Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote a book by this title and Bp. Barron seems to accept his thesis; so what should we make of it? Is there but an empty hell and will all men eventually come to detest their sins and thus ask for pardon and rely on God’s infinite mercy in their regard simply because wishes that all men be saved? After all, Paul within the scriptures does write the following:
1 Timothy 2:1-4 (Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition)
1 I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men:
2 For kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity.
3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour,
4 Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
5 For there is one God, and one mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus:
6 Who gave himself a redemption for all, a testimony in due times.
God obviously wishes for the salvation of all as we all should. For who does not pray for the salvation of the souls of their loved ones and friends? Who, for the love Christ, wishes the torments of hell on anyone who god created in His image and likeness and loves with a supernatural love all souls created as a father loves his own children and wishes the best for them?
But is it the same thing to hope and pray for the salvation of all men and in the sense of the Theological Virtue of Hope or ‘expectation’ that all men will be saved? Should we hold an expectancy that all men are saved and that hell is but only an empty place or state of being; a reality that exists but is completely harrowed of the damned?
Personally, it seems to be a most difficult quandary for those who might take that leap. For we know that we are to pray for all souls to escape the torments of hell for love God and His love of our souls. But is that the same as expectantly bridging such as great chasm as this and holding out false hope that hell is empty of souls? For if we do that, then it seems to me that Christ and the rest of Catholic Teaching and the gospels are misleading at the least or completely vague and ambiguous. And at the worst it points to a Christ who is self-contradictory not to speak of His Church that has continuously taught definitively on hell for 2000 years.
If the latter were true, then what else has Christ and His Church taught, that we find repugnant personally; that we can chalk up to ambiguity or outright contradiction? Can we believe anything at all that we have been definitively taught or is our personal truth the only truth; a truth resides purely within the eyes of each beholder? Is is subjective or relative to what we accept and don’t accept from the teachings of the faith? Are we each the arbiters of faith?
Does Heaven then exist? or purgatory? our personal judgement? the general judgement?
I pray for all souls who are passing from this life and who have died and hope that they reach the beatific vision as promised. But this hope that I hold is a worldly hope or wish and only right and just and I would hope as well that others will pray for me at the hour of my own death. But do I wish that Christ were lying or contradicting Himself? Theological hope is a more detached and rational hope that all that Christ and His Church are infallible in their depiction and that there is no trickery involved. It is not shrouded in fog and confusion. For if it is then what is left to guide us in this life and what is there to hope for?
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says the following about our own personal hope, the virtue of hope in this regard:
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It seems our hope good and just but that the outcome of our hope is ‘contingent’ on the way we live our lives. For the Catechism also states the following:
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Our Lady of Fatima would have been cruel indeed had She shown the young children of Fatima the torments of hell; but that is exactly what she did. If nobody was there then why would she impress upon these children the need to pray for the souls of all men to seek repentance and come to Christ and to escape the ravages of hell?
Some have mentioned the Fatima Prayer as a counter to this: “O My Jesus, forgive us our sins. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy.” However, I would contend that this is a prayer for those who are living in the world and that they might receive the grace to avoid hell.
What do you think?
All Along the Watchtower 
I asked Fr. Sebastian Walshe on diocese retreat personally about this question and Bishop Barron. Walshe’s reply was “Bishop Barron, shame on him, he should know better. I’d challenge him to find anyone before 1950 that thought “Dare we hope all men to be saved.”
You can my post that summarized my notes from the retreat on my blog.
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Yes, I have been following this a bit, especially after your emails to me about your own confrontation on the issue. I really think one needs separate the ‘desire’ for all men to be saved from the ‘reality’ that this is not what has or even will happen. As far as I am concerned we simply do the best we can to save our own souls and by so doing, do our best to save as many souls as we can by evangelizing, prayer etc. So though we hope in the human sense we cannot at all hope that Christ and the Gospels are simply confusion and smoke that leave us without the Truth of the supernatural reality of hell and its many inhabitants. I certainly agree with your Fr. Sebastian Walshe on this.
I read your article on the blog yesterday but did not comment . . . though I would now like to say that I think this is great idea from a good bishop. I also find it amazing that much is exploding around me personally about spiritual warfare . . . in fact our next parish Theology on Tap will be about spiritual warfare as well. It has pushed me to dust off my old text of Dom Lorenzo Scupoli’s book, Spiritual Warfare and start reading it again. I love it when there seems to be a theme emerging from many places at the same time for no ‘apparent’ reason. I think it is not a coincidence.
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Awesome, yes Bishop is trying to instill the traditions of the faith slowly. After this year, we’ll have the restored order of the sacraments. He really believes in the faith and the power of the sacraments. He’s made clear that our children need to be sealed in the Holy Spirit to combats the evils the prevail the world.
I hope this trend grows throughout the rest of the nation and Catholic world. But, it looks bleak at the Amazon synod.
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I know and I think God is moving us to reexamine our spiritual lives as a way to combat the evil which is this present Vatican Hierarchy: Laudato si, Amoris laetitia, and now the Amazon synod among a host of other abuses. Let those that hear, hear.
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One more thing in hell. In the parable of the Rich man and Lazarus, it informs us a lot about the Jewish cultural footprint that Jesus would have understood and how the hearers would have understood Hell.
Pope Benedict XVI in his Jesus of Nazareth book makes the point that the use of Hades is a temporal place—Sheol. However, when Christ uses the term Gehenna, this is indeed a permanent state.
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Exactly right.
Also when the rich man asks for the help of Lazarus or for Abraham to send someone to his brothers to warn them, he got a no. What more do you need? If you don’t believe the prophets (and now Christ) they will not believe. Has that changed? Obviously there is abyss there that is permanent.
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Have you ever read this sermon, Phillip? Its rather sobering. https://www.olrl.org/snt_docs/fewness.shtml
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Thanks for sharing, I wonder the audacity of Balthasar? The Saint’s sermon is exactly as Fr. Walshe expressed that more or less “Dare We Hope…” is pure invention.
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I know. But in our modern age, universalism is becoming fashionable even amongst churchmen and theologians. I think it is simply one of the signs of the times.
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Scoop,
You ever read Msgr. Charles Pope’s take on the hell debate? There’s some pretty rough stuff from Barron to Ralph Martin. I’m reading Martin’s book right now and frankly, the scripture and tradition are so weighted in his favor it’s not even a close debate on the issue of “dare we hope..”
http://blog.adw.org/2012/12/hurts-and-hopes-regarding-the-recent-debates-on-hell/
This is the great issue of our time. I think what people view on hell and soteriology shapes their entire view on faith in the Church.
Sadly, some mainstream Catholic media I’ve been apart of I’ve just decided to part ways cause I think this is such an important issue.
Ralph Martin’s Renewal Ministeries and Springfield Diocese have podcasts, so they’re now on my lists.
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Thanks Phillip I will go to the link and check it out. I think you’re right, It has been said that Satan’s greatest trick is to make us believe that he doesn’t exist but this has to be on par with that one in my mind.
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I’ll mention that one thing that Ralph Martin discusses in his book is that strangely the traditional viewpoint of Hell has fallen outside of the mainstream thought even though it has the best scriptural evidence and tradition to back it up. What Balthasarians do is put one on the defensive for defending the tradition even though their claim is the new positive claim. If you attack their argument and ask for evidence, as Martin shows, the Balthasarian “Dare We Hope…” is a rather weak position, eventually Balthasar has to concede points, so much so that Martin says, “I suppose he thinks a weak point is better than no point.”
What is interesting is that going over Barron’s review of Martin’s work, he doesn’t feel the need to defend all the theological points. More or less it’s, “okay…okay… you have all this evidence…but Pope Benedict wrote in an encyclical…”
Benedict XVI likes Balthasar but even then it’s far from an authoritative statement from a Pope if you actually read his text which Pope and Martin encourage us to do rather than Barron’s paraphrase of the Pope—which sadly, Barron’s use of that quote is a lack of academic integrity in my opinion, a pretty weak point to set up a straw man on Human Vitae; he should know better.
What is interesting is that Barron doesn’t attempt to defend against any of Martin’s criticisms and I think it’s because the tradition is so strong it’s indefensible. Balthasar sets up his argument more or less that there two types of statements found in the New Testaments: Statements on damnation and statements on salvation for all. However, I’ll write more on this in a post; he commits the fallacy of the excluded middle because there are clear parables of warning like the foolish virgins that are very different from the parables of condemnation such as the Judgment of All Nations—and this is the guy all these seminarians praise? It’s not a good argument, I just don’t know it’s caught on, but again, once someone reads and challenges Balthasar’s points, it’s a house of cards.
If you’re part of the faithful the matter is serious stuff.
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Sadly we have a raft of priests who idolize Barron and is intellect. He was at Mundelein Seminary for years and I doubt many will go up against him. I have a priest that incessantly talks about him like he’s the greatest thing since sliced white bread and that is the seminary that he attended, of course.
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There’s a lot in my diocese that love him by extension from Mundelein. I was discussing with someone the danger of cult-like admiration of figures that can be detrimental to the health of the Church.
People try to justify things that should apply more critical thinking. An example, as you know, I’m a admirer of Pope John Paul II, whereas there is some evidence that he didn’t know he was kissing a Koran; the Assisi accord looks like a mistake and the fruits of those ideas are being brought in full force at the Amazonian synod working document.
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Yeah indeed so. I certainly have many areas where I depart from JPII and Benedict as well. But every idea and action must be evaluated on its on merit. Its not enough to be right most of the time and then spawn a heretical thought or way of life that leads countless souls to hell. But they will only be judged by God . . . but in the meanwhile we have to sort out the things we can to keep from blindly agreeing with ‘everything’ that is said by people that we generally admire.
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I’m a simpleton compared to you two, but I do think and believe that it is fine to hope and pray that all may be saved. Universalism is no sin, but we need to remember, God readily grants mercy, if he is asked, if not he dispenses justice, and that is something that all should fear. Many of the problems in the world are caused by people not fearing the Lord’s justice.
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I don’t know what Lutheran’s and other sects teach regarding this, NEO. However, in the Catholic Church it has been declared heretical from the days of Origen who held this thesis. Sadly, in Universalism, original sin is no barrier and thus Christ’s redeeming sacrifice was unnecessary. Here is how Fr. Hardon put it:
Fr. John A. Hardon, SJ, writes in his A Modern Catholic Dictionary (1980) on p. 553:
UNIVERSALISM, DOCTRINAL. The theory that hell is essentially a kind of purgatory in which sins are expiated, so that eventually everyone will be saved. Also called apokatastasis, it was condemned by the Church in A.D. 543, against the Origenists, who claimed that “the punishment of devils and wicked men is temporary and will eventually cease, that is to say, that devils or the ungodly will be completely restored to their original state” (Denzinger 411 [“211 Can. 9 Si quis dicit aut sentit, ad tempus esse daemonum et impiorum hominum supplicium, eiusque finem aliquando futurum, sive restitutionem et redintegrationem esse (fore) daemonum aut impiorum hominum, an. s.”]).
Also, Pius II condemned, in the letter Cum sicut of Nov. 14, 1459, “That all Christians are to be saved.” [“Et omnes Christianos salvandos esse.”]
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I disagree, although I probably should not have used that term. Essentially what we are hoping and praying for is everyone to confess their sins, and pray for mercy. If the sect of Catholicism finds that objectionable …
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Yes, that’s not universalism. As my article shows, we also pray that everyone comes to Christ and feels sorrow for all their sins. Not only that, but the whole purpose of evangelism is to lead people to Christ and to help them attain eternal salvation for their souls.
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Well said. 🙂
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I was gonna say Neo… Luther was far from a Universalist.
He was cut from the Augustinian tradition. I think I’ve heard the word “hell” in a Missouri synod service in a month more than my whole life as a Catholic after Vatican II.
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True enough. A good reminder that we all need often.
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For those with the courage and desire to make the Christian journey such that it leads to heaven rather than hell, you might want to read the following sermon given by St. Leonard of Port Maurice during the reign of Pope Benedict XIV:
https://www.olrl.org/snt_docs/fewness.shtml
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it is the will of the father that all men be saved. but the road to destruction is broad and many be there on.
this is a sad fact and it slaps me in the face when i witness to false religion folks and atheists. the lord said if im saved he will save my house. my daughter got saved an i can rest in peace.
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