The Church, right or wrong

I came across this article from the May 2003 First Things, which provides an excellent example of the kind of thinking that drove ex-Catholics, like me, to become ex-Catholics. Avery Cardinal Dulles (why does their first name come before their title? We don't say "George President Bush", or "Norman General Schwartzkopf"?) writes about the see-saw positions that the Church has taken over the last century regarding the number of people that we can assume are going to Hell:

Sometimes the complaint is heard that no one preaches about hell any longer. The subject of hell, if not attractive, is at least fascinating, as any reader of Dante’s Inferno or Milton’s Paradise Lost can testify. Equally fascinating, and decidedly more pressing, is the question of how many of us may be expected to go there when we die.

As we know from the Gospels, Jesus spoke many times about hell. Throughout his preaching, he holds forth two and only two final possibilities for human existence: the one being everlasting happiness in the presence of God, the other everlasting torment in the absence of God. He describes the fate of the damned under a great variety of metaphors: everlasting fire, outer darkness, tormenting thirst, a gnawing worm, and weeping and gnashing of teeth.

He goes on with a detailed exposition of the evolution of the Church's position on damnation through the ages, pointing out that the majority position wasn't very sanguine for the chances of the average person:

The relative numbers of the elect and the damned are not treated in any Church documents, but have been a subject of discussion among theologians. Among the Greek Fathers, Irenaeus, Basil, and Cyril of Jerusalem are typical in interpreting passages such as Matthew 22:14 as meaning that the majority will be consigned to hell. St. John Chrysostom, an outstanding doctor of the Eastern tradition, was particularly pessimistic: “Among thousands of people there are not a hundred who will arrive at their salvation, and I am not even certain of that number, so much perversity is there among the young and so much negligence among the old.”

Augustine may be taken as representative of the Western Fathers. In his controversy with the Donatist Cresconius, Augustine draws upon Matthew and the Book of Revelation to prove that the number of the elect is large, but he grants that their number is exceeded by that of the lost. In Book 21 of his City of God he rebuts first the idea that all human beings are saved, then that all the baptized are saved, then that all baptized Catholics are saved, and finally that all baptized Catholics who persevere in the faith are saved. He seems to limit salvation to baptized believers who refrain from serious sin or who, after sinning, repent and are reconciled with God.

Nothing surprising here for anyone who was raised in the church pre Vatican II. But here is the kicker, where Dulles sets up the argument for a more optimistic view of salvation that is, amazingly, totally consistent with past Church teaching:

Several studies published by Catholics early in the twentieth century concluded that there was a virtual consensus among the Fathers of the Church and the Catholic theologians of later ages to the effect that the majority of humankind go to eternal punishment in hell. Even if this consensus be granted, however, it is not binding, because the theologians did not claim that their opinion was revealed, or that to take the opposite view was heretical. Nor is the opinion that most people attain salvation contradicted by authoritative Church teaching.

Did you catch that? That is what we call, in legal parlance, a loophole. If Augustine or Aquinas or the various Popes that have spoken on salvation throughout the centuries weren't promulgating authoritative Church teaching, then why were they saying anything? Isn't that their job as authorities, to be authoritative? Would that we could all use this loophole in our jobs. "Yes, I did incorrectly state that this lawsuit was a slam-dunk, but I wasn't making an authoritative legal statement". "Yes, I did say, incorrectly, that your genitals had to be amputated, but I wasn't making an authoritative medical statement".

The Church has authority so that what it says can be taken as authoritative teaching. That's what authority means. When you are an official of the Church, whatever you say is authoritative because you are an authority. If it isn't authoritative, then you aren't authoritative. There is no value in authority except to make authoritative decisions.

The most sophisticated theological argument against the conviction that some human beings in fact go to hell has been proposed by Hans Urs von Balthasar in his book Dare We Hope “That All Men Be Saved?” He rejects the ideas that hell will be emptied at the end of time and that the damned souls and demons will be reconciled with God. He also avoids asserting as a fact that everyone will be saved. But he does say that we have a right and even a duty to hope for the salvation of all, because it is not impossible that even the worst sinners may be moved by God’s grace to repent before they die. He concedes, however, that the opposite is also possible. Since we are able to resist the grace of God, none of us is safe. We must therefore leave the question speculatively open, thinking primarily of the danger in which we ourselves stand.

At one point in his book Balthasar incorporates a long quotation from Edith Stein, now Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who defends a position very like Balthasar’s. Since God’s all-merciful love, she says, descends upon everyone, it is probable that this love produces transforming effects in their lives. To the extent that people open themselves to that love, they enter into the realm of redemption. On this ground Stein finds it possible to hope that God’s omnipotent love finds ways of, so to speak, outwitting human resistance. Balthasar says that he agrees with Stein.

This position of Balthasar seems to me to be orthodox. It does not contradict any ecumenical councils or definitions of the faith. It can be reconciled with everything in Scripture, at least if the statements of Jesus on hell are taken as minatory rather than predictive.

So what we're being told is that the truth could lie somewhere between almost everyone goes to hell, and almost noone goes to hell. As far as authoritative Church teaching can say, at least.

So why do so many people listen to these guys?

The spin continues:

The conviction of earlier theologians that relatively few are saved rests, I suspect, partly on the assumption that faith in Christ, baptism, and adherence to the Church are necessary conditions for salvation. The first two of these conditions are clearly set forth in the New Testament, and the third has been taught by many saints, councils, popes, and theologians. But these conditions can be interpreted more broadly than one might suspect. In recent centuries it has become common to speak of implicit faith, baptism “by desire,” and membership in the “soul” of the Church, or membership in voto (“by desire”). Vatican II declares that all people, even those who have never heard of Christ, receive enough grace to make their salvation possible.

This kind of spin, this parsing of meaning, would put Bill Clinton to shame.

"You shall construct the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free."