Up next, Caleb in Columbus, Ohio, one of my top 10 favorite Ohio cities, listening on
St. Gabriel radio. Caleb, your question for Karlo. Hi, this is Caleb. I am gonna
make it short and then I am going to hang up and listen online.
My question is for my—I converted recently, and a lot of my
Protestant relatives have no idea about purgatory, and I was just wondering if
you could give me the elevator speech that I could give to them,
because they obviously have less books in the Bible so they're not even
familiar with the concept. They think it's a Catholic invention. So that's my question.
Okay, so here we go. I'm gonna hang up now. All right, Caleb. Thank you for your
question, brother, and thanks for giving us a call here at Catholic Answers Live.
So here's a concise argument that you could employ, all right? Premise 1: if
it's possible to die with the guilt of sin on your soul, but yet still be in
friendship with Christ, well then, purgatory would be necessary
for heaven. Premise 2: the Bible teaches that it's possible to die with
the guilt of sin on your soul but yet still be in friendship with Christ.
Conclusion: therefore, purgatory is necessary for heaven. And so,
concerning premise 1, in order to make good on that premise, to
make good on that claim—
"If it's possible to die with the guilt of sin on your soul but yet still be in
friendship with Christ, well then purgatory would be necessary"—we look to
Revelation 21:27, for example, where the Bible says "Nothing unclean shall enter
into heaven." Now, within this literal historical context, it's talking about
ritual uncleanness, but we could extend that to moral uncleanness as well. If you
commit a sin that is not "unto death," to use the language of St. John in 1 John
5:16-17, a sin that does
not destroy God's life in the soul— hence not unto death, we call that a
venial sin—well, you would be guilty of sin, there would be some sort of
defilement on your soul. But according to the Bible that's not going to be able to
enter into the kingdom of heaven, because heaven's nothing but purity, right? We
can't have any defilement in heaven. So that substantiates premise 1, that
argues for premise 1. Premise 2 says the Bible teaches that it is possible to die
with the guilt of sin on your soul, but yet still be in friendship with Christ.
And the key text to support that premise is, as I just mentioned, 1 John
5:16-17, where Saint John clearly articulates a
distinction between a sin not unto death and a sin unto death; and he's not
talking about physical death here, he's talking about spiritual death.
So some sins will lead to spiritual death. We call that mortal sin. It's gonna
have a mortal effect on the soul, God's life is no longer going to exist in the
soul. Those sins that do not lead to spiritual death, we call that venial sin.
Well, what does that mean? That means that you still have God's life in your soul,
you're still a friend of God, but yet you've committed some offense against
God, and therefore are defiled. You know, Jesus even implies this in Matthew—the
specific verse is is slipping my mind right now, see if I can get it—Matthew
5:19, Jesus says, listen to this: "Whoever then relaxes one of the least of these
Commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven."
Notice: "relaxes one of the least of the commandments," but yet still "in the
kingdom." So sin, but yet still in the kingdom. So it's not a sin that merits
separation from the kingdom or separation from Christ, it's a sin
that defiles the soul, but yet the soul is still in the kingdom, therefore still
a friend of God. So there we have biblical evidence that it's
possible for somebody to be guilty of sin but yet still be a friend of Jesus.
And so if that person dies with that guilt of sin, well then that guilt of sin
is going to have to be purified before that soul enters into the glory of
heaven. And that purification, that final
purification of the elect who died without that perfect holiness that's
necessary for heaven, will undergo that final—that's what we call purgatory. So
there's a succinct argument for our friend there, Caleb.