ON BEING MORE TENDERHEARTED THAN GOD HIMSELF

The Rev. David Watt is a priest of the Archdiocese of Perth in Australia. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Cambridge University (England) and a licentiate in theology from the Gregorian University in Rome. This article was first published in different form in the Australian newspaper Catholic.

Hell is out of fashion. That is, Hell is out of fashion as a concept. As a destination, it may be very fashionable indeed. As the famed logician and ballplayer Yogi Berra said when asked about a certain once fashionable restaurant: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Hell is admittedly a disturbing concept. But then, Hell is a terrible thing. No one seems comfortable with it. But then, no one should be. Unease, self-doubt, anxiety about the painful and infinite consequences of my actions, fear of an eternity deprived of God's presence - all these come up when I think of Hell.

No wonder few talk about it, even among those charged with the cure of souls and the teaching of the faith. Most ignore it, and a few speak against it. A priest who preaches at Mass week after week but from one year to the next never mentions Hell thereby conveys to his people that the concept is one they need not grapple with and the destination is not even on the map.

The few who are willing to talk about the afterlife take various approaches. Some mumble comfortingly that probably everyone goes to Heaven, or that at least we can hope everyone does, and that we can't know that anyone doesn't, and that our loving God will likely see to it that we spend our eternity fairly pleasantly. Some speak out explicitly, saying that salvation for everyone is certain or at least likely or at least cannot be disproved.

The first thing that strikes the Christian who is ready to examine Hell seriously is the hasty superficiality of these approaches. There is a kind of busy tidiness about this rush to spruce up the afterlife, as if Christian faith were a kind of urban renewal program and Hell an eyesore slum. One detects too, just a hint of presumption that where eternal rewards and punishments are concerned we are more tenderhearted and clear-eyed than our forebears in faith. Perhaps we are even more tenderhearted (dare it be said?) than God Himself.

The second thing one finds is that neither logic nor Scripture nor Tradition nor the Catechism supports this project to chain up the Gates of Hell, slap a "Condemned" notice on the place of condemnation, and erect a "Detour" sign pointing to the celestial office of St. Peter. Indeed, the notion that universal salvation is sure can be dismissed straightaway. For if I could know, just using general theological considerations ("We have a loving God" and so on), that all men would be saved, a fortiori I could know for certain that I would be saved, which is contrary to the infallible teaching of the Council of Trent.

Furthermore, arguments for universal salvation, whether as certain, probable, or merely possible, have a habit of proving too much. By parity of reasoning they would support universal salvation for fallen angels as well as fallen men. For instance, "A loving God would never send anyone to Hell" - no man nor fallen angel either? "The sufferings in Hell would spoil the happiness of the blessed in Heaven" - including the suffering of the demons? But the existence of demons is everywhere attested in Scripture and Tradition, and the conversion of Satan and his minions is excluded by the Church (Catechism, 393). Sometimes it is suggested that while the fires of Hell are eternal, the punishment of any given soul need not endure eternally. But is this what Our Lord and the Church understood by "eternal punishment"? It is also asserted that the very idea of punishment for all eternity is a "scandal," but as long as we admit eternal damnation for one individual - angelic or human - the "scandal" of eternal punishment is not removed.

"Many are called, but few are chosen" (Mt. 22:14). It is because of texts such as this that the Church has never accepted the hypothesis of an empty Hell. Until modem times, the vacancy of Hell seems to have been upheld by virtually no one. Origen did propose it (taking Hell in the Church's sense, as meaning a state that is eternal), but precisely as a hypothesis; he said he was speaking "tentatively." Possibly one or two of the Fathers followed him; the exact number is disputed. In any case, the theory was condemned and that was the end of that. Origen, by the way, (like Tertullian) is not a Father of the Church. Because of his unorthodoxy he is not "Saint Origen."

Even in the Old Testament it is clear that not all are saved. Consider, for instance, Daniel 12:2: "And many of those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting fife, others to see everlasting reproach." It is fashionable now to say of such texts that apocalyptic language can't be taken literally. Well, if the above text does not mean that some are damned, does it also fail to mean that some are saved? For it is exactly symmetrical regarding these two groups. The text is indeed apocalyptic in the true sense of that word, namely, revelatory. It reveals something true about the future. That is the way the Church has always taken it.

Many New Testament texts are likewise symmetrical between the blessed and the damned. As Jesus said to the Jews in Jerusalem, "The hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment" Jn. 5:28-29). And to His disciples in a lengthy private discourse on the Mount of Olives two days before His final Passover, He said, "The King...will say to those at his left hand, 'Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food....' And they will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" (Mt. 25:41-46). There is the unforgettable story of Dives in the place of torment envying Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, with Father Abraham declaring to Dives that "between us and you a great chasm has been fixed" (Lk. 16:19-31). Later, in his letter, Jude reminded the young Church of "the angels ... kept by Him in eternal chains in the nether gloom" and of Sodom and Gomorrah's "punishment of eternal fire" (Jude 6-7).

There are so many such texts that the most casual browser of the New Testament will come across one after another. I will not quote more, for the sake of brevity and because (as the Council of 'Orange put it in another context) "more texts will not profit those for whom a few do not suffice."

One prominent theologian for whom they do not suffice is Hans Urs von Balthasar, a leading exponent of the notion that we may confidently hope that all will be saved. How then does he deal with such texts? He simply admits that there are texts that exclude universal salvation, but claims that other texts say the opposite. In his book entitled Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved? he repeatedly asserts that Scripture contradicts itself on this point. But having asserted that God's Word is incoherent von Balthasar, logically enough, gives himself permission to be incoherent in turn. He claims that New Testament talk of Hell is just a warning. How can this be just a warning if, according to von Balthasar himself, Scripture repeatedly affirms that men do in fact go to Hell? Von Balthasar upbraids St. Augustine for transforming the possibility of Hell into a certainty. However, there is no scriptural support for Hell as a mere possibility -and on von Balthasar's own showing: He claims that Scripture has statements affirming Hell and statements denying Hell but none saying maybe.

The right way to deal with the texts that von Balthasar sees as denying Hell is the age-old technique of harmonization, unmodish though it may be. Von Balthasar admits - and his critics vigorously assert - that Scripture repeatedly rejects universal salvation. This, then, is a datum, a given, and other texts are to be read in the light of it. On its face, a text such as 1 Corinthians 15:22 might be called "universalist": "For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive." But if this affirms salvation for all, why does St. Paul say in the very same letter (3:17) "If anyone destroys God's Temple, God will destroy him"? Why does he warn in this letter (6:9-10, 8:11, 9:27) and elsewhere about the danger of eternal damnation? And if St. Paul is universalist, what sense can it make to speak as he does of "the day of wrath" and "the righteous judgment of God" (Rom. 2:5)?

Von Balthasar gives statements such as "all shall be made alive" (1 Cor. 15:22) a quasi-numerical interpretation, as if "all" means "every single one." But in ordinary speech "all" need not bear this sense. Suppose I say "It has been raining all day." I am not thereby necessarily saying that rain has fallen every single second. Indeed, there is clear evidence that in 1 Corinthians 15:22 "all" does not mean "every single human being." We need only read a single verse further: "But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at His coming those who belong to Him" (1 Cor. 15:23). So it is those who belong to Christ who shall be "made alive."

What then do we make of God's universal salvific will, as expressed in such texts as 1 Timothy 2:4 ("God our Savior ... desires all men to be saved .... )? The traditional answer distinguishes God's will antecedent to man's choice - which is a salvific will - from God's will consequent on man's choice. Against this distinction, von Balthasar offers no argument, only mockery. Yet clearly there is a distinction between the sort of Divine Will that is infallibly fulfilled and the sort that need not be. Contrast, for instance, God's will to create the universe with God's will that we should not sin. God's universal salvific will as expressed in texts like 1 Timothy 2:4 surely is of the second sort.

Von Balthasar, like others, tries to argue from the premise that we don't know that any particular individual is damned to the conclusion that we don't know that any people are in Hell. Even the premise is dubious. Take Judas Iscariot: If he was saved, why did Jesus say that it would have been "better for that man that he not be born" (Mt. 26:24)? (Nor does Peter, speaking in Acts 1: 15-26, hold out any hope for Judas.) But even were the premise true, the conclusion does not follow, for it is analogous to arguing "Because I don't know of any individual who comes from Iceland, I don't know that there are any individuals who come from Iceland."

Because Hell is not popular these days we cannot conclude that it is not populated. If Dante were to visit Hell in a new poetic reverie, would he find it closed up and boarded over? The perennial Catholic view is "that man's will is free, that he can consciously exercise choice, and that his choice can be decisive to all eternity," as Dorothy Sayers reminds us in her introduction to Dante's Divine Comedy. And Revelation 19:2 says pithily, "Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgments are true and just."

"Why would God make a being He foresaw would go to Hell?" This is thought by some to be an insuperable objection. It is difficult to remember, in our anthropocentric age (not the Age of Faith or even the Age of Science but the Age of Consumerism and Therapy), that the world was created - as Vatican I declared infallibly - for the glory of God. Not for our glory, but for His. God created us free, and a creature who has freely chosen a path to damnation glorifies God willynilly by being a monument to His justice and an example of the consequences of choosing to sin.

If creatures made by God out of love can, in His justice, go to Hell, the question arises, "Does God no longer love those in Hell?" The answer is that He does; however, He loves the blessed much more. Here some would object, "If God is infinite, His love must be infinite, so He can't love one creature more than another." Without questioning God's big-heartedness, we can point out, first, that this displays an ignorance of the logic of infinity. One infinity can be larger than another. For instance, there are more so-called real numbers than there are counting numbers, but both

sets are infinite. It also seems fair to say that the idea that there can be no inequality in God's love springs not from the Gospel but from the world and its preoccupation with equality and nondiscrimination. But according to the Good Book, the Lord said, "Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated" (Malachi 1:2-3). The Spirit blows where He will, and God loves as He will; these are among the inscrutable mysteries of Divine Providence.

But we can be sure that, even in His righteous hatred, God loves the damned. How is God's love for them shown? In their agony not being even greater. They are not suffering as much as they deserve, according to the saints. And one of the reasons God ended their earthly probation when He did was, no doubt, to stop them from adding sin to sin and hence clocking up more severe punishment. The damned may not thank God for all this, but we can.

God, we might say, shows those in Hell all the love they are willing to see: His justice. To us on earth He shows His mercy. And to those in Heaven - so we are promised - He shows His very face.

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