faith
The Problem with Faith
I saw a meme the other day that got me thinking about the nature of faith. A high school friend, who is a pastor and lovely human being in every sense, posted the following thought:
The problem with this is simple: this god never says anything. All we have are people saying that this god has said something. The meme should read:
Man says, "Show me, and I'll trust you." Some people say God says, "Trust me, and I'll show you."
That puts things in an entirely different situation. The dichotomy is not between a supposedly-fallible self and an supposedly-infallible deity. The division is between trusting your own senses and experiences versus trusting claims someone else makes about a deity. The first quote is asking for evidence; the second is asking for blind faith.
I'll go with evidence every single time.
Tone Deaf
Few things about religion are as interesting to me as fundamentalist Christians' ideas about how "the world" (i.e., anyone who is not a fundamentalist Christian, but most specifically anyone they deem "secular") views them. I recently watched bits of Left Behind: Rise of the Antichrist, the latest in the whole Left Behind movie series. It's about what will supposedly happen when all the true believers are whisked away to heaven and the heathen are -- here comes the title -- left behind.
The main protagonist, whose wife and young son were raptured away, decides to visit the church she attended. The voice-over narration explains that as soon as the Christians disappeared, churches were the target of violent protest. This included the graffiti below: "All souls matter!"
The thinking behind this seems to be that those left behind would be angry at the remaining Christians (though not true Christians because, you know, they got left behind) as they proclaimed that those who disappeared were Christians, that the fact they disappeared is proof a god favored them. The reaction: those left behind who didn't think they were Christian (i.e., the true heretics) would be angry at this perceived sense of Christian superiority and would adopt a slogan like "All souls matter!"
I'm not even sure what they're suggesting with this little detail. Do they think the dumb liberals left behind (because you can't be a liberal and a true Christian) would be highly offended at the sense of Christian superiority that they would adopt an altered slogan from the right and throw it back at the remaining Christians? Do they think the dumb liberals would be so self-contradictory that they would argue about the equality of all souls even though they don't believe in a god (because you know all liberals are atheists)?
I just don't get this little detail. I don't think they do either.
Signs
We’ve been traveling back-and-forth to Florida quite a bit lately, which means we drive through almost the entirety of South Carolina each trip. Along the way, I’ve noticed yellow and red billboards along the highway with one of two messages. when simply says, “Jesus, save me.” That’s a fairly straightforward. Evangelical sentiment were used to seeing signs like that in the audiences of football games though many of them are simply the John 3.16 signs, which reference the Bible verse proclaiming that God sent his son to save us. there are certain logical issues I have with such a sentimental sense. God and the sun are supposed to be the same being thanks to the doctrine of the Trinity, and the person doing the condemning from which we need to be saved is God. This means that God sent himself to save us from a consequence that he himself was going to implement. In short, God sent himself to save us from himself, which makes absolutely no logical sense. But that’s not the most interesting sign. The most interesting sign is this one.
Critics of prayer often say that many prayers amount to nothing sentimentality: “Bless this food” does nothing to the food. It’s just a nice sentiment.
With Catholic prayers, some of them have a feeling of being nothing more than magic words. This is especially true of the prayers that the priest will say during communion, prayers which allegedly transform a bit of unsavory bread and overly sweet wine into the body and blood of Jesus, I used to think that price of prayers didn’t really have this magical word sense, but this sign makes me wonder.
Yet here with this particular formulation, we see real magic words. If this sign is to be relieved, all one has to do is say these words and salvation is a done deal.there’s nothing on the sign to indicate you actually have to mean it. There’s nothing on the sign that indicates that you have to hold this belief for any particular period of time. There’s nothing on this side that suggest you have to do anything or change anything. All you have to do is say the magic words.
No, I understand that the individuals who sponsored this sign don’t really think that it’s just a matter of saying these words. And the same font with the same color scheme there are science that simply say repent usually a few miles after the sign. Of course, repent in this case usually means For them to take a conservative point of view regarding LGBTQ issues, physical issues, death penalty abortion, and all the other right wing issues. Repent for them basically means become a republican, and a far right Republican and usually at that.
However, you can’t get all of that on a sign. What’s most important is to get them to say the words and maybe just maybe they’ll actually mean it. Or if they don’t mean it now perhaps mean it later.
There was an article in the Charleston Post and Courier about this which the AP picked up and carried. Apparently at least one of the individuals sponsoring the billboards spends 50% of his salary on them. He suggested it’s money well spent if it keeps even more in person out of hell. I find it strangely ironic though that Jesus in the Bible seems to suggest a different way ofspending one’s money: to sell all and give what give all the proceeds to the poor as he told the rich young man in one of the gospels.
Religious Discussion
Fluff
Source
At E's basketball practice a few weeks ago, I noticed some Catholic reading materials free for the taking, so always interested in what others say about religion, I took some copies. One of them was This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival by Bishop Robert Barron, whom I've written about here and here (among other posts).
The Good Reads blurb summarizes:
A recent Pew Forum survey revealed the startling statistic that 69% of Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. For the majority of Catholics today, the Eucharist is merely a symbol of Christ, and the Mass is merely a collectivity of like-minded individuals gathering to remember his life.
This indicates a spiritual disaster, for the Eucharist is “the source and summit of the Christian life.” In response to this crisis, Bishop Robert Barron, then the Chair of the Committee on Evangelization and Catechesis for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, began working with his brother bishops on a solution. From these conversations, the National Eucharistic Revival was born.
This Is My Body: A Call to Eucharistic Revival is designed to accompany that revival. In this brief but illuminating text, Bishop Barron offers a threefold analysis of the Eucharist as sacred meal, sacrifice, and Real Presence, helping readers to understand the sacrament of Jesus’ Body and Blood more thoroughly so that they might fall in love with him more completely.
Discover the profound truth flowing out of Jesus’ words at the Last “Take, eat; this is my body. . . . Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant.”
I'll have a lot more to say about the topic of the book later, but there was one little bit that caught my eye this evening:
One of the most beautiful evocations of this heavenly meal is found in the twenty-first chapter of John's Gospel. The author of John's Gospel was a literary genius, and his work is marked by subtle and intricate symbolism. Therefore, we must proceed carefully as we examine this story.
It seems this depiction of John writing his gospel (of course, John didn't write the gospel; all four gospels are anonymous, with the names we associate with them becoming attached a century or two after they were written, if memory serves) describes a strictly human author. The human author of the book seems to be the literary genius. But wasn't the author God according to Christians? How can both of these statements be true?
It's really part of the song and dance more liberal Christians use to deal with the trickier parts of the Bible while holding on to the tasty bits they enjoy. The ugly parts? That's human. The beautiful parts? That's God.
But a Catholic like Barron would take a self-contradictory notion that there were human limitations but God's still the ultimate author. Pious Catholics, it seems, don't have a problem with contradictions, but one only need look at the topic of Barron's book -- transubstantiation -- to see that.
Bed and Faith
Written on Wednesday 14 July 2021 at 6:54 PM
Getting out of bed is so simple an act that we do it without thinking. We might sometimes want to stay in bed a bit longer, but the act of slinging our feet off the bed and hoisting ourselves into a sitting position — we don’t give that much thought.
When I had my hernia surgery some six years ago, I realized how much we use our abdominal muscles to get out of bed, and because those muscles were terribly sore after surgery, I thought very much about getting out of bed. It was painful, and I wanted to get out of bed quickly to lessen the time my muscles burned, but the act of getting out of bed quickly made them hurt all the more. It was a lose-lose situation. The decision to get out of bed, then, was always a reluctant one.
On the other hand, every time I’ve overslept, I’ve leapt out of bed in a single motion, and it’s a conscious act: I’ve got to get out of the bed as fast as possible and into the shower as fast as possible so I can get dressed and bolt downstairs as fast as possible to grab something to shove down my throat as fast as possible so I can get to work as fast as possible.
Other than that, I rarely think about getting out of bed. The physical act is simple, effortless, and without consideration of its simple significance, a significance that doesn’t appear as such until the ability to do so disappears.
In two or three weeks my father has gone from being semi-independent (such that we could leave him alone for stretches up to eight hours) to being completely bedridden. I don’t think he’s quite come to accept that fact or even completely to understand it. There’s still hope in his mind that he will one day be walking again. I don’t think that’s the case; the doctors don’t think that’s the case; and deep down, he probably doesn’t think it’s the case. Several times a day he tries to get out of bed only for us to remind him that it’s not safe for him to get out of bed. He says things like, “I can’t wait until I get out of this bed and get back to normal.” He doesn’t realize that this new normal is just that, nor does he realize that tragically this new normal will only last for some period of time (weeks? months?) before the next dip, the next drop in his condition, the next “new normal.”
Every new normal makes the previous one look like a paradise. Every new normal reminds us all anew that no matter how trying and depressing for all of us involved, it’s only going to get more trying and more depressing. Every new normal makes the old one seem eons ago. Every new normal quickly begins to feel like it will always be normal, that it will stagnate. That it has stagnated. And then another dip. Another episode. Another new normal.
And the bed he occupies becomes his whole environment, his whole world, his prison.
How anyone could watch how this man is suffering mentally and emotionally and believe that the god he dedicated his life to, supported fiscally (so to speak), and was eternally devoted to would turn his back on him in his time of need — how anyone could think in such a situation that a god like that could exist, and if that god did exist, how it could be considered anything other than capricious and evil, I just don’t know. Belief gives hope, apologists claim. Yet it also gives despair. “What have I done to deserve this?” Dad has asked in his lucid moments. “Why won’t God do something after I’ve devoted my life to him?” Nana pleaded. For both of them, I think, it’s not a matter of “Why doesn’t God heal me so I can go back to my normal life” but something more basic: “Why is God allowing me to suffer like this instead of just letting me die peacefully in my sleep tonight? Why do I wake up day after day to this same prison?”
He remains, as far as I can tell, steadfast in his faith. “I know where I’m going” is his general demeanor, and that might give him some comfort. But I can’t help but think that perhaps that comfort is not worth the anguish it also brings.
In the meantime, we try to comfort him in those admittedly-rare moments of angst, keep him calm throughout the day, and help him take each day in his bed one moment at a time. I don’t know that there’s much more we could hope to do.
Coping
An article by Karl Vaters entitled "13 Reasons Not to Worry About the Future of the Church" offers insight into how Christians are dealing with the nosedive in attendance and affiliation they are experiencing in America. Vaters acknowledges this immediately:
The church is in trouble.
It must be. My blog feed keeps telling me it is.
For several years now, barely a day goes by without someone writing about the imminent demise of the body of Christ.
Everyone seems to have a different reason why they think the church is dying:
- The “nones” are growing faster than the church
- The “dones” are leaving faster than we’re replacing them
- People aren’t singing together any more
- Offerings are way down
- Regulars attend less often than they used to
The post-pandemic turndown seems to be permanent in many places
But despite all the gloom and doom, I have not lost one moment of sleep over the demise of the church.
That Vaters feels no stress reveals the basic disconnect between believers and non-believers on this matter, and that gap is, I'm afraid, permanent and unbridgeable.
It's evident from the first of thirteen points he makes:
Point 1: The Church Belongs to Jesus, Not Us.
The explanation for this point is one sentence: "And Jesus knows what he’s doing." God is in control, believers insist, and so even if it looks bleak, his steadfastness is cause for calm. But this, of course, assumes that Jesus/God exists and operates the way Christians believe he does. They are not open to the possibility that the reason people are leaving religion is because they've realized the truth: gods don't exist. Instead, these people are somehow deceived or never were Christians to begin with. This seems a little obvious, perhaps even axiomatic, but the shortsightedness inherent in such a position ("We could be wrong!") means they will be in constant denial about the reality of the problem, and as it worsens, some of Vaters's more moderate positions might radicalize.
Point 2: The Picture Is Not As Bleak as We Think
His second point is an attempt to make things global:
While the European and North American church is dealing with significant issues, the church in many parts of the world is experiencing strong, steady growth. As reported at Lifeway.com, “There are fewer atheists around the world today (147 million) than in 1970 (165 million), and the Gordon-Conwell report expects the number to continue to decline into 2050.” Plus, “Not only is religion growing overall, but Christianity specifically is growing,” especially in the global south.
We could summarize this point as follows: Sure, in the West, where scientific literacy is steadily rising, religion is on the decline. But in the developing world, where scientific literacy lags, it's growing.
If the growth of your religion is most pronounced where scientific literacy is most lacking, it doesn't say much about the foundations of your religion.
Point 3: The Church Always Thrives Under Persecution
Christians have a persecution complex: they see it as inevitable because it's throughout the New Testament. True Christians suffer for their faith. This is so engrained in the Christian psyche that I'm not surprised it appears this early and only surprised that it wasn't the second point.
If persecution is coming to the American church (which is where almost all of this hand-wringing is coming from) it may reduce church attendance numbers and perceived cultural influence, but it won’t kill the church.
Prosperity is far more dangerous to the church than persecution has ever been. As the Puritan writer Cotton Mather put it in the early 1700s, “Religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.”
This point seems more like pop psychology than measured reasoning. It also ignores the reality driving this decline. People aren't leaving the church because they have cushy lives -- not exclusively, anyway. They're realizing they don't need this in their lives anymore, and they have tools at their disposal (read: the internet) that put dissenting views and reasoning well within their grasp. They can begin by feeling church is just not for them anymore and fill that in later (as they so choose) with good critical analysis of Christian theology that makes them add, "Well, not only do I not need it but it also just doesn't really make a lot of sense when I think about it."
Point 4: Loss of Privilege Is Not the Same As Persecution
This point is actually refreshing.
The removal of the Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse is not persecution.
I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s not persecution.
There are Christians in places like Syria and Iran who know what real persecution feels like. When we claim persecution for what is a loss of privilege, we minimize the real persecution our brothers and sisters face all over the world today.
It does feel a little like Vaters can't make up his mind, though: are Christians facing persecution or not? As church attendance continues to dwindle, he might shift his opinion on this a bit.
Point 5: The Church Is at Its Best When We Are Counter-Cultural
I get the feeling that this is an attempt to be a little edgy, but it is in fact quite ridiculous:
The church doesn’t hold the reins of power well. We’re better in a burr-in-the-saddle role than being the conquering hero on the stallion. Let’s leave that role to Jesus himself.
Christianity has dominated the Western world for most of the last 1,700 years. It's had a near-total monopoly on the culture. Its myths fill our collective consciousness. For hundreds of years it had the power to compel compliance through various means (including torture). To suggest that at any time in modern history it's only been a "burr-in-the-saddle" of society is absolutely ridiculous.
This is why Christians are panicking. They are losing that monopoly. They are losing their political and cultural power. And they are going crazy about it.
Point 6: The Church Is Bigger than Our Buildings and Our Denominations
Churches are being turned into residential units, bars, and even skateparks. What are we to make of that?
We are likely to lose many church buildings in the coming decades. This will be especially challenging for churches with full-time pastors and a mortgage. I also foresee massive stress points coming for most, if not all, denominations.
I sympathize with those who love their church’s historic building and their denomination, only to lose one or both. But I’m grateful that buildings and denominations are not needed for the church to survive and thrive.
In fact, we may need to lean on our buildings and denominations less in order to lean on Jesus more.
This point is just to serve as a balm to those handwringing traditionalists who are upset about the material decline in the church, nothing else.
Point 7: The Church Is People Who Love Jesus, God’s Word, and Each Other
If churches aren't buildings, what are they?
This is one of the main reasons the church thrives under persecution. It forces us to turn to what really matters and can never be taken away – loving Jesus, following the Bible, and caring for each other.
Churches (particularly Protestant churches, especially those that align with the Evangelical movement) maintain their hold on people through the social cohesion they provide. Non-theistic churches are forming that attempt to fill this void, so this point is a non-starter from the beginning.
Point 8: The Church Has Faced Bigger Problems Than This (Whatever Your “This” May Be)
Besides, Vaters says, it's not all that bad:
Whatever your real or perceived church crisis may be, it is not “the greatest calamity the church has ever faced.”
We tend to magnify the severity of small pains that are close to us, while diminishing the reality of much larger pains that are further removed from us.
The church has faced far bigger problems than what most of us are currently experiencing, but those problems are so far away from us that they feel insignificant. The church survived them all.
But it is that bad. Christians fail, intentionally or unconsciously, to realize exactly what the problem is.
The internet is killing the church. It is exposing young people to more and more arguments against theism in general and Christianity in particular. These ideas weren't widely diseminated in times past. A thousand years ago, uttering such criticism would risk death. Now, it's everywhere. And content creators are getting better and better at presenting the dark and illlogical sides of Christanity, and Christianity just keeps throwing the same apologetics mud at them. And here, the internet applies something new: reactions to those apologetics. Discections of those apologetics. Critical analysis of those apologetics. So not only does the internet provide the initial explanation of why Christianity makes no sense, it provides answers to Christians' attempts to explain away those faultlines and fractures, and it shows apologetics to be hollow, shallow, and repetative.
Point 9: My Corner of the Church Is Not the Church
I'm not sure why Vaters put this one in here:
My segment of the body of Christ may be tied to a particular worship style, theological stance, historical background, denominational identity, or any of a wide variety of other distinctives. But the way I worship is not the church. It’s just my little corner of it. If the way I like to worship becomes less popular, that has nothing to do with the strength of the church as a whole.
In fact – brace yourselves – even if the church in America collapses, as tragic as that would be, it would not mean the end of the church.
Jesus has sheep that are not of this fold.
It's really a tweak of point 6.
Point 10: Maybe the Parts that Can’t Survive Shouldn’t
This point seems like it's going in a direction of critical self-examination.
I know that sounds harsh, and it may even be triggering for many small-church pastors who have heard something similar because of their lack of numerical gowth. But the small church is not the issue.
This is not a point about size, but of type.
Anything Jesus does will not just survive, but thrive. Eternally. So I have to wonder, if my favorite form of church is dying, maybe it’s because Jesus isn’t building it?
Everything but the church itself (as defined in point #7, above) has an expiration date. No denomination, worship style, or tradition is forever. Sometimes a congregation, tradition, or denomination dies because it has finished serving its purpose.
This point is not meant to trivialize the very real pain of a local church going through serious hardships. I stand with you. Like John said to the suffering saints in Philadelphia (Rev 3:7-13), “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” You have my heart, my prayers, and any help I can offer.
Instead, though, Vaters is simply using an old apologetics technique applied to those those who leave the faith to explain why some churches are failing: they weren't really Christian.
Point 11: The Church Is the Most Relentlessly Growing Organism In History
This, too, is a short point -- two sentences.
For almost 2,000 years of great triumphs and horrifying persecution, the church keeps going.
When Jesus builds something it tends to stand. And stand strong.
The fact that it's been dominate in the political and cultural machinary of Europe and America for centuries has nothing to do with its longevity. It's all Jesus's work.
Remember when we used to worshop Zeus? Neither do I. Worshiping Jesus will eventually seem as antiquated.
Point 12: Worry Doesn’t Work
Another one-sentence explanation: "In fact, worry makes it worse." This smacks of desparation, but I could be reading more into it than is really there.
Point 13: Jesus Told Us Not to Worry About Anything
The bottom line:
You can toss the previous 12 points. This is all I need to know.
To wildly (but hopefully not inappropriately) paraphrase Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:25-33:
Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your church building, where you will worship or fellowship; or about your denomination, what decisions it will make. Is not the church more important than buildings, and the faith more important than denominational creeds? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his church’s life or a dollar to its offering basket? But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
Whatever is of worry is not of faith.
And we need all the faith we can get.
Vaters is doing his best to cope with the coming reality, but he's still in denial, so he will never accept it when it comes.
Hell
www.ncregister.com/commentaries/jimmy-akin-being-precise-about-catholic-church-teaching-on-hell
Pope Francis recently sparked a discussion when he told an Italian television program, “What I am going to say is not a dogma of faith but my own personal view: I like to think of hell as empty; I hope it is.”
I was not surprised he would have this view. It is common in some ecclesiastical circles and was proposed by theologian and priest Hans Urs von Balthasar in his book Dare We Hope That All Men Be Saved?
Given how Pope Francis’ comments often function as a lightning rod, I was not surprised by the discussion that followed, and one contribution was a recent article by Ralph Martin.
Although framed as a piece about what the Church teaches on hell, Martin spent much of it arguing for his own view, which is the traditional one, that hell is both a real possibility and an actual reality for many people. He explores this further in his book Will Many Be Saved?
I wish Martin well in arguing his case — and arguing it vigorously. The thought that hell might be a real but unrealized possibility is a comforting one that can be attractive to many today. However, Scripture contains serious warnings about hell that do not sound hypothetical.
As a result, the theological field should not simply be ceded to what we moderns find comfortable and reassuring. If there is to be any reassessment of the traditional view of hell as an actual reality for many, Scripture’s statements need to be taken seriously and both sides need to be argued vigorously.
(I’d note, in particular, that in his book von Balthasar never even addresses Luke 13:23-24, where in response to the question, “Lord, will those who are saved be few?” Jesus responds, “Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able.”)
My sympathies are thus with Martin, but I would refine a few things about his article.
First, regarding Pope Francis’ statement that what he was about to say was “not a dogma of faith,” Martin offers a definition of dogma that could suggest it is restricted to revealed truths connected with salvation. I would point out, by contrast, that in current theological jargon, a dogma is any truth that the Catholic Church has infallibly defined to be divinely revealed, whether or not it has any direct connection with salvation. (Culpably rejecting a dogma is a mortal sin; but the truth itself doesn’t have to have a direct connection with salvation.)
Second, there is a passage where Martin conveys a misleading impression about the views of Cardinal Avery Dulles. First, he says that “the traditional interpretation ... by the Church’s greatest theologians is that it is very likely that many people go [to hell],” then he identifies Cardinal Dulles as “perhaps the leading American theologian of the 20th century,” and then he cites a 2003 article that Dulles wrote in First Things.
The problem is that Martin quotes a part of the article in which Cardinal Dulles refers to several passages of Scripture and says, “Taken in their obvious meaning, passages such as these give the impression that there is a hell, and that many go there; more in fact, than are saved.” The impression is thus that Cardinal Dulles is firmly in the line of “the Church’s greatest theologians” who believe that “many go there; more in fact, than are saved.”
However, this is not Cardinal Dulles’s view. He notes the obvious interpretation of various Bible passages without asserting that the obvious one is the only possible one. In fact, he concludes:
The search for numbers in the demography of hell is futile. God in His wisdom has seen fit not to disclose any statistics. Several sayings of Jesus in the Gospels give the impression that the majority are lost. Paul, without denying the likelihood that some sinners will die without sufficient repentance, teaches that the grace of Christ is more powerful than sin: “Where sin increased, grace abounded all the more” (Romans 5:20). Passages such as these permit us to hope that very many, if not all, will be saved.
All told, it is good that God has left us without exact information. If we knew that virtually everybody would be damned, we would be tempted to despair. If we knew that all, or nearly all, are saved, we might become presumptuous. If we knew that some fixed percent, say fifty, would be saved, we would be caught in an unholy rivalry. We would rejoice in every sign that others were among the lost, since our own chances of election would thereby be increased. Such a competitive spirit would hardly be compatible with the gospel.
Martin’s article thus conveys a misleading impression of Dulles.
What does the Church actually teach? This is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says, in part, “The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell” (1035).
The Church thus teaches that hell is a real possibility. If you die in mortal sin, you go there. But does the Church leave room for the idea that God might rescue all from mortal sin — even at the last moment?
The Catechism states, “The Church prays that no one should be lost: ‘Lord, let me never be parted from you.’ If it is true that no one can save himself, it is also true that God ‘desires all men to be saved’ (1 Timothy 2:4), and that for him ‘all things are possible’ (Matthew 19:26)” (Catechism, 1058).
The Catechism thus seems open to the possibility that God — for whom “all things are possible” — might be able to rescue all from mortal sin and thus hell might be empty.
This view seems to be permitted on other grounds. After von Balthasar proposed it in Dare We Hope, Pope St. John Paul II named him a cardinal — specifically for his theological contributions — though Father von Balthasar died before the consistory.
Further, as Cardinal Dulles notes in his 2003 article, John Paul II seemed to have a change of view on this subject. The cardinal notes that in his non-magisterial 1995 interview book Crossing the Threshold of Hope, the Pope raised Father von Balthasar’s view and says, “yet the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew’s Gospel he speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment.”
However, as the cardinal notes, in a magisterial text in 1999, Pope John Paul seemed to have shifted, saying, “Damnation remains a possibility, but we are not granted, without special divine revelation, the knowledge of whether or which human beings are effectively involved in it” (General Audience, July 28, 1999, emphasis added).
Based on what he said, John Paul was open on the question of “whether” human beings actually go to hell, and Cardinal Dulles concludes that “the Pope may have abandoned his criticism of Balthasar.”
It should be noted that in the version of the audience currently on the Vatican website, the words “whether or” have been deleted. However, this does not alter what John Paul II apparently said, and we cannot know why the words were deleted or whether John Paul II gave his approval to this edit.
For his part, Pope Benedict XVI also took an optimistic view regarding hell in his 2007 encyclical Spe Salvi. He states:
There can be people who have totally destroyed their desire for truth and readiness to love, people for whom everything has become a lie, people who have lived for hatred and have suppressed all love within themselves. This is a terrifying thought, but alarming profiles of this type can be seen in certain figures of our own history. In such people all would be beyond remedy and the destruction of good would be irrevocable: this is what we mean by the word hell (45).
He then contrasts these with people who are so pure they go straight to heaven and then concludes:
Yet we know from experience that neither case is normal in human life. For the great majority of people — we may suppose — there remains in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God (46).
This latter category goes to purgatory to be purified. Pope Benedict thus thought that “we may suppose” that few go to hell, few go directly to heaven, and “the great majority of people” go to purgatory before heaven.
We thus see the three most recent popes taking optimistic views of hell, with the later John Paul II seemingly open to the idea it may be empty, Benedict holding that we may suppose those who go there are few, and Francis hoping that it is empty.
I’m firmly convinced of the value for theological discussion of vigorously arguing the traditional view that some and even many go to hell — and hearing what the optimists have to say in response.
At the same time, when presenting the teaching of the Church, we should be aware of the flexibility that is being displayed on this matter, including by the recent popes.