With the promulgation of the latest document from the DDF (Dignitas Infinita) much focus has been on the use of the word “Infinite” in the title as a qualifier for the ontological nature of human dignity. I do not think the use of this term is problematic as I noted in a recent article in The National Catholic Register.
The most problematic thing for me was not the new document as such but rather something Cardinal Fernandez said while announcing its release. At the press conference introducing Dignitas Infinita, Cardinal Fernandez was asked the following question by journalist Diane Montagna: “If man has infinite dignity, how can he be condemned to the eternal suffering of Hell?”
Cardinal Fernandez responded as follows:
Pope Francis has said many times that the affirmation of the possibility of condemnation to Hell is above all is a kind of cult (veneration) of human freedom, that the human being can choose, and that God wills to respect that freedom, even if it is a limited freedom, and even if it is sometimes a darkened or infirm freedom, but God wills to respect it. That is the principle.
But then the question that Pope Francis asks is: “With all the limits that our freedom truly has, might it not be that Hell is empty?” This is the question that Pope Francis sometimes asks.
Setting aside the issue of how many folks are going to end up in Hell (a seemingly interminable debate these days) the deeper problem is the emphasis upon the limitations of human freedom, which are taken to be so extensive that it calls into question the ability of most people to actually commit sins of such gravity that they could lead to perdition. The key point here is that Cardinal Fernandez links this diminution of our freedom to speculation that Hell might, in fact, be empty.
Balthasar and Francis
It is important to understand that this is not the view of the position of Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar that we can at least hope for an empty Hell. His position, regardless of what one thinks of it, is not that we can hope for an empty Hell because our human freedom is so radically compromised that it is almost impossible to commit a mortal sin. His view is, given God’s revealed antecedent will that all should be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), that God can find a way to take even the most hardened sinner and to convert their freedom from within and to engender in them a true repentance in some mysterious way.
Therefore, Balthasar takes human freedom very seriously, affirms mortal sin is indeed possible, and views any hope for the salvation of all as rooted in a true inner conversion of our freedom to the transcendent good that is God. Again, this is a highly debatable proposition—and there are many good people on both sides of this issue—but it is important to understand Balthasar is in no way implying God will grant salvation to all in a kind of “blanket amnesty” owing to the fact we are all so “wounded” that our freedom simply cannot be freighted with such significance.
Similarly, Pope Benedict, in his encyclical Spes Salvi (#45-46) speculates that the vast majority of human beings, despite their sins, continue to have an inchoate orientation to God, no matter how attenuated, and will end up in purgatory. Hell is quite real, but will be populated by only those human beings who have turned away from God in a definitive, and hardened, manner. Once again, and as with von Balthasar, there is no hint here that we can hope for an empty Hell based on a conception of our freedom as something so radically compromised by sin that Hell simply becomes unimaginably “unfair” in a very real sense.
I labor to draw out these differences because the devil is in the details and those details matter when one considers the anthropological significance of the claim, apparently from Pope Francis (according to Cardinal Fernandez), that we can hope for an empty Hell because our freedom is hemmed-in on all sides by every manner of mitigating constrictions. What I find truly significant here is that the views outlined by Cardinal Fernandez are expressive of a set of latent anthropological assumptions that remain hidden and obscured by all kinds of deflections which use the verbiage of traditional Catholic terms but in radically new ways.
A cynical, defeatist anthropology
Specifically, eleven years into this papacy, what is gradually coming into view is an approach to anthropological analysis veering heavily in the direction of the therapeutic mentality of modernity. For example, while it is indeed true that sin “wounds” our nature and stands in need of healing, nevertheless, Catholicism has always heretofore emphasized that the constitutive nature of the wound is moral and spiritual, and that this moral wound then creates defects in our psychosomatic functioning.
Therefore, the remedy is also moral and spiritual and the economy of salvation established by God is one wherein our freedom is the key component requiring from us repentance and conversion to Christ. Our freedom is freighted with an enormous significance and which can neither be magically “bypassed” in a purely forensic notion of an extrinsic salvation “imputed” to us nor viewed, dismissively, as so attenuated that it is impervious to the movement of grace. Justification leads to sanctification and the entire realm of Catholic sacraments and devotional disciplines have been developed in order to slowly build up the transformative life of grace within us in order to heal the real-world wounds sin has inflicted.
By contrast, what we have seen in this papacy is a constant refrain of “pastoral gradualness” and “accompaniment” evincing a cynical, defeatist anthropology of therapeutic reduction wherein human life is viewed as embedded in a mosh pit of deterministic cultural and psychological influences so powerful that we cannot “reasonably expect” real people in their “complex circumstances” to escape.
The Church has long recognized that most people do indeed tend to live merely on the surface of life’s deeper meanings and tend to be shaped and influenced by the dominant culture. It has further recognized the need for pastoral patience, compassion, accompaniment and sensitivity. The sacrament of confession is always there and waiting for us. Grace, repentance and the pursuit of holiness remain as mainstays of this entire process. But what the Church has never done is to adopt an anthropology of therapeutic reduction that evacuates those concepts of their depth of Christian meaning and even construes them as forms of ecclesial oppression and psychological torture insensitive to “how real people actually live”.
We see this in play not only in the recent remarks of Cardinal Fernandez but also as far back as Amoris Laetitia. There is more good in that text than bad and by several orders of magnitude, so I have no desire to undermine the text as a whole which is often quite beautiful. Nevertheless, there is once again at play in the background an anthropology significantly underplaying the nature of the moral law as a set of commandments rather than “ideals” and that the living out of these commandments is not only possible, but required. Throughout the text the “ideal” of Church teaching is held up as a kind of asymptotic goal many people simply cannot even approximate and therefore requires, not just pastoral patience, but a certain blessing and approval. For example, Pope Francis says the following:
Yet conscience can do more than recognize that a given situation does not correspond objectively to the overall demands of the Gospel. It can also recognize with sincerity and honesty what for now is the most generous response which can be given to God, and come to see with a certain moral security that it is what God himself is asking amid the concrete complexity of one’s limits, while yet not fully the objective ideal. (#303)
The presumption here is that one should continue on the path to the full realization of the ideal. But this affirmation is then problematized in its core when it says one can in good conscience believe God will bless my decision to remain in a kind of moral and spiritual stasis since “this is the best I can do given my situation.”
This represents a classic example of the therapeutic mindset that views my moral failings as “understandable” given my circumstances and, therefore, morally “excusable”. And they are indeed being portrayed as excusable here since God would never directly will for me to remain in my sins. Indeed, his endless mercy and compassion and his endless will to forgive us are all geared toward calling us out of our sins. It is imperative, then, not to conflate God’s mercy into a statement of “blessing” where I am as “ok for now”. The therapeutic mindset tends to see nothing but mitigating circumstances since its central purview–thoroughly legitimate in its own limited sphere–is the psychological root of why I feel and act the way that I do. But the Church, while taking such things into account, utterly rejects the notion that these roots, for most people, are too imposing to overcome.
The point of division
Some might say I am being too dismissive here of proper pastoral gradualness. But in many ways the therapeutic approach is what is lacking in gradualness since the logic of human nature is such that whatever is countenanced and permitted (for whatever reason) eventually comes to be accepted and normalized. Evils permitted eventually become alleged virtues in a grand act of the falsification of the good into its opposite. And so no progress toward the “ideal” ever takes place. Indeed, the ideal soon vanishes as something “we used to think” but no longer do in our enlightened understanding of things. The concept of “gradualness” therefore, so beloved in this papacy, when combined with an attenuated sense of our freedom typical of the therapeutic mindset, becomes a set of pastoral practices that, in the end, evacuate and nullify the very moral ideals it claims the process is geared toward.
We see this as well in many of the episcopal appointments of Pope Francis. For example, Cardinals McElroy and Hollerich have taken that very leap into a denial of the “ideal” when it comes to the Church’s sexual morality. They have explicitly stated the Church’s teaching is grounded in errors of scientific fact and therefore must change. And, of course, they are not alone in their assertion. Pope Francis may not agree with them. But he has empowered them, and many others like them, even as he has nothing but harsh words for those who would maintain that commandments are commandments and not ideals, and that they are of divine origin and are there for a reason.
Returning to Cardinal Fernandez, it is precisely this downplaying of the central importance of our freedom as being able to rise above its circumstances that underpins much of the thinking of certain forms of universalism. As I said, it is one thing to hope God might find a way to save everyone by redeeming their freedom from within, but it is quite another to say God almost “owes” us Heaven since he has forced us all into an existence we did not choose; an existence that is in reality a little shop of horrors that inflicts upon us one horrific wound after another. It is a bleak figuration of the nature of life where our freedom is construed as a cork bobbing around on the surface of a tempestuous ocean and with nothing but hidden monsters below.
In all of this I am reminded of Dostoevsky’s tale of the Grand Inquisitor. The Inquisitor leveled the accusation against Christ, as a formal “charge” requiring punishment, that he (Christ) had placed too heavy a burden on human freedom and freighted it with too much significance. Furthermore, in doing so, the Inquisitor charged that Christ had inflicted the most hideous and dehumanizing sufferings upon humanity requiring the Church to step in to relieve people of this awful burden of freedom.
Sound familiar? The charge is that Christ’s demands upon our freedom are anti-human because they are unrealistic about how real people really are. Thus, the call to repentance is equated with a form of spiritual oppression.
It may not appear so at first glance, but there is much at stake in this current moment. The battle lines are there and the point of division is an anthropological one. The Rubicon is a narrow stream, but once Caesar crossed it, history was changed forever. And since our culture is currently in the grips of an altogether insane construal of what it means to be a human being, now is not the time for the Church to abandon her Christocentric anthropology with its theodramatic emphasis upon the pivotal role of our moral choosing, and to adopt instead the pottage of modernity’s de facto denial of free will.
Now is the time for the Church to steel her nerve, double down on her message of redeemed freedom, and to cross the Rubicon.
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Gosh, what a disappointment! I was hoping for a good article on the hope for universal salvation, but instead, another very unconvincing piece against this papacy. Why is it that the default position of CWR is a condescending anti-Francis one? The arrogance behind such articles is truly rancid. When are we going to open the windows and clear the air?
Today I read on a British website called Unherd, an article by a well known catholic journalist Damian Thompson, about Pope Francis. It shocked me to my core. There is just so much wrong about this papacy, the article is actually depressing yet I feel it would be burying my head not to have read it because it did not appear on a slanderous site. I mention this in relation to Mr Chapps article above simply because the stakes are so high. If this papacy results in people not contemplating eternity then it will go down in history as surely one of the worse of all time
There’s always another side to each claim that Thompson makes. Never come to a conclusion immediately after hearing the prosecution; wait to hear the defence address every claim.
But once you hear the prosecutor’s case there’s no real need to hear the defense. The prosecutor will always present the defense’s case better than the defense would themselves. And there’s no reason to think the prosecution wouldn’t be totally honest. That would be getting paranoid. Hahaha
Thanks for mentioning this article, I read it with interest. In essence, it did not say anything new to me about the personality of Pope Francis because my opinion is informed by my study of human psychology but it provided me with the details which support my hypothesis.
I maintain that Pope Francis is a textbook case of a covert narcissist and absolutely everything in words and actions can be explained by that fact, from his story with Pachamama (mother-goddess) to strangling the contemplative Orders. His credo is “I am so nice and those who do not recognize me as such I will destroy; recognize me and you will be nice too”. In this system of values Christ must be forgotten because His presence reveals the fake, “nice” taking a place of good.
This is why by the way the priests who model themselves on PF are doomed to push Christ away or to make out of Him some benign, impotent, sugar-sweet figure. This is also why PF dislikes anything traditional and also contemplative Orders: because genuinely traditional = living phenomena in the Church have Christ as their center. TLM is focused on Christ, not on a priest who may behave as a little PF – away with TLM! (I am not saying that Novus Ordo is not focused on Christ however it is easier for a narcissist priest to used NO for shifting an attention from Christ to himself than TLM). Contemplatives see Christ as their Bridegroom and the very center of their lives – away with them! Conservative Bishops stick to Christ and use His words to back up their rebukes of PF’s “niceties” – away with them!
The underling current is “away with all who take an attention away from ME” hence away with Christ as well.
How wrong you are, Thomas!
This has to be one of Chapp’s Schtickiest!
Larry has put his very finger on the pulse of the diabolical subtext of the entire Bergoglian misadventure.
The Dark Vatican has dispensed with the unpleasant reality of sin and replaced it with a soothing balm made up of the taking of God’s mercy for granted, satan’s endless rationalizations, and ‘I’m Okay You’re Okay’ pop-psych platitudes.
Incredibly, many of those who inhabit the topmost layers of the Church’s hierarchy seem to have no grasp of the nature of sin.
Sin is not a set of actions that have been arbitrarily set aside as forbidden in an effort to test the faithful. Far, far from it.
Sinful acts are terrible things — destructive, toxic and ugly. They spread pain and misery and leave people feeling disconnected, disconsolate and regretful.
Wherever they take place in reference to the waist, sins are not ‘Okay,’ regardless of how Bergoglio and Tucho characterize them. Sins are to be struggled against with all of our strength, and with the help of God’s grace.
The fact that God is so merciful and so inclusive in His love for us means He will not — indeed, He *can* not — leave us mired and hopeless in our sins.
Larry is right when he shows how Bergoglio is doing the work of the ratfaced evil one and normalizing sin.
Which is exactly what the world does *not* need right now.
I agree, brineyman. Always look for Larry Chapp’s commentaries but this may be his best yet.
Reading this piece, I’m reminded of the Pope’s direction to seminarians last year (in embarrassingly foul language) that they must grant absolution to penitents who aren’t in fact penitents because of their unequivocal refusal to repent.
Christ’s first commandment was to “repent” (Mark:1, 15). The Pope’s statement seems to be a clear contradiction of this commandment. It thus did not reflect the truth of the Gospel but rather was perhaps based on the anthropological pyschobabble so well described and explained in this piece by Larry Chapp.
“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ‘ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.
Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. ‘ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”
Matthew 22:36-40
You say: “Larry has put his very finger on the pulse of the diabolical subtext of the entire Bergoglian misadventure”.
I doubt very much that Larry Chapp would agree with the expression “diabolical subtext of the entire Bergoglian misadventure”. I’m sure he’s shaking his head at this.
You wrote: “The Dark Vatican has dispensed with the unpleasant reality of sin”
Again, I doubt very much that Chapp would agree with this claim.
You claim: “Incredibly, many of those who inhabit the topmost layers of the Church’s hierarchy seem to have no grasp of the nature of sin.”
Chapp wouldn’t agree with this.
You say: “Sinful acts are terrible things — destructive, toxic and ugly. They spread pain and misery and leave people feeling disconnected, disconsolate and regretful.”
And of course, Francis would agree with this, and Chapp would not for a minute think that Francis has forgotten this.
You say: “The fact that God is so merciful and so inclusive in His love for us means He will not — indeed, He *can* not — leave us mired and hopeless in our sins.”
Which is why Christ died for us. Of course Francis agrees.
You say: “Larry is right when he shows how Bergoglio is doing the work of the ratfaced evil one and normalizing sin.”
Larry Chapp would lose all credibility is he were to agree with your assessment here.
My guess is that Chapp would find your post to be rather embarrassing.
Your post is actually quite embarrassing. You don’t speak for Larry Chapp, and it’s disrespectful for you to assume that you do.
The Catholic teaching on sin is that is first and foremost, a rejection of God and particularly, of His love. Catholics always put God above everything.
Mr. James:
Perhaps you can provide some “fresh air” by offering your explanation on the “Pontiff-Francis-Fernandez-Magisterium” from your perspective?
“Why is it that the default position of CWR is a condescending anti-Francis one?”. Because everyone needs a scapegoat to unload our sins and carry them off into the desert for Azazel [Jewish legendary the Daemonic].
“Clear the air?” CWR does clear the err.
Mr. James, articles pointing out the blatant hypocrisy and contradictions are exactly efforts to air out the room of the rancid fumes. You should be applauding.
When a man is a bad man, a bad theologian, and a bad pope, probably the worst pope in history, at the worst time in history to have the worst pope in history given modern communications, rational Catholics have an obligation to God to be concerned and do everything possible to control the moral hemorrhaging. Junk theology kills. It harms real people. It’s not an “innocent” mistake.
Francis is leading the church astray. That is just the truth.
This is how they make money. They are satisfying the anti Pope Francis crowd. What truly would have been shocking is if Chapp actually supported one of Pope Francis’ ideas. What’s remarkable is that anyone actually reads his stilted prose.
The Narrow Gate.
13
* “Enter through the narrow gate;* for the gate is wide and the road broad that leads to destruction, and those who enter through it are many.j
14
How narrow the gate and constricted the road that leads to life. And those who find it are few.
Modernists think they can reinvent the Beloved One of God.
No need for endless word salad. Father Steven Scheier’s near death experience might give a little pause to those who prefer themselves to Our Savior King in rendering judgment on the willful acts of men.
Apparently, current Vatican leaders would have preferred that Jesus tell the woman taken in adultery, “Go and sin no more — but if that proves too difficult for the concrete circumstances of your life situation, sin generously and continue committing adultery while I accompany you to what is, after all, an ideal.” So rigid of Jesus to treat her like an adult rather than a perpetual adolescent.
And everyone who dropped a stone was likewise convicted of sin by the Beloved One.
And where was her partner? One of the stoners as well cuz it’s the woman’s fault?
And so rigid of Jesus to know that, despite how it might irritate Francis, the Commandments do exist for a reason. Despite our ability to lie to ourselves, there is a connection between slaughtering inconvenient life and sins of the flesh. Chastity is a virtue, not a vice. There would be less babies slaughtered if Francis could be coaxed to figure this out.
As Dr Chapp summarizes the main point, does our intellectual, situational, moral infirmities that limit our freedom effectively reduce responsibility for sin to zero? Then, is Justice understood as God’s respect of our limited free choice to choose sin and condemnation really a socio-anthropological cult, and an improbable divine injustice to Man?
Response to that is God, who is infinite good, all powerful, omniscient would not create Man as if it were preordained to be a form of scrabble with God the Scrabble Word Finder. Unfortunately for Cardinal Fernández et Al God doesn’t play games to amuse himself. God whose essence is love created Man in his own image that this love be returned and shared. Love can only be love if it is given freely.
Larry Chapp’s argument in favor of our freedom to choose or reject God’s offer of eternal happiness or eternal suffering is virtually flawless and requires no paraphrasing. Exception to the argument is Benedict XVI on purgatory, who postulates the majority of men will be purged in purgatory, that only a relatively small, adamantly evil will be condemned. We simply don’t know in terms of ratio. Similarly Urs von Balthasar leaves sufficient ambiguity on universal redemption for Chapp to somewhat exert himself to defend him.
We’ve reached the place through the years of questioning and ambiguity, brought to a climax during this pontificate where Caesar was when he made his choice to cross the Rubicon. Hence the significance of the essay. As we must as Church and Mystical Body with far more reaching outcome.
There’s much comment about Hell, its existence, yet mostly on ratio of those condemned. No one on earth can presume there is no Hell because Christ confirms there is eternal punishment. Nor may anyone, including the musings of perhaps our greatest recent theologian Benedict XVI, who presumes most will enter purgatory for purification. Would that were true, although it’s not at all what Christ has clearly revealed to us in the Gospels. He says the road to salvation is narrow
and rough, that to perdition smooth and wide. Most telling, he says many will seek to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, few will succeed.
Who are the many who seek to enter. Obviously it’s the believers like you and I. The rest disbelieve. If it’s difficult for believers the ratio would putatively be significantly larger for those who are lost relative to those who succeed and enter Christ’s kingdom. Certainly a wakeup call. Anyone, specifically clergy who are commissioned to preach the Word, who teaches otherwise whether overtly, or covertly as Anna references those clerics who seek to mollify us, assure us God is too kind to condemn, or that “God is not a torturer”, are deceivers and Antichrist by predilection. We’ve been treated of late to a doctrine of deceptively tailored lies. The greater the emphasis on mercy absent of justice, the greater the predilection to commit grave sin. Whereas love of God is exclusively confirmed by our rejection of sin.
Surprised to read the familiar interpretation of the narrow and wide road interpretation from you Father. I am far from a linguist or scriptural scholar, so I don’t know about precise interpretive meanings, but the impression of Our Lord’s words always seemed to me that few lead saintly lives and pursue the narrow road, while most of us do many self-destructive things in our lives. Most of us are not saintly every step of the way. But destructive things are not equivalent to damnation.
Although Christ is clear Edward my thoughts leaned toward a merciful God, that one had to be a hardened sinner to merit hell. Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, first President of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family, a close friend and consultant to John Paul II thought similarly until he posed the question to Sr Lucia Dos Santos OCD, the older of the three children of the Fatima appearance of Our Lady. She responded twice to his surprised repeated query that most will be saved, that “many will be lost”. It’s private revelation of course, nevertheless what this mystic said in response to Caffarra caused him to reconsider. During that time when things looked so bleak with many turning to error and apostasy I began to reevaluate my own opinion.
Perhaps what mostly influenced me to what I believe now was later, when reading The Dialogue of the Seraphic Virgin Catherine of Siena. During her dialogue with God it became increasingly clear what holiness really is, and how egregious sin is to God. Again, what Saint Catherine alleges is private revelation. Since Bergoglio became Pope the words of Christ have taken greater prominence with me than before, that is, those repeatedly confirmed by Christ in their literal sense despite what some prominent theologians say, for example, Benedict XVI on most meriting Purgatory. My opinion is based on the current state of affairs in this world.
Knowledgeable of history it’s likely the worst since the appearance of Christ. Insofar as those who comment here it seems most have sufficient faith and commitment to Christ. We don’t have to be saints to enter God’s kingdom. Our love covers a multitude of sins. It comes down to continued faith and continued effort despite the falls to please God. The sacraments are what will save us. Works of charity as Peter said cover a multitude of sins.
About “gradualness” and “freedom,” and about the boundary-free aspect of “infinite dignity,” we might be reminded of the infinite capacity of AI….The electronic version of the MONKEY which (not who), if given infinite time, can type out all of Shakespeare error-free on an Underwood typewriter! Except that in finite time is reduced to seconds.
Rather than actually thinking, AI simply processes its access to near-infinite data. Or, like a pinball machine, AI simply FILTERS with lightning speed (the near-infinite speed of light!) through near-infinite data sets to arrive at one nearly-infinitely probable outcome or another.
No spiritual or even moral filter.
Later this year, Pope Francis will visit with the United Nations to explain the dangers of AI. Perhaps he can also EXPLAIN the practical difference, if any, between the vertigo of infinite data and of vertigo of infinite dignity? Infinite dignity as in “gradualness + freedom,” or, as in “time is greater than space” (Evangelii Gaudium, 2013, even further back than the referenced Amoris Laetitia)!
Why not spontaneously and informally bless AI, in all of its infinite, instantaneous and even “irregular” data applications? Surely the cardinals Underwood can filter down to the needed word combinations and couplings. . . . . .
Edit: The pope’s meeting is with the G7 in June. (The meeting with the UN is later this year and on a different theme).
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/04/27/pope-francis-to-attend-g7-summit-to-speak-on-artificial-intelligence/
As always Our Blessed Mother and the saints affirm the truth of the reality of Hell and that people go there. Our Lady of Fatima showed three young children a vision of Hell and taught them that most people there because of the sins of the flesh. The parables of Jesus, God Incarnate, is very clear about the reality of Hell. Unfortunately, many in the Church have been deceived by the modernists interpretation of Scripture.
The quotation from the Pope Francis document amounts to God saying to someone living in mortal sin, “Yeah, it’s bad, but I know change would be really hard, so you’re okay for now.” Frankly, we can make enough excuses for ourselves without Francis’ help.
For me, the most interesting and persuasive argument for Hell is that those who have so ardently and willfully rejected God simply could not bear to be in His presence. Hell may be a state of suffering due to separation from God, but it is one that the individual has in reality chosen for himself.
“If man has infinite dignity, how can he be condemned to the eternal suffering of Hell?”
Simple. Hell isn’t about human dignity, it’s about God’s infinite holiness and sin as a violation of that holiness. A sin of infinite proportions requires a punishment of infinite proportions. Hell is the eternal vindication of the infinite value of God’s holiness.
Hell is NOT empty or the Catechism is wrong. “Satan and the other demons, about which Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church speak, were angels, created good by God. They were, however, transformed into evil because with a free and irrevocable choice they rejected God and his Kingdom, thus giving rise to the existence of hell.” CCC 391-395, 414. Perhaps what some are trying to say is “there may be no humans in hell” which is different from what the Catechism says.
The first and greatest commandment (not suggestion, not hyperbole, COMMANDMENT) is to return God’s love with all our heart, mind and strength.
To not do this is to cut one’s self off from God in this life, which flows into the next. God will not force anyone to return that love after death, as that is not love. Nor is claiming love while only trying to get something out of it (such as eternity) while ignoring and not returning love for all of life.
All the other commandments flow from the first, and if the first is not met, meeting the others without selfishness and hypocricy is impossible.
Those who do not meet the first may be in for a rude awakening at death, no matter how observant of other tenants. Meanwhile, those same who deny we can freely choose to cut ourselves off from God deny human freedom of choice and turn us into wind-up toys of the maker, clacking along a pre-ordained course.
No thank you.
So well said and two things come to mind.
Wrong types of spirituality eg., over-weaning and “wooing”, or excessively paternalizing and overly expectant, or even just over- or under-estimating – un-Christ-like.
We CAN know there is a hell from faith and from faith DO KNOW: it’s Scripture, Christ Himself said so, Christ’s Passion and Death mark it out, confirmed by the Church and saints’ witness. But we will not all know until the General Judgment precisely all who ended up there.
This statement from Pope Francis puts too much strain on categories, as I consider it; while he gives no indication that they exist and would matter. Theological virtues are possible for non-believers. Only the definitive encounter with Christ elevates theological and human virtues in the grace that comes in that.
‘ The three theological virtues are great gifts of God. Without them, we might be prudent, just, strong, and temperate, but we would not have a heart that loves even when it is not loved, nor would we have hope that dares against all hope. ‘
– Pope Francis on X
https://twitter.com/Pontifex/status/1785632760599634341
This sober but disquieting analysis by Dr. Chapp goes to the core of what is wrong with the Bergoglio pontificate: a cynical, defeatist anthropology.
“[A] constant refrain of ‘pastoral gradualness’ and ‘accompaniment’ evincing a cynical, defeatist anthropology of therapeutic reduction wherein human life is viewed as embedded in a mosh pit of deterministic cultural and psychological influences so powerful that we cannot ‘reasonably expect’ real people in their ‘complex circumstances’ to escape.”
“[I]t is one thing to hope God might find a way to save everyone by redeeming their freedom from within, but it is quite another to say God almost ‘owes’ us Heaven since he has forced us all into an existence we did not choose; an existence that is in reality a little shop of horrors that inflicts upon us one horrific wound after another. It is a bleak figuration of the nature of life where our freedom is construed as a cork bobbing around on the surface of a tempestuous ocean and with nothing but hidden monsters below.”
Pope Francis, for all his insistence on “joy”, in fact offers us a very bleak outlook – an existence without a genuine Saviour, a God who could not really care about you destroying yourself with sin. This, combined with his relentless tirades against (and direct and indirect persecution of) any shepherd who faithfully preaches the gospel that was preached by the Apostles (cf. Galatians 1:8), creates an asphyxiating atmosphere that is quite claustrophobic.
I think you’ve hit the bullseye with this analysis.
Thomas James, attacking Pope Francis is not the fallback position of CWR but it is the Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for some frequent posters. Paraphrasing the Pope and then knocking down a strawman is also used. It gets to be sort of like panning for gold. You have to work through a lot of worthless material to reach a precious nugget. It can the tedious and bad for your blood pressure but if you pick a good topic and skim through a little it can be rewarding. Offer your sufferings in reparation to Our Blessed Lord.
No need for paraphrasing on published musings of a Pontiff and his Doctrine chief as to universal salvation, and no need to trouble selves for offering reparations if they are correct.
As a matter of fact, no need for that messy incarnation business, or even a Church (or Pope) based upon it, and the donations which it vacuums up…everyone can save themselves the expense and do something useful with the money such as party like it’s B.C.84.
I think it’s about time to repeat this –
“The smartest thing the devil ever did was to convince people that he doesn’t exist.”
(he does – and the imp is LOOSE)
Compelling piece. Eve was tempted by the devil and deceived by his lies. From the perspective of Bergoglioism, her free will was compromised and thus did not commit a grave sin worthy of losing Paradise.
And yet, from God’s perspective she was guilty. Catholicism for 2000 years has followed God’s perspective.
Bergoglioism is clearly not Catholic Truth.
Eve claimed situation ethics: “I was beguiled…” This is rejected by God.
Adam and Eve then fail to fall on their knees, say sorry and beg for Mercy. This failure is surely responsible for all the misery which follows, over and above the grave disobedience of God’s Law?
No one knows who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell.
By Deacon John Lorenzo
I write to all persons of authority regarding the spiritual lives of children in Catholic Schools and Faith Formation Programs in developing their relationship with Jesus Christ and attaining eternal life in Heaven.
The need for school children to attend Sunday Mass every week and receive the Eucharist is a must in their Catholic faith formation. We all know that many school children do not attend Sunday Mass mainly because their parents do not go to Church. This situation has been the norm for many years, without a solution, resulting in a steady decline in Sunday Mass attendance in the United States.
Noted in a Catholic Stand article (A letter to our Bishops) stated:
“I could not remain silent when hundreds of thousands of lost souls no longer attend Mass, are no longer in a state of grace, and no longer believe that the Eucharist is Jesus.”
These lost souls are the major part of parishioners, who at one time were the school children, that never attended Sunday Mass. Although parents and their children are told of God’s Commandment – To keep holy the Sabbath day, what is not emphasized is not telling parents the consequences of not obeying God’s Commandment.
Catholic school children must obey God’s 3rd Commandment, as part of their faith formation, just as they will be required to obey all of God’s Commandments when they become adults. If children are allowed to not attend Sunday Mass every week, common sense tells us, they will not be given the best chance of developing a relationship with Jesus nor getting to Heaven when they die as adults.
One of the greatest mysteries in the Catholic Church is – No one knows who goes to Heaven and who goes to Hell. Not knowing must be important if God made it an absolute for man. He knew that man would rationalize situations believing His mercy would never send any one to Hell for not attending Sunday Mass.
Those in authority, who have developed a close relationship with Jesus Christ from their youth, know how blessed their lives are. That feeling of knowing God is in your life is what many children are being denied in the Catholic Church today. Children will suffer the consequences of this denial which can be avoided.
well God Himself has made it known: on the right, the sheep go to heaven, on the left, goats go to hell – this we know in the universal….we also know some in particular: satan and his damned angels; the son of perdition (though we scramble the ‘interpretation’) and those He has made known to us through His Magisterium and have feast days and the like…like Saint Bruno, Carlo Acutis, Bernadette….the number of known is quite extensive, yes???
God is not to be faulted for His Perfection.
No one who has a serious spiritual life can deny the existence of hell. I see things in myself that are worthy of hell – I am terrified and disgusted – I know that only My Lord can rid me of them so I beg Him to do that. Hell is, in parts of my soul, here and now. I repeat, those who deny the reality of hell do not see themselves.
Hell, in my system of thinking, is the ultimate abandonment. Because God never abandons unless a soul adamantly rejects Him then it follows that in hell will be those who for all their life acted along the vector of abandonment, of other human beings and of God. By abandonment I mean not leaving your own child for an adoption but about refusing to see others as a person, depersonalization and dehumanization. When someone treats others as a non-person, he ceases being a person himself (he loses an image of God in himself). And so, from a psychological point of view, hell exists and exists already now, to some extent – or better to say a foretaste of hell of a total abandonment.
Finally, a very practical consideration. I would not comment on the words and actions of Pope Francis if he was not spreading the decease of a denial of the thick reality of evil (and hell as a real possibility), within the Church and by the Church. I will give an example. In our parish one priest has a habit of omitting the words of Christ about rejection, by Christ, the evil people. For example, he reads the Gospel where Our Lord speaks about those who are welcomed to the wedding feasts and those who are shut out. Then in his homily he speaks about “all-embracing love of God welcoming all to come to the feast” and so on. And so, he covertly strips the Gospel from all “hard” words of Our Lord and creates some sugary fake which he then connects with us. I have an impression that he literally does not see “the negative” statements of Christ. He seems to be unable to see them. This is why I call it “the last heresy, the heresy of the psyche”. His “nice” psyche makes him oblivious to the “severity” of Christ.
Paradoxically, “throwing hell away” throws Christ away. Strange, isn’t it?
Chapp strangely takes pains to try to avoid lumping Von Balthasar in with the rest, although he posits the same ultimate view. Arguably quite odd and out of place to interject that in the piece, along with a shameless plug/link to buy Von B.s book! (Chapp is a strong proponent of Von B. and universalism.) In the end it arguably matters little why one posits that Hell may be empty or that we can hope for such, but the general claim itself is what matters and is problematic. Especially as far as the average Catholic is concerned when they hear such an idea, the mechanics of how one says this could come about is a minor point, one could say. The fact remains that Von B., Francis, Fernandez, all essentially posit the same ultimate idea of an (potentially) empty Hell. Thus, in criticizing Fernandez and Francis, Von B.’s position may unwittingly be undermined too. It would also be reasonable to assume that Francis, Fernandez, and others precisely got the general idea from Von B, who really was the one to promote the idea starting a few decades ago. We must also always remember that Von B.’s claim was ultimately based upon and has at its starting point the alleged private revelations- which have never received Church approbation aside from other problematic issues- of A. Von Speyr. Von b. subsequently went back to Tradition to try to drum up support for it and some scholars have provided evidence that he misrepresented the Fathers in that regard. I look forward to a defensive reply from Chapp, in which he vehemently tries to defend Von B. or accuses me of misrepresenting the latter’s position!
Hmmmm. Not so fast:
From my patchy reading of Von Balthasar, I do recall a passage where he examines the creedal “descent into hell” as meaning that Christ only passed by the entrance of hell…
And that from the total darkness he rescued what Von Balthasar imagined as incomplete “effigies” already being carved-in by the still living who, by their lives, were on a trajectory toward their tormented condition or places in hell. Meaning not quite that hell is empty, but that we can still hope (!) for the salvation of all, a line which (I think) finds a passage somewhere in the Letters of the New Testament.
But, how might this work? ST. FAUSTINA, who predates von Balthasar’s speculations, offers this:
“I often attend upon the dying and through entreaties obtain for them trust in God’s mercy, and I implore God for an abundance of divine grace, which is always victorious. God’s mercy sometimes touches the sinner at the last moment in a wondrous and mysterious way. Outwardly it seems as though everything were lost, but it is not so. The soul, illumined by a ray of God’s powerful final grace, turns to God in the last moment with such a power of love that, in an instant, it receives from God forgiveness of sin and punishment, while outwardly it shows no sign either of repentance or of contrition, because souls [ed. at that stage] no longer react to external things. Oh, how beyond comprehension is God’s mercy!
“But–horror!–there are also souls who voluntarily and consciously reject and scorn this grace! Although a person is at the point of death, the merciful God gives the soul that interior vivid moment, so that if the soul is willing, it has the possibility of returning to God. But sometimes, the obduracy in souls is so great that consciously they choose hell; they [thus] make useless all the prayers that other souls offer to God for them and even the efforts of God Himself…” (Divine Mercy in My Soul, the DIARY, n 1698).
TWO COMMENTS:
First, as for our prayers, we can pray efficaciously even for those long-dead, because in His eternity, God can respond to our petitions not when we offer them temporally but when, at the last moment, they are/were needed.
Second, coupled with inculturation by anti-binary sexual activity, the Big Lied today is that even St. Faustina’s two contradictory (!) soteriological outcomes can be blurred, symbiotic, and harmonized (!), such that we can not only HOPE that hell is empty, but ambiguously imply that it IS empty…That is, instead of the binary black or white, why not assert that both outcomes are true? Very inclusive!
As with Cardinal Hollerich’s mind game that we “can combine opposites […] without changing your point of view.” https://www.pillarcatholic.com/p/who-is-cardinal-hollerich . As with Cardinal Grech whose general attitude on moral absolutes is to “stretch the grey area.” And as with Cardinal Fernandez who, in the capstone Fiducia Supplicans, rather than blessing “persons” as such, inserts the fluid alternative (!) of blessing “irregular” couples—as “couples.”
“First, as for our prayers, we can pray efficaciously even for those long-dead, because in His eternity, God can respond to our petitions not when we offer them temporally but when, at the last moment, they are/were needed”. I’ve had that desire in my prayers for the dead, the long dead as you say if they could possibly be saved retroactively. As God’s grace worked retroactively through Christ’s death on the Cross, which explains the graces given Abraham, Moses. Did you come to this on your own or is there a source? If so I’d be interested to know.
God the Holy Spirit Reveals, after death there is Judgement and the reward for the good and evil done, with hell, Purgatory and then Heaven [cf (Heb 9:27;Cor 5:10] It is final. The Gift of grace given in time and responded to brings one the Saving grace, as with Abraham, but after Christ’s Judgement after death at His Throne, there is no post-earth grace, retroactive or otherwise. Such is false Teaching. Blessings
Dear JMJ. The proposition is that God knows all things as a presence, including our prayers for the dead, and those long deceased. There is no sequence in God’s knowledge. If what Peter Beaulieu says is possible, it refers to graces given by God with the pre knowledge of our future prayers, to the person at the actual time of his death in this world. Not after his death.
“So my prayer for another is not something extraneous to that person, something external, not even after death. In the interconnectedness of Being, my gratitude to the other—my prayer for him—can play a small part in his purification. And for that there is no need to convert earthly time into God’s time: in the communion of souls simple terrestrial time is superseded. It is never too late to touch the heart of another, nor is it ever in vain. In this way we further clarify an important element of the Christian concept of hope.” (Paragraph 48, Spe Salvi).
I was curious about where Pope Benedict stated that “many” enter purgatory. Did he qualify that as “many of the faithful” or “many Christians”?
In the UA, prayers for the dead are specifically qualified as prayers for the “faithful departed.” I don’t think that is always true in prayers for the dead within the NO.
CCC 1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.
Doesn’t Trent or other Councils witness to this as well, wonderwhat is in Ott…”only those who endure to the end will be saved” – these are not false or empty Words or Teaching…death and Judgement are final. If one does not endure to the end Jesus and Mary will not attempt nor can They accomplish, to undue the Irrevocable Judgement and place of dwelling of any soul or fallen Angel for those who freely chose to not endire did not and “chose to condemn themselves” in Christ’s Testimony.
Meiron, my gratitude for your quote from Benedict’s Spe Salvi.
“Similarly, Pope Benedict, in his encyclical Spes Salvi [#45-46] speculates that the vast majority of human beings, despite their sins, continue to have an inchoate orientation to God, no matter how attenuated, and will end up in purgatory” (Larry Chapp).
To beat a dead horse that refuses to die, we have this from Benedict in Spes Salve 46, “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”. ‘We may suppose’, he says, based on the supposition that it’s unlikely that most are either hardened in sin or saintly, that rather most possess ‘in the depths of their being an ultimate interior openness to truth, to love, to God’ that most will be saved following purification by fire. Benedict quotes Paul in our trial by fire in 1 Corinthians Benedict perceiving this conditionally, ‘we may suppose’, as purgatorial fire post death. However, is Paul really speaking to trial by fire during one’s lifetime?
Again repetition is useful here if we take the words of Christ to mean what they say, ‘That many will try to enter God’s kingdom but few will succeed’. Added are the very many who don’t try at all. I would prefer that Benedict’s interpretation were correct, although his argument is not convincing.
The horse may be dead, but we aren’t yet! Thanks, Fr. Peter.
I would argue that both St. Paul and Benedict seem to think of purification of the ‘many’ in regard to Baptized Christians, not to humanity as a whole. OTOH, Christ’s “many” may refer to the mass of mankind in its entirety.
The ‘many’ of St. Paul and Benedict may not even apply to the protestant Christians who believe that faith alone saves; Paul and Benedict both discuss evil works or acts which each person does.
The First Letter to the Corinthians 3:1-ff is addressed to “Brothers and Sisters” and reproves their behavior as worldly, as they act “like mere humans” by their jealousy and quarreling. Paul claims that he laid the foundation “by the grace God has given me.” (Presumably Paul has baptized his brother and sister Corinthians while Apollos ‘watered’ the seed Paul planted.) Paul claims the foundation is Jesus Christ. Each person then works on building from the foundation.
Whether the fire of purification of which Paul speaks happens on earth or purgatory is not clear. I would suppose it could be either, but more likely it is in purgatory. Why? Some of us have learned some small bit of charity from ‘salvific’ suffering, and we know how difficult it is (the just man sins more than seven times/day). More importantly, the testimony of the saints and the Lord Himself all attest to its difficulty. Think of St. Teresa of Avila’s quip to Jesus, paraphrased as: ‘It’s no wonder you have so few friends since this is the way they are treated!’ Think of the first apostles being martyred, and how the Church herself has often treated her saints.
If St. Paul and Benedict speak only of the baptized (in whom the orientation to love and to Christ is given through Baptism–the theological virtues), then clearly many of that group may be saved. However, MANY of the TOTALITY OF HUMANKIND may not. If we grant that Paul, Benedict, and Christ all speak truly, I don’t see how we could conclude differently.
The horse appears to be dead; if so, a beating shouldn’t hurt at all! And if he is alive, a few licks of a whip may do him some good.
Also, Fr., Benedict himself may not given a clear or convincing argument, but he writes that our prayers for others have effect because of “the communion of souls” and the “interconnectedness of Being.” The interconnectedness of Being and “the communion of souls” would seem to imply the Mystical Body of Christ rather than, again, the mass of humanity. Else, would he not have spoken of “Being” as ‘being’? Or would he not have spoken (a la Francis) on the “fraternity” and “social relatedness” of all? Just yesterday Francis suggested that wars begin because people don’t embrace each other…
Meiron, thanks again for your scholarly efforts on an important subject. The language scholars who translated the original French La Bible de Jerusalem into English kept verbatim the scripture scholars of the original Dominican Biblical in Jerusalem footnotes to the texts, which make the Jerusalem Bible a great source for research. They repeat what you say, that Paul’s reference to fire is not a direct reference to purgatory “but several Doctors of the Church have taken it as a basis for that doctrine”. So we may say Paul referred to the coming trial the early Apostolic Church assumed was imminent. And that Benedict was following the traditional purgatorial inference of previous doctors.
Sorry, good Father, could not find the right ‘reply button!
Yes, praying and so forth for the Poor Holy Saint-Souls for their relief or release is a different reality than going into the Eternal and by prayer effectively making other their reward or its degree. That our prayers help the Poor Souls is a different question.
If there is only the Eternal Now how can one go back into a sequence – that cannot be – and thus before [time?, how is there a before in the Eternal Now?] a loved one dies and is Judged and enters the reward of that Judgement, our prayers can be efficacious? All things are present and concluded, realized in the now Eternal, and there is no sequential events, thus in eternity, the long past are already in the realization of their judgment and reward and cannot be helped – unless we put sequence and intervention into the eternal now and Being of the Holy Trinity so that a help or change is effective?? Please explain, thank you!
“First, as for our prayers, we can pray efficaciously even for those long-dead, because in His eternity, God can respond to our petitions not when we offer them temporally but when, at the last moment, they are/were needed”.
Yes, thanks Father!…we don’t make prayers that eternally effect a change in what happened in eternity already, we can not go back into the Eternal Now and changed what already is [now]. If God has/had our prayers in the Eternal Now at their Judgement the consequence has already occurred in the Eternal Now. This is why some proffer, ‘why offer them prayers, they already were offered in the Eternal Now, at least offer them but once as God in His Being in the Eternal Now is/has acted’?
It is further offered: ‘We really don’t need to pray because in the eternal now all is realized, satan and the goats are in hell, the saints or sheep are in Heaven’, nothing will change, it is predestination’.
How do we get to the Eternal Now before we get there [to the Eternal Now] before or at the time of death, departure and Judgement?
That JMJ would only be answered by God who ultimately decides. Our prayers for the dead, whether presumed in Purgatory or not are scripturally shown to have value, as Judas Maccabeus commanded the Jews to retrieve their comrades fallen in battle following several fierce battles to pray for these dead who were all found to possess idolatrous items under there tunics, presumably condemnable by God. Nonetheless Judas thought it propitious to pray for these reasonably long dead idolaters [see 2 Maccabees Ch 12. 38] as if mercy might be granted by their prayers.
As to the value of our prayers when the persons have been judged for eternity they would conceivably be assumed for the benefit of others.
so does Saint Maria Faustina say in her Diary, she continues to offer prayers with the Three-fold Church, for the souls that have died and been judged because her prayers can go back and prevent in the eternal now, the horror that they rejected the graces they had received by her prayers in time before their death and all that follows??
JMJ I believe my May 2 response above answers that query. If the person refuses the graces God is prepared to give at that moment, which may include intercessory prayer and sacrifices to be given in the future that would nonetheless be a final judgment brought upon themselves. The key is more in terms of the free will of the person prepared to meet death.
JMJ, I humbly concur.
Prayers “now” can amplify the graces given “then,” such that the endangered soul back then tips toward the salvation petitioned now, rather than otherwise not. Also, with Fr. Morello, if the soul still refuses “at that moment,” the die is cast. But, given the intersection of God’s eternity into our time, the opening–also noticed by St. Faustina–is the meaning of the term “moment.”
Blessings!
toCCC 1021 Death puts an end to human life as the time open to either accepting or rejecting the divine grace manifested in Christ.
Doesn’t Trent or other Councils witness to this as well, wonderwhat is in Ott…”only those who endure to the end will be saved” – these are not false or empty Words or Teaching…death and Judgement are final. If one does not endure to the end Jesus and Mary will not attempt nor can They accomplish, to undue the Irrevocable Judgement and place of dwelling of any soul or fallen Angel for those who freely chose to not endire did not and “chose to condemn themselves” in Christ’s Testimony.
God the Holy Spirit Reveals, after death there is Judgement and the reward for the good and evil done, with hell, Purgatory and then Heaven [cf (Heb 9:27;Cor 5:10] It is final. The Gift of grace given in time and responded to brings one the Saving grace, as with Abraham, but after Christ’s Judgement after death at His Throne, there is no post-earth grace, retroactive or otherwise. Such is false Teaching. Blessings
hmm…interesting, so does Saint Maria Faustina say in her Diary, she continues to offer prayers for the souls that have died and been judged because her prayers can go back and prevent in the eternal now, the horror that they rejected the graces they had received by her prayers in time before their death and all that follows??
If there is only the Eternal Now how can one go back into a sequence – that cannot be – and thus before [time?, how is there a before in the Eternal Now?] a loved one dies and is Judged and enters the reward of that Judgement, our prayers can be efficacious? All things are present and concluded, realized in the now Eternal, and there is no sequential events, thus in eternity, the long past are already in the realization of their judgment and reward and cannot be helped – unless we put sequence and intervention into the eternal now and Being of the Holy Trinity so that a help or change is effective?? Please explain, than you!
JMJ, the eternal now as you call it, God’s Pure Act is sans sequence, what changes are human acts. Sequence is strictly referenced to human acts. God’s judgment is once and for all eternity. Whether we act on behalf of the dead before, or long after their death, that does not change God’s omniscience or his pure act of judgment.
When God judges he has absolute knowledge of all things including our prayers long after the subject’s death. You’re permitting human reasoning to becloud what is a mystery of faith and reason, that God knows all things and is Pure Act [meaning it’s impossible to restrict God’s Pure Act inclusive of judgment to time. With God there is no time, as if the ‘eternal now’ as you call it restricts God to a moment]. Although we come to that conclusion by metaphysical logic, that mystery is not comprehensible to human understanding. Why we call it a mystery. It’s accepted in faith as we accept God’s name for himself as I Am.
David (and Carl)
My post to David appears below. I’ve encountered many problems with the CWR software for posting–“maintenance” and ‘host server’ issues, ‘duplicate comment’ issues, and disappearing posts all in the past few weeks.
Anyway, my comment below is a reply to David. Thanks.
Early Church Father Origen (b. about 185) delved into and developed this idea, so it’s not new.
I posted another reply to you, below. For some reason, the CWR software seems to misalign a Reply so it doesn’t appear as a Reply to the intended recipient.
Is Pope Francis really going to visit the UN to talk about the dangers of AI? Surely this is completely outside his competence. Did Saint Peter lecture the Romans on how to build roads? Where are the Pope’s minders?
By your comment, you also seem to miss the point, and that’s the problem.
And what is “the point”?
A better analogy than Roman roads is Einstein’s space/time controversy with some guy named Le Maitre. Concurrent with Hubble, Le Maitre exposed a bias built into Einstein’s equations of relativity, thereby reversing the false conclusion that the physical universe was self-sufficient and eternal. Le Maitre disclosed contingency and the Big Bang.
So, about economics (etc.) and the industrialized G7, what are the errant rules of thumb built into their economic equations and elegant computer models? Which, when handed over to data-dump AI, might very likely serve to deify the modern bias toward “Efficiency” at the expense of moral discernment?
What about moveable decimal points and expendable fractions, like random “disposal-culture” populations on planet earth? For example, supply chains exploiting child slave labor in India—hand-grubbing for mica twelve hours a day to ensure the lustrous auto paints and eye shadow, and lipstick and upticks in the global GNP? How long until the entire world population of irreducible human souls be reduced to digital non-entities within the brave new world of infinite computation? Microseconds? The calculus of rippling “consequentialism and proportionalism” versus moral absolutes (Veritatis Splendor)…
So, how to claim the benefits of AI (as in medical diagnostics, detection of tropical deforestation, etc. etc.), while also restricting the vastly amplified power of abuse to the transcendent human person, as such? In Roman times critics might have asked to what extent some Roman roads led to the enslavement of foreign populations, say, as in Judea.
A meaningful detail: Georges Le Maitre was a Belgian Jesuit priest—with PhDs in theology and physics, both.
You raise a number of issues, e.g. “..what are the errant rules of thumb built into their economic equations and elegant computer models?” Lay experts in economics and computing do not agree on the basis and effects of economic algorithms. There is massive disagreement about whether or not AI (artificial intelligence) is actually intelligent. If it is genuinely intelligent, should it be worshipping the Creator? How is Pope Francis going to say anything meaningful about this?
“How long until the entire world population of irreducible human souls be reduced to digital non-entities…” Of course it is impossible to reduce a human soul to a digital non-entity…” It is possible to talk as if you have done it, but not to actually do it.
I have forebodings about this – if our current Pope pontificates on AI it will probably provide ammunition similar to the Galileo affair to the Church’s enemies.
Is “the same ultimate view” the same as: “The effect is the same”?
It seems that Balthasar’s theory of hope that all (or many) may be saved is via some additional grace which interiorly MOVES the will to conversion despite sufficient grace previously given yet not accepted as sufficient enough. The effect of the Balthasarian theoretical hope seems not much different from the effect of a hope brought in from Francis’/Fernandez’ therapeutic pasture.
If circumstance, sin, cultural context, etc., are too much against man; surely man may rationalize that God must NOT HAVE MOVED his will efficaciously enough for him to convert. Man therefore chooses to do the best he can (i.e., remain in sin in ‘good conscience’) since insufficient or inefficacious grace has been granted him. Essentially, both Balthasarian and Franciscan /Fernandezian theories rely on God moving man’s will beyond man’s inherent freedom, so both imply a form of ‘non-free’ determinism.
The issue of predestination seems somehow mired in all this but is beyond my ken. But surely God sees and knows man better than we see or know ourselves. We are subject to illusion, delusion, sin upon sin, or grace upon grace depending upon our choice and God’s will to grant or not grant us more than sufficient grace. Ought we not defer and humble ourselves in His sight?
Journet’s “The Meaning of Evil” paints the ordinate rule of God and His permission of evil to the extent that He allowed the greatest evil the heart of man could devise–deicide. For man to now think that a God of such love owes man more? God knows and we ought to know that we are capable of deicide every day of our lives in small or mortal doses from now until eternity. Yet we want more, wiggling our way into theories of hopeful salvation beyond what the Lord Himself wrought and graciously has given.
________________________________________
None earnestly fear eternal Hell, most donot have hope for eternal life, very few got the Hope that if God remove the death sentence upon them and keep living them up, they could live for ever. So as per sensus fidelum, except a few who earned His (spousal) Love, (not paternal love aka mercy) everybody is ended in eternal death.
Similarly, true Faith knows that ultimately God is responsible for everything, but because of the original freedom/sin those who fail in their life to become eligible to be freed from death are not even convinced about the truth that God alone exist and everything else are His live works. So a faithful upon getting Faith know this as predestination but for others to maintain their freedom this made sound as predetermination and a nonsense for their conception.
The free will is apparent, limited with the choices given. The truth is that God actively hide Himself from sinners, who are made to speculate based on their imagined God (idol) so can be maintained in the original freedom/sin.
In nut shell, just as most of the sperms and eggs fails to end up as a living child, God uses all living to pick a select few for His paradise, rest are discarded to eternal death. Yet because of His paternal love none are offended with this knowledge beyond what He wanted for guiding them into the fullness of Truth, as they can pick other (God given) excuses to refute the above as Augustine long knew: God gives only managable/bearable burden.
Here’s a formula I would like to propose for the algebra of salvation:
The number of souls who believe that hell is vacant is directly proportional to the number of souls that will eventually make their way there.
(This ain’t rocket science, Bergoglio.)
It is undeniable that ecclesia has abandoned its core — its heart — for Marx, Freud, Nietzsche and Albert Kinsey. Are we going to wait another sixty years and start wondering how we got here? We’ve been lying to ourselves at least since 1962 when Cardinal Liénart overthrew “the” midcentury council and handed it to soft Marxists in episcopal garb.
Let’s wake up. The Church of Jesus Christ has been metamorphosized into a sandbox for sophomoric protracted adolescents who stand on the stolen virtue and valor they purloined from saints. There need be a purge.
Marx, Darwin and Freud ….Lucifer’s mock Trinity aping the Almighty
Darwin – removed God from creation
Marx – removed God from governance
Freud – removed God from procreation