Amici,
The following is a series of Comments I made at 1Peter5 about the
reality of Hell to someone who seems to support Universal Salvation, a pernicious
doctrine that will be getting a lot of press (literally) soon with the publication
in November of David Bentley Hart’s That All Shall Be Saved: Hell, Heaven,
and Universal Salvation.
It always amazes me how difficult it is for Moderns to "get" Hell. Modernism, the heresy, is utterly opposed to this basic doctrine, and the Vatican II Church has run from Hell with its (collective) hair on fire.
But no more basic Christian doctrine exists. One can truly say that the Dogma (a doctrine that must be believed) of Hell is THE most importent teaching of Christianity, because, if there's no Hell, there's no need of a Savior. The Universal Salvation crowd, the Anti-Hell Hard Core, see the doctrine of Hell as a perversion of our (necessarily) limited understanding of God; they think we Traditionalists see God as a grumpy old sky god zapping us with thunderbolts now and again.
And they replace the Dogma of Hell with that of Purgatory, writing that "Hell" is a kind of Purgatory wherein a "just" punishment is meted out for sins and when everyone has been cleansed, they get to go to Heaven. But as I wrote below in my Comment to a Universalist, NO disciplinary action would "fit their crimes" because their basic "crime" is their free-will rejection of God Himself and what He made them for.
So what follows is my defense of the Infernal Regions, and their (alas) ever-growing population stats.
Excuse me, but let me
"unpack" your Comment.
1. You seem to be arguing for
"Universal Salvation" and that I distort it, is that correct?
2. Who are "Those who have
taught this (Universal Salvation, correct?) from the earliest days of the
Church"? Please list some names and references. You sound like an avid fan
of David Bentley Hart and his yet-to-be-published That All Shall Be Saved:
Hell, Heaven, and Universal Salvation, to be published in November of this
year. I don't know but I assume he'll dwell at length on this Pauline text.
3. You think I am distorting
Universal Salvation by mockery, writing that Hitler (and I didn't mention
Hefner by name) could just enter Heaven?
4. You have spoken to people who
know about Eternity? That Eternity has time?
5. You quote 1 Timothy 2:4 that it
is God's will all will be saved, and thus clearly, by the context of that
section of your Comment, think that Hell is just Purgatory. Is that right?
Otherwise God would be merely seeking Revenge, getting even (revenge again) or
angry at sin? All too-human traits?
Answer to 1 (assuming I have gotten
that and the rest of your Comments correctly): I think Universal Salvation a
wildly out of context distortion of 1 Timothy 2:4. The context of this comment
is that Christians are supposed to pray for their rulers (at that time, all
pagans) so that Christians may be left alone to pursue a Godly life. Then comes
the "Universal Salvation" statement, as a sub-point to living the
Godly life, and then the famous Protestant "Control Quote" that there
is one God, and one, sole mediator between men and God, the "man"
Jesus Christ. Arians and non-Trinitarians no doubt love that phrase because of "the man, Jesus Christ" ref, but
standard Protestants quote it to "disprove" the Catholic practice of
praying to saints. (There are a dozen or so "Control Quotes" Prots
use to interpret Scripture, to filter it -- all of it -- through them; it is
called "Scripture interpreting Scripture.")
Yet the context of the entire second
chapter is about the problems of discipline in the Church (a few verses later
St. Paul ends up once again writing about women's hair!) and the "God
wills all men to be saved" clearly is not a formal, all-important
doctrinal statement. To try to make is so is an absurd proof-texting, as is
what Prots do with "No mediator but Christ" verse. Nowhere else in
Pauline literature does he teach anything like "God wills all people to be
saved and will save them after proper chastisement." Nothing like that
exists in the entire Bible, for that matter.
So just as you read me out of
context, you read St. Paul out of context.
Cont.
Point 2: I will await enlightenment. But I suspect that your
sources will be taken out of context, for the simple reason that in the world
of "universal" this and that, the "universal" Church has
clearly taught most of the Human race will be lost to Hell, and has taught the
reality of Hell as Dogma, from the beginning, starting with Our Most Blessed
Lord Himself, Who warned us to be afraid not of those who kill the body, but
the soul, and that "Satan was a murderer from the beginning" (Matthew
10:28; John 8:44 -- these verses are clear, absolute, and central to why we
need a Savior to begin with), meaning that Satan murdered the spark of
Divine Grace in souls, angelic and human.
Point 3: My point about Hitler and a pornographer (unnamed)
is that they would refuse Heaven because it is NOT WHAT THEY WANT. Why is Hell
so difficult to understand? This isn't "rocket science"! People, like
the Angels before them, must choose to submit, to serve, to obey God and God's
Will for them. About a third of the Angels chose not to do that. We humans
can't choose quite the way they did because we exist in time and "make the
choice" for or against God in small daily increments, such that on
Judgement Day we'll know clearly what we've chosen. (Occasionally, on willfully
committing of a mortal sin, we make a BIG choice.)
It's simple. And as any angel, even the dumbest, is smarter
than a human being (exceptions can occasionally exist about little bits of
info, but that is a very small side point), and yet one-third of them chose
Hell, we can logically conclude that the far dumber human race can also
chose Hell, and on a massive scale.
For let's get this clear: HELL IS NOT GOD BEING VINDICTIVE,
BUT GOD GIVING PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT! And if they don't want Him, He's not
going force Himself on them. God wants faithful servants so he can
"Theosis-ize" them into sons, to Divinize us with a portion of His
Own Nature, not 'bot slaves having no free will. (Sheesh, how hard is this?)
Nor would any temporary Purgatory-like punishment suffice
for those who have rejected Him. No disciplinary action would "fit their
crimes" because their basic "crime" is their free-will rejection
of God Himself! (Again, how hard is this to understand? Reread that previous
line again, please.) Purgatory is the place for working out "just"
punishment, giving the unconfessed and/or un-penanced sins of those who choose God their due; Hell
exists as a Eternal Home for Absolute Refusniks.
Cont.
4. Whatever
Eternity is, however we experience it – or how Angels do, and they no doubt
(being pure spirit) experience it differently than we possibly could – the
things that happen in Eternity are Eternal. A choice made there is eternal. One
can't undo one's choices there. That's true in a sense now, for
us. I can't undo an important decision or act in my life: I can repent it, I
can confess it, I realize I took a wrong turn on a road trip, and can "go
back and do it over" a bit differently, but so what? I can't possibly
actually undo it. This reality will be much more "present" to us in Boethius' The
Boundless Now.
Point 5:
I've taken care to answer this at some length in the above comments concerning
Points 1 to 4.
Pax.
An Préachán
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