Will Many Be Saved? by Martin Ralph

Author:Martin, Ralph [Martin, Ralph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
Published: 2012-09-07T00:00:00+00:00

Do We Know That Anyone Is in Hell?

Balthasar acknowledges that in order to hope for something it has to be viewed as possible. Because of this he expends considerable effort trying to establish that we have no certain knowledge that anyone is in hell. He points out, as we have already noted, that the Church has not formally declared that any individual is in hell, not even Judas.167

Pitstick makes the penetrating remark that if Judas is indeed enjoying the glory of heaven, or will enjoy such glory, it is hard to make any sense out of Jesus’ words about him: “It would be better for that man if he had been never born” (Matt. 26:24). Dulles makes a similar observation:

The New Testament does not tell us in so many words that any particular person is in hell. But several statements about Judas can hardly be interpreted otherwise. Jesus says that he has kept all those whom the Father has given him except the son of perdition (John 17:12). At another point Jesus calls Judas a devil (John 6:70), and yet again says of him: “It would be better for that man if he had never been born” (Matthew 26:24; Mark 14:21). If Judas were among the saved, these statements could hardly be true. Many saints and doctors of the Church, including St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, have taken it as a revealed truth that Judas was reprobated.168

Roch Kereszty argues that “there can hardly be any question that in the view of the evangelists, Judas is definitely lost.”169 Flannery makes the point that in Revelation 20:10, “apparently, a human soul — i.e., the false prophet — is spoken of as suffering in hell forever.”170

As the Church has “received” the Word of God in Scripture and as it has subsequently theologically reflected on it, its teaching has come to assume that the “plain sense” of Scripture clearly indicates that there are people in hell. The Church has never felt that she should engage in “negative canonizations” (solemnly defining that a particular soul is in hell), although its solemn anathemas directed to individual heretics and to those who follow their teaching in the canons of the ecumenical Councils, are indeed, quite sobering to read.171

Even if one wanted to take a more cautious approach to interpretation than the tradition has, one would at least have to say that it is plausible that there are people in hell. Therefore, hope for the salvation of all would have to be restricted to those presently alive,172 and, of course, for the faithful departed and those “whose faith is known to you alone.” We cannot properly have hope for those who departed this life persisting in their refusal of saving grace and faith, although only God knows who these are. And while we hope and work for the salvation of all those still alive, we do so knowing, based on the words of Jesus and the understanding of the tradition, that it is quite possible that many will refuse the offer of salvation and die unreconciled to God.

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