A major topic affecting my thoughts and my studies lately has been that of salvation and pondering what might happen after death. It strikes me how some Christians - in fact, many whom I meet are so dogmatic and so sure of their views. I'm afraid salvation is another of those questions, we simply don't know until we get there, and there's not much use speculating, though perhaps it can be at best a useful tool to try and outwork our thoughts and attempt to grasp these concepts circling around our brains.
I will be using this post as a way to jot down some of my thoughts about the issue of salvation, and a major element which I think to be a middle route between universalism and separationism - purgatory. I am in no way claiming that this is the route to salvation, nor am I claiming this is my own personal route. I'm not particularly a fan of relativism, nor am I fan of grand sweeping statements objectively claiming salvation for all. So that said, if you wish to delve into the realm of purgatory, follow me...
Who is salvation for? I'd like to think salvation is possible for everyone. Immediately within Christianity there arises a problem with this assertion. Christians claim Christ has brought salvation, and therefore belief in him is imperative to receive the salvation he enacts they claim. What then of people practicing other faiths, or indeed people with no faith at all? Are they rejected by God immediately? Is heaven simply a club for good Christians? I think this a very limited way to view God and an arrogance on the part of Christianity to claim such exclusivism.
However, if one claims that salvation can be for everyone regardless of faith, one falls into the trap of universalism, where anything goes and salvation is granted every which way. Again this seems problematic.
Let's say salvation is effected...then there is the problem of judgement. Now judgement does not necessarily have to possess negative connotations - divine judgement can sit rather well with divine love I think. But I think divine judgement becomes problematic when people start ascribing the sole punishment as hell. I went through a time last year where I didn't believe in hell - not through some naive optimism - I genuinely pondered it for a solid amount of time, and I couldn't reconcile an omnibenevolent God and the concept of Hell. I wrote the following during February 2011:
I cannot believe that an all-loving God would permit any one of his precious beings, no matter how much they've strayed from him, to a place of eternal damnation. Hell, in my view is a place on earth. People speak of their lives to be a ‘living hell’. And when one contemplates all the evils of this world, sometimes this can be very believable indeed.
So then I thought if hell isn't the place for judgement, then purgatory is perhaps a more acceptable way of punishing sin and effecting God's judgement, whilst still retaining God's omnibenevolence. Some people might ask why hell or purgatory is required at all and whether sins need punishing, if Jesus has already accounted for them. I would argue that some method of punishing the human for their sins is required because if they are not, it gives an excuse for humans to commit any actions knowing they will be forgiven regardless, and this would permit moral atrocities of the gravest kind (as if they weren't capable of that enough already!)
Therefore, isolating heaven and hell as dialectical elements which present a black and white picture of salvation isn't good theology in my estimation. That is why I think the middle ground of purgatory is necessary. Despite this there arises the plethora of questions regarding purgatory...to what extent is sin punished? And for what length of time? And what of those who do not wish to repent of their sins or who don't believe? Is it straight down the tunnel with them, like Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? I think not. I think there must be in some format levels of purgatory, perhaps something akin to Dante's circles. Perhaps those whose lives on earth were more acceptable to God are on a higher plane of purgatory closer to heaven and with less time to account for their sins...and perhaps those whose lives on earth were committed to evil are at the bottom rungs of this purgatory ladder, with a longer time to wait to reach God and a longer time to account for their sins. (Think something like Jacob's ladder). It seems at least a fairer system, and if "hell" can be considered estrangement from God, as I think it could be, then the longer you wait in purgatory, the more it might seem like hell. This is starting to sound like there are conditions to God's mercy and that grace is put into boxes, or indeed rungs of a ladder. I do not wish to sound like that. I think God's grace is infinitely reaching in terms of his own nature, but I do think, at least in terms of our human understanding, we can only provide the limits seen by our culture and humanity in terms of contractual natures, rather than unconditional natures.
Therefore, purgatory would be a place where unaccounted sins could be dealt with, until the person is ready to join God's fellowship, both in terms of spiritual purity and maturity. I have no idea of time frames - how do you account for temporal sins in an eternal time frame? It's nonsensical, at least for now, for the temporal is all we know, so eternity is unfathomable to our minds. But I'm sure we'll find out! All that said, I do not view purgatory as a lesser Hell, rather I view it as a ladder to heaven, and however long it takes you to climb the ladder is up to both God and you, but hopefully one day you'll get there.
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