tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post6200884677090765953..comments2024-03-28T17:53:43.541-04:00Comments on DarwinCatholic: Universal Salvation and ProbabilityDarwinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-88009911904298352842011-08-18T18:56:14.054-04:002011-08-18T18:56:14.054-04:00But of course,’ she said, ‘it’s very unexpected fo...But of course,’ she said, ‘it’s very unexpected for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, but the gospel is simply a catalogue of unexpected things. It’s not to be expected that an ox and an ass should worship at the crib. Animals are always doing the oddest things in the lives of the saints. It’s all part of the poetry, the Alice-in-Wonderland side, of religion.’ <br /><br />--Lady Marchmain,Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-21656312055168270642011-08-18T11:09:26.896-04:002011-08-18T11:09:26.896-04:00"One should pray that Apokatastasis is true, ..."One should pray that Apokatastasis is true, but one would be foolish to teach it as doctrine." Saint Maximos the Confessor.Maikihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00136891953810280076noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-92033317730766885262011-08-18T09:55:48.045-04:002011-08-18T09:55:48.045-04:00Brandon,
As always -- your explanation is very il...Brandon,<br /><br />As always -- your explanation is very illuminating. I don't think I understood the distinction between types of hope that you describe there. <br /><br />Given that the phrase often seems to come up in the context of worrying that the idea of anyone being damned suggests a cruel God, I had taken the meaning to be the first of the two possible meanings you list:'dare to have sure expectation that everyone will be saved'<br /><br />Or maybe, if not quite "sure" at least "strong expectation". This is the interpretation which I'm uncomfortable with.<br /><br />The second meaning (which it seems to me that Fatima prayer, as Chris points out, is an example of) I don't have a problem with -- though I'd agree that it's something we'll achieve only partially this side of the beatific vision.<br /><br />Chris,<br /><br />Good point. I also pray the Fatima prayer -- though I guess I'd always thought of it as being both a prayer for graces to be bestowed on those still alive (in order that they not be damned at the particular judgment) and also for the poor souls in purgatory that they speed heavenward. <br /><br />I guess in my untutored terminology I was using here: I saw it more as a prayer that each person be saved rather than a statement of expectation that no one ever has been or will be damned.Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-81175113931197930612011-08-18T09:04:05.196-04:002011-08-18T09:04:05.196-04:00However, I can't really bring myself to hope t...<i>However, I can't really bring myself to hope that all will be saved, because I don't see it as remotely possible that all will be saved.</i><br /><br />But isn't our faith *full* of things which are (seemingly) extremely unlikely? Hasn't the history of grace (or grace in history) surprised us on numerous occasions?<br /><br />I agree that it's unlikely that everyone will be saved, and I also think that this isn't something getting worked up about. Nonetheless, when -- for example -- I pray the Fatima prayer, I truly *do* pray that Jesus will lead *all* souls to Heaven.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09091653573582292028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-84448368239675705572011-08-17T23:27:48.089-04:002011-08-17T23:27:48.089-04:00I agree about the analogy with sin; I've had s...I agree about the analogy with sin; I've had similar thoughts myself.<br /><br />On the virtue of hope issue, my thought is this. Christian hope is an expectation of obtaining what is otherwise impossible for us, namely, God Himself, through God's help, which makes eternal happiness in union with God possible to us. This is strictly something which each person can only do for himself or herself: it is each person who obtains with God's help for them in particular, and one of the helps is itself the virtue of hope. Hoping for another's salvation in this sense cannot have any certainty and therefore cannot be hope in a strict and proper sense; if we hoped for them directly in the way we hope for ourselves, we would be presuming both on the person doing the obtaining and God giving the help. This is why, I think, the traditional view is that we can only hope for another insofar as love unites the other to ourselves, and that it does not bear the same certainty when indirect like this: genuinely to have the virtue of hope is already to have the very assistance in which one places one's hope. But we cannot have any certain anticipation or expectation on the basis of the virtues of another. We can only hope for others in the sense that, hoping for ourselves, we love others, and thus being unified by love with them, praying for their salvation as we pray for our own.<br /><br />Thus the phrase 'dare to hope that everyone will be saved', if we are using hope in the proper theological sense, is equivocal between 'dare to have sure expectation that everyone will be saved' (which is hope exercised directly) and 'dare to love everyone so as to do for their salvation what one does in hope for one's own' (which is the only way we can genuinely exercise <i>theological</i> hope for others). The former is simply wrong; it misplaces the certainty of hope and so falls into a sort of massive presumption. The latter avoids this problem, and in exactly the right way, but actually praying for <i>everyone</i> -- not merely praying words like 'let everyone be saved' but actually praying for each and every person -- is immensely harder to do than to say. Doing it in a complete way is surely not possible for us prior to heaven. Doing it in an incomplete way does seem to be possible; I remember Mother Theresa had a special rosary with which she prayed several times away in a general way for sinners on every continent. And perhaps this is an additional reason for asking the saints and the Virgin to help out -- a sort of doubly indirect way of indirectly hoping for others. And certainly this is a perfectly orthodox way of understanding the phrase. But I think it's important to emphasize that if we are talking a genuine virtue-of-hope sense of the phrase, we are talking an extraordinarily high standard of prayer (and other good works, like proclaiming the Gospel; but in how many good works besides prayer do we actually get anywhere near doing it for everyone?). Really, for most people, hoping for the salvation of people they know will be a handful, and will mean a lot of prayer on its own. And, in any case, you have to start at hoping for people you know before you can graduate to hoping for everyone.Brandonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06698839146562734910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-33388102616999525102011-08-17T22:04:28.120-04:002011-08-17T22:04:28.120-04:00Darwin, how is your closing thought not a distinct...<i>Darwin, how is your closing thought not a distinction without a difference?</i><br /><br />In isolation, I can see how one can hope that any individual person may have, somehow, been saved. Henry VIII, Brutus, Musollini, me -- who knows, each one may manage to be saved.<br /><br />However, I can't really bring myself to hope that all will be saved, because I don't see it as remotely possible that all will be saved. At most, I could perhaps hope that most could be saved, but that seems an odd thing to exert energy on hoping in the theological sense of the term.Darwinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08572976822786862149noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-14668569123992307072011-08-17T21:49:06.796-04:002011-08-17T21:49:06.796-04:00Darwin, how is your closing thought not a distinct...Darwin, how is your closing thought not a distinction without a difference?<br /><br />Don, the argument that Darwin is alluding to isn't that all are in fact actually saved, but whether or not it's even possible and right to *hope* that all will be saved. Solid Catholic theologians have argued that we have no basis to assert that all *will* be saved, but that there are grounds for hoping (in the sense of the virtue, not in a merely optimistic sense) that that happen.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09091653573582292028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13522238.post-92111075434782398442011-08-17T21:13:53.996-04:002011-08-17T21:13:53.996-04:00I rather think that if all were to be saved, Our L...I rather think that if all were to be saved, Our Lord would have given some indication of that while he was here on Earth. Instead his teachings about Hell make for sobering reading indeed, and never a syllable to indicate that there are not souls where "the worm dyeth not".Donald R. McClareyhttp://the-american-catholic.com/noreply@blogger.com