Has hell frozen over? [Church teaching has shifted away from damnation and now focuses on salvation]

To a young girl attending Catholic school in the 1940s, eternal damnation was no abstract concept. “The nuns really terrified us,” says Pat Conroy, who grew up in Maryland. The list of potential transgressions—from eating meat on Fridays to missing Mass on Sundays—was long. “It seemed like almost anything was enough to send you to hell. I became so scrupulous and worried about everything I did.”

“Hell was an important part of the religious landscape of my childhood,” recalls Peter Steinfels, who grew up in Chicago during the same period. “It was the hell of endless flames and eternal punishment; although even in second and third grade I recognized that there was something mythical about this.”

For Catholics like Conroy and Steinfels, who were raised on “fire and brimstone” images of hell, some of the changes associated with the Second Vatican Council brought spiritual and psychological relief. “There was much more emphasis on God’s love and how God really wants to save us. It was such a relief,” says Conroy, who now works to bring that message to the inmates of a county jail near her parish.

Over the last half-century hell has moved from being a fixture of the Catholic landscape to something that exists far over the horizon. “Other than hearing my father say ‘damn it to hell’ more times than I can remember, we didn’t discuss it much,” says Mona Cholowinski, who attended religious education at her parish in suburban New Jersey in the 1970s. “It did come up occasionally as the ‘place other than heaven,’ but the discussions were more about being good and avoiding temptation,” she says.

Annie Selak, a rector at the University of Notre Dame, sees a similar dynamic at work among a younger generation. “I would say that most of the high school and college students I’ve encountered rarely think of hell. The vast majority assume they are going to heaven. It seems like an automatic for them. They are good people, so of course they will end up in heaven.”

Some recent polling also bears out this change. The Pew Center on Religion and Public Life’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey found that only 60 percent of Catholics believe in hell. While comparable to mainline Protestants (56 percent), that’s far below the 82 percent recorded by evangelical Protestant churches.

No way in hell

Though the discussion of hell as a place to be feared has seemingly disappeared in Catholic parishes, schools, and homes, the debate over hell’s existence, and whether anyone actually goes there, has been reignited among evangelical Christians, most of whom continue to affirm that eternal damnation is the fate of any person who does not make an explicit personal commitment to Christ.

In his recent book Love Wins (HarperOne), evangelical pastor Rob Bell recalls how his church sponsored an art show on the subject of peacemaking. One artist included a quote from Mahatma Gandhi in her work. Someone attached a piece of paper to it that read, “Reality check: He’s in hell.”

“Really?” writes Bell. “Gandhi’s in hell? He is? We have confirmation of this? Somebody knows this? Without a doubt? And that somebody decided to take the responsibility of letting the rest of us know?”

That experience led Bell to write Love Wins as a way of exploring one of the central tensions at the heart of the Christian faith: the desire of an all-powerful God to save every member of the human race and the willingness of this God to allow individuals to suffer eternal damnation. As Bell puts it more pointedly: “Will all people be saved, or will God not get what God wants? Does this magnificent, mighty, marvelous God fail in the end?”

As can be gleaned from these quotes, Bell’s work is more a set of questions for reflection than a work of systematic theology. Nevertheless it has provoked a strong reaction within the evangelical community.

Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, called the book “theologically disastrous,” and accused Bell of embracing “universalism,” the belief that God will ultimately save every human being (and, in some versions, even the devil himself) regardless of their beliefs or behavior.

Popular evangelical blogger Justin Taylor took issue with Bell’s rejection of “substitutional atonement,” the doctrine that, as Taylor puts it, “Christ absorbed the Father’s wrath on behalf of those who trust in him and repent of their sins.”

Not all evangelicals were as critical as Mohler and Taylor. Eugene Peterson, professor emeritus at Regent College and the author of a best-selling adaptation of the Bible titled The Message (NavPress), wrote that Bell’s book did not compromise “an inch of evangelical conviction.” In a subsequent interview Peterson noted that “Luther said that we should read the entire Bible in terms of what drives [one] toward Christ. If you do that, you are going to end up with this religion of grace and forgiveness. . . . There is very little Christ, very little Jesus, in these people who are fighting Rob Bell.”

The headlines over Bell’s book also piqued the interest of some Catholic bloggers, who began discussing anew the debate over hell. Father Robert Barron, director of Word on Fire Ministries, responded to controversy surrounding the book by explaining on his website that Catholic teaching affirms hell’s existence, but doesn’t tell us if anyone has ever been sent there. The church’s vision of hell isn’t as much about God’s punishment as it is about personal choice, Barron writes. “Think of God’s life as a party to which everyone is invited,” he says, “and think of hell as the sullen corner into which someone who resolutely refuses to join the fun has sadly slunk.”

Bell’s suggestion that God may not actually condemn anyone to hell isn’t the only idea he’s introduced to the evangelical community that has something in common with Catholic teaching. When Bell writes of the possibility that those who do not personally know Christ may nevertheless be saved through Christ, he is echoing the words of Vatican II’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes, which states that “since Christ died for all, and since the ultimate vocation of human beings is in fact one, and divine, we ought to believe that the Holy Spirit in a manner known only to God offers to everyone the possibility of being associated with this paschal mystery.”

Still, the controversy that Bell has caused with his book is not unlike the discussions about hell that raged for centuries in the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church has not always taken such an inclusive position when it comes to salvation. Indeed, for most of its history, the majority position among the church’s theologians and bishops was that the number of those damned to hell would outnumber those saved.

Hell: A history

In the Jewish tradition, the concepts of a final judgment or hell as a destination of the unrighteous do not appear until relatively late in the Old Testament period. Many of the psalms ask God to save the author from sheol, meaning the “grave” or “pit”—the place where all the dead would go, regardless of their deeds in life.

This began to change toward the end of the Old Testament period. “As Jewish belief in the resurrection of the dead evolved, reflection on hell evolved as well,” says Jesuit Father John Endres, professor of Old Testament at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. Endres notes that in the Book of Daniel, the author writes that “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (12:2).

In the New Testament Jesus often uses imagery of fire to describe the fate of the unrighteous. In the Gospel of Matthew, for example, Jesus states that “every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” (Matt. 6:15). Matthew also contains the famous passage describing the division of the “sheep and the goats” based on their treatment of the hungry, the thirsty, the foreigner, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned (Matt. 25: 31-46). Those who fail in their duties to these people “will go away into eternal punishment,” says Jesus, “but the righteous into eternal life” (Matt. 25:46).

During the church’s early centuries, there was a range of opinion among theologians about how many people were going to hell. Theologians such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa stressed the cosmic dimensions of Christ’s victory over evil, a victory so complete that even the evil within human souls would be destroyed and all would be reunited to God. As Gregory puts it, “Of all those who were made by God, not one shall be exiled from his kingdom.”

A more pessimistic view was taken by the fifth-century bishop St. Augustine of Hippo, who in his later writings sees the majority of humanity as massa damnata (“Damned Masses”) destined, justly because of human sin, for everlasting punishment. “Augustine takes the position that everyone is damned in principle,” says Paul Griffiths, professor of Catholic theology at Duke University. “You should be a bit surprised if you are saved.”

Griffiths notes that by the medieval period there was widespread agreement that hell would be populated, but the church never took a formal position on how large that population would be. In general, though, there was a rough consensus that more would be damned than saved.

It didn’t take long for some cracks to appear in that consensus, however. The voyages of discovery that began in the 14th and 15th centuries revealed potentially millions of human beings who had never heard the gospel. Was it really conceivable that a just God would consign them to hell without even the opportunity to embrace Christ?

By the 20th century other changes within the Catholic world were prompting a reevaluation of traditional thinking about hell. “I think the liturgical and biblical movements of the 20th century were tremendously important because they really re-focused people on the person of Christ,” says Jesuit theologian Father Randy Sachs, professor of theology at Boston College.

Sachs argues that the church’s theology from the medieval period onward focused heavily on a philosophical concept of God. “God is perfectly just, perfectly merciful, and so on. So you end up in a situation where God somehow has to ‘obey’ his own justice by sending people to hell. It has led to some horrible deformations of Christianity,” says Sachs.

By contrast, he says, focusing on Jesus Christ as he is portrayed in the scriptures leads to a different understanding of God. “I’m not talking about this or that verse, but the whole picture: Jesus having table fellowship with sinners, his readiness to forgive, his criticism of religious authorities,” Sachs says. “As our faith and our liturgy begin to take seriously the life and deeds of Jesus, we realize that God’s style of justice is not at all like our style of justice.”

These ideas began to work their way into the church’s theology, leading to a more optimistic tone on the subject of hell. The late German Jesuit theologian Karl Rahner once suggested that individuals who had not accepted Christ but nevertheless sincerely sought God could be considered “anonymous Christians” and be saved on that basis alone.

A case for hell?

The shift in Catholic attitudes about hell is understandable in light of the church’s recent history. Nevertheless, not everyone has been pleased by this shift. Before his death, Jesuit theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles warned that a “thoughtless optimism” about salvation had become a serious problem. He suggested that “more education is needed to convince people that they ought to fear God who, as Jesus taught, can punish soul and body together in hell.”

Cardinal Dulles’ discomfiting questions remain. Have Catholics become too optimistic, too inclined to embrace what the German Protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoffer called “cheap grace”?

Steinfels, now the co-director of the Center on Religion and Culture at Fordham University, is willing to concede that there is a risk. “[Hell] did communicate a depth to life. Life was to be lived for high stakes.” Although he believes that there are better ways for the church to communicate those stakes, “I hope we won’t trade Deuteronomy’s ‘I set before you life and death: choose life’ for ‘I set before you unacceptable or nice: choose nice.’ ”

“This issue will always raise deep passions,” observes Duke University’s Griffiths. “I think many of us have a sense that heaven won’t be what it should be unless certain people are in hell. We all have a list of who those people are. But it’s a deeply unpleasant and irresponsible thing to do. The church has a list of the saved. We call them the saints. But we have no list of the damned. And that is a good thing.”

Griffiths cautions that we should not necessarily read widespread Catholic optimism about salvation as a denial of the possibility of hell. “There is a very important distinction between believing that it is possible that everyone will be saved and believing absolutely that everyone will be saved.”

Raised in the post-conciliar church, Mona Cholowinski says she never really believed in a “fire and brimstone” image of hell. Nevertheless she retains a belief that her choices in this life can have eternal significance. “I do believe that bad people will not be allowed entry into heaven, but I don’t really have an opinion about where they end up. Maybe they just cease to exist. ”

While Pat Conroy may have left behind her childhood images of hell, she still acknowledges that it remains a possibility. “I understand it more in relational terms now, as the absence of God’s presence. That should be scary enough for us.”

As for the younger generation of Catholics, Annie Selak is not convinced that a renewed emphasis on hell is what they need. “There is so much pressure on these kids to live up to the expectations of their parents, administrators, older siblings, high school teachers, and principals. The pressure is astounding! I think the move away from the fear of disappointing God and ending up in hell with one bad decision allows them to have a healthier relationship with their faith.”

A priest as well as a theologian, Randy Sachs has few regrets about the church’s change in tone. “In the confessional I’ve heard people talk about their understanding of God in ways that would turn your hair white. Some of our baggage is definitely worth losing.”

While conceding that less emphasis on hell could lead some to take their lives less seriously, Sachs counters that too much focus on our “eternal destiny” can lead to the same problem. “God doesn’t just come to us in Christ to save us from the world, but to save us from the sin and death that threaten it. He wants us to be living life in the Spirit now.”

The Pew Center on Religion and Public Life’s 2007 Religious Landscape Survey found that only 60 percent of Catholics believe in hell. While comparable to mainline Protestants (56 percent), that’s far below the 82 percent recorded by evangelical Protestant churches....
....the controversy that ["Love Wins" author Rob Bell] has caused with his book is not unlike the discussions about hell that raged for centuries in the Catholic Church; the Catholic Church has not always taken such an inclusive position when it comes to salvation. Indeed, for most of its history, the majority position among the church’s theologians and bishops was that the number of those damned to hell would outnumber those saved....
....The shift in Catholic attitudes about hell is understandable in light of the church’s recent history. Nevertheless, not everyone has been pleased by this shift. Before his death, Jesuit theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles warned that a “thoughtless optimism” about salvation had become a serious problem. He suggested that “more education is needed to convince people that they ought to fear God who, as Jesus taught, can punish soul and body together in hell”....

....Raised in the post-conciliar church, Mona Cholowinski says she never really believed in a “fire and brimstone” image of hell. Nevertheless she retains a belief that her choices in this life can have eternal significance. “I do believe that bad people will not be allowed entry into heaven, but I don’t really have an opinion about where they end up. Maybe they just cease to exist. ”

Before his death, Jesuit theologian Cardinal Avery Dulles warned that a “thoughtless optimism” about salvation had become a serious problem. He suggested that “more education is needed to convince people that they ought to fear God who, as Jesus taught, can punish soul and body together in hell”....

Who, then, can be saved?
Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments.
Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found.
Jews can be saved if they look forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God’s promise has been fulfilled.
Adherents of other religions can be saved if, with the help of grace, they sincerely seek God and strive to do his will.
Even atheists can be saved if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice.
God’s saving grace, channeled through Christ the one Mediator, leaves no one unassisted. But that same grace brings obligations to all who receive it. They must not receive the grace of God in vain. Much will be demanded of those to whom much is given.

-- concluding paragraph (formatting mine), from the thread Who Can Be Saved?. Article by Cardinal Avery Dulles

Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments.False! Other Christians can be saved if they submit their lives to Christ and join the community where they think he wills to be found.False! Jews can be saved if they look forward in hope to the Messiah and try to ascertain whether God’s promise has been fulfilled.False! Adherents of other religions can be saved if, with the help of grace, they sincerely seek God and strive to do his will.False! Even atheists can be saved if they worship God under some other name and place their lives at the service of truth and justice.False!

The Lord Jesus Christ said "Unless you believe that I AM HE, you will Die in your Sins" and "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." Acts 4:12

Also the Lord Jesus Christ said "No man cometh to the Father, but through Me"John 14:6

So there is no "intent" clause here. One must believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be Saved. Otherwise it is not possible.

Perhaps, instead of poorly written articles, you might find the source a greater benefit: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2O.HTM

	Help

Catechism of the Catholic Church

IntraText - Text

PART ONE: THE PROFESSION OF FAITH
- SECTION TWO I. THE CREEDS
  - CHAPTER THREE I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY SPIRIT
    - Article 12 "I BELIEVE IN LIFE EVERLASTING"
      - IV. Hell

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Click here to show the links to concordance

IV. Hell

1033 We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him."⁶¹⁰ Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren.⁶¹¹ To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."

1034 Jesus often speaks of "Gehenna" of "the unquenchable fire" reserved for those who to the end of their lives refuse to believe and be converted, where both soul and body can be lost.⁶¹² Jesus solemnly proclaims that he "will send his angels, and they will gather . . . all evil doers, and throw them into the furnace of fire,"⁶¹³ and that he will pronounce the condemnation: "Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire!"⁶¹⁴

1035 The teaching of the Church affirms the existence of hell and its eternity. Immediately after death the souls of those who die in a state of mortal sin descend into hell, where they suffer the punishments of hell, "eternal fire."⁶¹⁵ The chief punishment of hell is eternal separation from God, in whom alone man can possess the life and happiness for which he was created and for which he longs.

1036 The affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion: "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."⁶¹⁶

Since we know neither the day nor the hour, we should follow the advice of the Lord and watch constantly so that, when the single course of our earthly life is completed, we may merit to enter with him into the marriage feast and be numbered among the blessed, and not, like the wicked and slothful servants, be ordered to depart into the eternal fire, into the outer darkness where "men will weep and gnash their teeth."⁶¹⁷

1037 God predestines no one to go to hell;⁶¹⁸ for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance":⁶¹⁹

Father, accept this offering

from your whole family.

Grant us your peace in this life,

save us from final damnation,

and count us among those you have chosen.⁶²⁰

610 1 ⇒ Jn 3:14-15.

611 Cf. ⇒ Mt 25:31-46.

612 Cf. ⇒ Mt 5:22, ⇒ 29; ⇒ 10:28; ⇒ 13:42, ⇒ 50; ⇒ Mk 9:43-48.

613 ⇒ Mt 13:41-42.

614 ⇒ Mt 25:41.

615 Cf. DS 76; 409; 411; 801; 858; 1002; 1351; 1575; Paul VI, CPG # 12.

616 ⇒ Mt 7:13-14.

617 LG 48 # 3; ⇒ Mt 22:13; cf. ⇒ Heb 9:27; ⇒ Mt 25:13, ⇒ 26, ⇒ 30, ⇒ 31 ⇒ 46.

618 Cf. Council of Orange II (529): DS 397; Council of Trent
(1547):1567.

619 ⇒ 2 Pet 3:9.

620 Roman Missal, EP I (Roman Canon) 88.

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I am so glad that the word "hell" is back in the Apostles Creed!

Apostles’ Creed

Present Text

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son,

our Lord.

He was conceived

by the power of the Holy Spirit

and born of the Virgin Mary.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died, and was buried.

He descended to the dead.

On the third day he rose again.

He ascended into heaven,

and is seated at the right hand

of the Father.

He will come again to judge

the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and the life everlasting. Amen.

---------------------------------------

Apostles’ Creed

New Text

I believe in God, the Father almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth,

and in Jesus Christ, his only Son,

our Lord,

who was conceived

by the Holy Spirit,

born of the Virgin Mary,

suffered under Pontius Pilate,

was crucified, died and was buried;

he descended into hell;

on the third day he rose again

from the dead;

he ascended into heaven,

and is seated at the right hand

of God the Father almighty;

from there he will come to judge

the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,

the holy catholic Church,

the communion of saints,

the forgiveness of sins,

the resurrection of the body,

and life everlasting. Amen.

I have attended many different denominations over the past 30 years.

Mainly urban Southern Baptist in Green Hills-Nashville, then PCA Presbyterian, then TN/TX style Church of Christ, Missionary Baptist, Southern Methodist, old timey clapboard rural Assembly of God, Christian Church DOC, Serious Pentecostal with Glossolalia..Big Box usually, Episcopal and some other Big Box Nondenominational and Reform and Conservative Jewish Sabbaths and Seders etc

In this order I recall who spent the most time on moral behavior and celestial consequence and the reality of eternal damnation from most to least:

Tn/Tx Church of Christ...no question...serious doctrine on this ..no instruments btw...not even piano though they may have special nights

Missionary Baptist

Assembly of God

Southern Baptist-Pentecostal tie

Southern Methodist-PCA Presbyterian tie

I never heard Hell or damnation at Catholic mass though I was always there for Holiday masses with family

Some Big Box non Denominational churches never mention Hell or damnation either...they often eschew old line labels due to the negativity they perceive associated with traditional church views on behavior and instead focus on salvation, redemption or life coaching and motivation...and big on outreach

Episcopalian...limited experience from the 60s...seemed like what it was ...Catholics who had married clergy...same for Orthodox though it was just for special stuff..loved the incense and sanctuaries Never heard Jews talk about Hell nor ever knew any who thought much of it...including Hassidim

As for Christian churches I found Disciples of Christ (the Goblet label) to be the most liberal I ever attended.

I was raised Southern Baptist in a medium sized city in deep South and damnation and behavior-consequence were a cornerstone of the faith but you want hardcore unflinching church today I would opt for southern style Church of Christ...no parsing or ambiguity

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