Rob Bell is a evangelist and pastor a
leader in this emerging church movement
he just wrote a book called Love Wins
and it's a it's a book about eternal
life and he stakes out a more or less
Universalist position meaning everyone
gets saved so in the end everyone gets
to heaven and it's kicked up a
controversy among Christians because a
lot of his co-religionists a lot of his
fellow evangelicals are saying this is
just not a biblical teaching the Bible
is very clear on the existence of Hell
the danger of it etc and so this
controversy made the CNN website which I
thought was interesting proving that
hell excuse the pun is still a burning
question in the culture it's not a new
question this is a very old issue within
Christian theology though it might
surprise and dismay some people the
biblical figure who talks most about
Hell is Jesus of Nazareth so look in the
New Testament you'll find lots of
references to Hell on the lips of Jesus
he warns again and again of Gehenna and
it's never ending fire think of the
parable of Lazarus and die v's you know
where the rich man is separated by this
infinite gulf you know from the bosom of
Abraham I think of Matthew 25 that's a
sort of startling parable where you know
God will separate the goats from the
Sheep and it's pretty clear that some go
off to an eternal punishment so we
didn't just drag this language of hell
out of nowhere I mean it's coming up
from Jesus himself and then as the
tradition unfolds we see this question
debated back and forth and lots of
different positions of taken third
century one of the greatest theologians
of the whole tradition origin of
Alexandria stakes out a position not all
that dissimilar from Rob bells Origen
claimed that in the end perhaps after a
long period of trial and testing but in
the end everybody will be saved in clue
the Fallen Angels including Satan
himself its position that's called a
pocket a stasis in the Greek meaning
restoration all things will be restored
at the end of time
well the church condemned a pocket a
stasis and it said it wasn't taking hell
seriously enough now in reaction to
origin you might say someone like a gust
of Hippo comes along the great 5th
century bishop and theologian Agustin
had a much more pessimistic approach to
this question he said that original sin
resulted in what he called the masa de
nada
it means the damned mass so the whole
human race is basically a deserving of
hell but God in His infinite inscrutable
mercy picks a handful of souls out of
the mouths of de nada and saves them so
it's pretty dark you know most people
will be damned Agustin clearly thinks
now though it's hard for me to admit
this my great hero Thomas Aquinas is
largely Augustinian in his view on Hell
he also thinks most people will be
damned
in fact acquaintance so far as to say
that part of the joy of heaven is to see
the suffering of the Damned
because you're noticing how just God is
okay now you know I love Thomas Aquinas
but these are pretty dark views on this
question now come up to the 20th century
the great Protestant theologian Karl
Barth one of the most influential of the
modern theologians he stakes out a
position not all that some dissimilar
from origins or rob bells it's pretty
much a Universalist position that in the
cross of Jesus all people are saved and
the church's job is to announce this
good news to the world now one of his
colleagues a fellow Swiss and a friend
of his was Hans von Balthasar a Catholic
theologian Baltar took in a good deal of
the bar TN spirit I think reacted
against this Augustinian into mystic
rather dark view on hell both are said
this we may reasonably hope that all
people will be saved
you see what he's doing is he's pulling
back from Bart and origin and from a
complete a pocket haces position that we
know all people will be saved no no we
don't know that but we may reasonably
hope that all people will be saved
why because of the dramatic thing that
God did through the life death and
resurrection of Jesus God sending his
son all the way to the limits of God
forsaken us so as to bring back into the
divine life all those who'd wandered far
from it that's the way he reads the
redemption that's pretty powerful that
God the Son went all the way to the
limits even into sin and even into death
so as to bring the whole world back
because of that we may reasonably hope
that all people will be saved do we know
it no why because human freedom can
still resist even that acrobatic act of
love okay my own view having surveyed
this of this grand tradition my own view
is that Baltazar has it pretty much
right I think that God desires all
people to be saved
God has gone to the limits of God
forsaken us to effect this salvation can
it be resisted yes and that's why we
have to hold to the existence of hell at
least as a possibility see hell or
Gehenna the fire all that those are
spatial and visual metaphors for the
state of deep loneliness that comes from
having rejected the divine love that's
how I'd put it
hell is not so much a place we use
spatial metaphors for it it's a
conditions of state of being it's having
refused in freedom the Divine Love and
it results in this terrible loneliness
we have to accept the possibility of
hell we have to accept the existence of
it as a possibility because of human
freedom but are any human beings in hell
we don't know
we don't know the church has never
declared on that subject and and we may
pray that all be saved and may even
reasonably hope that all people will be
saved so it's a universalism if you want
but not of the kind of origin Bart or
Rob Bell variety where I know everyone's
going to be saved
it's a theologically grounded reasonable
hope it all will be saved you know in
light of that let me say a word about CS
Lewis because he one of the best images
I think for hell he said the door to
hell is always locked from the inside
not from the outside is that so much
that God sends someone to hell and then
locks the door whether we send ourselves
there if anyone's in hell he or she has
sent himself or sent herself there and
now has locked the door I've used the
image before of heavens like this great
party it's a share of the divine life
everyone's invited hell would be the
state of that person who has slunk into
the corner and refused to join the party
has locked himself in to this dark and
sad and lonely place that someone sent
there by an avenging God but a
self-imposed exile that's hell as a as a
possibility just a last thought hell you
might say is a corollary of two more
fundamental teachings namely that God is
love and that we are free
you can't hold to those two and I think
everyone wants to hold those two things
that God is love and we're free if those
are both true you have to accept hell as
a possibility because the divine love
can be refused in our in freedom when
it's refused it causes pain you know
it's as simple as that
that's why Lewis again says the love of
God lights up the fires of hell see what
he means is the love of God resisted
hurt
it pains us but not an arbitrary
imposition
it's a self-imposed exile I think that's
the best way from the Catholic
perspective to grasp this complex issue
of Hell and salvation bottom line we may
reasonably hope that all people will be
saved