I think a reasonable argument can be made on behalf of Purgatory existing. Purgatory is a distinctive Roman Catholic Doctrine, however I think a case can be made that if it is defined broadly enough, some Protestant groups end up accepting it too. Purgatory is the state that one enters immediately upon dying iff one is a Christian, one has persevered and remained a Christian to the end of his/her life, and that Christian has not been completely sanctified. This, in Catholic terms, would be all Christians who are not ordained as Saints, Catholic Saints skip Purgatory and enter directly into Heaven.
So here is the argument:
(1) When a Christian dies either he is completely sanctified or is not
(2) If he is not, then in order to enter heaven, he must be perfect
(3) In order to be perfect, he must be completely sanctified
(4) Thus, the sanctification process must be completed after death
(5) This is Purgatory
How strong is this argument? I actually think it is strong for those Christians who accept (2) and (3), indeed a lot do because they believe that God makes people perfect in order to be in Heaven with him. They may quibble at (5) but I doubt a good argument could be given as to why. Even the Catholic church has not specified what kind of state Purgatory actually is, they have said it could be a timeless state, or instantaneous, or a temporal state where one is cleansed of one’s impurities. Either way I suspect the most common Protestant understanding would be that God cleanses the person instantaneously. This must occur after death and so this really is Purgatory.
There are however, Christians who believe that upon dying, one remains in the same spiritual state that one was in at the last moment of death. Thus there will be some more spiritually mature people in Heaven than others. So they would not accept (2).
I’m not sure where I stand, I guess we would then need to look at the theological data to make a full decision.
