The Issue and the Charge

The Obligation to Hope for All

Epilogue: Apokatastasis: Universal Reconciliation

Definition and Context

Possible Responses

Too often we think of hope in too individualistic a manner as merely our personal salvation. But hope essentially bears on the great actions of God concerning the whole of creation. It bears on the destiny of all humanity. It is the salvation of the world that we await. In reality hope bears on the salvation of all men—and it is only in the measure that I am immersed in them that it bears on me.

Jean Cardinal Daniélou, S.J.
Essai sur le mystère de l’histoire (1953), P. 340

Neither Holy Scripture nor the Church’s Tradition of faith asserts with certainty of any man that he is actually in hell. Hell is always held before our eyes as a real possibility, one connected with the offer of conversion and life.

The Church’s Confession of Faith: A Catholic Catechism for Adults, published by the German Bishops’ Conference, English edition (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), p• 346

1. THE ISSUE AND THE CHARGE

All of us who practice the Christian Faith and, to the extent that its nature as a mystery permits, would also like to understand it are under judgment. By no means are we above it, so that we might know its outcome in advance and could proceed from that knowledge to further speculation. The apostle, who is conscious of having no guilt, does not therefore regard himself as already acquitted: “It is the Lord who judges me” (1 Cor 4:4). Still, in standing trial, we are not left helpless and disheartened; rather, as that same apostle constantly tells us, we can have confidence (parrhesia) and hope, since our judge is he who—as dogma says—has borne the sins of everyone. Are we therefore quite untroubled in the certainty of our salvation? Surely not, for which man knows whether, in the course of his existence, he has lived up to God’s infinite love, which chose to expend itself for him? Must he not, if he is honest and no Pharisee, assume the opposite? In attempting to respond to grace, did he allow God to act through him as God pleased, or did he presume to know better than God and act according to his own pleasure? [1]

        On the basis of this reverential state of being under judgment, the question arises of just which form and scope Christian hope may, or may not, take. For judgment can be “without mercy” and ominous for those who themselves have been without mercy in life (James 2:13) but will be merciful (for the judge is the Savior) for those who, in their own lives, have tried to respond to God’s mercifulness: “Mercy triumphs over judgment. “ That both of these possibilities are kept before our eyes is consistent with God’s strategy since the beginning of his covenant with us: “See, I have set before you this day life and good, death and evil” (Dt 30:15); “Behold, I set before you the way of life and the way of death” Jer 21:8); “In the path of righteousness is life, but the way of error leads to death” (Prow 12:28 LXX). By way of the New Testament (Mt 7:13f.; 2 Pet 2:15), this pattern of alternatives found its way into the earliest Christian writings (Didache 1:1; Barn 18-20). Man is under judgment and must choose. The question is whether God, with respect to his plan of salvation, ultimately depends, and wants to depend, upon man’s choice; or whether his freedom, which wills only salvation and is absolute, might not remain above things human, created, and therefore relative.

        One can also approach this in another way, and we will see that Anselm does so: assuming that men can be divided into those who are just and those who are unjust, can one likewise, then, divide the divine qualities in such a way as to leave mercy on one side and (punitive) justice on the other? And since the twd cannot, as on Calderon’s stage, enter into noble competition with each other, it will probably have to be as described in a Spanish work on dogmatics: “A healing punishment issues from sheer mercy” (this probably refers to Purgatory); “a vengeful punishment [poena vindicative] from pure justice, and this corresponds strictly to the offense” (this refers to hell). [2]Thus, where God’s mercy (which is obviously taken as finite here) wears thin, it remains for “pure justice” to exert itself. Now, since precisely this sort of assumption that divine qualities are finite is not acceptable, a dispute arises about whether one who is under judgment, as a Christian, can have hope for all men.

        I have ventured to answer this affirmatively and was, as a result, called to order rather brusquely by the editor of Fels (G. Hermes);[3] in Theologisches, Heribert Schauf and Johannes Bökmann added their voices”to this reprimand;[4] the concerns of these latter two will be considered mainly in the next-to-last chapter here. At a press conference in Rome, besieged about the question of hell, I had made known my views, which had led to gross distortions in the newspapers (“L’inferno è vuoto “), whereupon I published, in Il Sabato, that Kleine Katechese über die Hölle (Short Discourse on Hell), which was reprinted in L’Osservatore Romano without my knowledge and aroused the ire of the right-wing papers.[5]

Bökmann is perfectly correct: “If one were certain of attaining the ultimate goal no matter what, a quite essential motivation to conversion and absolute Christian resolve would be lost.”[6] However, I never spoke of certainty but rather of hope. The three critics, by contrast, possess a certainty, and G. Hermes expresses it with matchless force: “Such a hope does not exist, because we cannot hope in opposition to certain knowledge and the avowed will of God” (318b). It is impossible that “we can hope for something about which we know that it will certainly not come about” (ibid.). Therefore, the closing sentence of the essay declares tersely: “There is no hope for the salvation of all” (320a). If I speak “no less than five times” of the fully real possibility, which confronts every person, of forfeiting salvation, the retort I get is that the matter is “not” treated “seriously by putting on a stern face but by stating the entire and full truth. And the full truth about hell is not stated if one only speaks of its possibility . . . and not of its reality.” At this point, a first paradoxical statement occurs: “If we once admit that it is really and seriously possible, even considering all the opposing arguments, that men are damned, then there is also no convincing argument against men’s really being damned” (32oa). This is not comprehensible to me: if God sets the “two ways” before Israel, does it necessarily follow that Israel will choose the way of ruin? There was certainly no lack of seriousness behind the presentation of the two ways. But G. Hermes, of course, knows that the possibility is reality; he is not the only one, as we will see, who knows this. Just how will become evident from what follows here.

        But first one other regrettable thing: as a consequence of not sharing in this secure knowledge—and R. Schnackenberg, for instance, does not share in it when he says of Judas Iscariot that it “is not certain that he is damned for all eternity”[7]—one is then numbered among those “average Catholics” (256a) who veil the hereafter in a “rose-red fog” and “wishful fancies” (252a), participate “irresponsibly and cruelly” in “operation mollification” (256c) through their “salvation-optimism” (256b), adopt the “dull and colorless garrulousness of present-day Church discourse” (2S3a), practice “modernistic theology” (250b) and call for “presumptuous trust in God’s mercifulness” (2S3a). So be it; if I have been cast aside as a hopeless conservative by the tribe of the left, then I now know what sort of dung-heap I have been dumped upon by the right. But back to matters of substance.

We are not allowed to have hope for all men. But perhaps for certain individuals, and if so, for which ones? Now comes a second paradox from G. Hermes: “We can well . . . hope for every [!] individual [!] man and pray that he attains salvation, because [?] we do not know what judgment God will pass.upon him. But we cannot hope that all men will enter heaven, because that is expressly excluded through revelation” (318b). Let us, however, leave the paradoxical admission aside and attend solely to the end of the sentence, which at last reveals the source of the critic’s “certain knowledge”. It is, of course, the texts in the New Testament, which in fact contain sufficiently abundant talk of hell fire (Mt 5:22, 29f.; 10:28; 23:33), of the “outer darkness” (Mt 8:12; 22:11 ff. ; 2S:3o), of eternal punishment (Mt 25:46), of the unquenchable fire (Mk 9:43) and, abundantly in Revelation, of the lake of fire (1 20, 2 10, 21:8). Not only are there threatening words from Jesus —such as those against the unrepentant cities (Mt 11-20 ff.), the blasphemers against the Holy Spirit (Mt 12:31), the unmerciful servant, the evil vineyard-tenants and the worthless servant (Mt 18:21 ff. ; 21:33 ff. ; 25:30)—but also, it would appear, a correct account of what will take place at the Last Judgment, when the Judge, with a Michelangelesque gesture (in the Sistine Chapel), sends the evildoers away from him: “Depart from me . . . into the eternal fire, . . . into eternal punishment” (Mt 25:41, 46); and finally: “I never knew you” (Mt 7:23; 25:12). Does not all that suffice for providing “certain knowledge” ?

Now there is, of course, in the same New Testament, another series of statements, to be discussed later here, statements which appear to hold out the prospect of universal redemption. With as much clarity as could be desired, it is said that God’s will for salvation applies to all men; that the Church should therefore pray for all men, especially since Christ gave himself as a ransom for all (1 Tim 2:1–6); that the Johannine Jesus who has “power over all flesh” (17:2), raised on the Cross, “will draw all men” to himself (12:32); that the grace of Christ takes clear precedence over the transgression of Adam (Rom 5:12–2I); that “God has consigned all men to disobedience, that he may have mercy upon all” (Rom 11:32); and so forth. I will return to these passages later.

        For the moment, only two things. I have (as every reader can establish) brought out that the threatening remarks are made predominantly by the pre-Easter Jesus, and the universalist statements (above all in Paul and John) with a view to the redemption that has occurred on the Cross (that there are post-Easter remarks of a threatening nature—for example, 2 Th 1:6ff. Heb 4:5ff. ; 10:26ff.; and so forth—is not surprising: the “two ways” are always before man). What we have here are two series of statements that, in the end, because we are under judgment, we neither can nor may bring into synthesis. In view of this situation, I am accused of speaking about a “progressive revelation even within the New Testament” (317b), and this “auxiliary construct” is therefore found “unworkable and inappropriate” (318a), because, it is said, the words of the pre-Easter Jesus are reflected in the post-Easter situation and possess the same inspired dignity as the statements of Paul and John. I have never even dreamed of denying this. But what is at issue here is not at all the question of inspiration but rather the simple insight that the pre-Easter Jesus lives toward his “hour”, when his earthly downfall will be transformed into the full “overcoming of the world” (Jn16:33) and when, for the first time, through the Passion and Resurrection of the Son, the Father will have spoken all of his Word to the end, which only then, through the Holy Spirit, will become understandable to the disciples and subsequently to the entire believing Church. In no way does this mean that the words and deeds of the pre-Easter Jesus are devalued, but rather that they are given their proper place within the totality and unity of the Word of God.

And this leads to the second thing. I spoke of leaving open the cleft between the two series of statements. It is not for man, who is under judgment, to construct syntheses here, and above all none of such a kind as to subsume one series of statements under the other, practically emasculating the universalist ones because he believes himself to have “certain knowledge” of the potency of the first. If he does this, then those frightful theological speculations arise that we are given an example of in G. Hermes: certain “passages could, however, be understood in the sense of hope for all” if we did not have the texts of the first series. “The Church has always distinguished between God’s conditional will for salvation, which `wants all men to be blessed’—under certain conditions!—and his absolute will for salvation, which assuredly destines certain individual men, post praevisa merita, for salvation. In this sense, and in it only, are the two seemingly opposed statements of revelation to be harmonized” (317c–3 i 8a). But who, then, has asked you to harmonize here? And the “Church” that “has always distinguished” is not the Magisterium, but theologians of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, admittedly on the basis of a certain Tradition, which, as we will see, has long thought itself to know too much about the outcome of judgment. We might, however, make quite clear to ourselves how outrageous it is to blunt Gοd’s triune will for salvation, which is directed at the entire world (“God wants all men to be blessed”), by describing it as “conditional” and calling absolute only that divine will in which God allows his total will for salvation to be thwarted by man. The theologians will have no rest until, having fragmented God’s will for salvation, they press on to the notion of a “twofold predestination” (namely, of men to heaven and to hell, post, or ultimately also ante, praevisa merits) as something already split from the beginning, whose truly tragic, if not grotesque, history had occupied a host of medieval provincial councils (Orange 2, Quiercy 1, Lyons, Valence, Quiercy 2, Langres, Savonnières, Toucy; Valence had to confess that “many brothers” “took no slight offense” at the question of predestination: DS 625), then became obscured behind a thicket of distinctions in High Scholasticism[8] but reemerged overpoweringly in the age of the Reformation and Jansenism and was beaten down as insolvable in the Catholic disputations de auxiliis (on the ways in which God’s grace works). And that happened quite rightly so.

How little, to be sure, the situation was brought to an end by this cessation of Scholastic disputation, how existentially the rending of God’s will for salvation into two parts—or, if one likes, the splitting of the divine qualities into “sheer mercy” and “sheer justice”—was able to torture the profoundest Christian souls, is shown by the tragic picture that G. Hermes paints, quite truly, of the great and estimable Cardinal Newman. Newman, too, stands in the Tradition that, on the one hand, wants to be unconditionally true to God’s Word - with respect to both its highest promises and its most serious threats—yet, on the other hand, nevertheless already knows the outcome of judgment and therefore struggles to achieve a synthesis that cannot be brought about. As long as he struggles in existential uncertainty for his own salvation, everything is all right, although this struggle clothes itself in the formulas of predestination: “I stood from all eternity before your eyes, O God. You see clearly, and have always seen, whether I will be saved or lost. At all times my fate hovered before you: in heaven or in hell. O terrible thought! My God, give me the strength to bear it, so that the thought of you does not throw me into extremist confusion. Lead me forward to salvation!” (252c). At bottom, this struggle is authentically Christian, but it is already clouded over with knowing too much about God’s judgment. This already finds expression in the lament: “In vain does Christ himself explain that the wide way leads to destruction, and that those who take it are many” (252b); the destruction is, of course, hell. What, now, does Newman know?

We are but a few in number, and they are many; ... O misery of miseries! Thousands are dying daily; they are waking up into God’s everlasting wrath, . . . and their companions and friends are going on as they did and are soon to join them. The new generation grows up in the same error in which the old one died. The father would not believe God could punish, and now the son will not believe; the father was indignant when eternal pain was spoken of, and the son gnashes his teeth and smiles contemptuously . . . ; myriads ... , like the herd.of swine, falling headlong down the steep! O mighty God! O God of love! it is too much! (256ab)

Of course it is too much. But if someone thus sees mankind as a massa damnata from the outset, how can he still adhere to the effective truth of Christ’s statement that, on the Cross, he will draw all men to himself? The result, therefore, can only be a sort of despairing squirm at the sight of the Cross. The interrupted text goes on to say: “It broke the heart of thy sweet Son Jesus to see the misery of man spread out before his eyes. He died by it as well as for it.” (How does Newman know this—that Jesus died on the Cross not only for all sinners, which is dogma, but also because he was incapable of redeeming them, since hell was and will remain stronger than him?) “And we too, in our measure, our eyes ache, and our hearts sicken and our heads reel, when we but feebly contemplate it. O most tender heart of Jesus, why wilt thou not end, when wilt thou end, this over-growing load of sin and woe? When wilt thou chase away the devil into his own hell and close the pit’s mouth, that thy chosen may rejoice in thee, quitting the thought of those who perish in their willfulness?” (Should, then, the chosen be able to rejoice in heaven because they have been relieved of the memory of their friends—and which man is not my friend?—who are languishing in hell?) And when Newman closes his sermon with the prospect of joy and, with the Psalm, calls all peoples to rejoice because God “doth judge the people in equity, and doth direct the nations” : are not here broken threads tied unconvincingly tοgether with words from Scripture? After this kind of theology of the Cross, where is any room left for rejoicing? On his earthly pilgrimage, man is, of course, placed between fear and hope, simply because he is under judgment and does not know; I will return;to this later. But precisely the knowing (about the ultimate futility of the Cross) renders impossible this state of suspension of those on pilgrimage.

The solution is presented with great clarity by Josef Pieper in his book on hope:

There are two kinds of hopelessness. One is despair; the other, praesumptio. Praesumptio is usually translated as presumption, although translation as anticipation not only is more literal but also catches the sense quite precisely. Praesurnptio is a perverse anticipation of the fulfillment of hope. Despair is also an anticipation—a perverse anticipation of the nonfulfillment of hope: “to despair is to descend into hell” (Isidore of Seville),[9]

or simply: knowing in advance that despair will be something final. This double praesumptio, as anticipation of judgment, will be the great shadow that, from a certain point in time onward, will cast itself over the history of the Church and of theology. The chapter after the next will deal with that, but first it is necessary to take a brief look at the New Testament—a look that makes no claim to completeness, since exhaustive studies are sufficiently available. [10]

IF the threats of judgment and the cruel, horrifying images of the gravity of the punishments imposed upon sinners that we find in Scripture and Tradition have any point, then it is surely, in the first instance, to make me see the seriousness of the responsibility that I bear along with my freedom. But do Scripture and Tradition also force me to assume from these threats of judgment, beyond what concerns me, that even only one other besides me has met ruin in hell or is destined to do so? Quite to the contrary, it seems to me that, initially, the following thesis can be advocated (only, however, from the perspective of practical-prescriptive and not theoretical-cognitive reason): “Whoever reckons with the possibility of even only one person’s being lost besides himself is hardly able to love unreservedly.... Just the slightest nagging thought of a final hell for others tempts us, in moments in which human togetherness becomes especially difficult, to leave the other to himself.^” One should, however,

make a really unreserved decision to accept every man in his total worth and to seek one^’s own final joy in this affirmation of others. If one sees things in this way, then “heaven for all” does not mean something like an inducement to laziness in our ethical commitment but rather the heaviest demand upon all of us that one can imagine: the decision for a patience that absolutely never gives up but is prepared to wait infinitely long for the other. . . . If, on the basis of God^’s universal goodness, I cannot write anyone off for all eternity, then my eternal misfortune could consist precisely in the fact that I myself simply do not find the patience to wait infinitely long for the “conversion, of the other”.1

And not say at some time to the Good Lord: “Am I my brother’s keeper?^” Can a Christian allow himself to utter these murderous words? And which man is not my brother?

Karl Rahner is therefore right when he says: “We have to preserve alongside one another, without balancing them up, the principle of the power of God^’s general will for salvation, the redemption of all men through Christ, the duty to hope for the salvation of all men and the principle of the real possibility of becoming eternally lost.” And as far as preaching the Gospel is concerned, it is necessary that, “along with clear emphasis on hell as the possibility of permanent hardening, there should also be fully equal stress on encouragement to hopeful and trusting surrender to God’s infinite mercy.” 2The certainty that a number of men, especially unbelievers, must end in hell we can leave to Islam, but we must likewise contrast Christian “universality of redemption to Jewish salvation-particularism”.3 Hermann Josef Lauter poses the uneasy question: “Will it really be all men who allow themselves to be reconciled? No theology or prophecy can answer this question. But love hopes all things (1 Cor 13:7). It cannot do otherwise than to hope for the reconciliation of all men in Christ. Such unlimited hope is, from the Christian standpoint, not only permitted but commanded. “ ⁴“I cannot help having the impression”, says the commentator Joachim Gnilk*a, “that Paul at least occasionally harbored the fervent hope that all men will find salvation, a view that was later propagated as doctrine under the name apokatastasis and was, as doctrine, condemned. Even today, however, it is permitted to maintain •this hope, under the presupposition that the solidarity with mankind expressed in the hope is practiced, struggled with and suffered through by Christians in a way similar to that manifested in the lives of the apostles. “5G. Greshake writes, “Nevertheless: universal hope”.6 Thomas Aquinas taught that “one can hope for eternal life for the other as long as one is united with him through love”,7 and from which of our brothers would it be permissible to withhold this love? Or could we really believe Dante when he inscribes above his door to hell: “I was created by divine power, supreme wisdom and primal love” (Inf. III), only to have to stand by and watch afterward what goes on in his hell?

Should we pot, rather, follow the Church Doctor Catherine of Siena when she admitted to her father confessor, the blessed Raymond of Capua: “If I were wholly inflamed with the fire of divine love, would I not then, with a burning heart, beseech my Creator, the truly merciful One, to show mercy to all my brethren?” She spoke, Raymond tells us, in a soft voice to her Bridegroom and said to him:

How could I ever reconcile myself, Lord, to the prospect that a single one of those whom, like me, you have created in yοur image and likeness should become lost and slip from your hands? No, in absolutely no case do I want to see a single one of my brethren meet with ruin, not a single one of those who, through their like birth, are one with me by nature and by grace. I want them all to be wrested from the grasp of the ancient enemy, so that they all become yours to the honor and greater glorification of your name.

The Lord replied to her, as she secretly confided to Raymond: “Love cannot be contained in hell; it would totally annihilate hell; one could more easily do away with hell than allow love to reside in it.” “If only your truth and your justice were to reveal themselves”, the saint replied to this, “then I would desire that there no longer be a hell, or at least that no soul would go there. If I could remain united with you in love while, at the same time, placing myself before the entrance to hell and blocking it off in such a way that no one could enter again, then that would be the greatest of joys for me, for all those whom I love would then be saved.”8

But precisely at this point, someone will come up with the numerous texts providing evidence that Catherine herself and many other mystics who, in their imitation of Christ, had experiences of eternal-seeming damnation and godforsakenness—Resler has filled pages in stringing together their statements—were all convinced, despite everything, that the damnation of many was a fact. And it is precisely here that we are faced with the absolute paradox of Christian love. The hell that is brought before their eyes does not at all produce resignation in them but fires their resolve to resist it more strongly than ever. To be sure, a real discernment of spirits is necessary here. There are the çases in which the saint sees a group of men heading for hell (like “snowflakes^”, or like “falling leaves^”) and throws himself into the breach at the sight of their “course toward hell^”. There are other cases in which a personal experience of hell is granted apart from the sight of any damned persons; here (as with John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila), it is divine grace that arouses the zeal for representative sacrifice. “From there come, too, the powerful urges to help souls, with the result that it seems to me in truth that I would suffer death a thousand times with the greatest joy in order that even only one single soul might escape so horrible a torment^” (Teresa). Of Little Thérèse, Resler rightly says: “It is beyond doubt that the Church^’s teaching about the possibility of eternal damnation was of great concern to her.^” Even if there were cases not only in which images of hell were presented (which, in my view, probably applies regarding the vision of hell by the children of Fatima) but also in which certain chosen ones had subjective certainty that a number of men were already lost, then still (and this is the intention behind the revelation) the wish to take a stand against what was shown, to render it, as it were, untrue, by far outweighs in them the thought that with respect to those shown as lost nothing more can be done. This is evidently the case in the “Meditation on Hell” in the book of the Exercises, which is to be carried out with respect to the damned and, in fact—as always for Ignatius—in conversation with Christ our Lord.

In essence, all these cases concern the grace of being permitted to suffer along with the Lord, as we see with great clarity in the case of Marie des Vallées: “Her sufferings were, as the Lord assured her, a participation in his own, a renewal of what he had to suffer when he bore the sins of the world and was himself made to be sin. It was a quite new hell, . . . created for me by divine love and exceeding, in jts severity, its intensity and its torments, . . . the hell of the damned^” (Resler, Th, 1986, 7458), all of which lands us right in the midst of the experiences and statements of Adrienne von Speyr. Precisely the passages (allegedly suppressed by me) by Mechtilde of Hackeborn, Angela of Foligno and Julian of Norwich (ibid., 7359) show that, even in view of a hell believed to exist, the saint just strives all the more for a love that will cross out what lies written before her. The frequent recourse to the idea of at least easing the sufferings of the damned, an idea that links up with Scholastic speculations, should be seen as a groping attempt to overcome things apparently contradictory.

But, as promised, I want to bring all of this to a close with a longer passage from the work of the recently beatified Edith Stein, which expresses most exactly the position that I have tried to develop in these short chapters:

We attempted to understand what part freedom plays in the work of redemption. For this it is not adequate if one focuses on freedom alone. One must investigate as well what grace can do and whether even for it there is an absolute limit. This we have already seen: grace must come to man. By its own power, it can, at best, come up to his door but never force its way inside. And further: it can come to him without his seeking it, without his desiring it. The question is whether it can complete its work without his cooperation. It seemed to us that this question had to be answered negatively. That is a weighty thing to say. For it obviously implies that God^’s freedom, which we call omnipotence, meets with a limit in human freedom. Grace is the Spirit of God, who descends to the soul of man. It can find no abode there if it is not freely taken in. That is a hard truth. It implies—besides the aforementioned limit to divine omnipotence—the possibility, in principle, of excluding oneself from redemption and the kingdom of grace. It does not imply a limit to divine mercy. For even if we cannot close our minds to the fact that temporal death comes for countless men without their ever having looked eternity in the eye and without salvation^’s ever having become a problem for them; that, furthermore, many men occupy themselves with salvation for a lifetime without responding to grace—we still do not know whether the decisive hour might not come for all of these somewhere in the next world, and faith can tell us that this is the case.

Seen in this way, what were described earlier as limits to divine omnipotence are also canceled out again. They exist only as long as we oppose divine and human freedom to each other and fail to consider the sphere that forms the basis of human freedom. Human freedom can be neither broken nor neutralized by divine freedom, but it may well be, so to speak, outwitted. The descent of grace to the human soul is a free act of divine love. And there are no limits to how far it may extend. Which particular means it chooses for effecting itself, why it strives to win one soul and lets another strive to win it, whether and how and when it is also active in places where our eyes perceive no effects—those are all questions that escape rational penetration. For us, there is only knowledge of the possibilities in principle and, on the basis of those possibilities in principle, an understanding of the facts that are accessible to us.9

1. DEFINITION AND CONTEXT

The term apokatastasis occurs in the Bible just once, in Acts 3:21, in Peter’s sermon in the Temple. He explains to the Jews that they should reform their lives, and then God will send them Jesus, the predestined Messiah, who “must remain in heaven until the time of the apokatastasis pantōn, which God spoke of long ago through his holy prophets”. Two translations are equally possible: “until the time of universal restoration of which God spoke”, or “until everything predicted by God’s prophets has come about^”.1

The first version corresponds to the literal meaning of the term, which is “restoration”. Secular Greek employs it in the following contexts: (1) medical: restoration to health; (2) legal: return of hostages to their hometowns; (3) political: restoration of a previous form of government; (4) astronomical: recurrence of the same planetary constellation, meaning the completion of a “Great Year”; and hence (5) philosophical/cosmological: recurrence of a cosmic era, an idea developed and taught by the Stoics especially. At the recurrence of an identical planetary constellation the universe will perish in fire and then will form anew, thus beginning a new identical cosmic cycle (“The Eternal Return of All Things”). We should mention here [the Neo-Platonist] Iamblichus, who held that the cosmic conflagration would not leave “anything evil” behind, would make everything “rational and wise” again. Neo-Platonism, indeed, taught that all things, including the human soul, emanate from the “Divine Oneness” until a point is reached where the direction is reversed and the ascent toward God resumes.2

This basic meaning of the term clearly implies some notion of a recurring cycle: the intended end is identical with the beginning. Origen expresses this idea with the principle: semper similis est finis initiis [every end is similar to its beginning].3

But the second translation of the passage in Acts seems preferable because it better brings out the line of thought in Peter’s speech: “God has brought to fulfillment by this means what he announced long ago through all the prophets” (v. i8); repentance is therefore required (19); “thus may a season of refreshment be granted you by the Lord when he sends you Jesus, already designated as your Messiah (20). Jesus must remain in heaven until the time when everything predicted by God’s prophets of old has come to pass” (21). Then the prediction of the Messiah by Moses is quoted (22-23), followed by the witness of all the prophets since Samuel (24), and finally by the Covenant with Abraham (25). Here, apparently, a notion of linear development prevails: the chronological line from the most ancient origins to Abraham, Moses, Samuel and all the prophets, directed toward Jesus, who represents the certain assurance of the final Messianic Kingdom, the “season of refreshment^” and the fulfillment of all prophecies.

And yet, on closer examination there can be no clear-cut separation of such a linear-historical interpretation from the first, the cyclical, understanding. The verb apokathistēmi, occurring in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, points to the “restoration^” of Israel and her inheritance, with increasing Messianic overtones and contingent on repentance by the people, especially since the time of the Exile. Here, the figure of Elijah predominates; he has to prepare this restoration and initiate its beginning (Mal 3:24; Sir 48:10, which mentions reconciliation between fathers and sons and, above all, the restoration of the Twelve Tribes) . Jesus would later identify this figure of Elijah with John the Baptist (Mt I I: I4).4 Some cyclical understanding echoes as well in the disciples^’ question to the Risen Lord: “Are you going to restore the rule of Israel now [apokathisteis] ? “ (Acts i :6) .

Considering the Bible^’s general theological understanding of history, we certainly find in it a linear chronological conception, from the creation account to the covenants of Noah and Moses, to David and the prophets, to Jesus, the era of the Church and finally the eschatology of the end time. Oscar Cullmann5 considers this an essentially biblical conception of time, in contrast to cyclical notions in non-Christian world views. And yet, this linear conception is permeated and sometimes overshadowed, progressively and in varied forms, by reflections concerning recurrence, restoration and repetition of the origins. This happens in the Old Testament, as we have mentioned, within the expectation of a return, a political as well as moral return, to the original integrity and purity of the Covenant.6 As Heinrich Gross has demonstrated, this expectation expresses ancient Oriental longings by including the hope for an eternal, all-embracing universal peace. 7

The more the theological reflection on the Christ-event develops, the more we see the linear chronology of promise-to-fulfillment almost wrapped in a cyclical conception. Consider the complete cycle of Saint John’s conception ofJesus: “I came from the Father and have come into the world, and now I leave the world to go to the Father” Un 16:28). As the origin from the Father is explained ever more in timeless, eternal terms, and as God’s eternal plan of creation ever more includes, through grace, the future humanity in this eternal “birth from God” (cf. Eph “4-6), so does this Alpha of God’s plan ever more correspond to its Omega when the Alpha will have become complete reality. All this has to be seen not merely in some Scotistic ideality, but in real terms, with the world in actual fact being redeemed in Christ’s atoning blood (Eph 1:7; Col “:20; Heb 9:11-14). The Victim, the Unblemished Lamb, was “chosen before the world’s foundation, and revealed . . . in these last days” (1 Pet “:19-20). The cycle is complete in the Letter to the Romans, chapter 8, verse 30: election–call justification glorification—which, however, must not be construed as some kind of double predestination.

We shall now look briefly into patrology to identify its respectively cyclical or linear understanding of the term apokatastasis.

Gnostic systems are all entirely cyclical: in the beginning, the totality of all “Being^” contained in God^’s plenitude; then the emanation of the universe, which makes the material world appear; then the coming of the Redeemer, who leads all “lower^” reality back into God’s plenitude. This return, however, typically happens according to certain priorities of rank: “spiritual^” persons and true Gnostics go to the highest regions; Hylics, that is, those who have surrendered to the material world, and the Demiurge who created matter return only to a lower sphere. The logical connection between the Old Testament, seen as corrupted by material thinking, and the New Testament is severed here (cf. Marcion) : that is, any linear-historical sequence is denied.

In contrast, note Irenaeus^’ vehement reaction: all “flesh^” is created by God and is therefore good; the Old Covenant prepares for the Logos to become flesh in the New Covenant. A linear sequence clearly prevails here, even though salvation history is conceived as recapitulation. But it is only the beginnings, really, that are once and for all “recapitulated^” and remedied in Christ and Mary, after Adam and Eve had failed. For man right after his creation is still utterly incapable of bearing the overwhelming glorious weight of God’s love; he must go through the experience (peira) of evil in order to gain enough maturity to lead, eventually, a life “in the flesh” in imitation of Christ and to reach perfection through Eucharist and resurrection. We should note that in this linear conception the reality of sin can be seen as an educational means. And yet, Irenaeus speaks also about the concentration (anakephalaiosis) of all things evil in the person of the Anti-christ, at the end of the world, so that “all the power of evil can be gathered in one and thrown into the fiery pool” (Adv. Haer. V, 29, 2).

The Alexandrian School tried to reclaim from the cyclical Gnostic world view those Christian elements that could be integrated into a true New Testament theology. Clement, in this context, and also Origen raise the question about the disposition of evil at,the return of the universe to God; since evil has been absent in the Alpha, it would not seem possible to tolerate it in the Omega. This question greatly occupied the Fathers up to Augustine; we shall return to it in the second chapter of this epilogue. Before we do so, we consider how the cyclical pattern found in the Old Testament, which incorporates Irenaeus’ and its own linear pattern, could be logically integrated into the theological speculation.

In general outline, there appear three attempted solutions. The first is offered by Origen, who follows a Platonic-Gnostic conception without abandoning the notion of creation. Origen himself makes it clear that he speaks only “gropingly^” and “tentatively^” (gymnastikōs); so his premises should not be taken as his final and firm convictions. Man is originally with God, created with a subtle, spirit-like body8 in God’s image, which was to become also God’s likeness through the exercise of freedom.9 As yet he is asexual; and if Scripture says, “Male and female God created them; he blessed them, saying, ‘Be fruitful and multiply’”, then it merely anticipates what is to come (praeveniens quod futurum erat).10 Oηly after man had turned away from God and toward the material world did his body “condense^” materially and sexual, animal-like procreation begin. One of the angelic princes who had “fallen^” before became the tempter-serpent. And yet it is human destiny—Origen said it first, not Augustine or Bernard—to take the place of the fallen angels in God^’s kingdom; this will happen at the resurrection of the dead, effected by the saving work of the Logos.11 We find here, then, an apokatastasis in a predominantly cyclical conception: the vertical descent from God and the return to him.12 As the matter-bound, earthly body reverts back into the spirit-like resurrected body, all evil disappears as well.

The second answer comes from Gregory of Nyssa and closely resembles the first. But Gregory abandons the distinction between the two forms of materiality; our first parents in the Garden of Eden basically have already the same body as we do. Gregory, too, holds that animal-like procreation began only after the expulsion from Eden; God, however, in view of the Fall, had from the beginning endowed our first parents with their sexual organs, which would not have been used if paradise and its unknown way of procreation had continued. In this, Gregory agrees with Origen.13 The human race to spring from Adam’s loins is destined to be only temporal and thus is limited; it is destined to return, through the resurrection,•,to the blissful state of Eden. Gregory presents us with an odd mixture of cyclical and linear apokatastasis, as if Irenaeus’ conception were integrated into that of Origen. But this does not add up altogether; for there is no need for sexual organs after the resurrection.14 From this we can already anticipate how Gregory will eventually answer the question about evil and its disappearance: as the entire material and historical order is temporal, so also is evil, in contrast to the good, which is eternal.

A third conception, that of Maximus the Confessor, tries to avoid the pitfalls of Origen’s approach yet preserve its brilliant intuitions. Maximus, too, develops a decidedly cyclical pattern; but his starting point, the Alpha, is not humanity’s pre-existence in God—a proposition he firmly rejects—it is rather the “Idea” that God has of every being and so also of every future human being. A period of blissful paradise does not occur because man, only just created, already rebels against God. Thus a linear history of the world ensues, similar to Irenaeus^’ thought. Christ, who is God and man, holds up for us, however, the original Idea and bestows it on us in our rebirth in God from water and the Spirit. Hence the way of perfection consists in striving to conform to this Idea in God^’s mind: “the ascent [ánodos] and the restoration [apokatastasis] are directed toward the Idea in God [logos], which has determined our creation.” 15In this conception, then, through the mediation of Christ, man becomes God—so Maximus declares—in the same degree as God becomes man. 16

It is tempting to pursue further the subsequent history of these three conceptions. The latter would lead us first to John Scotus Erigena, then to Meister Eckhart, who identifies the true human reality with the divine Idea (which, in essence, is God), then on to the Christological monism of Blondel and Teilhard de Chardin. But we still have to face our primary question, and we will do so now in the second chapter.

2. POSSIBLE RESPONSES

The New Testament contains statements that put the twofold outcome of Old Testament judgment in even sharper focus. We hear not just about the rejection and destruction of enemies and wrongdoers, but explicitly about the “everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his followers^” (Mt 25:41), about the sin against the Spirit, not to be forgiven “either in this age or in the age to come^” (Mt 12:32), about the final “I do not know you^” (Mt 25:12), even “I never knew you!^” (Mt :23). Together with these and similar passages that unambiguously envision a twofold consequence, salvation or damnation, there exist equally numerous passages which emphasize the triumph of grace over sin (Rom 5:17), the extension of mercy to all, Gentiles, Jews and Christians alike (Rom 11:32), the gathering (apokephalaiosis) of all in Christ (Eph 1:10).

We shall not try here to press these biblically irreconcilable statements into a speculative system. Rather, we shall describe the different responses that historically have been advanced in theology and in the interpretation of the New Testament. None of those attempted responses was formulated hastily; in all of them, even in those entirely foreign to our mentality, we sense the deep reverence due a mystery. And all of them, indeed, must come to terms with the notion of a primarily cyclical apokatastasis, without, arrogant or unconcerned, simply dismissing the horrifying thought that brothers and sisters of Christ, created by the Father for Christ, who died for them in atonement, may fail to reach their final destination in God and may instead suffer eternal damnation with its everlasting pain—which, in fact, would frustrate God’s universal plan of salvation. If we take our faith seriously and respect the words of Scripture, we must resign ourselves to admitting such an ultimate possibility, our feelings of revulsion notwithstanding. We may not simply ignore such a threat; we may not easily dismiss it, neither for ourselves nor for any of our brothers and sisters in Christ.

1.  The first. centuries present an outline for an initial resolution. God’s purpose must be fulfilled even against all opposing obstacles. So say Clement, Origen, Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa and Evagrius Ponticus; also, of the Antioch School, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia; then the Syrians Bar Sudhaile and Isaac of Niniveh; 1in my view also Maximus the Confessor and almost certainly Scotus Erigena. We shall not consider authors of later times.

This first response is best understood in view of Saint John’s statement: “Our love is brought to perfection in this, that we should have confidence on the day of judgment.... Love has no room for fear; rather, perfect love casts out all fear. And since fear has to do with punishment, love is not yet perfect in one who is afraid” (1 Jn 4:17-18). It is precisely in this context that Clement of Alexandria^’s distinction between the gnostik6s, the one perfected in love of God, and the ones who are imperfect as yet, is situated. Origen calls the latter haplo4steroi, those who are not yet morally and spiritually mature. The gnostikos, according to Clement, knows that “the Lord has disposed all things, as a whole and in every part, toward the salvation of all”, while those “who have hardened their hearts will be compelled to repent by the necessary chastisements.... About others, however, I shall remain silent.”2

Origen did not keep such silence in the works of his younger years; but even then he remarked that he was speaking on this subject only tentatively (gymnastikōs). In later years he refers to the doctrine of the completed apokatastasis only by way of intimation because he felt that this matter was not suitable in public sermons for the uninitiated.3 His decision does not seem prompted by the desire to hide higher truths in “mystical silence”, the way Greek philosophers did (cf. O. Casel). 4 Rather, it points to a statement by Saint Paul, who was “snatched up to the third heaven” and heard “words which must not be put into human language”, or which cannot be put into human language. Both translations of ouk exón are possible. This question was to become significant in subsequent times when Dionysius the Areopagite categorically denied the possibility of expressing divine things in human terms.

        The Fathers of Alexandria and Cappadocia, however, certainly meant primarily “must not be uttered^”.5 Origen states that he would not permit himself to entrust ineffable words to those still caught in human weakness, that he would not answer them in ink on paper; for even Saint Paul “entrusted such matters probably only to those who do not walk in mere human ways, such as Timothy and Luke”.6 Timothy, then, could draw from the same well as Saint Paul.7

We would thoroughly misunderstand Origen, however, if we thought him to hold that the perfect were privileged to know that everything will end well eventually, while the common believers were to be kept in the fear of hell. We should note here that already the apologists considered God alone to be immortal and eternal, and man could achieve such a state only through God’s grace and by participation in him. So when Origen speaks of “aeonic punishments^”, it implies that they may end after long aeons since they do not participate in God. No, Origen’s silence on the apokatastasis has other reasons, reasons which lead us to the second response.

2. The second response also is found in Origen’s writings; identified by Henri de Lubac, 8 it refers to 1 Cor 2:9, and he reasons thus: If no human heart can grasp what God has prepared for those who love him, then must we not say the same regarding the punishments to be expected in the world beyond? And if, according tot Cor 3:12—1 S, all have to pass through fire in order to reach God, if all that is “wood, hay or straw” in them has to be burned so that they themselves may be “saved . . . through fire”, then who can ever fully grasp the horror of this ordeal?

“The mystery of this Scripture passage is to remain hidden so that the many might not lose heart. ... Or who could ever say with Saint Paul, “It is better to be freed from this life and to be with Christ^” ? I for one am unable to say this, for I know that when I die, the wood in me must be burned away. On the building of my life I have used the wood of evil words, the wood of intemperance, the wood of dishonesty and countless other things of wood. You see, all this remains hidden from the crowd of the faithful, and it well may be. All of us imagine we will gain salvation upon our departure from this world, as long as we have abstained from idolatry and immorality—and would that we were clean at least of these!” 9  [In Jer. hom. 20 (19) 3; cf. “Conversation with Herakleides”  ed. Scherer, SC 142, pp. 3—16.]

Origen insists that the beginning and the end of things remain hidden from us, that we know only things somehow in between. 10Origen, following Clement, calls the fire waiting for us “sapiential”, “spiritual^”; it is the baptism in Spirit and fire mentioned by the Baptist, who had baptized with water. The Spirit came to us on Pentecost, the fire is waiting for us after our death: the Lord will “stand in streaming fire, and have with him the flaming sword^” which everybody must pass in order to return to paradise.11  No one’s soul is entirely untainted, “all stand in need of cleansing”, a cleansing to be “mysterious and ineffable”.12 Josef A. Fischer’s remark, then, is justified: The common Christian “can bear his ignorance more easily than Origen his knowledge”.13  Thus we read in Origen’s Contra Celsum: “Whatever may be said about this question is not to be displayed in front of everybody and has no bearing here. It is even dangerous to commit such things to paper; for most people it suffices to know that sinners will be punished. To go beyond that would scarce benefit those who can barely be restrained a while from evil and its resulting sins by fear of everlasting punishments.” 14 Thus the surgeon, about to cut, will conceal his scalpel from the patient.15  But there is no way that cleansing, burning, can be avoided; “or do you intend to enter the sanctuary with all your wood, your hay and straw, to defile the kingdom of God? “ Remember, “our God is called ^`a consuming fire; this fire does not consume what has been created in God’s image and likeness, the work of his own creation, but rather whatever wrongs we have piled upon it.”16

3. Origen presents his position with great reserve. For example, in his letter from Athens, addressed to friends in Alexandria,17 he heatedly denies having taught simply that the Devil himself would eventually be saved—”not even a madman could accuse me of this”.

Gregory of Nyssa, in contrast, tries to advance philosophical and theological arguments to prove that the pains of hell cannot be co-eternal with God. His main argument is based on the essential superiority of good over evil; for evil, in its essence, can never be absolute and unlimited. The sinner inevitably reaches a limit when all his evil is done and he cannot go further, just as the night, after having reached its peak, turns toward the day.18 This reasoning corresponds to the example of a physician who allows a boil to mature until it can be lanced. Thus the Incarnation, too, occurred only when evil had reached its climax. 19

Gregory^’s position has never been condemned. We will gain a better understanding of it by keeping in mind two aspects: For one, there is the strong influence of Plotinus, who taught that all emanation from the Divine Oneness will necessarily reach a limit, an ontological and ethical turning point (epistrophe), when the longing for the One will again determine the following ascent. Then, we find here Gregory’s own typical view that eternal bliss means a dynamic, never-ending movement toward the center in God; never-ending because God’s essence can never be fully reached.

After Emperor Justinian had condemned Origen’s teaching, Maximus had to formulate his position on apoleatastasis very carefully. For this reason he attempted to “save” even Gregory of Nyssa through a distinction: true, since Gregory envisions a cyclical pattern, as do all the Cappadocian Fathers, 20even the evildoers will eventually return to God; but, as Maximus has Gregory say, they will only come to enjoy the knowledge of God, not his gracious gifts, that is, eternal happiness.21 Maximus himself, like Origen, reserved the teaching about the apokatastasis pantōn for those perfected in love. The doctrine of hell, by then commonly held, he proclaimed in form of an ascetic admonition.22 Frequently he uses universalistic formulations like those in Romans 5.

To recapitulate Gregory^’s basic position, we may quote Karl Rahner, who repeatedly remarked that the possibility of refusing God “must not be considered an option of free choice on the same existential and ontological level as the possibility of accepting God; for such a No can be defined only in reference to the corresponding Yes”.23

4. The questions raised by the notion of apokatastasis allow still another response, a response we may come to appreciate by considering Origen^’s statement that the Mystical Body of Christ will not achieve complete perfection until he, the lοwest and meanest sinner, has repented.24 The conviction that “I am the least of all” leads to the sudden awareness of my own precarious existential condition: the threat of eternal perdition is addressed, indeed, to me! Thus we read in ancient accounts of the Desert Fathers:

Saint Anthony of Egypt was praying in his cell when suddenly he heard a voice calling, “Anthony, you have not even reached the perfection of a goldsmith in Alexandria!” Early next morning, the old man set out, palm staff in hand; he entered the house of the goldsmith, who became somewhat disturbed on seeing him. Anthony asked, “Tell me about your achievements.” The other replied: “I can’t see that I have accomplished anything worthwhile. Indeed, climbing out of bed in the morning I say to myself, `The whole city, from least to greatest, will enter the kingdom for their good deeds, while I myself have merited only punishment for my sins.’ And in the evening I tell myself the same thing. “ Father Anthony then said, “Like a good goldsmith who peacefully stays at home you will inherit the kingdom; but I lack discernment, and even though I live in the desert, I am far from being better than you. “25

Another Desert Father asked God, “Tell me, Lord, whether I find favor in your sight.” He then saw an angel, who said to him, ^“You have not even risen to the level of the gardener who lives here.” The Father began to search until he found the gardener. He begged him to reveal his thoughts. After considerable reluctance, the man finally replied: “When I get up in the morning, I tell myself that the whole city will enter the kingdom, only I shall be punished because of my sins.^” At this, the din of songs and noise flowed in from the street. “Doesn^’t this disturb you?^” asked the Father.

“Not at all”, replied the other.

“But what: do you think hearing this?^”

“I think that all those people will enter the kingdom.^”

Overcome with admiration, the Father exclaimed, “Your achievement is greater than what I have reached after these many years of struggle! 26

Elsewhere I have quoted as well what Kierkegaard once said:

In my life I shall probably never be able to go beyond the point of “fear and trembling^”, where I am indisputably certain that all others will easily be saved—but not I. To tell others, “You shall suffer eternal damnation! “—that I am unable to do. It remains constantly on my mind that all the others, O yes, they will indeed be saved, that is for sure—but as for me, there may be quite some difficulties in store.27

Such a frame of mind is the ultimate consequence of Origen’s position: the “Last Things” are and will be forever hidden; we cannot deal with them by constructing impersonal theories. The Gospel wants to proclaim, in simple terms and “leaving the situation open”, that Jesus is Judge and Savior. The Gospel is “not just the objectifying description of a final drama, is not a ‘prediction’ but a ‘promise^”‘.28 The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius remain the exemplary Christian way of dealing with the possibility of eternal damnation. The meditation on hell stands at the conclusion of the first week, during which the individual, with eyes on the Crucified, reflects on his guilt, to be made aware finally that it’ is grace, and grace alone, which saves him from the well-deserved everlasting perdition. What remains for us is not knowledge, but rather Christian hope.

5. We should mention one last aspect, which echoes only implicitly in the writings of the Fathers, 29but which the contemporary theology of the “Suffering of God” considers more intensively than did former ages. While all the possible responses so far derived from our human situation, this other response finds its point of departure in God’s own mind: Can God really suffer the loss of even the least of the sheep in his fold?  One of his own creation, one for whom the Lord has shed his blood and endured the agony of being abandoned by the Father? The German mystic Mechtilde of Magdeburg heard God speak to her thus:

My soul cannot bear the agony
To chase the sinner away from me.
So I spare him naught
Until he is caught;
I save for him such a tiny space
That no human thought can enter this place.30

We shall not try to fathom this question any further, but wish to close with a statement by Maximus the Confessor: “God loves the sinner because this is his nature. He extends his mercy to him in compassion [sympatheia], as if to someone sick in mind and walking in darkness. .. . Be wary not to separate yourself from God, for he is Love and the Beloved. Even should God pass judgment, those judged would hate him without cause, for his nature is love, and he is called Love. For this reason he would never hate those he judges since he is free from any such passion.31

Let us cast aside what leads to such dead-ends and limit ourselves to the truth that we all stand under God’s absolute judgment. “I do not even pass judgment on myself”, as Saint Paul says. “The Lord is the one to judge me. So stop passing judgment before the time of his return. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness” (1 Cor 4:3f.). Not forgetting Saint John: “We should have confidence on the day of judgment” (1 Jn 4:17).

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