I would disagree that the Church's teaching on purgatory is not theological.
It's based on scripture, so it's not a supposition. Now, the Church doesn't teach definitively if it is a place or a process, but it is real. I'm on the side of process.
I know this isn't Catholic Bible study, but If no one minds I'll toss in a couple or so scriptural principles regarding purgatory. Of course you're free to disagree, not trying to convert anyone....
2 Samuel 12:13-18
“David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’ And Nathan said to David, ‘the Lord also has put away your sin; you shall not die. Nevertheless, because by this deed you have utterly scorned the Lord, the child that is born to you shall die.’ And the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife bore to David, and it became sick… On the seventh day the child died.”
Biblical Principle #1 – there is punishment for sin even after one has received forgiveness.
Revelation 21:27
“But nothing unclean shall enter it…” Referring to the New Jerusalem – Heaven.
Biblical Principle #2 – nothing unclean, nothing with the stain of sin, will enter Heaven.
Heb 12:22-23
“But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living god, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the first-born who are enrolled in heaven, and to a judge who is God of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect…”
Biblical Principle #3 – there is a way, a process, through which the spirits of the just are “made perfect”.
1 Cor 3:13-15
“…each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day (judgment day) will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation (Jesus Christ) survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.”
Where is this place that a man, after he dies, suffers loss, as through fire, but is still saved? Hell? No, once you’re in Hell you don’t get out. Heaven? No, you don’t suffer loss in Heaven.
Biblical Principle #4 – there is a place in the afterlife other than Heaven or Hell.
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