Absent from the Body

DEFENSE

This challenge is based on a misquotation and several problematic assumptions.

Here is the passage on which the argument is based:

So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive good or evil, according to what he has done in the body (2 Cor. 5:6–10).

Paul doesn’t say that being absent from the body is being present with Christ. That’s a misquotation. He says that while we are in the body we are away from the Lord and that we would rather be away from the body and with the Lord, but he doesn’t say that one condition is the other.

Consider: When we are at work we are away from home, and we might wish to be away from work and at home instead. But this does not mean that being away from work is the same thing as being at home. There are many other places one can be. Even going straight home from work doesn’t mean you will be there instantly.

This challenge also has two problematic assumptions: (1) that purgatory takes time (we don’t know that it does; it may happen in a flash), and (2) that it is not something that happens when we encounter Christ. Benedict XVI challenged these ideas in his encyclical Spe Salvi (sections 47–48) and proposed the possibility that purgatory simply is a trans- forming encounter with Christ that can’t be reckoned in earthly time.

Finally, Paul says we strive to please Jesus “for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ.” Elsewhere he links the judgment of Christ to purgatory (1 Cor. 3:11–15).