Purgatory

Kristof K.P. Vanhoutte is Invited Professor of philosophy at the Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy and Research Fellow at the University of the Free State, South Africa. He started his studies in Philosophy at the Higher Institute for Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and obtained his PHD in Philosophy at the Pontifical University Antonianum, Rome, Italy. He studied Spiritual Theology at the Pontifical University Gregoriana, and was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities of the University of Edinburgh. In 2010 he was awarded the 'European Philosophy from Kant to the Present Prize', issued by the University of Kentucky. He has published on topics ranging from continental philosophy, patristics, theology-philosophy-politics interdependencies, educational theory, to football.

This book examines the concept of Purgatory. However, in contradistinction to the many monographs and edited volumes published in the past 50 years devoted to historical, cultural, or theological treatments of Purgatory-especially in proportion to the voluminous output on Heaven and Hell-this collection features papers by philosophers and other scholars engaged specifically in philosophical argument, debate, and dialogue involving conceptions of Purgatory and related ideas. It exists to broaden the discussion beyond the prevailing trends in the academic literature and fills an important intellectual gap.

1. Introduction

2. Purgatory, Atonement, and the Self

3. Religious and Paranormal Experiences as Evidence for Purgatory

4.  In the Twinkling of an Eyea

5.  Purgatory's Temporality

6.6. Indulgent Love

     7. Leibniz, Purgatory, and Universal Salvation

8.  Mirror Geography: On the Emergence of Purgatory and the City

 9.  Climbing up to Heaven: the Hermetic Option

10.   Poetry as Purgatorial: Dante and the Language(s) of Purgatory

 11.  Aquinas and the Possibility of a Probable Reasoned Argument for the Existence of   

             Purgatory

12.  The Body in Crisis: Contemporary Articulation of Purgatory

 13. Praying for the Dead: An Ecumenical Proposal

14.. On the Metaphysics of Economics and Purgatory

15. Issues of Impermanence: Christian and Early Buddhist Contemplations of Time

 16. The Purification of Doubt: Is it Better to Exist in Purgatory?