I was saying in the last article that according to Catholic doctrine, the soul, the non-corporeal component of the self, the body’s vital principle, survives death, in a disembodied state of immediate resurrection and with full embodiment in a general resurrection at the end of time.

In the debate about stages in resurrection, however, only two components of the self, soul and body, are usually mentioned.

The New Testament speaks, however, of not two but three components. St. Paul, for instance, prays in 1 Thessalonians, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” We also find in Hebrews: “The Word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart” (Hebrews 4:12). How are we to understand this tripartite reality and the distinction between soul and spirit?

The only way to get a handle on this is through a quick review of some of the relevant elements in Biblical anthropology. In the Old Testament, no notion exists that corresponds to our use of the world soul as the directive principle of the self.  The word for breath, nephesh (with close to 800 OT references), is commonly though mistakenly substituted.

Biblically, parts of the body stand for the total human person, looked at from different perspectives. Thus, breath is equivalent to the living, animate being. Yahweh’s breath changes Adam from inanimate being to animate life (Gen. 2:7)

In the New Testament, we find an every greater variety of relevant words, viz., flesh, spirit, mind, heart. These are again not parts of human beings, but the whole person, from different perspectives.

Thus body (soma) is not (the part) body as contrasted with (the part) soul, but the entire human being as embodied. Soul (psuke) similarly is not the just the vital principle of the body, but the living being as conscious and volitional. Flesh (sarx) represents the human being in weakness, or as prone to sin.

“The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak” does not refer to a struggle between contrasting components of the personality, but a struggle between the person as prone to sin and the person as influenced by the Spirit. The struggle is between two wholes, not two parts.

Spirit (pneuma) is closely related in meaning to soul (psuke). In 1 Thessalonians above, spirit represents an aspect of the self, not a new element in a tripartite structure. Dividing soul and spirit means therefore dividing the conscious, volitional self from one of its expressive aspects, i.e. the word of God can penetrate cleanly to the heart of the self, separating even what appears inseparable, to get to the reality beneath aspects of the self.

To return to the issue at hand, some theologians today prefer not to speak of the human person in dualistic terms. Thus, there’s a reluctance to posit a disembodied life immediately after death as life. They prefer to speak instead of a holistic resurrection (a re-creation) at the end; or an immediate and embodied resurrection after death.

The difference then between an interim and a general resurrection would be the difference between a resurrection (purely) of persons, on the one hand, and on the other, a general resurrection, which includes the cosmic dimension of all of redeemed creation.St. Paul spoke of this cosmic ‘event’ as the fulfillment of creation’s longing to be freed of its slavery to decadence (that is, dissolution, flux, entropy etc). See Rom 8:21.

The recovery of the cosmic dimension is represents an important corrective to the theology of the afterlife, displacing our routine presumption that the ego, the individual, is always center-stage, even in matters concerning the hereafter.

Corresponding to intermediate and final resurrections are an intermediate and a final judgment. The warrant for an intermediate judgment is, among other texts, the saying in Hebrews: “It is appointed unto man once to die and after that the judgment (9:27). One’s destination is thus settled immediately after death. How should the final judgment be conceived after this? As definitive closure?  This is quite legitimate.

The final judgment in Scripture has the character of being part of a final “winding-up”: humankind in its collective unity comes under judgment; redemption attains its cosmic fulfilment; the world that passes away ends; and God is completely all in all.

The three destinations that constitute the afterlife are heaven, hell and purgatory.  Let us take purgatory first.

Purgatory (from the Latin purgare, to cleanse or purify) is in Catholic doctrine a condition of purification or cleansing for those who have not fully made satisfaction for sins in this life. Like heaven and hell, purgatory is not a location – outside of time and space there are no places - but a “condition”.

Purgatory has always had a historically mixed reception. From the earliest centuries down to the Middle Ages, the tradition in its regard was very positive. There was a widespread practice of praying for the dead, which implied that some of the dead were neither in heaven nor hell, and thus open to help from the prayers of the living. Specific definition of purgatory as a state came, however, in the thirteenth century.

Eastern Orthodox Christians consider it to be a fact of great beauty that God provides a means of purification after death, considering it “a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from sins” (2 Mac 12:39-46). However, they do not extend this to any doctrinal formulationof a state called purgatory.

The Protestant reformers rejected purgatory, as do their followers to this day. The main Protestant belief involves an instantaneous and painless event, glorification, by which the Holy Spirit regenerates those whose sins have been forgiven through faith in Jesus Christ.

The crude commercialisation of freeing souls from Purgatory for a fee was, of course, particularly offensive to Luther, and that may in part have been the reason for rejecting the doctrine. Essentially, the reformers believed that no work (praying for the dead) was needed to supplement what Christ did to make salvation available for humankind.

What is the (Catholic) theological rationale or warrant for purgatory? It is that satisfaction for sin is not achieved through forgiveness alone, and may not be complete at the time of death. Absolution begins the restorative process after sin, but this ends only when “fruits worthy of repentance” (Lk 3:8) follow forgiveness, and the process is complete.

From earliest times, as mentioned previously, there was the conviction that the prayers of the living could benefit the dead. It was an obvious expression of the communion of saints. CS Lewis once remarked that if we had to stop praying for the dead, our life of prayer would be cut in more than half.

But, what of the objection that you don’t find any doctrine of purgatory in Scripture? This is, of course, true. You don’t any doctrine of the Trinity either. Or any of the doctrines concerning Mary, or the Pope. Are these additions all corruptions?

To understand how something unexpressed or unmentioned in the Bible becomes part of the compendium of faith requires understanding of two things (a) the relation between the Church and Scripture, especially the New Testament, and (b) the notion of the development of doctrine.

The Church existed before any of the New Testament books was written. The Church came first. Scripture, i.e. the written testimonies about Jesus (the Gospels) and the written record of the life of the early church (letters of St Paul and others) came later.

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, there was only an oral tradition for about sixty years. In the meantime, of course, the Church was in existence, born of the Spirit, and living by the memory of Jesus. In other words, there was a tradition which incorporated the substance of Scripture before Scripture itself existed.

The development of doctrine follows from this relation of Church to Scripture. As the Church understands more of what revelation means and implies, revelation itself develops. 

Understanding is not something given completely once and for all. When the Church in the course of time declared that the Jesus was divine, it therefore concluded that Mary was mother of God. One conviction followed from the other.

There are two ways to see the reality of development. The first is to see it as a process of unfolding, as from a seed to a plant. In this way of understanding, the complete meaning of revelation is implicitly present from the start. The tree is already present in the seed.  All that’s needed is time to unfold.

The second way is to see development as an evolution that occurs as the Church meets challenges from within and without. For example, the major dogmas about Christ originated as responses to heresy.  Heresy or unorthodox views compelled the Church to clarify its own thinking in respect of its doctrines.

Where purgatory is concerned, the basic elements are sin, the holiness of God, and incomplete satisfaction. Only what is holy can abide the presence of God’s all-holiness (see Isaiah 6:1-5). Since people – most people? – die trailing residual effects of sin, they cannot withstand the presence of God unless completely purified. 

Purgatory is thus a doctrine logically entailed by what precedes it. This does not mean that purgatory is a conclusion. It means that it’s neither wishful thinking, nor an arbitrary invention. Rather, it’s an appropriate doctrine, given the logic of its precedents.