, 31, 75, 81, 82,
body, 98, 99, 104–106 90–96, 104, 135, 211, 214, 278,
union, 98, 99, 103–106 281, 283, 284, 287, 296
Penitence/Penitent, 14, 22–25, 30,
31, 37, 57, 90, 190, 193
N Petitionary Prayer. See Prayer,
Near-death experience (NDE), 36, 37 petitionary
New Testament, 20, 70, 147, 224 Piaget, Jean, 305, 306, 308, 310, 311,
Nicene Creed. See Creed, Nicene 316
Nicholas of Clairvaux, 14 Piety/Pietism, 83, 84, 90, 97, 103,
Nicholas of Saint Albans, 14 160, 239
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 138, 139, 141, Plato, 132, 151–153, 157, 161–163,
147 165, 168, 285
Nirvana, 283, 284, 293, 298 Plotinus, 152, 153, 157, 158,
160–168
324 Index
Porphyry, 159, 166 Q

Pounds, Norman, 137, 145, 146 Quality Peaks, 266, 267, 269–277,
Prayer/Prayers 277
for the dead, 8, 21, 34, 70, 71, 75, Qur’ān, 11
111, 113, 168, 239–243, 247,
248, 252–254, 258–260, 281,
287, 288 R
past-directed, 240, 242, 243, Reconciliation, 25, 58, 89, 102, 204
246–248, 250 Reformation, 3, 20, 35, 43, 44, 65,
petitonary, 239–251, 254–257, 259 231, 283, 284, 289
Pride, 28, 32, 56, 102, 153, 155, 159, Refrigerium, 4
165, 181, 190, 314 Relativity Theory, 59
Protestant/Protestantism, 3, 9, 11, Relics, 2, 13, 19, 230
19, 20, 23, 24, 34, 35, 44, Repent/Repentance, 25, 34, 54, 82,
46, 52, 70, 83, 105, 112, 114, 83, 181, 182, 186, 214, 231, 314
135, 145, 168, 205, 224–226, Resurrection, 56, 84, 118, 200,
229, 240, 283–285, 289, 290, 202, 215, 230, 231, 282, 283,
294–296, 298, 299 285–287, 289, 292, 297, 298
Pseudo-Dionysius, 159, 164 Retributivism, 8, 26, 91, 205, 210,
Punishment 217
divine, 211, 212 Robinson Crusoe, 269
eternal, 83, 84, 93, 94, 111, Roman Catholicism, 5, 10, 13, 282,
114–118, 120, 121, 123–125, 283, 285, 295, 296, 299. See also
183, 188, 212–214 Catholic Church
Purgation, 4, 6–8, 10–12, 15, 22, 44,
52, 56, 58, 59, 63, 89, 90, 97,
100, 106, 120, 151, 155, 168, S
186, 233 Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, 14, 224
Purgatorium, 3, 6, 14, 132, 133, Saints, 1, 10, 14, 19, 20, 69, 78, 106,
140–142, 186 153, 177, 181, 194, 224, 227–
Purgatory 230, 232, 236, 237, 259, 299
argument for the existence of, 199, Salvation, 28, 34, 46, 48, 70, 82, 91,
212, 213 111, 112, 115, 116, 121–126,
epistemic, 304 168, 176, 180, 182, 185, 195,
metaphysical, 264, 304 252, 260, 264, 276, 277, 285,
Sanctification Theory of, 92–94 289, 290, 314, 315, 317
Satisfaction Theory of, 91, 93 Samsara, 283, 292, 298
Purification, 6–11, 21, 29, 34, 38, 70, Sanctification
71, 73, 75, 92, 94, 98, 106, 112, theory of. See Purgatory,
118–120, 153, 157, 162, 166, Sanctification Theory of
167, 178, 181, 186, 188, 196, Sartre, Jean-Paul, 80
228, 294, 303, 314 Satan (Eblis), 24, 90, 162
Index 325
Satisfaction philosophy of, 13

theory of. See Purgatory, Satisfaction Transform/Transformation, 51–61,
Theory of 63–65, 92, 93, 147, 275
Schema, 306–313, 316, 317 Transition/Transitory, 6–8, 78, 136,
Scholastic/Scholasticism, 35, 134, 164, 249, 286, 290, 293
155, 196 Tyndale, William, 223, 225
Scotus, John Duns, 295, 297
Scripture, 3, 19, 20, 52, 55, 58, 63,
106, 113, 117, 155, 216 U
Second Temple Judaism, 61 Ulysses, 177, 178, 180, 188
Servius the Grammarian, 154
Sheol, 15, 131, 143. See also Hell
Siddhārtha Gautama. See Buddha V
Siger of Brabant, 176 Vatican, 47, 91
Sin Venerable, Bede, 4, 36, 37
mortal, 32, 46, 199, 213, 216, 281, Vice, 30, 74, 81, 83, 94, 135,
282, 285 152–155, 158, 159
venial, 5, 32, 46, 93, 135, 190, 199, Vico, Giambattista, 81, 226
213, 281–283, 287 Virgil, 154, 177–180, 186–188, 191
Skeptic/Skepticism, 312–315 Virgin Mary (Blessed Virgin), 38–39,
Sordello, 178 41–42
Statius, 178, 190 Virtue, 7, 30, 53, 54, 74, 83, 85, 113,
Suffrages, 1, 8, 42, 83, 90, 97, 126, 158–161, 164–166, 176,
103, 104, 135, 227, 239–244, 211–214, 255–257, 261, 282, 314
246–249, 252–254, 257–260. See Vulgate, 115
also Prayer for the dead
Sully, Eudes of (bishop of Paris), 130
W
Waldensians, 3, 144
T Walls, Jerry, 8, 9, 11, 14, 45, 46,
Temporal/Temporality, 5, 7, 33, 55, 51–58, 60, 61, 63, 65, 95, 96,
57, 62–64, 69–72, 75, 78–84, 94, 105, 134, 144, 145, 240, 260
95, 97, 98, 101, 105, 112, 121, Watts, Isaac, 28
147, 168, 192, 211, 213, 214, William of Alvernia, 190
248–252, 260, 287, 289, 293, 298
Tertullian, 4
Theodicy, 114, 119, 121, 123, 126, X
254, 255 Xenocrates, 167
Theosis, 11
Thomism, 97, 100, 208, 212, 215,
216, 230 Z
Time Zap theory, 52

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PHILOSOPHICAL DIMENSIONS

ISBN 978-3-319-57890-3 ISBN 978-3-319-57891-0 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017939928

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover credit: Konrad Bąk/Alamy Stock Photo

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Introduction: Purgatory’s Religious and Philosophical

Part I The Nature of Purgatory

2 Purgatory, Atonement, and the Self 19

3 Religious and Paranormal Experiences as Evidence

4 In the Twinkling of an Eye 51

Part II Purgatory and Historical Considerations

7 Leibniz, Purgatory, and Universal Salvation 111

8 Mirror Geography: On the Emergence of

9 Climbing up to Heaven: The Hermetic Option 151

10 Poetry as Purgatorial: Dante and the Language(s) of

11 Aquinas and the Possibility of a Probable Reasoned

Part III Extending Purgatory

12 The Body in Crisis: Contemporary Articulations of

13 Praying for the Dead: An Ecumenical Proposal 239

14 On the Metaphysics of Economics and Purgatory 263

15 Issues of Impermanence: Christian and Early Buddhist

16 The Purification of Doubt: Is It Better to Exist in

About the Editors

Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is an Invited Professor of philosophy at the

Benjamin W. McCraw teaches philosophy at the University of South

(Routledge, 2015), The Problem of Evil: New Philosophical Directions

David Baggett is a Professor of Philosophy and Apologetics in the

Michaël Bauwens is a postdoctoral fellow at the IAP in Liechtenstein

Jeremy Bell teaches philosophy and history at Campion College, Sydney.

Stephen R.L. Clark is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the

Understanding Faith: Religious Belief and its Place in Society (2009),

Travis Dumsday holds the Canada Research Chair in Theology and

Gordon Graham is Henry Luce III Professor of Philosophy and

Neal Judisch is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of

Christopher Ketcham earned his doctorate at the University of Texas

Vincenzo Lomuscio teaches philosophy at the Liceo De Sanctis, Trani

Nicolas Michaud teaches philosophy and humanities at Florida State

Jonathan Pruitt is an Adjunct Instructor in the College of Theology at

Lloyd Strickland is a Reader in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan

Giuseppe Varnier is a Fellow and Aggregate Professor of Theoretical

Table 3.1 A fourfold taxonomy 35

Introduction: Purgatory’s Religious

Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte and Benjamin W. McCraw

© The Author(s) 2017 1

Some Traces of Purgatory’s Christian History

Purgatory, foremost known for it being a Roman Catholic dogma

The Philosophical Nature of Purgatory

it is the state, place, or condition in the next world…where the souls of

Even if we begin by quoting the formal Roman Catholic doctrine, we

1. Purgatory as a state of being involving purgation or purification

is neither perfect bliss in Heaven nor miserable damnation in Hell. But

Descriptions of Purgatory from Philosophical Theology

(a) The transition in Purgatory is a positive one

(a)–(f) require a brief discussion. We mean (a) very broadly: a concept

Purgatory Outside of Roman Catholicism

(theosis). Furthermore, to Louth, if “the question about purgatory is

Such an interpretation, thus, affirms (1)–(4) and (a)–(e). From this we

Again, we see various elements of above: intermediate and temporary

hold that each hamlet is guarded by puala-spirits whose reactions to

J. F. X Cevetello and R. J. Bastian (2003) ‘Purgatory’, New Catholic Encyclopedia,

The Nature of Purgatory

Table 3.1 A fourfold taxonomy 35

Some Traces of Purgatory’s Christian History

The Philosophical Nature of Purgatory

1. Purgatory as a state of being involving purgation or purification

Descriptions of Purgatory from Philosophical Theology

(a) The transition in Purgatory is a positive one

Purgatory Outside of Roman Catholicism

Purgatory, Atonement, and the Self

The Protestant Rejection of Purgatory

The Doctrine of Atonement

Purgatory and the Self

Religious and Paranormal Experiences

A Taxonomy of Experiential Evidences for Purgatory

In the Twinkling of an Eye

The Purification of Our Past Choices

Purification of the Sins of the Dead

to investigate how they could continue through the present of living

Temporality of Purgatorial Souls

6. John Chrysostom, Homilies on First Corinthians, 41, 5: