[Kolokotronis]

Very good, D. My only quarrel with what you have said is that Origen had a notion that nobody really went to hell because God wouldn't allow it. It was one of the notions for which he was condemned.

[sinkspur]

My only quarrel with what you have said is that Origen had a notion that nobody really went to hell because God wouldn't allow it. It was one of the notions for which he was condemned.

And yet John Paul II, along with his favorite theologian Hans Urs Von Balthasar, said that it was not an unreasonable thing to hope and to pray that hell was empty.

[Claud]

Augustine was wrong about many things. This is one.. The Augustinian notion was to riddle everything with the angst and guilt that he felt over his past sins. Thus, he could envision a God who would put an infant who had not actually committed any sin into a corner of hell, and to have them endure a "light punishment."

Forgive me, but I'm a devoted reader of Augustine and I have never encountered this sterotyped vision of his theology--and by and large I think it is nonsense. Regarding Limbo, yes, he was the most severe on the subject of unbaptized babies, and departed somewhat from the Greek Fathers--which Aquinas helped correct.

But IMHO, the Greek Fathers make an even stronger case for Limbo because they deny that the unbaptized child would suffer anything at all.