On the Universalist Heresy

Universalism is the speculation that we can know with certainty that every single human being or possibly every creature, including the devil himself, will be saved, and was condemned in 543 by the Church. It dates from the time of Origen in the third century, with his defense of what he called “Apocatastasis,” the notion that all things will be all in God—everyone shall be saved. I dare say it is a belief well-established among Catholics today, supported by some Catholic theologians predisposed to this view.

Universalism stems from doctrine of hell, the idea that people might be separated from God for all eternity and endure eternal conscious torment because of this alienation. Universalist theologians, following Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar say that Universalism represents the triumph of hope over biblical evidence. Yet the Church has taught from the beginning that both heaven and hell exist, and there are two possibilities for each of us: eternity with God or eternity apart from God. At some point in the future, the Church and Scripture tell us, everyone is going to die, or Jesus is going to return. Whichever happens first, we will stand before the Maker of the universe and learn how and where we will be spending eternity. Our lives at present are to be about being ready—as wee the wise virgins.

In That All Shall be Saved: Heaven, Hell, and Universal Salvation (Yale University Press, 2019) David Bentley Hart assures us we all will end up in heaven. His universalist message is that a God of love could never allow the possibility of spending eternity in hell. This opinion flies in the face of almost two thousand years of Christian tradition and agreement on the topic. If the traditional view is correct, and it has been revealed to be so, then Hart is nurturing a dangerous, false assurance of salvation. This is the very serious dangers of universalism.

First, why should followers of Christ go to the trouble of trying to convince people to turn from sin and give their lives to God when they will end up in heaven no matter what? As such, a belief in Universalism leads its proponents to ignore Our Lord’s command to proclaim the good news and risk being held accountable for souls lost.

Secondly, universalism undermines the motivation to live such that we are ready to face judgment. Why should I sacrifice, love my enemies, pursue virtue, and practice spiritual disciplines such as prayer, fasting and almsgiving to become holy if I will gain heaven regardless? This is the greatest problem facing the Church in the United States today. Teachers and preachers who tell people exactly what they hope is true are legion, misleading them into thinking they are safe. In reality, they/we are in grave danger, and if we do not get right with God, we will end up in eternally separated from Him for eternity.

When was the last time you heard a sermon or homily on the real and imminent danger of spending eternity apart from God? This Thanksgiving how often will your family and friends discuss the possibility that they might die, or that Jesus might return at any moment—and so they should be ready to face judgment? Heaven and hell are real, and the question of how to get into one and avoid the other is the most significant issue in all of our existence. How many of us spend time readying ourselves for eternity, or thinking about it, or talking about it with others? We make time for worldly concerns—making money, winning elections, attaining sexual fulfillment. But making time to ensure we don’t spend eternity separated from the Lord and Giver of life? No. Many are apparently sure that God is going to open the door to Heaven to us and everyone else. As such, we can focus on the really important things here and how. Jesus is loving and forgiving, and so we don’t have to be overly concerned with eternity. The idea that everyone goes to heaven is today embedded in our national soul. And Jesus said unto them:

Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.

Comments

This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News

DANCING WITH MR. D: This video of a young boy twerking at Pride has homophobes outraged | Gay Star News : 'via Blog this'

Dancing With Mr. D: Grooming the Little Children

A former pro-transgender activist said she regretted her previous work in pro-transgender activism, adding she felt she was "indoctrinated" on gender ideology in an interview with Fox News Digital. "I started to realize that what I had been doing at my job at the LGBT Center, it was grooming," Kay Yang, a former employee of a location in New York, said. Grooming in this context means "to get into readiness for a specific objective." Kay works as a 'deprogrammer' to help parents and children who have been 'indoctrinated' by the 'cult-like' transgender agenda. Yang herself previously went by they/them and worked as a 'trans educator' in schools for years. Listen to her testimony.

Pope Francis blasts “gender” ideology, quotes Benedict XVI: “this is the age of sin against the Creator!”

Here is an excerpt. From Vatican Insider : “In Europe, America, Latin America, Africa and some Asian countries we are seeing some real ideological colonisations,” he repeated. “And one of these, I’m going to say it outright, is gender ”: “Today, children, children! are told at school that they can choose their sex. Why are they taught this? Because the books are supplied by the people and institutions that give you the money. These are the ideological colonisations backed also by countries that wield a great deal of influence. And this is terrible. Speaking with Benedict XVI ,” he said, “who is well and lucid, he told me: ‘ Holiness, this is the age of sin against the Creator! ’ He is intelligent! God created man and woman; God made the world like this, like this, like this… and we are doing the exact opposite. ” Watch video:

Blogging Disciples!

To promote a book I spent years in writing , I began this blog. I am a baby boomer who knows all too little about blogging and the latest techie stuff. As I was perusing various Catholic blog sites, I noticed a post by Fr. Longenecker entitled, "The Smoke of Satan." If one troubles oneself to read Fr.'s quite accurate assessment, and becomes interested in just exactly how, according to the Pope who coined the phrase "Smoke of Satan" the Devil made his entrance into the post-Vatican II Church in the U.S., then my book is just what the Savior may have ordered, so why don't you!?

Bishops Bishoping!

As the nation’s courts increasingly strike down popularly-supported state bans on marriage between men who have sex with men, and women who have sex with women, bishops increasingly are “bishoping”, to coin a term I use often in my book; i.e., they are at long last defending the faith against the onslaught always sure to come from the secular culture. Diocesan Catholic schools in Cincinnati and Oakland, Calif., are weathering criticism for contracts that require teachers not only to witness to the faith in the classroom, but also in how they live their lives in the public square. Condemnation of Catholic-school contracts that ask teachers to not controvert the Church in public have received dramatized coverage from the secular media in California and Ohio, where a slight number of teachers are opposing the contractual language. A a teacher in a Catholic school it is heartening to see the dioceses in question standing their ground, emphasizing the dynamic role teachers ...

LEFTIST GENDER IDENTITY GONE WILD: Nebraska School District Instructs Teachers To Stop Calling Students "Girls and Boys" And Call Them "Purple Penguins" Instead...

On these pages I have written that Pope Francis labels the Gender Identity Movement "demonic." Here they go again.... LEFTIST GENDER IDENTITY GONE WILD: Nebraska School District Instructs Teachers To Stop Calling Students "Girls and Boys" And Call Them "Purple Penguins" Instead... : 'via Blog this'

What the F?

A certain person very dear to me watches too much of the Soprano reruns, and thus I too get caught up in it (to my shame--this HBO show and reality TV shows in general will make adjectival use of the F-bomb routine if we do not repent....) Thus it piqued my interest to run across this video of the Pope, who in the past has said, "Who am I to judge?" This video is heartening, for though we are not allowed to judge people, we are allowed to, even have a responsibility to, judge behavior . Nice going, Holiness!

Will Doctrinal Change "Bring the Church into the Twenty-First Century?"

A Catholic theologian once said that the Church is not infallible and that it has changed its doctrines. Perhaps he felt Jesus' words in Matthew 18:18-19 ("Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Again, I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything for which they are to pray, it shall be granted them by my heavenly Father") mean that the Church can change its doctrines as times change. No, the Church cannot change its doctrines no matter how desperately some theologians may want it to or how loudly in the social media they claim it can. The doctrines of the Catholic Church are the deposit of faith · revealed by Jesus Christ, · taught by the apostles, · and handed down in their entirety by the apostles to their successors. Since revealed truth cannot change, ...

Novus Motus Liturgicus

From The Smoke of Satan in the Temple of God: In 1959, Pope John XXIII saw a true need for liturgical renewal within the Roman Rite in accordance with the metaphorical principle of organic development, the aim of the Liturgical Movement endorsed by Pope St. Pius X. In authentic organic development, the Church listens to what liturgical scholars deem necessary for the gradual improvement of liturgical tradition, and evaluate the need for such development, always with a careful eye on the preservation of the received liturgical tradition handed down from century to century. In this way, continuity of belief and liturgical practice is ensured. As Cardinal Ratzinger wrote at the time, the principle of organic development ensures that in the Mass, “only respect for the Liturgy’s fundamental unspontaneity and pre-existing identity can give us what we hope for: the feast in which the great reality comes to us that we ourselves do not manufacture , but receive as a gift. Organic de...

Marquette: Jesuit But not Catholic

In the fall of 2014, a graduate student instructor of a philosophy course , Cheryl Abbate told a student at Marquette University, which claims to continue “the tradition of Catholic, Jesuit education” who secretly recorded the exchange, that his defense of man-woman marriage was an unacceptable topic in her ethics class and compared his views to racism. Abate said, "You can have whatever opinions you want but I can tell you right now , in this class homophobic comments, racist comments, and sexist comments will not be tolerated." And then she told the student he should drop the class. Now, for Marquette to be truly Catholic, a defense of a Cathodic understanding of marriage must not only be tolerated, but promulgated. Marquette Professor McAdams blogged on the incident and charged the teaching assistant with "using a tactic typical among liberals now. Opinions with which they disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merit...

Search This Blog