https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNlv6hzNdzo

On his Youtube channel Bp Barron recently posted a video with a Larry Chapp. In the comments section there is a commenter named Athan who posts:



To which Bp Barron replies:


(Which is interesting to quote this since I've typically heard it in the Once Saved Always Saved debates).
But mind you, this is being said to contradict the sentiment in Athan's first post quoting Scriptures.

There's a little back and forth and Barron replies with:


If only St. Boniface, St. Columbanus, and hundreds of others felt this way.

Barron also states,


Then what sin could not possibly be overcame by God's grace. If the effect is to be: salvation so that no one could be damned. Why try to convert anyone? Why focus on improving your own sinful nature.

And.... Why even care if there are some in the Traditional community who view things differently than people like Barron does? If Barron can brush away sin so effortlessly, why act like the behaviors of Traditionalists are wrong? Why feel the need to act that they need to get their affairs straightened out? There is something that seems so contorted in his reasoning with this.

Reading and listening to Barron you'd almost think that the verse from the Bible should read:

"Narrow is the gate to Hell.... and few there be that find it."

Barron is a von Balthasarian

+Barron explicitly says that he is not a Universalist. I think he's honest in what he means, which is that he is not certain that Hell is (or will) be empty. But he very much is into the claim that we can hope it will be, which is what I call "soft Universalism." As Peregrinator notes, he gets this from von Balthasar.

Another puzzle piece to complete the picture... he claimed that one supporting the "Narrow Path" notion makes that person a Pelagian.

The thing about the soft Universalists/von Balthasarians is, they think that those who believe that we actually can't hope for the salvation of all are mean. They really don't believe that we can hope for the salvation of all, but that we must hope for it. And I think Barron falls into this category.

I think it is a set theory problem. If you read the first couple of chapters of "Dare We Hope" you see what he does to the scriptures that clearly teach there are damned souls. He makes a very strange interpretation. We know there are damned souls. The problem is that we cannot know that any individual soul is damned (with the possible exception of Judas). But, it is bad logic/math to say that from these two facts we can hope that all are saved. I think this Balthasarian idea is just bad logic. Pure and simple. I will agree that we can offer hope to EVERY SINGLE individual deceased person. Doesn't matter if they are Catholic, pagan, atheist, adult, infant, etc etc... But, that does nothing to the idea that there are in fact (unfortunately) damned souls.

FJ

Soft Universalism or perhaps crypto?

Another way to look at it: Barron hopes that a heresy is true. We can have reasonable hope that hell is empty is essentially saying we can have reasonable hope that Universalism is true.

Imagine hoping for all sorts of heresies to be true, but stopping short of actually believing in them.

Worse still, Barron denies the perfect knowledge of Christ while on earth, which is essentially denying His possession of the beatific vision. All from Balthasar (but of course this predates Balthasar as well).

Also, I wonder if Barron believes Christ suffered the pains of the hell of the damned like his master Balthasar?

Yes, I've tried to put it like this, we can hope for the salvation for any human being x in the set of all human beings X, but we can't hope for the salvation of all x.

Then what sin could not possibly be overcame by God's grace. If the effect is to be: salvation so that no one could be damned. Why try to convert anyone? Why focus on improving your own sinful nature.

Well, that's exactly the point of Universalism. What sin is more powerful than God? What sin can God not overcome? What sin is not paid for in full? Now, why try to convert anyone? That is perhaps the most silly question a person could ask. First of all, we are commanded to make disciples. Secondly, for the good of the nation. Do you like the way our country is going now with its fornications, abortions, murders, shootings, hatred, etc? If not, then get out and talk about Christ. How about because you love people and want the best for them. Being a slave to sin was hardly the best thing that ever happened in my life and I'm glad for the people who came to talk to me about Jesus. And, finally, of course, to avoid the fires of hell after death (aka God's love). Universalists believe there is a hell. We call it, as did St. Issac of Syria, the love God, which is the only fire directly defined in the Bible. That love will burn away all our sinful remnants and will be quite painful. Yes, just because is no such thing as eternal damnation does not mean that there is no hell. There is, but thankfully it doesn't last forever, but only until the full debt of sin is paid (Matthew 18:34 And his lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. 35 So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.)

And.... Why even care if there are some in the Traditional community who view things differently than people like Barron does? If Barron can brush away sin so effortlessly, why act like the behaviors of Traditionalists are wrong? Why feel the need to act that they need to get their affairs straightened out? There is something that seems so contorted in his reasoning with this.

I don't think that Bishop Barron is "brushing away sin." I would, however, like to see more discussion from those in the Universalist camp regarding the destruction of sin in our land, the horror of judgment in the next life, and the pains suffered by those who embrace sin in this life. In other words, warning! In the books I have read by Universalists, there is very little mention of the chastening fires of God's love and the pain that the wicked will suffer in them. My thought is that this gives the wicked far too much comfort in their sin. We should hate sin, both in ourselves and in the world.

Some of this response is not aligned with Catholic teaching.

First, this post assumes there is no purgatory and therefore, reject Matthew 18 as referring to it (purgatory)….which it is.

Second multiple other versus make it clear hell is real and permanent, not temporary. Because some saints may have misunderstood clear and consistent Church teaching, doesn’t mean we should entertain their beliefs as truths. It’s best to stick with the Church on matters of dogma. As an example…..

Jesus says that its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24).

Jesus didn’t say “easier to immediately enter into heaven.” He said “enter into heaven”. That’s clear Jesus didn’t mean a “temporary hell” for rich people where someday they would enter into heaven. He meant they wouldn’t go to heaven.

Otherwise Jesus would have said something more like, “It’s easier for a camel to pass through an eye of a needle than a rich man to quickly pass through the gates of heaven.”

He didn’t.

Because hell isn’t temporary.

If one can argue that hell is temporary based on the word used in Sacred Scripture, one can argue equally that heaven is temporary because the same word is used to describe it.

Some of this response is not aligned with Catholic teaching. First, this post assumes there is no purgatory and therefore, reject Matthew 18 as referring to it (purgatory)….which it is.

Well, since I'm Orthodox and not Roman Catholic, this shouldn't surprise you. We do not believe in the idea of Purgatory. We believe in a final purgation, which just about all mankind will go through to some degree, depending upon the remaining sin in them, but an actual place called Purgatory where one "pays for one's sins." No. As for Matthew 18, I suppose you read into the text Purgatory IF that was the teaching of the Church for the first 1000 years before the schism. The Orthodox have never accepted this idea because it is not found in the Fathers.

Second multiple other versus make it clear hell is real and permanent, not temporary. Because some saints may have misunderstood clear and consistent Church teaching, doesn’t mean we should entertain their beliefs as truths. It’s best to stick with the Church on matters of dogma. As an example…..

No, there is no verse that has the word "hell" in it, except, of course, wretchedly bad translations of the Scriptures by people with a bias. There are three Greek words which are wrongly translated as "hell." They are, of course, the ever popular Gehenna, Hades, and Sheol of the Old Testament. The problem with the modern mind is that we do not think as a first century Jew would have thought when he heard the word "Gehenna" or the word "Hades." He would not have thought of a place of eternal and unending torment. I have done a lot of research on this and the common Jewish understanding was about as far from eternal torment as black is from white. Eternal conscious torment didn't really enter into Jewish thought until the Greek (pagan) influence colored the thinking of the Jews.

Jesus says that its easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven (Matthew 19:24).

Jesus didn’t say “easier to immediately enter into heaven.”

I see you hold to the usual misunderstanding of Universal Restoration. No one who believes in Christ's universal salvific work thinks that everyone just waltzes into heaven immediately after death. As discussed above, we all will need some degree of purgation to cleanse ourselves after death. For some, such as the monks on Mt. Athos, this will be fairly quick and easy. For others, this will be a long and quite painful process.

He said “enter into heaven”. That’s clear Jesus didn’t mean a “temporary hell” for rich people where someday they would enter into heaven. He meant they wouldn’t go to heaven.

Since you are wont to toss around Scripture verses, there are 73 verses, such as 1 Timothy 2: 4 (God's will is to save ALL) and Romans 11:32 (God will have mercy on ALL)

Otherwise Jesus would have said something more like, “It’s easier for a camel to pass through an eye of a needle than a rich man to quickly pass through the gates of heaven.”

He didn’t.

Because hell isn’t temporary.

Of what character would be a God who would create sentient being with the foreknowledge not only of their fall from grace, but the possiblity of them suffering torments forever, and yet He would go ahead with this? THINK!

I was looking for a quote I saw last week and can't find it, but I did find something most interesting. Seems that the Latin Father, Jerome, believed that even the fallen angels will be restored.

In the end of [all] things...the whole body which had been dissipated and torn into divers parts shall be restored...the fallen angel will begin to be that which he was created, and man, who has been expelled from paradise, will be once more restored to the tilling of paradise. These things, then, will take place universally.

— Jerome, Commentary on Ephesians 4:16

Jerome was contemporaneous with Augustine, so his thinking was not influenced by Augustine's wretched anthropological musings and his strange ideas on sin as were the generations which came after Augustine. Someone asked a very interesting question the other day - why was it that the theology and soteriology of Augustine was so accepted in the West instead of that of St. Gregory of Nyssa, who taught that Christ's work of redemption will save all mankind?

And yet, St. Gregory of Nyssa taught that all will be saved. How do we reconcile these two?

To me, it indicates that St. Gregory of Nyssa isn't really a universalist and those who read him this way are proof-texting. But even if he is a universalist, he is not representative of the Fathers, even the Eastern Fathers, in general. The Catholic Church does not base her teaching on that of a single Church Father, Orthodox complaints about St. Augustine notwithstanding.

It indicates what you wish it to indicate. But let's digress from this because we are not going to agree on this point. Let me ask you this: of what character would be our God if He, knowing that mankind would fall in the Garden and thus be condemned to an eternity of eternal torment, would nonetheless go ahead and create mankind, not needing to at all, for He is lacking nothing, without a plan that in the end, all would be reconciled to Him again?

In other words, as David Bentley Hart proposes in his book under the first meditation, "Creatio ex Nihlo," all things are created towards an end or a goal. This is true for God and true for us. If I take up my tools to make something, I have an end in mind. The Fathers spoke of this in terms of protology defines eschatology. Therefore, in this understanding, the protology of Creation was specifically that a certain number of people would be created simply to be damned and tortured forever. That is the goal of their creation and for which they were created. If it were not the goal, then the only other eschatological goal to which mankind was created was union with God. There is no inbetween.

The first scenario posits God as monster. You cannot have it any other way. As the Calvinists say in their dreadful and heretical dogmas, the creation of mankind, including those who are not specifically of the elect and will be damned forever, is to being glory to God. Salvation brings Him glory and millions (billions?) being damned forever also brings Him glory.

How do you possibly say that God is good when His protology, His entire intent in creation is to ultimately the tormenting of millions forever without respite? Do you not realize that this is a picture of the pagan gods in their vanity, anger, and pride? A good being does not do this to other beings over whom He has control and authority. And most certainly, if the Bible is true, and God is love, you cannot say that this in any way is an act of love towards His creatures. It is, in fact, a horrid act of the most malign and vile behavior.

If God is omnipotent and has power over all things, then how can sin win like this? An all-powerful God has found the way to save all by entering into mankind, taking on our corrupt and broken nature, and healing it. The result of the Cross affects all mankind and ultimately, Creation itself. And within that all-power is the ability to bring even the most hardened of sinners to Himself. Omniscience knows exactly what will work on each soul. For me, in the depths of my hatred of God, the Bible, and Christians, I was allowed to wander freely in the Fool's Paradise of sin, eating its poisonous fruit until I was near death (this is NOT hyperbole!). Only then did I realize that sin was not my friend and that I needed help. Not all come to this conclusion in this lifetime, but I am thankful that I somehow did.

I believe in an all-powerful and all-wise God. His power over death was displayed in His Resurrection. He went down into Hades, smashed its gates, released the captives, and freed mankind from the power of death. His all-wisdom will find a way to bring even the worst and most rebellious of sinners to repentance, some now, some later.

I do not think saving some and not all makes God a monster. And I think this is a thoroughly modern idea.

But saving everyone does make God a monster, because ultimately behavior does not matter, in the words of The Clash 'you can be true, you can be false, you'll be given the same reward', universal salvation has the same effect as atheism to paraphrase Dostoyevsky 'if all are saved, everything is permissible'

That's the rock on which "Once saved, always saved" founders. Because if OSAS is true, then after being saved there is no sin.