Copyright (c) 2002 First
Things 122 (April 2002): 26-30.

A few years ago, the journalist Philip Nobile wrote an article near the first
anniversary of the death of Princess Diana in which he raised what he termed
“an indiscreet theological question.” “Where is she now?” he asked. According
to Christian theology, the options were heaven, purgatory, or hell. Given Diana’s
well–publicized lifestyle, Nobile suggested that the case for heaven was weak.
A better case could be made for hell, given the likelihood that Diana was in
a state of mortal sin at the moment of her death. Nobile thus found it curious
that the Pope gave positive indications about Diana’s salvation when the following
message of condolence was sent on his behalf to Queen Elizabeth: “The Holy Father
has offered prayers summoning her to our Heavenly Father’s eternal love.” As
Nobile observed, this remark implied Diana was in purgatory.

Now Nobile certainly did not intend his article to serve as a defense of orthodoxy.
Yet it raises a substantive issue that Christians who take the afterlife seriously
cannot evade. Many believers have attended funerals in which the deceased are
declared to be enjoying all the glories of heaven, regardless of their somewhat
less–than–saintly behavior in life. At best, such occasions are examples of
understandable pastoral efforts to comfort grieving loved ones. But at worst,
they may be sentimental exercises that trivialize the most central beliefs of
the Christian faith.

What I have in mind are the many beliefs shared by Roman Catholics and evangelicals
concerning, in particular, the nature of salvation. This growing consensus was
expressed most notably in “The Gift of Salvation,” a document signed by a number
of leading Roman Catholic and evangelical spokesmen, which reiterates the classical
view that there is a close relationship between justification and sanctification.
Salvation, in this view, is far more than forgiveness of our sins; it is also
a matter of thorough moral and spiritual transformation. The document stresses
this point by denying that faith is mere intellectual assent and asserting that
it is “an act of the whole person, involving the mind, the will, and the affections,
issuing in a changed life.” It then goes on to insist that Christians are bound
by their faith and baptism “to live according to the law of love in obedience
to Jesus Christ the Lord. Scripture calls this the life of holiness or sanctification.”

 It is here that “an indiscreet theological question” must be faced. If salvation
essentially involves transformation—and, at that same time, we cannot be united
with God unless we are holy—what becomes of those who plead the atonement of
Christ for salvation but die before they have been thoroughly transformed? These
people will have accepted the truth about God and themselves through repentance
and faith, but their character will not have been made perfect. Their sanctification
has begun but it remains incomplete. Such people do not seem to be ready for
a heaven of perfect love and fellowship with God, but neither should they be
consigned to hell.

It is this basic difficulty that led to the formulation of the doctrine of
purgatory in the first place. While the doctrine was not fully developed until
the Middle Ages, the seeds from which it grew go back at least to the Church
Fathers, if not to Scripture itself. Cyprian (c. 200–258), for instance, struggled
with the question of what to think about Christians who had weakened under persecution.
Likewise, Augustine (354–430), the fountainhead of Western theology, reflected
in several passages on the kinds of issues that would eventually be resolved
in Roman Catholic theology by the doctrine of purgatory. (Of course, the doctrine
also has roots in the popular conviction that the living might in some fashion
influence the dead, particularly by prayer.)

While the doctrine is most fully developed in Roman Catholic theology, a version
of it is also affirmed by some Eastern Orthodox theologians. The main difference
between them is that Roman Catholics have traditionally viewed purgatory as
a place of temporal punishment for individuals who have not sufficiently repented
before death, whereas Eastern theologians view it as a process of growth and
maturation for persons who have not completed the sanctification process.

Despite widespread acceptance of the doctrine of purgatory in some form, Protestants,
by and large, have traditionally rejected the notion out of hand. The roots
of this rejection go back, of course, to the Reformation, and it is well known
that purgatory was deeply connected with the most basic and bitter disputes
that split the Western Church. Among these disputes is the Protestant notion
of sola scriptura, the view that Scripture alone is the source and authority
for doctrine. Many Protestants would summarily dispense with purgatory on the
ground that it is not mentioned in Scripture, at least not obviously so, a point
that is generally conceded even by the defenders of the doctrine.

The fact that purgatory is not expressly present in Scripture is not enough
to settle the issue, however. The deeper issue is whether it is a reasonable
inference from important truths that are clearly found there. If theology involves
a degree of disciplined speculation and logical inference, then the doctrine
of purgatory cannot simply be dismissed on the grounds that Scripture does not
explicitly articulate it.

Moreover, the prevailing doctrine of purgatory at the time of the Reformation
was related to some of the worst abuses in the Church, particularly the sale
of indulgences, a practice that many saw as a denial that we are saved through
faith in Christ. It is no wonder, in light of this history, that the doctrine
has provoked such strong reactions among Protestants. The larger issues and
passions involved in this controversy are reflected in the words of Calvin,
who wrote that “we must cry out with the shouting not only of our voices but
our throats and lungs that purgatory is a deadly fiction of Satan, which nullifies
the cross of Christ, inflicts unbearable contempt upon God’s mercy, and overturns
and destroys our faith.” The attitude had not changed much in Reformed theology
by the nineteenth century when Charles Hodge, the great Princeton theologian,
wrote his classic systematic theology. Hodge noted that Roman Catholics tended
to vary their account of purgatory depending on the audience. Protestants were
presented with a mild form of the doctrine, while Catholics depicted it for
themselves in severe terms. Hodge thus saw purgatory as “a tremendous engine
of priestly power. The feet of the tiger withdrawn are as soft as velvet; when
those claws are extended, they are fearful instruments of laceration and death.”

In the past few decades, by contrast, purgatory has lost much of its controversial
edge. This is no doubt largely due to the decline of interest in the doctrine
among Catholics, even among those who continue officially to affirm it. And
while Protestants still generally repudiate the notion, the matter incites much
less fervor than it did in previous generations.

In my view, it is long past time to reassess purgatory and the theological
problems it was originally intended to solve. I write as a member of the Wesleyan
tradition, a strand of Protestantism that emphasizes sanctification and moral
transformation in its account of salvation. In agreement with the Great Tradition
of Christian teaching, Wesleyans reject the notion that salvation is only, or
even primarily, a forensic matter of having the righteousness of Christ imputed
or attributed to believers. Wesleyans insist that God not only forgives us but
also changes us and actually makes us righteous. Only when we are entirely sanctified
or fully perfected in this sense are we truly fit to enjoy the beatific vision
in heaven.

 But what of Protestants who emphasize the forensic aspect of salvation? How
have they resolved the problem of sin and moral imperfection that remains in
the lives of believers at the time of death? They agree, after all, that nothing
impure or unholy can enter heaven and they also typically hold that most, if
not all, believers are far from perfection when they die. The typical answer
echoes the view eloquently expressed by Jonathan Edwards.

At death the believer not only gains a perfect and eternal deliverance
from sin and temptation, but is adorned with a perfect and glorious holiness.
The work of sanctification is then completed, and the beautiful image of God
has then its finishing strokes by the pencil of God, and begins to shine forth
with a heavenly beauty like a seraphim.

In other words, the work that believers in the broader Catholic tradition ascribe
to purgatory is, for most Protestants, accomplished immediately, and apparently
painlessly, by a unilateral act of God at death.

An important variation on this theme appears in the theology of John Wesley,
the founder of Methodism. Unlike most Protestant theologians, Wesley believed
that complete sanctification is possible in this life. In his model of the order
of salvation, such sanctification can be received in a moment of faith analogous
to the way justification is accepted by faith. Wesley also stressed the progressive
dimension of sanctification and thought that entire sanctification could not
normally be received without years of gradual growth and progress in grace and
holiness. But what is significant for our purposes is that Wesley believed that,
in most cases, complete sanctification takes place at “the instant of death,
the moment before the soul leaves the body.”

Interestingly enough, current Catholic thought seems to be converging with
Protestantism on this matter. Many contemporary Catholic theologians argue that
purification occurs in the act and experience of dying. This view can also be
detected in the attitudes of the many lay Catholics who affirm the existence
of purgatory but think it need be endured for but a momentary period—well in
time for the funeral eulogy! A consensus thus seems to be forming that our sanctification
is completed either during the experience of death or immediately thereafter.

I want to argue, however, that the traditional doctrine of purgatory is far
more coherent for Protestants and Catholics alike. The most basic problem for
those who hold that sanctification is instantly completed at the moment of death,
as Anglican theologian David Brown has pointed out, is that “there is no way
of rendering such an abrupt transition in essentially temporal beings conceivable.”
One way to avoid this problem is to appeal to the highly controversial doctrine
of God’s timelessness and to maintain that after death we share in this condition,
thereby rendering temporal considerations irrelevant. The matter of God’s relationship
to time is one of the most vexing problems in the philosophy of religion, and
it would take us far afield to discuss it. I will simply register the fact that
I have doubts about the coherence of the doctrine of timelessness, so I do not
think this move solves the problem.

More plausible is the attempt to conceive of sanctification along the lines
of abrupt and dramatic conversions in this life. But as Brown also points out,
there is good reason to think that such dramatic turnarounds have important
antecedent causes that lead up to and prepare their way. Moreover, while outward
change of behavior may occur rather dramatically, internal change of character
is another matter. Real virtue is achieved over a period of time by numerous
choices and decisions, often in the face of adversity. Brown concludes that
if man is essentially temporal, “his capacity for moral perfection is likewise.
No clear sense attaches to the claim that a human being could become instantaneously
virtuous, morally perfect, and so, if God is to respect our nature as essentially
temporal beings, He must have allowed for an intermediate state of purgatory
to exist.”

It is just this sort of consideration that led Wesley to insist that sanctification
must normally be preceded by a significant period of growth and maturation.
Without this process, one is not prepared to receive the fullness of grace sanctification
represents. If this basic line of thought is correct, there is good reason to
think that something like the traditional notion of purgatory is indeed necessary
for those who have not experienced significant growth and moral progress.

The classical notion of purgatory also seems necessary to a related issue in
the process of sanctification: our free participation in it. Many Christian
theologians have held that our necessary cooperation in our transformation constitutes
the only satisfactory explanation for the bewildering array of good and evil
in the world. God takes our freedom seriously and is patient with it; He recognizes
that even those who have made an initial decision to follow His will often make
only sporadic or inconsistent progress in carrying out their resolution. In
this view, while it is God who enables and elicits our transformation each step
of the way, our cooperation with His will is necessary to our sanctification.

Now if God deals with us this way in this life, it is reasonable to think He
will continue to do so in the next life until our perfection is achieved. Indeed,
the point should be put more strongly than this. If God is willing to dispense
with our free cooperation in the next life, it is hard to see why He would not
do so now, particularly in view of the high price of freedom in terms of evil
and suffering.

In the same vein, Anglican philosopher of religion Eleonore Stump has explicated
the sanctification process by employing her fellow philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s
notion of a self as hierarchically ordered desires. Of particular interest is
the distinction between first– and second–order desires. First–order desires
are basic desires such as, for example, Abelard’s desire to seduce Heloise.
Second–order desires are desires about first–order desires. So, recognizing
the spiritual and moral liabilities in seducing Heloise, not to mention the
possibility of inciting her uncle’s wrath, Abelard may wish he did not have
such desires for Heloise. That is, he may have a second–order desire that his
first–order desires were different.

Now Stump suggests that sanctification occurs with our freedom intact if God
changes us at the level of our first–order desires in response to our second–order
desires that He do so. Of course, God’s grace also enables us to have the appropriate
second–order desires. Stump’s picture, however, raises another question about
the nature of the divine–human cooperation in sanctification. Why wouldn’t a
person’s sanctification be complete the instant he formed the second–order desire
to be sanctified? The answer, Stump replies, is that

the content of this volition is vague. It consists in a general submission
to God and an effective desire to let God remake one’s character. But a willingness
of this sort is psychologically compatible with stubbornly holding on to any
number of sins. . . . Making a sinner righteous, then, will be a process in
which a believer’s specific volitions are brought into harmony with the governing
second–order volition assenting to God’s bringing her to righteousness, with
the consequent gradual alteration in first–order volitions, as well as in intellect
and emotions.

Stump goes on to comment that this is a “process extending through this life
and culminating in the next.” Although this is not an explicit defense of purgatory,
such a doctrine seems to be the natural extension of her line of thought.

The reason that the desire for sanctity may be psychologically compatible with
holding on to any number of sins is that one may not clearly recognize them
as sins or perceive their destructiveness to the point of truly wishing to be
delivered from them. The process of sanctification involves coming to see the
truth about not only our overt sinful actions, but also about the more subtle
sinful attitudes we may cherish. A broad desire to be sanctified simply may
not recognize all that is involved; that’s why it takes time and growth for
grace to penetrate the deeper recesses of our sinful characters.

Of course, the process must culminate at some point, and there is no reason
why it may not reach its end in an act of faith in this life, just as Wesley
believed it could. But the significant point is that considerable growth is
required before such a stage can be reached. And if this growth has not occurred
in this life, purgatory seems necessary if God is to complete the job with our
freedom intact.

These accounts of purgatory underscore the notion that no one can be exempted
from the requirement of achieving perfect sanctity in cooperation with God’s
grace and initiative. It is also important to reiterate here that, as beings
who exist in time, our transformation must be a cooperative venture. It takes
time to gain understanding of the various layers of our sinfulness and self–deception,
as well as to own the truth about ourselves. Discerning truth and allowing it
to transform our character is an essentially mental experience that requires
time. The doctrine of purgatory makes clear that there is no shortcut to sanctity.

The doctrine of purgatory also reminds us that the most pervasive and deadly
sins are those of the spirit. Spiritual sins are not cured merely by dropping
our old bodies and receiving new ones. Consider in this light the words of Edwards:
“The saved soul leaves all its sin with the body; when it puts off the body
of the man, it puts off the body of sin with it. When the body is buried, all
sin is buried forever, and though the soul shall be joined to the body again,
yet sin shall never return more.” Implicit in this argument is a sort of gnosticism
that locates sin in our physical bodies. It is as if sanctification were largely
effected by releasing the soul from the body. Again, this makes sanctification
a passive matter that requires no cooperation on our part.

It is at this point of our cooperation that Protestant objections to purgatory
become most pointed, even in our ecumenical age. To take our role in sanctification
so seriously that purgatory seems to be required inevitably provokes loud protests
concerning works righteousness. Contemporary theologian Millard Erickson speaks
for many of his fellow evangelicals when he writes, “In both this life and the
life to come, the basis of the believer’s relationship with God is grace, not
works. There need be no fear, then, that our imperfections will require some
type of post–death purging before we can enter the full presence of God.”

Some Protestants go so far as to insist that purgatory amounts to a denial
of justification by faith. I would insist, however, that it all depends on what
one means by justification and by faith. As Alister McGrath has
shown, the traditional view was that justification involves actually making
us righteous, and that this is what finally restores us to a loving relationship
with God. It was a Protestant innovation to separate justification from sanctification
and to construe the former primarily in legal and forensic terms. But since
justification so understood does not make us actually righteous, it is simply
irrelevant as an objection to purgatory.

Erickson’s objection misses the mark for similar reasons. To insist that we
must be fully transformed by freely cooperating with God before we can fully
enter His presence is not a denial of the fact that grace is the basis of our
relationship with Him. For His grace is precisely what takes the initiative
and enables our transformation. Erickson’s objection to purgatory implies that
grace is primarily, if not exclusively, a matter of forgiveness. It is this
narrowly forensic conception of grace that must be challenged.

Appealing to God’s forgiveness does nothing to address the fact that many Christians
are imperfect lovers of God (and others) at the time of their death. This is
not to say that the experience of being forgiven does not change us. Indeed,
gratitude for God’s free offer of forgiveness is a powerful incentive for the
believer to love God in return. But forgiveness alone, especially on a legal
model, does not change us in a subjective sense. Consider in this light the
words of C. S. Lewis, an author whose views are usually endorsed enthusiastically
by evangelical Protestants.

Our souls demand purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break
the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and
your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will
upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”?
Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d
rather be cleansed first”? “It may hurt, you know.”—“Even so, sir.”

Forgiveness alone does not eliminate unpleasant odors, and lack of condemnation
does not clean up soiled clothes. Other remedies are necessary, and as Lewis
suggests, they may involve pain.

The invocation of pain has also been a major source of resistance to the doctrine
of purgatory. At its best, this is an understandable reaction to the rather
lurid depictions of purgatory that have appeared in some Roman Catholic writers
in the past. At worst, however, it smacks of the sort of cheap grace, pervasive
in much popular contemporary piety, which implies that mere mental assent to
some basic Christian doctrines is all that is necessary for salvation. On this
picture, salvation is a perfectly painless thing that requires nothing of the
believer but simple faith.

Lewis insists, by contrast, that the moral transformation necessary for salvation
is essentially painful. The pain of moral growth and progress is not an arbitrary
punishment that God attaches to it; rather, the pain is intrinsic to it. Lewis
makes this point vividly in several memorable images in The Great Divorce.
For instance, the fact that the grass in heaven hurts the feet of the ghosts
from the gray town (purgatory for those who choose to leave it, hell for those
who stay) shows that becoming conformed to the life of heaven is uncomfortable
for sinful persons. “Reality is harsh to the feet of shadows.” The promise is
given, however, that those who are willing to persevere will eventually become
more substantial, and thus more comfortable, in heaven.

Purgatory enables us fully to come to terms with reality. Richard Purtill has
suggested that the period between our death and resurrection will be a time
of “reading” our lives like a book. The entire book would be present to us and
we could reread past sections, skip ahead, and so on. All of this reading would
be done in what he calls “Godlight.” That is, it would be a matter of coming
to see our lives as God sees them. This would involve, for instance, seeing
the full force of how our sins affected others. “The only adequate purgatory
might be to suffer what you made others suffer—not just an equivalent pain,
but that pain, seeing yourself as the tormentor you were to them. Only then
could you adequately reject and repent the evil.” The other side of the coin
is that we “would see with love even those who have hurt us, because God saw
them with love.”

Indeed, the accent here should fall on grace, for to see things in “Godlight”
is to see them illumined by God’s perfect love for all persons and His will
to redeem us from our sins and unite us to Himself and to each other. Continuing
the reading analogy, Purtill points out that, although the first time we read
a book we may hardly appreciate it, a subsequent reading may fully disclose
its beauty and richness.

As we may write a commentary on a book that has meant much to us,
so part of our afterlife could be an appreciation and correction of our present
lives. Even if our present lives have been almost a failure—even if we are barely
saved after a life of folly and waste—we could still make these wasted lives
the foundation of something glorious—a “commentary” much better than the “book.”

Purgatory so conceived is not only a matter of taking our choices and our freedom
seriously, it is more importantly a matter of taking seriously God’s overwhelmingly
gracious love to us and His power to redeem our lives, even “wasted” ones.

Construed along these lines, purgatory can rightly be characterized as a time
and place of joy. While popular images of purgatory may evoke negative thoughts,
we should recall that the New Testament frequently teaches Christians to rejoice
in the adversity that purifies our faith. This is not to trivialize the pain
of purgatory, but rather to point out that it should not be dreaded any more
than the pain of moral transformation that we experience in this life.

Indeed, all believers, regardless of tradition, who have experienced as joy
the purging involved in drawing closer to Christ can view the concept of purgatory
not only as a natural doctrinal development, but also as a gracious gift of
love.

Jerry L. Walls is Professor of Philosophy of Religion at Asbury Theological
Seminary. He is the author of Heaven: The Logic of Eternal Joy (forthcoming
from Oxford University Press), from which this essay is adapted.