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In this episode, Trent examines the biggest problem with those who focus on hoping that Hell is empty.
Transcript:
Recently, Pope Francis has said he likes to think hell is empty, and Bishop Robert Barron has also defended the view that we can reasonably hope that all men will be saved. In response, a lot of Catholics have called this heretical, but they focused on secondary issues more than the primary problem with this view. So let’s talk about the real problem with Christians who say that they hope hell is empty. First, we need to distinguish what Pope Francis and Bishop Barron say about hell from heresy known as universalism. This is the view that we can have definite knowledge that every single human being or even every single creature, including the devil and all the demons, will eventually be saved and spend eternity in heaven, even if they have to go through purgatory first. But if that’s true, then those who reject the gospel would not be the lost that Jesus came to save as it says in Luke 19:10. They would just be the delayed who have to wait a little bit longer for their heavenly rewards.
That’s one reason why universalism has been rejected throughout church history. The Protestant scholar Richard Bacum writes, “Until the 19th century, almost all Christian theologians taught the reality of eternal torment in hell. Here and there outside the theological mainstream were some who believed that the wicked would be finally annihilated. Even fewer were the advocates of universal salvation.” Universalists cite passages in scripture that speak about Christ dying for everyone, which is true, but that doesn’t mean everyone will freely accept the graces that Christ’s death on the cross merited for them. Universalists also cite passages like 1 Corinthians 15:22, where Paul says, “For as an Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” But this doesn’t mean through Christ, all people shall be brought to eternal life.
What it means is that all who are in Christ, which is a term Paul often uses for the saved or the elect, they shall be brought to eternal life. So the definite knowledge that all will be saved is off the table for Catholics. But what Pope Francis and Bishop Barron are talking about is something that we could call the dare we hope view. It’s named after the late Catholic theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s 1987 book, Dare We hope That All Men be Saved. Balthasar said we have no right to assume everyone is going to heaven. He writes, “We stand completely and utterly under judgment and have no right, nor is it possible for us to peer in advance at the judge’s cards.” In other words, we don’t know exactly what everyone’s fate will be at the final judgment. If we did like that we knew everyone was going to heaven, then we would know what cards the judge holds.
Or to put it more accurately, we would know what names are written in the Book of Life in heaven. Everybody’s names. But Von Balthasar says there is a possibility all men are saved, and so we should at least hope that is the case. He writes, “Thomas Aquinas taught that one can hope for eternal life for the other as long as one is united with him through love. And from which of our brothers would it be permissible to withhold this love?” This coheres with the Fatima Prayer said at the end of every decade of the rosary. Says if we love all people, then we should pray for all people to be saved.
Oh my Jesus, forgive us our sins save us from the fires as hell and lead all souls to heaven, especially those most need of thy mercy.
On Bishop Barron’s word on fire resource page, it asks, does Bishop Barron teach we can have a reasonable hope all will be saved? If so, what does he mean by reasonable? Here’s part of the answer. Yes, Bishop Barron is convinced we have a reasonable hope that all will be saved. He means reasonable in the sense that we have good reasons to ground our hope, namely the cross and resurrection of Jesus and his divine mercy. He isn’t making any sort of probabilistic judgment as if to say reasonable means very likely or quite probable. Finally, we have what Pope Francis said in a recent interview. “This is not a dogma of the faith that I tell you. It is my personal thing that I like. I like to think of an empty hell.”
Some people argue against the dare we hope view by claiming that the church has infallibly taught that some people are in hell like Judas Iscariot, who is called the son of perdition in scripture. However, while the church has a canonization process to say who is in heaven, it has no similar process to infallibly teach who is in hell. Avery Cardinal Dulles, who was a sound theologian, said “This dare we hope position of Balthasar seems to me to be orthodox. It does not contradict any ecumenical counsels or definitions of the faith. It can be reconciled with everything in scripture. At least if the statements of Jesus on hell are taken as minatory rather than predictive.” Minatory means a warning. Jesus’s teachings about hell under this view would be conditional. They won’t necessarily come to pass, in the same way that when Jonah said God would destroy Nineveh, that included the proviso unless the Ninevites repent.
Now, I personally find all of this hard to accept. When you look at the weight of the tradition from scripture, the church fathers, the doctors of the church, it seems pretty likely that at least some people will spend eternity apart from God in hell. It seems overwhelmingly likely, but that’s a lot different from saying the contrary is impossible. Plus, the big problem with this view isn’t really about whether all people are saved. A dare we hope person could just modify his view and say, “Yeah, I guess you’re right that Judas Iscariot is in hell.” But I think that 99.999% of all people who ever lived will be saved, and only the worst handful of people will go to hell. Most people would still call such a view heretical or at least a clear denial of Jesus’s teaching about the way of destruction being wide that many will choose, but we aren’t in a position to say how large the many are.
You see the real problem with the dare we hope view isn’t that we will get a certain fact about hell’s population wrong or misunderstand what happened to Judas Iscariot. The problem is that if this view becomes a serious part of one’s worldview and not just a passing hope, then it can be spiritually damaging to a person’s soul and the souls of others. That’s why I would treat the dare we hope view like we treat Powerball or any lottery whose odds of winning or something like 80 million to one. There’s nothing wrong with hoping you win the lottery. If you can spend the money wisely, that would be a great blessing. You don’t have a reasonable hope of winning the lottery because of the long odds, but I would say you can have a rational hope because winning the lottery is not impossible, even though it’s highly, highly improbable.
Look, if it makes you feel better to think about winning every now and then before you go back to the hard work of making a living, that’s fine. But it’s not fine if you stop focusing on making a living because you think you have a reasonable hope you will win the lottery. It’s possible, but only a fool would make major life plans based on such a fantastically small probability. The same is true of the dare we hope view. There’s nothing wrong with hoping all people will be saved. If I got to heaven and found out that all people were saved and then God explained to my finite brain why I couldn’t understand that in this life, I would rejoice. I would rejoice that everything turned out so well. Look, if it makes you feel better to occasionally think about the hope of everyone being saved and praying for that before you go back to the hard work of evangelization, that’s fine. But it’s not fine if you stop focusing on evangelization because you have a reasonable hope everyone will be saved.
It’s possible, but only a fool would neglect the fate of his neighbor’s eternal soul based on such a fantastically small probability. Now, I disagree with Bishop Barron’s use of the phrase reasonable hope because even though he says that it’s not related to probabilities, most people do think of a reasonable hope as one that has conceivable probabilities, something at least above 10%. But if the odds are $80 million to one as in the case with Powerball or even worse than that, and it may very well be worse than that for the dare we hope view, then you just can’t have a reasonable hope or at least what most people understand a reasonable hope to be. You can have a rational hope because it’s not impossible. You can have a rational hope that you might win the lottery or that all people might be saved, but not a reasonable hope.
To give another example, imagine you are tasked with finding a group of survivors from a shipwreck who are floating out in the ocean. Someone says to you in the rescue team, “You know what? We can have a reasonable hope that the survivors ended up on a desert island and are now listening to coconut radios and playing basketball with the Harlem Globe Trotters. So let’s stop worrying about these rescue missions and focus instead on the more important task of making the ocean more welcoming or fixing inequality among boaters.” It’s possible the survivors are fine on a luxurious tropical island, but the odds are probably 80 million to one. So it’s reckless, negligent, and lazy to forego your duty to save those people based on the thinnest hope they don’t need saving.
Likewise, given the sheer weight and common sense understanding of what Jesus and the apostles said about hell, as well as the church fathers, the saints and the magisterium, it would be equally reckless, negligent, and lazy to forego our duty to evangelize those who have rejected God in his church based on the thinnest hope that they don’t need saving. And we will put our own souls in danger if we spend too much time fantasizing about how everyone will be saved and realize that our own salvation must be worked out in fear and trembling, as St. Paul says in Philippians 2:12. Thanks for watching today’s episode. If you want more great content, be sure to check out these other great episodes and don’t forget to like and subscribe to help our channel grow. Finally, if you want to help us create more content like this, please support us at trenthornpodcast.com.