Limbo in Limbo

[bironic]

Under the advisement of a committee of theologians, the Pope is considering abolishing the concept of limbo. (Full story.)

I ask out of curiosity and a sort of amused incredulity: How can this be done? Are they going to deny, after 2,000 years of Christian religious and literary tradition, that limbo ever existed? How do they claim the authority to declare this? Is the proposal most likely to be dropped?

...Maddy?

Edited: Right, sorry, Limbo doth not equal Purgatory. Fixed now.

Comments

Dante and Judgment

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

Well, not being Catholic, I really don't actually have the faintest clue how that sort of thing works, but I hereby declare you a Bad English Major for having gotten through college without being forced to read Dante and therefore have it drummed into your head that Limbo and Purgatory are not the same thing.

Limbo is a handy-dandy way for the Catholics to get around the cognitive dissonance of "you have to have believed outright in Jesus Christ as the Saviour in order to be saved" with "oh dear, some people never even HEARD of Jesus Christ, and therefore were sort of, by that token, screwed from the start."

Limbo is basically, as the Brunching Shuttlecocks (www.brunching.com) put it in their fantastic ratings of Dante's Inferno punishments, "the vestibule of hell." It's full of Virtuous Pagans and unbaptised babies - it's where Virgil, who acts as Dante's guide through the Inferno and Purgatory, hangs out when he's not working.

Limbo isn't too bad; it's sort of gray and dingy, but there are no tortures or devils. It's just a sort of in-between nothing zone, sort of like the platform at Hackney Central after 6:00 on a weekday.

The border between Limbo and Hell is impermeable. When you're in Limbo, you don't suffer the tortures of Hell, but you do suffer eternal separation from God.

Purgatory, however, is connected with Paradise. If you die with sins on your soul (i.e., not in a state of Grace) but aren't damned, Purgatory is where you work off those sins en route to heaven. It's a pleasant, agrarian place - when Dante enters Purgatory from Hell, he goes through a symbolic baptism and finds the landscape refreshing and serene. Souls move up a mountain towards Paradise, at the top; it's basically a process of refining a saved soul to make it capable of standing near God. Prayers for your soul from people yet living can help speed your progress.

I don't believe in Limbo - I believe rather in Aslan's declaration at the end of The Last Battle that when the Calormenes made good service to Tash they were actually serving Aslan, and when they made evil service to Aslan they were actually serving Tash. "If any man swears an oath by Tash and keeps the oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he is sworn, and I take it as service done to me." In other words, I believe that if you pray faithfully to God by a different name, God hears and accepts your prayers. I choose Christianity over other religions because I think it's the one that comes the closest to getting the name right, and the story right.

I believe in something LIKE Purgatory - I think. I'm still kind of working this one out. I believe in the claro visio doctrine of judgment - that at the moment of your death, you see the metaphysical world and your actions in it clearly, and you see, as C.S. Lewis said, "whose side you have really been on all along." You look in the face of God, and you either love him or hate him - not by a single choice you make at that moment, but as the natural consequence of every choice you've made your entire life. And then, you get what you want. If you hate him, you get to be eternally separated from him - left with your own misery and your own petulance and your own cruelty. I believe in hell because I believe in free will; I believe in hell because there are people who would rather damn themselves than give up one shred of pride and contempt and sulking. I do not believe God damns people; I believe people damn themselves and God does everything he can to prevent them from doing it, short of overriding their free choice.

(continued)

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

And yet people, at their deaths, are at different stages along that journey - my sister Grace described salvation as "at that moment of claro visio, if ANYTHING in your soul flickers with joy at the sight of God, you're okay," and then goes on to mention that since people are, at their deaths, at different stages of preparation for the terrifying experience of looking Goodness straight in the face, something like Purgatory must exist, to continue that process. However, the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard seems to suggest otherwise - the workers arriving at the 11th hour receive the same wages as the ones arriving at the 1st; the vineyard-owner makes no distinction.

That was probably a bit more than you bargained for, but this question has been on my mind lately. I'm still looking for the perfect, neat factor that will bring it all together into a gorgeous cohesive theory.

Re: Dante and Judgment

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

Re-posting my comment below, so that any replies to this one don't end up separating two parts of the same train of thought.


And yet people, at their deaths, are at different stages along that journey - my sister Grace described salvation as "at that moment of claro visio, if ANYTHING in your soul flickers with joy at the sight of God, you're okay," and then goes on to mention that since people are, at their deaths, at different stages of preparation for the terrifying experience of looking Goodness straight in the face, something like Purgatory must exist, to continue that process. However, the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard seems to suggest otherwise - the workers arriving at the 11th hour receive the same wages as the ones arriving at the 1st; the vineyard-owner makes no distinction.

That was probably a bit more than you bargained for, but this question has been on my mind lately. I'm still looking for the perfect, neat factor that will bring it all together into a gorgeous cohesive theory.

Re: Dante and Judgment

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

AAUUUGGGHHHH. I meant, the border between Limbo and PARADISE is impermeable. So is the border between Limbo and Hell, but that's not really relevant.

*as Maddy has an entire conversation with herself before going slightly mad and having to go make some tea to calm down*

Re: Dante and Judgment

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I feel a lot wiser now, for one :-) I always liked C.S. Lewis' version/view of Christianity. It's a very sympathetic religion he presents.
(For the record, I consider myself agnostic and as such I do not deny the excistence of God or gods, but I'm not particularly sure either. Consider me in eternal doubt :-) )

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I'd just like to add that since 18?? the Pope has been considered infallible. So if he decides that there is no Limbo then there isn't. Period. What then happens to all the people who supposedly ended up there before he decided that it does not exist I have no clue of. I suppose that solves itself. This is matters of religion and God is omnipotent, so I'm sure it will be fixed somehow.

[pynelyf.livejournal.com]

As I'm lazy, I didn't read the article you linked to or any of the other comments you've received. So here are my self-absorbed reflections:

1.) Aren't limbo and purgatory two seperate things?

2.) A papal decree is religious law. James Joyce satirizes this at great length in his short story "Grace" in Dubliners, which I think you might be interested in. I'm sure you can find it online, but it's impossible to grasp the double-edged aspect of every line unless a.) you're hardcore catholic b.)you read all the footnotes the penguin version kindly provides

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

I think God goes on very happily being God, regardless of what the Pope says.

To twist Thomas More's words in "A Man For All Seasons" (in a way I'm sure he wouldn't like), "If there is limbo, will the Pope's words make it not so? If there is not, may the Pope's words make it so?"

And the Pope, being infallible, declares that there is no limbo, thus claiming that other Popes ... who were also infallible ... ? ... were wrong ...

It can make your head hurt if you think about it too long. Frankly, I think the Episcopal Church needs to arm itself with good congregational singing, decent theology, and free coffee, and lead a coup of the Catholic Church. But that's just me.

[bironic.livejournal.com]

To twist Thomas More's words in "A Man For All Seasons" (in a way I'm sure he wouldn't like), "If there is limbo, will the Pope's words make it not so? If there is not, may the Pope's words make it so?"

And the Pope, being infallible, declares that there is no limbo, thus claiming that other Popes ... who were also infallible ... ? ... were wrong ...

This is exactly the predicament that made me post the link and questions. In one line of thought (mine, not that it's all that's relevant here), if limbo were to exist, then it must exist regardless of what a Pope says about it. If the Pope is infallible, then limbo must wink in and out of existence depending on his pronouncements -- or even on his state of mind. You can't have it both ways, and I don't understand how a man could have that kind of power if limbo were considered as a literal location rather than a metaphor.

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

Ex-Catholic sticking her nose in to clarify the infallibility thing...

At Vatican I in 1870 (thanks to some inspired political sneakery), the Pope was granted the CAPACITY for infallibility. (Well, granted is the wrong word; it was established that the College of Cardinals "recognised" in the office of Pope this capacity, which they then said had been there all along.) That doesn't mean that everything he says, even on matters of religion, is infallible, or that all Catholic doctrine is considered infallible. The Pope has the ability to speak ex cathedra (as the supreme teacher of the Church) on certain matters of faith and morals, and ONLY ex cathedra pronouncements are considered infallible. The amount of consultation that must be undertaken for a single ex cathedra pronouncement amounts to months and months.

Question: How many pronouncements have been ex cathedra since the establishment of the right?

Answer: Two. Neither concerned Purgatory or Limbo.

Also, the Church authorities hold that certain doctrines of the Church that predate the "discovery" (and therefore the public process)of papal infallibility are also revealed and infallible - teachings on "faith and morals." The rub? The definition of what is, and is not, a teaching on faith and morals CAN be changed, quite easily. So if you need to change a teaching - no problem, an "infallible" teaching didn't change, only a fallible classification OF that teaching as infallible.

[catilinarian.livejournal.com]

Everything else the Pope says about such matters as Limbo is said as a "private theologian", albeit one with a lot of clout. So the Pope's position on Limbo IS the Church's position, but is NOT considered infallible.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I think you are right. God strikes me as much too wise to ever let human sillyness like that have any consequence in his realm.

It's a headache waiting to happen, alright.
I don't know the first thing about the Episcopal Church (as far as I know they are not represented here), but someone ought to change a few of the more outright stupid things in the Catholic Church.

[maddy-harrigan.livejournal.com]

You live in Denmark, right? The Episcopal Church is the American branch of the Worldwide Anglican Communion, which is basically a collective of independent churches all based off the Anglican model. There's probably a Danish branch, full of English expats who like to sing "The Church's One Foundation" very loudly and complain about how Reverend Finsbury moved the Paschal candle one inch to the left, and that's NOT the way we USED to do things.

[kabal42.livejournal.com]

I do. And yes, there is indeed and Anglican Church here. I don't know the congregation as such, but I like their very pretty church, situated in a park in Copenhagen. Ohwell, I'll bet you are right anyway, it sounds like the way ex-pat communities usually end up.