WI: The Catholic Church introduces Limbo as a "default afterlife" during the Crusades

[alter]

Various religions that have a concept of an afterlife that is roughly equivalent to the Christian vision of Heaven and Hell also have a third kind of afterlife reserved for people who were not particularily evil, but also didn't do much for the benefit of society, just lived their lives as an Average Joe who didn't care about anything save for his/her own life and people who are of immediate concern to it such as family and friends.

The Ancient Greeks had the Asphodel Meadows, a bleak, overcast field of ghostly-looking asphodel flowers, on which the spirits of ordinary Greeks roamed forever as emotionless shadowy ghosts, who didn't remember anything from their time alive and had no higher mental functions.

The Norse Religion had Hel, a similar bleak afterlife for people who were technically good, but not heroic and outstanding enough to enter Valhalla.

A related concept called Limbo sometimes popped up in Medieval Christianity to explain various theological questions about the afterlife, but it was never as fleshed-out and accepted as in the Greek and Norse religions.

Dante in his Divine Comedy seems to portray it in a more favorable light, describing it as a kind of Hogwarts for virtuous pagans, and the great Ancient Greek philosophers of the past, where they are free to live relatively pleasant afterlives illuminated by logic and reason, but will never be able to experience the overwhelming pleasure and transcendence of Heaven.


A modern interpretation of Limbo could be living through a Groundhog Day loop of the bleakest November day of a minimum wage East German or Soviet worker for all eternity.


These concepts of a bleak afterlife for neutral people seem to have developed to encourage people to put their best efforts into whatever helped their societies, be it patriotic wars or pious deeds, and discourage a mediocre life.


What if during the Crusades, the Catholic Church introduced and fleshed out Limbo as a propaganda tool to fuel the crusaders, but the concept eventually remained in Catholicism long after the Crusades have ended?

 

[LSCatilina]

It would go so much against basic dogmas and scripture, that it would probably conveniently ignored by anyone safe the clerc or pope pulling such move.
Even the concept of purgatory took decades to really get dogmatized (heck, it was even admitted by Renaissance popes before Protestant criticism that Puragoty wasn't canonically established).

At best, I could see the early concept of refiregrium or proto-puragtory (wich were, rather than a special afterlife, the first step to Heaven as purifing everyone that still haven't dealt with some sins, or even as a necessary step in some traditions) being mixed with limbus puerorum.
But even in the classical Middle-Ages, the idea that people could be stuck into limbos seemed at best debatable for what mattered Rome (would it be only because it could lead to pelasgianism or neo-pelasgianism), and mostly concerned folk Christianism (don't get me wrong, it was still a largely important belief among the clergy, but there's a reason why it never get dogmatized).
It really became a doctrine by the XIXth century, and was abandoned quickly because it collied too much with established dogmas.

(I might add, that's a rather mecanist way to percieve the relation between religion and society with Church conciously "unlocking" an anti-dogmatic after life to fuel such or such movement)

 

[Fabius Maximus]

What if during the Crusades, the Catholic Church introduced and fleshed out Limbo as a propaganda tool to fuel the crusaders,

Contrary to what a lot of people on this board seem to think, religious authorities rarely if ever invent dogmas solely as a propaganda tool. Pre-existing doctrines are sometimes emphasised more or less based on what's expedient at the time, but introducing a whole new dogma for the sake of propaganda would be very unlikely for a group of people who, after all, believe that their religion is true.

 

[Ricard (i.e. Rdffigueira)]

I'm not sure how this would impact in the future centuries, but I really don't see how proposing something like this in the Crusader Era would incentivate the holy wars. I think it might do just the opposite, considering that one of the main "benefits" of going on a Crusade was the simple, honest and straightforward promise of Heaven itself. At least, on the complete purification of sins. I don't really can imagine what would be the mentality of an European Crusader-able individual, but I'd always chose "If you go there and reconquer Jerusalem, you'll go straight to Heaven, even if you killed all these peasants during the youth".

While I agree with LSCatilina, that an "official" approach from the high clergy or even the Papacy would be unthinkable (i.e. basically a dogmatic retcon), I think we can work with the idea of a likely-to-be-declared-heretic clergyman in some western European region gaining popularity, on the likes of Peter the Hermit, or, perhaps, in a region where some level of syncretism with polytheistic beliefs is still fresh, such as Denmark or Norway.

 

[Blackhills]

I think (and this is hugely amateur opinion) that one of the advantages of Christianity if face of Pagan religions in Europe was exactly the aspect of having a less elitist conception of afterlife, with anyone who was morally good in life, even if utterly unremarkable, being promised a huge reward in the afterlife. "The last shall be the first".
So, a Limbo doctrine estabilished with these lines would go against of one of the main ideological strengths of Christianism among the populace, in my opinion.

 

[LSCatilina]

I think we can work with the idea of a likely-to-be-declared-heretic clergyman in some western European region gaining popularity, on the likes of Peter the Hermit, or, perhaps, in a region where some level of syncretism with polytheistic beliefs is still fresh, such as Denmark or Norway.

Most of early crusade preaching, contrary to a widespread depiction, weren't made by half-educated clergymen : Pierre l'Ermite was probably issued from the class of miles that were most attracted by the ideal of crusade,and possibly educated in religion at or near Amiens (if he didn't came from this region).
One comonent of his (but as well other preachers) authority may have been both that he answered millenials expectations within an orthodox frame : he would never have been harboured by the Crusaders of 1097 is it wasn't the case.

You did have some really weird stuff tough, such as peasants venering gooses because they tought they will lead them to Jerusalem (such as in Cambrai), but it generally get more pointed and laughed at than really curbed down
Some preachers as Folkmar and Gottschalk weren't as much heterodoxs (altough they didn't acknowledged much the clerical authority) than marginal priests and chiefs of raiding and pillaging bands (in what ammounted to a violent rural uprising against cities, which involved miles and even nobiliar ambitions for the former : Jews as well as rich Christians were targeted, even if ferocious anti-judaism was a prime pretext) : this on the contrary, was crushed.

The main issue is that Urban II's sermon was transmitted on a center-to-center, or even individual-to-individual basis, given the pope couldn't preach for the crusade in northern France of Germany, giving he was fighting against Capetian and Salians rulers at this times (that were excommunicated), which allowed various interpretations of the goals of the crusade (and free rein to ambitious) before the "official" crusaders at least technically were organized trough pontifical blessing.
Heterodoxor even troublesome crusading preachers would either be silenced off after a while, either fall into obscurity.

 

[Falecius]

To Medieval christianity (things are more complex in modern views) what offered you the chance of Heaven was baptism and absolution, more than just good behaviour as such*. The Limbus idea was floated to account for people who had been good but not baptized (newborns being the obvious example; what sin could a child dying hours or mere days after birth have possibly committed?). The assumption was that, despite the Original Sin, a benevolent God wouldn't leave effectively innocent souls to eternal hellfire. Of course, in some Medieval approaches, existing was sin enough (you can argue that way if you read Augustine wrong), but such views never got official sanction.
Note that this views affectively created a fairly communal approach to salvation. It's more "we are saved" (as a community of believers) than "I am saved". Of course, baptized unrepentant sinners are still damned. But than that's their fault entirely. They throw away a chance they actually had. What about people who never had the chance in the first place? Limbus gives a reasonable answer to that, but raises other problems (the current approach in RC is, as I understand it, that baptism may not be such an important requirement for Heaven).

* Incidentally, many Medieval thinkers would have said you cannot possibly know what good behaviour is unless you are a (baptized) Christian.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

To Medieval christianity (things are more complex in modern views) what offered you the chance of Heaven was baptism and absolution, more than just good behaviour as such*.

Indeed; suggesting that good behaviour could get you into Heaven was what Pelagius had been condemned for.

The Limbus idea was floated to account for people who had been good but not baptized (newborns being the obvious example; what sin could a child dying hours or mere days after birth have possibly committed?). The assumption was that, despite the Original Sin, a benevolent God wouldn't leave effectively innocent souls to eternal hellfire.

As I understand it the idea was that only the Baptised could enjoy the Beatific Vision, but unbaptised people who weren't in a state of mortal sin could still enjoy everything short of this in the afterlife. Think of the virtuous pagans in Dante's Inferno -- they can't enjoy the presence of God, so technically they're in Hell, but it's a part of Hell without any of the punishments people usually associate with Hell.

 

[alter]

Ironically, Dante's vision of Limbo seems to be pretty close to how Spiritual Atheists, e.g. people who don't believe in God, but believe in the supernatural tend to imagine an Afterlife for good people. It seems to be a reasonable theological position to me that people who were morally good, but rejected the Christian belief in God don't go to Heaven, after all, being Atheists they actively don't want to do anything with God and his domain, but instead go to an Afterlife that is not much different from mortal life and where the ideas of philosophers and humanist thinkers dominate.

Spending the rest of eternity with the spirits of the great thinkers of the past in a University-like setting, researching Philosophy, Higher Mathematics and the secrets of the Universe doesn't seem to be that bad of a deal after death to me, even if it lacks the supposedly unimaginably delightful and transcendental aspects of being with God in Heaven.

Transhumanists who believe in the feasibility of Mind Uploading pretty much want the same thing.