Purgatory Puzzles: Moral Perfection and the Parousia

Journal of Analytic Theology 5:197-219 (2017)
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Abstract

My argument proceeds in two stages. In §I, I sum up the intuitions of a popular argument for 'satisfaction accounts' of Purgatory that I label, TAP. I then offer an argument, taken from a few standard orthodox Christian beliefs and one axiom of Christian theology, to so show that TAP is unsound. In the same section, I entertain some plausible responses to my argument that are prima facie consistent with these beliefs and axiom. I find these responses wanting. In §II, I offer a sorites problem for TAP, given the orthodox Christian understanding of Christ’s parousia, showing that TAP and the intuitions driving it are faulty. To attempt something of a corrective, I end by offering some modest theological suggestions for thinking through “the logic of total transformation.”

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James T. Turner Jr.
Anderson University

Citations of this work

Purgatory, Hypertime, and Temporal Experience.Jonathan Curtis Rutledge - 2018 - Journal of Analytic Theology 6:151-161.
Perfecting agents.Luke Henderson - 2022 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 93 (2):83-105.
Temple Theology, Holistic Eschatology, and the Imago Dei: An Analytic Prolegomenon.James T. Turner Jr - 2018 - TheoLogica: An International Journal for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology 2 (1):95-114.

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References found in this work

Time and Space.Barry Dainton - 2001 - Mcgill-Queen's University Press.
Time and Space.Barry Dainton - 2001 - Philosophy 79 (309):486-490.
Time and Space.L. N. Oaklander - 2003 - Mind 112 (447):509-513.

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