Saved as through Fire: A Thomistic Account of Purgatory, Temporal Punishment, and Satisfaction

Book excerpt: In contemporary considerations of purgatory, there is increasing ecumenical agreement among Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants about the need for spiritual purification and healing before a soul can enter into the glory of God’s presence in heaven. Yet for the broader tradition of the Church, this account of what souls require from God is paired with a complementary account of what God, in his justice, requires of the soul, including satisfaction of its “debt of punishment” (reatus poenae). Although the transformative and retributive aspects of purgatory are often seen today as being at odds with one another, Fr. Luke Wilgenbusch proposes in Saved as through Fire to recover their proper and traditional harmony. Taking Thomas Aquinas as his primary guide, Wilgenbusch identifies and explores the full array of the consequences of sin—both immanent and extrinsic—that purgatory resolves. Through an attentive retrieval of Aquinas’s teaching on sin, its effects, and its remedy in Christ, Wilgenbusch clarifies how purgatory indeed heals and purifies souls from their guilt and disordered attachments, and how it simultaneously serves as a form of punishment and a means of satisfaction, enabling souls to contribute, in union with Christ, to the restoration of the divine order of creation damaged by their sin. Beyond shedding valuable light on the doctrine of purgatory, the integrated vantage on purification, punishment, and satisfaction provided by Saved as through Fire holds promise, too, for a better understanding of the Church’s practices of penance, reparation, and the offering of indulgences.