Hans Urs von Balthasar

[p0lar_bear]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Aug 13 2005, 03:23 PM']Interesting theory but conflicts with what so many of the saints have said : hell is a  well populated region.

Hell is paved with priests' skulls.
      - St. John Chrysostom

Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the cheif ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

Isaiah 14:9
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True, but that is private revelation, not part of the deposit of faith. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with Von Balthasar, but saints visions don't preclude his explanation.

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='p0lar_bear' date='Aug 13 2005, 04:35 PM']True, but that is private revelation, not part of the deposit of faith. I'm not saying I necessarily agree with Von Balthasar, but saints visions don't preclude his explanation.
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Yes but they are Saints, and what they say can never be contrary to church teaching.
and he is a theologian :

[p0lar_bear]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Aug 13 2005, 09:27 PM']Yes but they are Saints, and what they say can never be contrary to church teaching.
and he is a theologian :
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If it is not part of revealed teaching, faithful Catholics can disagree. Since the Church has never definitively declared that anyone is in hell, differences of opinion on this are not determining points for orthodoxy.


Saints have often said things that are not believed today. Jerome criticized the thought of a virgin bathing, in part because pregnant women were revolting....Augustine said that sex within marriage was almost invariably sinful. ...Hildegard of Bingen maintained that the phases of the moon at the time of conception determined the gender and character of the child...Aquinas argued against Immaculate Conception...

[morostheos]

I love von Balthasar!!! : Right now I'm using "The Heart of the World" as a meditation book, it is sooooo good! It's more poetical and less intellectual than most of his other works, which makes it very good for prayer.

[Era Might]

John Paul II comments in "Crossing the Threshold of Hope":

[quote]The problem of hell has always disturbed great thinkers in the Church, beginning with Origen and continuing in our time with Sergey Bulgakov and Hans Urs von Balthasar. In point of fact, the ancient councils rejected the theory of the "final apocatastasis," according to which the world would be regenerated after destruction, and every creature would be saved; a theory which indirectly abolished hell. But the problem remains. Can God, who has loved man so much, permit the man who rejects Him to be condemned to eternal torment? And yet, the words of Christ are unequivocal. In Matthew's Gospel He speaks clearly of those who will go to eternal punishment (cf. Mt 25:46). Who will these be? The Church has never made any pronouncement in this regard. This is a mystery, truly inscrutable, which embraces the holiness of God and the conscience of man. The silence of the Church is, therefore, the only appropriate position for Christian faith. Even when Jesus says of Judas, the traitor, "It would be better for that man if he had never been born" (Mt 26:24), His words do not allude for certain to eternal damnation.[/quote]

Edited August 15, 2005 by Era Might