So yes, my paper is titled Purgatory for
Protestants Jerry Walls and Gregory Boyd on Purgatory and Sanctification
so recently I've noticed a somewhat strange trend.
Certain Protestant authors are actually
considering the idea of Purgatory as legitimate and even advocating it for it
to be included as a part of Protestant eschatology.
It's because, they say, some Christians
die who are are not yet holy enough for heaven, and so Christians have to finish
being sanctified in some place after death before they can enter heaven.
While it is true that there will be no sin
in heaven and all who are there will be perfect, the question is how this
perfection happens instantly at death without our cooperation, or gradually in
some place where we do cooperate or else in this life itself.
While Protestants frequently say that no
one achieves perfect holiness in this life, wesley did endorse the possibility
of people becoming entirely sanctified in this life.
He later qualified this to say it did not
mean people were permanently and completely free of all sin, as our
previous presenter has talked about so well, but just that at some point the
Christian life would become much less of a struggle.
Randy Maddox, a commenter on Wesley, notes that while Wesley normally said that those
who were not entirely sanctified in this life would experience this at the moment
of death, at one point Wesley did suggest that, quote those who needed to would
continue to ripen in paradise while they awaited the final Escaton, end quote.
That's why that is the resurrection and the new heavens and new earth.
So Jerry Walls is one Wesleyan who does
argue for Purgatory as a place where Christians finish their sanctification.
He has written extensively about Purgatory in his books Heaven, Hell and Purgatory
2015 and his longer book Purgatory The Logic of Total Transformation in 2012.
In an article on first things titled Purgatory for Everyone in April 2002,
walls provides a short, accessible summary of his view on Purgatory.
Here he says that if we must be holy
before we can be united with God, but Christians die with their sanctification
incomplete, then they are not yet ready for heaven, but also not fit for hell.
And so he says, quote 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 sentence are we
truly fit to enjoy the Beatific vision in heaven.
In his book Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, Walls is critical of the view that
Christians are instantly perfected at death.
He claims that such an instantaneous
transformation of character is not viable for temporal beings whom God has gifted
with free will to cooperate or not with God's will.
He claims that allowing God's truth to transform our character requires time, our
cooperation, and our willingness to abandon sin.
And so God can't just adapt people and make them instantly holy.
Walls fears that for us to undergo such a
sudden change of character would make us lose our personal identity, for we would
not recognize ourselves as the same people we were at the moment we died.
He appeals to CS.
Lewis ideas as justification for this, and CS.
Lewis also as an example of a major
evangelical Protestant who endorsed Purgatory.
Another endorsement of Purgatory as a
place for completing sanctification comes from the opentheist Gregory Boyd.
Although he differs from Wesleyans and
Armenians on the issue of God's foreknowledge of free choices, he does
agree with the Armenian emphasis on the necessity of noncompatibilistic free will
for our response to God's offer of salvation, and thus what he says about
sanctification and Purgatory is relevant to Wesleyans and Armenians.
However, I will argue that what Boyd says about Purgatory is inconsistent with
certain other very helpful things that he does say about sanctification.
I will show that Boyd's views on sanctification actually support the idea
that we do experience instant sanctification at death, so that no
purgatory or further ripening in holiness is necessary.
Therefore, I believe Boyd's work clearly illustrates some problems that every
theologian will have to address if they desire to seriously and persuasively
advocate for Purgatory as a place where Christians finish being sanctified.
So the first that I read about the idea of Purgatory and Gregory Boyd's work was in
his book Satan and the Problem of Evil in 2001.
In an appendix titled On Incomplete Probation Periods, boyd argues that
because love requires a free choice, but some people die before they reach the
point where they can make that choice or may never reach it at all.
In this life, due to mental disability, then there must be some time after death
for these people to develop to the point where this choice is possible.
For he says that no one can be in heaven
who did not choose to participate in God's love, yet neither have these people chosen
to reject God, and thus they are not fit for hell.
So I admit that Boyd does have an interesting attempt to solve this issue.
However, Boyd goes on to say that there is also a need for a place where, quote,
believers whose sanctification is not completed in this life may somehow be
completed and made fit for the kingdom of God in the next.
End quote.
He refers to the parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew five, where
the servant is thrown into jail until he can pay every last penny of his debt.
To say that, quote, we either make things right now or we get them made right later,
and getting them right later is going to take time.
End quote.
He suspects this could be part of the
judgment of believers that takes place in one Corinthians three, verses 13 to 14,
and may involve refining chastisements, he says.
Boyd expands on this idea in a blog post
written in 2009 titled Purgatory and the Judgment Seat of Christ where he seems to
use the idea that we have to finish being perfectly sanctified either in this life
or the next, as a way to discourage Christians from committing suicide.
He fears that the idea that we are perfectly sanctified at death would
encourage Christians to give up and commit suicide when they tire of the ongoing
struggle of sanctification in this life or else would discourage Christians from even
bothering to pursue holiness at all, since they will automatically become perfect at
death and thus gives Christians license to continue living in worldly or sinful ways.
So he says that suicide is not a shortcut
to heaven because we don't just enter heaven immediately, but have to endure
purgatory, where our character is made entirely holy.
Boyd writes quote While your faith in Jesus in principle reconciles you to God,
your character has to be refined before you enter heaven.
It's like Christ's death on the cross lets
you out of prison, but you still need to have your criminal character reformed
before you are fit for the heavenly society, and there's simply no shortcut to
this process of character reformation, end quote.
In another podcast, he suggests that the amount of time necessary for this
postmortem sanctification will depend on our willingness to cooperate with it and
that it may involve suffering, as all sanctification does, he claims.
However, I think that what Boyd has said about purgatory is actually inconsistent
with what he has said elsewhere about the process of sanctification.
Now, I really like what Boyd says about sanctification.
He clearly locates where the struggle is within Christians in a way that I think
makes perfect sense of Romans seven, verses 14 to 25, and in this way helps us
understand what we're struggling with and how to overcome it.
However, I think that his statements on
sanctification actually do support the idea that we are instantly perfected at
death and therefore no purgatory or further sanctification will be necessary.
So I'll lay out I will lay out the logic of some
statements made by Boyd to paint a picture of how he understands sanctification.
First, Boyd argues that when we become Christians, quote all that is part of our
old self, all that is sinful and contrary to God has been crucified.
It is dead, as per Romans six, verses two to eleven, and Galatians two, verse 20.
Next, we are entirely remade and so become
new creations as per second Corinthians five, verse 17, and are rooted and
established in love by the indwelling Holy Spirit, as per Ephesians three, verse 17.
So this would mean that Christians are
made entirely holy and perfect in our inner spirit or soul the moment we're born
again through the prevenient, yet resistible work of the Holy Spirit.
So there is no sinful nature that remains
as part of our spirit or soul after we're born again.
However, we do not experience this transformation instantly.
Boyd says quote God doesn't destroy who we
are with all of our memories, our habits or our past associations.
When he recreates us in Christ Jesus, he rather seeks to transform all of our
memories, habits and past associations on the basis of our recreated identities.
We do not automatically see and experience ourselves as we truly are in Christ.
Therefore, to some extent we continue to
think and act, though what is true about us in Christ were not true.
End quote.
So thus we must try to put off the old self as per Ephesians four, verse 22,
which is a constant struggle between our spirits and our flesh.
You can also see Galatians five, verse 17.
Now, this struggle between the spirit and the flesh, Boyd says, occurs in our minds.
For Boyd says that God's design is
originally for our spirit or soul to control our mind, for our mind to then
control our body's actions and for our actions to make an impact in the world.
But Satan tries to reverse this by using our experiences in the world and other
people's influence on us, which we take in through our bodily senses to affect how we
think about everything, ultimately hoping to keep us spiritually alienated from God.
Now, here's where it gets really interesting.
Boyd specifies that our minds are connected to our bodies, for he says that
though says our thoughts are rooted in our physical neural nets.
So that is the biological connections in our brains.
He says, quote the spirit of the
regenerate person genuinely wants to live in relationship with God and do his will.
All that God says is true about us in scripture is true on this level.
We are in our innermost being identified with Christ and are holy, blameless,
filled with all the fullness of God, et cetera.
Void continues.
But the proper spirit mind relationship is not automatically restored.
On the contrary, because they are rooted in our physical neural nets, our thoughts
and emotions continue on in their autopilot fashion.
However, they've been programmed to run for good or for ill.
This is why we don't automatically
experience the truth of who we truly are in Christ.
End quote.
Now, research has been done on how neural
connections in our brains operate, which shows that like when we learn new things,
new neural connections or pathways are made in our brains.
The more that a certain thought or action
is repeated, the more that neural pathway is reinforced and becomes easier to use,
whereas connections that are not used slowly decay over time.
So I think this is very interesting.
So I think that if what we think about literally changes the connections in our
brains, then I think Paul's suggestion to think of only whatever is good, true,
honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent praiseworthy, is
actually a very practical tip for how we can pursue further sanctification.
So. Therefore, Bud, due to this
interpretation, interprets the term flesh, which Paul uses to describe what it is
that opposes this desire at the desires of our Holy Spirit or soul.
Not as something sinful or evil, due to
our existence as physical beings, but as a deceptive way of seeing and experiencing
oneself and one's world and thus a deceptive way of living in the world.
It is that way of thinking and
experiencing and living that is conformed to the pattern of the world.
End quote.
So the problem is that we struggle against
our flesh, that is, against our sinful neural connections encoded within our
physical brains, which are reinforced by old habits and behaviors.
So yeah, just to recap Boyd's argument, when we're saved, we're instantly made new
creations and are made perfectly holy in our inner spirit or soul.
We can't be any more perfect in our spirit
or soul than we already are the moment we first believed in Christ as our savior.
But our thoughts are still being influenced by our physical brains, which
have sinful neural connections that have developed due to all our years of living
in this sin filled world and being told like lies about ourselves, lies about
others lies about God, lies about what we're made for and what our value is, and
all sorts of other false messages that we take in on a daily basis.
On top of this, there are also our own
sinful actions and thoughts that have ingrained these sinful neural connections
into our brains that make it very easy to continue to sin.
So therefore sanctification is the ongoing
process of renewing our minds, as per Romans twelve, verse two, literally by
trying to avoid repeating these sinful patterns of action and thought, thus
letting those old sinful and neural connections decay while building new
neural connections involving patterns of thought and action that are in alignment
with God's will for our lives which is loving God and loving others.
So what does any of this have to do with purgatory?
This is where I think Boyd's position on
sanctification can endorse a view of instant sanctification at death.
For as Boyd affirms, our problem with sin
as Christians is not based in our spirit or soul.
Instead, our struggle is due to our
physical brain's residual and sinful neural connections.
But obviously when we die, our brains die too.
The spirit or soul separates from the body temporarily and goes to be with Christ in
heaven until the time when we are resurrected with perfect new bodies.
Therefore, the brains we have now are not
the same as the brains we will be resurrected with.
After all, God's promise that we will have
perfect resurrected bodies means that anyone who has had a brain injury or
disease or anyone who is born with the physical deformity of the brain will be
made perfect in whole when they are resurrected.
Because these things are a result of the fallen sinful world we live in.
Therefore, their new brains will not be the same as the old brain they had when
they died, but they will still be the same person even with the new brain.
So that's who we are, and our spirit or
soul must be in some way independent of our physical brain structure.
This, I think, can answer Walls concern that what we need is an account of how
such imperfect people can be transformed in a way that preserves their identity.
So I think there's no reason why God has
to resurrect us with brains that contain the same sinful and neural connections as
when we died, in order to keep our personal integrity intact.
It would make no sense for God to
resurrect our brains with our old sinful neural connections just to make us have to
spend time in purgatory to finish, rewiring and purging these sinful
connections from our brains before we can live in the new heavens and the new earth.
Especially if God can just instantly create new perfected brains without these
connections while still preserving our identity.
So therefore, I think it's better to say
that the moment we die, our perfectly holy spirit or soul will be freed from the
remaining sinful patterns of thought and action ingrained into the brains we have
now, and we will indeed be perfectly free of sin.
Our new resurrected bodies will match the holy nature of our spirit and soul.
Thus no purgatory is necessary, and we get instant sanctification at death.
Hebrews twelve, verse 14, will be
fulfilled, for everyone in heaven will be perfectly holy, not that we must somehow
be made perfectly holy before we make it into heaven.
In contrast, Jerry Walls calls the idea
that sin is somehow related to our physical bodies a sort of nasty system,
and claims that spiritual sins are not cured merely by dropping our old bodies
and receiving new ones, because this requires no cooperation on our part.
So how can those who want to endorse
instant perfection at death deal with the claim made by Wesley Walls and Boyd that
personal cooperation or choice is necessary for sanctification?
My view is that love for God, who is truly love in his innermost triune being, means
that when we love God, we will also love to act in loving ways in our innermost
spirit or soul, as per Romans seven, verse 22.
The only reason we can't love perfectly now is due to the above problem with the
remaining sinful neural connections in our physical brain, aka the flesh.
This is a source of grief for Christians
who recognize that we are not acting the way our spirit or soul actually does want
to act, as Paul demonstrates in Romans seven, verses 16 to 17 and 24.
Therefore, I believe Christians will
gladly and freely consent to our instant postmortem sanctification.
It would be a free gift given by God's grace without our cooperation, yet with
our personal free consent, just as our justification is.
Therefore, I think Gregory Boyd's work on
sanctification shows that anyone who advocates for purgatory as a place for
finishing our sanctification will need to deal with several issues.
First, they need to consider exactly where the problem with sin is located.
Is it in our spirit or soul or in our bodies or minds?
I think that one of the strengths of
Boyd's argument here is that it can make perfect sense of Paul's experience in
Romans seven, verses 14 to 25, which shows that the struggle with sin within
Christians is not in our spirits, but with our flesh.
Walls and others who want to maintain a
reason for purgatory would need to refute this and make a biblical argument for why
our spirit or soul is still tainted by sin after death.
Alternatively, if the problem is with our bodies, then they need to consider what
happens when we leave these bodies at death.
And finally, they need to consider the difference between our currently imperfect
bodies and our future perfect resurrected bodies.
Now, Walls likely would not accept Boyd's arguments.
Walls claims that there is still a problem with sin in our will, thought, attitude,
or heart based on Jesus's statement in Mark seven, verse 20 to 23, that the heart
is the source of greed, malice, arrogance, and so forth.
But Walls does not deal with Romans seven.
I mean, I look through all his books,
can't find any mentions of Romans seven anywhere.
So therefore, I think to make Jesus's
statement in Mark seven compatible with what Paul writes in Romans seven, we would
have to identify the heart with the flesh, not with the spirit.
If Wald simply means by heart that our
problems are with who we are within and our ways of thinking, our values and our
attitudes towards other people which make up our character, as he says elsewhere,
then this is exactly what Boyd has also argued.
Yet I think Boyd has rightly identified the problem with all these things.
Our attitudes, values, ways of thinking are due to those sinful remaining sinful
neural connections which we lose instantly at death.
So I'm not convinced that there is still some sort of mysterious will or character
or heart that remains sinful independently from these current physical bodies.
Additionally, I think there are two verses not mentioned by either Walls or Boyd
which could biblically refute the idea of purgatory and simultaneously disprove
Wesley's speculation that those in heaven may need to ripen before the Escaton.
These are first, thessalonians four verses
14 to 17, and First Corinthians 15, verses 51 to 52.
If we take these as referring to the same
event, these verses seem to indicate that at Christ's next appearing Christians who
are still alive will have their bodies instantly transformed and will be caught
up to heaven, and from then on will always be with the Lord.
Clearly, there's no time for purgatory here, and it also gives further support to
the idea that the problem of sin is related to these current bodies, which is
rectified by having our bodies transformed.
However, what about Boyd's fear that
holding to a view of instant sanctification at death encourages
Christians to either contemplate suicide as a shortcut to holiness or allows
Christians to ignore the need for sanctification in this life.
Instead of the scripturally questionable idea of purgatory, I think the biblical
emphasis on heavenly rewards is a better solution to encourage sanctification.
Unlike Boyd and Walls, who both interpret
one corinthians three verses ten to 15 as some sort of purgatorial refinement of our
character, I think we should see what is clearly being judged.
Here is our works.
Whatever was worthy of heavenly reward
will endure God's judgment and is represented as golden jewels.
But whatever we did in our lives that was unworthy or was just an utter waste of
time will be burned up and does not earn any heavenly rewards.
So then, once this evaluation of our works
is complete, we will be left with a metaphorical pile of heavenly rewards,
larger or smaller, depending on how we lived.
Scripture hints that these rewards may be
expressed as different levels of ruling privileges with Christ on the new earth or
maybe other rewards we can't even imagine now.
So therefore, if we can only earn heavenly
rewards in this life, and these rewards will last for eternity, then it should
encourage us all to do what we can now, to earn as many rewards as possible.
We shouldn't cut our time short through suicide and shouldn't waste our time and
opportunities by thinking that what we do now doesn't matter.
Instead, heavenly rewards encourage us to
make the best use of our lives now by not resisting the Holy Spirit's prompting and
enabling to overcome sin and become more like Christ, which will then enable us to
do the things God has called us to do, for which we will be eternally rewarded.
So, in conclusion, we do not need to bring in the unbiblical idea of purgatory or the
need to finish our sanctification after death in order to encourage each other to
pursue sanctification passionately in our lives now.
Thank you.