If Everyone Is Saved…

In “The Public Square” section of First Things (June/July 2000), Fr. Richard John Neuhaus expressed dismay that the NEW OXFORD REVIEW would contest Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar on the issue of Hell. Fr. Neuhaus was referring to the article, “The Inflated Reputation of Hans Urs von Balthasar” by Fr. Regis Scanlon (NOR, March 2000).

Neuhaus said: “Balthasar was held in highest esteem by Cardinal Ratzinger, and, shortly before his death in 1988, the Pope announced that he would be made a cardinal. I don’t know what NOR is up to by attacking Balthasar. Whether one can be more orthodox than the Magisterium is doubtful. Why one would want to be is puzzling.” In other words, the NOR was presuming to be more orthodox than the Magisterium when it published Fr. Scanlon’s article.

On the matter of Balthasar, Fr. Neuhaus apparently has a more expansive understanding of the Magisterium than the Magisterium has of itself. Look! Just because Cardinal Ratzinger holds a theologian in highest esteem and the Pope announces that that theologian is to be made a cardinal does not mean that everything — or anything — that theologian wrote before being raised to the episcopate is part of the Magisterium.

Fr. Neuhaus also noted that he had just published a book pertaining to the question of Hell, Death on a Friday Afternoon (Basic Books). I, as Editor of the NOR, took that as a nudge, and read it.

In his Preface, Neuhaus tells us that “the influence of the great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar will be evident throughout” the book. But my interest here is not with Balthasar, but with Neuhaus’s book. Neuhaus is concerned with the question of whether all men will be saved (to answer in the affirmative is to be a universalist). Neuhaus approaches the question cautiously. He says “perhaps” and “it is possible” and “I do not know,” etc. He hems and haws, but finally answers yes, all are saved.

Neuhaus is aware of the numerous references to Hell in the Bible. For example, he quotes Jesus: “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. But the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Mt. 7:13-14). But for Neuhaus, this passage — and all others like it — are mere “warnings.”

But it’s hard to see how this passage could be a warning. Warnings are structured in terms of “If you do X, then Y will happen to you” (or the equivalent). But that’s not the way Jesus expresses Himself here (or in the parallel passage in Luke 13:23-24: “And some one said to him, ‘Lord, will those who are saved be few?’ And he [Jesus] said to them, ‘Strive to enter by the narrow door; for many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able'”).

Neuhaus is much more taken with other passages, those having a universalist ring, for example Philippians 2:9-11: “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord….”

Since there are some 70 passages in the Bible which speak of Hell, I’m tempted to quote some of them here, but I’ll refrain. I’ll just consider passages Neuhaus is fond of and leans on to make his case (plus the context, which Neuhaus overlooks).

Let’s begin with Philippians 2:9-11 quoted above — “every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess….” It is essential to look at the context, especially the very next verse (v. 12): “Therefore, my beloved…work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” (italics added). Neuhaus renders every knee “should” bow and every tongue confess as every knee will bow and every tongue confess. Let’s go with Neuhaus’s take: If everyone will confess that Jesus is Lord, why would anyone need to “work out” his salvation with “fear and trembling”? There’d be nothing to work out. Ah, but there is! While both those in Heaven and those “under the earth” will confess that Jesus is Lord (gosh, the Devil already knows that), there is no indication that those “under the earth” who finally recognize the truth are then transferred to Heaven. Lest there be any doubt about that, in the next chapter of Philippians we read: “For many…live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction…. But our commonwealth is in heaven…” (3:18-20).

Neuhaus does cite the “fear and trembling” passage in another context at another point, but he tranquilizes it by saying, “Lest we be overcome by fear and trembling, he [St. Paul] immediately adds, ‘for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.’ And his good pleasure is that you should be saved. There is a sense in which we can rightly say that we know we will be saved…. If we say that we do not know that we will be saved, it is…because we do not fully understand God’s purposes.” Ah, but God doesn’t force His good pleasure on us. We have free will (more about which later), and we are tempted by the Devil (yes, he does exist), and so we must indeed work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

Neuhaus is also fond of John 12:32, where Jesus says: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” What does this mean? We need only look to the context, which Neuhaus overlooks. The answer is given in the very next verse (v. 33): “He said this to show by what death he was to die.” But could it possibly mean that all men who are “drawn” to Christ will be saved? That’s really far-fetched, for Jesus has just said in verse 25, “He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.” Moreover, the “lifted up” in John 12:32 refers to John 3:14, where Jesus says (and I’ll quote Jesus’ full sentence, thus including v. 15): “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life…” (italics added).

Neuhaus also likes Ephesians 1:10, where St. Paul says that God’s “plan” for the fullness of time is “to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Of course this is His plan, but then there is the obstinacy of men. Moreover, St. Paul continues, addressing the saved: “And you he made alive, when you were dead through trespasses and sin in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following…the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. Among these we all once lived in the passions of our flesh…and so were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:1-3).

Similarly, Neuhaus likes 1 Timothy 2:4, where St. Paul says God “desires all to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Neuhaus comments: “Is it possible that God’s purposes will be thwarted? And what might that say about whether God is truly God?” Of course God desires that all men be saved — He’d be a monster if He didn’t. God also desires that we not sin. But we do. Nonetheless, God is still truly God. Like it or not, God has granted us freedom, and that includes the freedom to thwart His desires and plans for us.

Neuhaus also likes 1 Colossians 1:19-20, where St. Paul says: “For in him [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.” But let’s not stop there! St. Paul continues in the very next verses (vv. 21-23): “And you, who once were estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled…provided that you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast…” (italics added).

Neuhaus is also taken with 1 Corinthians 15:28. He tells it this way: “St. Paul asks us to look forward to the time ‘When all things are subjected to him [God]…that God may be everything to every one.’ Note: everything to every one. Or, as other translations have it, God will ‘be all in all.'” But again, Neuhaus overlooks the context.

We need to know to whom St. Paul is referring when he says “every one.” St. Paul opens chapter 15 by saying, “Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel…by which you are saved, if you hold fast to it…” (vv. 1-2; italics added). Obviously, God will be “everything to every one” who holds fast to the Gospel. Moreover, in verse 22, St. Paul says, “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” Does this mean that all (everyone) who ever lived will be made alive — or all who are “in Christ”? It’s the latter, for St. Paul is referring to “those…who have fallen asleep in Christ” (v. 18).

Neuhaus is also fond of Romans 8:19-21: “For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God;…because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God.” Neuhaus buttresses this with a quotation from Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium, #48: “The Church…will receive her perfection only in the glory of heaven, when will come the time of the renewal of all things. At that time, together with the human race, the universe itself, which is so closely related to man and which attains its destiny through him, will be perfectly re-established in Christ.” Ah, so is salvation universal — cosmic — after all? Sorry, but neither of the above two quotations means that, for again, Neuhaus is quoting out of context. St. Paul launches Romans 8 with these words: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (v. 1; italics added). St. Paul continues: “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace” (v. 6), “those who are in the flesh cannot please God” (v. 8), and “if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you…will live” (v. 13). As for Lumen Gentium, #48, it has more to say: “We must be constantly vigilant so that, having finished the course of our earthly life, we may merit to enter into the marriage feast with Him and to be numbered among the blessed and that we may not be ordered to go into eternal fire like the wicked and slothful servant, into the exterior darkness where ‘there will be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth’ [Mt. 22:13 & 25:30]. For before we reign with Christ in glory, all of us will be made manifest ‘before the tribunal of Christ, so that each one may receive what he has won through the body, according to his works, whether good or evil’ [2 Cor. 5:10], and at the end of the world ‘they who have done good shall come forth unto resurrection of life; but those who have done evil unto resurrection of judgment'[Jn. 5:29].”

Neuhaus does recognize the problem of those who knowingly repudiate truth and goodness, who give every indication of choosing damnation. To meet this problem, he quotes Balthasar: “here lies the hope for the person who, refusing all love, damns himself. Will not the person who wishes to be totally alone find beside him in Sheol the Someone who is lonelier still, the Son forsaken by the Father, who will prevent him from experiencing his self-chosen hell to the end?” Neuhaus comments: “If, as St. Paul says, Christ who knew no sin was made sin for us, can there be any sin he did not bear there on the cross? If the answer is no, as I believe it must be, then even the utterly forsaken are not bereft of the utterly forsaken one, the Son of God…. Thus even the will to damnation is damned and thereby defeated by the One for whom and in whom damnation is not allowed the last word.” In short, since damnation is “defeated” by Christ, then Hell will have no human occupants.

Neuhaus recognizes that if no one goes to Hell, the question arises as to why the Church should engage in evangelization or missionary activity. Neuhaus addresses this in Chapter Five, which, being partly autobiographical, is surely the key to understanding why, after much beating around the bush, Neuhaus the man embraces universalism.

Neuhaus takes us back to his Protestant boyhood when he attended a “mission festival.” As Neuhaus tells it: “well into a sermon that lasted an hour or more…the preacher suddenly stopped. For a full minute there was complete silence as he looked intently at his wristwatch. Then he tossed his head, threw out his arm and, pointing directly at me in the third row, announced, ‘In the last one minute, thirty-seven thousand souls have gone to eternal damnation without a saving knowledge of their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!'”

Neuhaus, about seven years old at the time, was traumatized. His sleep that night was “restless” as he “contended with dreams about all those people in hell.” But he was further traumatized the next morning when he learned that the preacher and his (Neuhaus’s) Dad, also a pastor, “were taking three days off to go fishing.” Neuhaus exclaims: “Thirty-seven thousand people going to hell every minute and they were going fishing!”

Trying to figure it all out, Neuhaus concluded that the preacher “didn’t really mean what he said” about Hell.

Neuhaus also tells about how as a little boy (presumably before the mission festival) he “dreamed of going off to some dark continent, probably Africa, and there giving [my] life in ‘winning souls for Christ.'” But dreams of giving one’s life in spreading the Gospel, Neuhaus continues, are “dreams for little boys and girls…. They are among the ‘childish things’ we put away when we grow up.” Tactlessly, Neuhaus says this right after a brief discussion of St. Isaac Jogues and the other North American Martyrs who gave their lives bringing the Gospel to the Indians in the 17th century.

Sadly, even now, as a convert to Catholicism, Neuhaus seems not to have surmounted his jarring Evangelical childhood. Let’s try to address Neuhaus’s concerns from the viewpoint of Catholicism:

How many souls are going to Hell each minute? Catholics wouldn’t dare hazard a guess.

Does one need to have explicitly accepted Jesus Christ to go to Heaven? No. Those non-Christians who “through no fault of their own do not know the Gospel” but follow the “dictates of their conscience” and “strive to lead a good life” can be saved (Lumen Gentium, #16). But this is not as expansive as some people assume, for it does not necessarily mean that all those who do not know Jesus are going to Heaven. There are plenty of non-Christians and ex-Christians, especially in Christian lands, who do know about the Gospel and have rejected it. Our Lord said that we will know them by their fruits (Mt. 7:20), and so we’d have to be blind to think that all non-Christians follow the dictates of their conscience and strive to lead good lives. As for those non-Christians who do follow their conscience and strive to lead good lives, Pope John Paul II warns that “they nevertheless find themselves in an unsatisfactory situation compared to that of those in the Church who have the fullness of the means of salvation” (L’Osservatore Romano, Feb. 2, 2000).

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, headed by Cardinal Ratzinger, put it this way in its declaration Dominus Iesus (Aug. 6, 2000): “If it is true that the followers of other religions can receive divine grace, it is also certain that objectively speaking they are in a gravely deficient situation in comparison with those who, in the Church, have the fullness of salvation” (#22). The declaration also said that the “rituals of other religions…. insofar as they depend on superstitions or other errors (cf. 1 Cor 10:20-21), constitute an obstacle to salvation” (#21). Pope John Paul II “ratified and confirmed” this declaration and ordered that it be published (#23), and, according to the Secretary of the Congregation, Archbishop Tarcisio Bertone, this declaration is “definitive and irrevocable” and “is taught by the Magisterium with an infallible act…” (press conference in Vatican City, Sept. 5, 2000). Is this declaration something new? No. As Archbishop Bertone said (in the same venue), it just “reaffirms and summarizes the doctrine of Catholic faith defined and taught in earlier documents of the Magisterium….”

The Church believes — really believes — that truth is salvific and that grace is salvific, and that the Catholic Church possesses the fullness of truth and sacramental grace. This is why the Church evangelizes. As Lumen Gentium says: “But often men, deceived by the Evil One, have become vain in their reasonings and have exchanged the truth of God for a lie, serving the creature rather than the Creator” (#16). Thus, “by the proclamation of the Gospel she [the Church]…. snatches them from the slavery of error and of idols…” (#17). And: “to…procure the salvation of these [those in greater danger of being lost]…the Church fosters the missions with care and attention” (#16).

So was it wrong for that mission preacher to take three days off to go fishing? No. After all, the world’s greatest evangelist, Pope John Paul II, usually takes a month off every summer. This past summer, John Paul preached on Sunday, July 23, from his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, saying, “In the Gospel for today’s liturgy, Jesus says to the Apostles, who have returned from a mission: ‘Come away by yourselves to a lonely place, and rest a while’ (Mk 6:31). Jesus and the disciples, tired from their ceaseless work among the people, felt the need every so often for a moment of calm….” The Pope continued: “There is still value in rest and a need to use free time for…relaxation…. in which to regain…energy and at the same time restore the right inner balance” (L’Osservatore Romano, July 26, 2000).

“The right inner balance.” Indeed. Even evangelists and missionaries need to realize that the salvation of the lost is not their doing alone. The Church teaches that grace is abundant in this world and that everyone is exposed to sufficient grace for the purpose of salvation — which is not to say everyone will avail himself of it or co-operate with it, which is why we have missionaries and evangelists. In this regard, let me quote Fr. Avery Dulles, writing in the letters section of First Things (Aug./Sept. 1996): “It has been the firm teaching of the Catholic Church since the struggles against Jansenism in the seventeenth century that God does not withhold from anyone the grace needed for salvation. Pius IX in several documents asserted that non-Christians living in invincible ignorance of the true faith could obtain eternal life, provided that they cooperated with the grace given to them” (italics added).

Which raises the issue of invincible ignorance. As Fr. Dulles indicates, it is not an automatic ticket to Heaven. Moreover, there are types of ignorance that are not “invincible.” James Akin explains this well: Ignorance is not invincible “if a person could remove it by applying reasonable diligence…. If some, but insufficient, diligence was shown toward finding the answer, the ignorance is termed merely vincible. If little or no diligence was shown, the ignorance is termed crass or supine. If one deliberately fostered the ignorance then it is termed affected or studied…. Vincible ignorance diminishes culpability…, crass or supine ignorance will affect culpability…little or not at all, and hard hearted, affected ignorance will increase culpability…” (This Rock, Jul./Aug. 1999).

Curiously, Neuhaus does believe in missionary work — but not to rescue the lost. So what’s the point? So that, says Neuhaus, quoting 1 John 1:3-4, others “may have fellowship with us, and…that our joy may be complete.” That’s it. Now, if you were Isaac Jogues or Francis Xavier or countless other missionaries who risked their lives spreading the Gospel to rescue the lost, would that have motivated you? And how many Catholics would be willing to be martyred for mere “fellowship”?

And is it even a matter of fellowship? For Neuhaus, “the world has been redeemed.” The Gospel is not the story of the Church, it is “the story of the world and of everyone in the world, whether they know it or not.” “The mission of the Church” is not to bring the Gospel to the world — for it is already there — but “to bring the world to itself.” When missionaries go to non-Christian cultures, they “discover there the one who has been revealed as the Christ…”; they “are not bringing Christ where he has not been before; they are meeting him where he has been all along.” But if this is true, then non-Christians already have fellowship with us in Christ. They may not know it, but they don’t need to.

Moreover, if all are saved, our joy is already complete — so why quibble about official Church membership?

And why would, say, a Muslim want to convert? To give us joy? No. To have fellowship with us in our parish or mission station? Not likely, for he’d have to leave the fellowship of his family and friends at his mosque. Neuhaus says we send out missionaries, not to save those who may be lost, but to let others “know that they have been found.” Imagine yourself a Muslim — or an agnostic — and being told by a Christian missionary that you’ve already been found, just as you are. You’d probably respond, “Well, how nice,” but would have no compelling reason to convert. Indeed, if that missionary were Fr. Neuhaus, you certainly wouldn’t want to convert. About the Good News, he says: “The cross is not merely the bad news before the good news of the resurrection…. No, the cross remains the path of discipleship for those who follow the risen Lord…. The Christian way is not one of avoidance but of participation in the suffering of Christ…. Thus…Dietrich Bonhoeffer…wrote, ‘When Jesus calls a man, he calls him to come and die.'” This is true, but if, say, a hedonistic agnostic can have salvation without the suffering and self-denial specific to living the Christian life, he’d have to be a masochist — he’d have to be nuts — to want to convert.

Neuhaus recounts an episode in Grand Central Station where “it seems the entire human condition [is] on disorderly parade.” Neuhaus continues: “‘How very sad,’ observed my Christian friend, ‘that so many of those people do not know Jesus as their Savior.’…My sensation was very different, looking at this ragtag horde of humanity. How amazing the grace, I thought, that all of them, all of this, all is redeemed.” For Neuhaus, all those people are “all comprehended…in Christ’s redemptive work.” If this is not so, says Neuhaus, “What are we doing at Grand Central taking a train to hear a lecture at Yale? We should start to work [evangelizing] right here.”

Of course, this is an old debater’s device, the false dichotomy: If you aren’t spending every spare moment spreading the Gospel, why, you couldn’t possibly believe that anyone is on the road to Hell, and you’ll have to agree with Neuhaus. He also uses this device in his story about the mission preacher. After the preacher announced that 37,000 people had gone to Hell in the past minute, “I looked around and was puzzled to see everybody else taking the news so calmly. Mrs. Appler was straightening the bow in her daughter’s hair….”

But it’s not a matter of either/or. Consider 1 Corinthians 12:4-5: “Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord….” Few Christians are called to be evangelists or missionaries. Mrs. Appler was probably not called. Neuhaus’s Christian friend in Grand Central felt a burden for souls, but perhaps he didn’t have the gift of verbal witness. Most of us do not. Most of us are not equipped — or don’t feel we are. We may be shy, may lack self-confidence, may feel intellectually inadequate to answer retorts to our verbal witness. Indeed, our gift may be elsewhere — maybe running a soup kitchen or doing prolife work or witnessing by example or raising a family of five children in the ways of the Lord or singing in the parish choir or praying for endangered souls or generously giving money to soul-winning missionaries or a combination of the above. There are so many ways of doing the Lord’s work. It just won’t do to assert that if you’re not out there preaching in Grand Central Station you couldn’t possibly believe that anyone could be lost. Moreover, one can legitimately wonder how effective it would be to preach at those scurrying and stressed-out throngs in Grand Central in a mad rush to get to who-knows-where.

Toward the end of his book Neuhaus returns to his (now deceased) Dad: “It is a pity his theology made him…feel guilty about all the time spent in not doing anything believably related to rescuing those damned souls.” It would seem that Dad passed that sense of guilt on to his son, and the son — not being able to live with it — just came up with a universalist theology that eliminated the guilt. And so Fr. Neuhaus emphatically declares: “Christ…. assures us that none…will be lost.”

How does Neuhaus’s position stack up against the Magisterium? Not well, as we’ve already seen. But let’s consider two more points in this regard. (1) If no one will be lost, then ultimately no one has free will. The ex-Lutheran Neuhaus obviously still believes in predestination (though not in the same way Luther did), whereas Catholic teaching insists on free will. The Catechism says, regarding Hell, that “human freedom…. has the power to make choices for ever, with no turning back” (#1861), and that those who go to Hell do so by their “own free choice” (#1033). (2) If no one could possibly be lost, then the Church’s teaching on mortal sin is reduced to ashes. In its section on Hell, the Catechism says that “to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God’s merciful love means remaining separated from him [God] for ever…” (#1033). In his encyclical Veritatis Splendor, Pope John Paul II says, regarding those who “suffer perdition”: “With every freely committed mortal sin, he [man] offends God as the giver of the law and as a result becomes guilty with regard to the entire law (cf. Jas. 2:8-11); even if he perseveres in faith, he loses ‘sanctifying grace,’ ‘charity’ and ‘eternal happiness.’ As the Council of Trent teaches, ‘the grace of justification once received is lost not only by apostasy, by which faith itself is lost, but also by any other mortal sin'” (#68). It is far-fetched beyond imagination to think that no one in human history ever died in a state of mortal sin.

Could one believe that everyone who was dying in a state of mortal sin repented just before he actually died? If you wish to build your soteriology on such wishful thinking, we have a bridge in Brooklyn we’re willing to sell you. What warrant do we have in Scripture and official Catholic teaching to believe that? Besides, people die all the time without a moment’s notice.

Let’s return to Neuhaus’s notion that the references to Hell in Scripture are just “warnings.” There are serious problems with that notion: (1) If they’re only warnings, they’re empty warnings. We don’t warn people about things that will never happen. Would God? (2) Issuing empty warnings is bluffing. I can imagine someone hoping — privately — that somehow the Bible is just bluffing about Hell, but if someone publicly asserts that the Bible is just bluffing, and people believe that, then the bluff loses its essential ingredient — its credibility — and any beneficial effect it might have on people’s hearts, minds, and behavior. Moreover, strictly speaking, to bluff is to lie. If the Bible is lying about the most important issue in the cosmos — what we must do to be saved — then the Bible could well be lying about anything and everything.

(3) If no one goes to Hell, then all the talk about Hell in the Bible — and from the Church — is utterly cruel, needlessly cruel, maybe sadistic. If Neuhaus’s universalism is true, then the Church’s difficult moral teachings amount to nothing more than maliciousness.

So, for example, there’s that nice Catholic girl in the barrio who lives with her grandmother and who’s getting A’s and B’s in high school and is hoping to go to college. But her boyfriend got her pregnant — and won’t marry her. Should she, as the Church demands, carry the baby to term — and, since she abhors the idea of adoption, wind up a single mom on welfare and probably never make it to college? Or should she quietly have an abortion and be able to continue her dream of going to college and rising out of the barrio? If Neuhaus is right, she will go to Heaven even if she has the abortion, even if she isn’t sorry about it later. Why is the Church so unreasonable?

It is exceedingly cruel for the Church to insist that homosexuals be celibate, to make them live lonely lives without physical affection. It’s also grossly unfair to deny them a marriage ceremony if that’s what they want.

It’s sadistic to insist that people living with a painful terminal illness — and who feel they are a burden on the medical system and their relatives — not be allowed to end it all with the help of a physician. Why make people suffer on earth when they can immediately exchange their agony for the eternal bliss of Heaven?

The Church teaches that a Catholic who divorces and “remarries” outside the Church must abstain from Communion, and can only be admitted to Communion if he and his spouse live as brother and sister. How merciless and hardhearted!

Let’s say you practice Natural Family Planning and you’ve already got six children, and you and your husband live in a two-bedroom apartment in a crime-ridden neighborhood. Since NFP doesn’t seem to work for you, why not let hubby get a vasectomy so your family can escape near-poverty?

Or if you’re a Christian who’s being persecuted and threatened with imprisonment or death because you profess Christ, why not deny your faith and save yourself (and your loved ones) terrible suffering? And then there’s the cult of the martyrs the Church promotes. Isn’t that just a hideous invitation to masochism?

If universalism is true, then the Catholic Church is — as secular and religious liberals say — a torture chamber, a house of horrors, and a cunning power structure based on a Big Lie whose real purpose is to repress and oppress people. If universalism is true, then the Catholic Church should follow the trajectory of the Universalist denomination (which merged with the Unitarians in 1961) and drop her strictures against abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, and all the rest.

Or look at it a different way: If everyone is saved: (1) Why go to Confession, since your sins were already forgiven on the cross? (2) If missionaries don’t take Christ to non-Christian lands because Christ is already there, then why bother to get out of bed Sunday morning and trudge off to Mass, for surely Christ is already with you right there in bed? (3) If you’re a priest, why not have sexual relations, so long as they’re “consensual” and thus there’s negligible danger the diocese will be hit with a lawsuit? (4) If your wife is getting old, grey, wrinkled, and boring, and there’s a twentysomething cupcake in the office who’s hot to trot, why not have a discreet fling and feel young again? (5) If you publish a Christian magazine and you struggle to make ends meet, why not publish a porn magazine instead? You’ll have lots more fun, and you’ll probably get rich!

In short, why bother to keep the Faith, to be good? Why bother?

Why does Fr. Neuhaus bother? Perhaps because he’s a saint. But for the rest of us poor sinners — why should we bother?

Neuhaus does attempt to answer this question. Says he: “One hears the objection, ‘What’s the point of being a Christian if, in the end, everyone is saved?’ People who ask that should listen to themselves. What’s the point of being first rather than last in serving the Lord whom you love?… The question answers itself.” Yes, ideally, we are faithful because of our sheer love of God. For saints, that’s relatively easy. But what about the rest of us, for whom that love sometimes — or often — grows faint? Here Neuhaus is of no help. He says abruptly that for those people who don’t want to follow Jesus, “there is no point in following Jesus.” Well, yeah, if everyone goes to Heaven anyhow.

Sure, following Jesus can have its blessings, but God “makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust” (Mt. 5:45), and the heathens, like the blondes, usually have more fun. In the end Neuhaus just summarily dismisses the “why bother?” question: “People who have to ask why…probably wouldn’t understand.”

But the Bible is full of answers to that question, and they’re easily understood. For example: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God rests upon him” (Jn. 3:36). When grace seems distant, when doubt bedevils us, when temptation lurks, we bother — we persevere, we work out our salvation with fear and trembling — precisely because we want to spend our eternity with the Lord, not with the Devil.

Hell is, to be sure, a difficult doctrine. The worst thing about Hell is that there are no second chances — there’s no escape. At the moment of one’s death, one gives one’s “final answer.” That’s it, forever and ever. If you’ve ever meditated deeply on what Hell must be like, you probably felt like throwing up. If you’ve ever had a nightmare about Hell, you probably awoke in a cold sweat, petrified. Hell is so horrible that you wouldn’t wish it on anyone, not even Hitler or Stalin, let alone a mere creep like Bill Clinton.

It’s understandable that people would want to say that no one goes to Hell. Looked at historically, however, when the doctrine of Hell goes by the wayside, basic Christian orthodoxy goes with it. If you polled delegates at a convention of the doctrinally and morally liberal National Council of Churches, you’d probably find that 90 percent of them are universalists. And surely, no one need remind Fr. Neuhaus of what a shambles the National Council of Churches is today.

If no one goes to Hell, would someone please tell me why we are here. If this life isn’t a testing ground, where we must decide whether we say yes or no to God and His love, what’s the point of being here? Why didn’t God place us in Heaven right from the start?

And why is there evil? The classic answer is that it’s the price of human freedom. But if we’re not really free — if ultimately we cannot say no to God and His love — why is there evil? It’s the price of — what?

When Hell goes, life itself doesn’t make sense for a Christian. And if no one goes to Hell, everything is permitted. I often reflect on Mark 8:36, where Jesus says, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?” We all read and hear about people who unscrupulously grab for wealth and power, who trample on the poor and the rights of others, who commit mayhem, even murder, in their successful quests to, as it were, gain the whole world. We may wonder, “Don’t they care that they’re in grave danger of losing their souls?” Of this kind of person Jesus said, “You fool! This night your soul will be required of you…” (Lk. 12:20). But if Neuhaus is right, they’re not fools, I’m the fool. If I can gain the whole world without losing my soul — if I can have my cake and eat it too — I’ve been a total jerk.

The pithy neo-Calvinist Karl Barth, who himself had leanings toward universalism, is famous for having said, “Whoever does not believe in restoration [universal salvation] is an ox, but whoever teaches it is an ass.” Barth probably thought he was neither an ox nor an ass. He would regard Neuhaus, because he teaches universalism, as an ass (which is a “silly or aggressively stupid person,” according to my dictionary).

The words the Lord spoke to Ezekiel seem to be addressed to Barthian asses: “If I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked to turn from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at your hand. But if you warn the wicked to turn from his way, and he does not turn from his way; he shall die in his iniquity, but you will have saved your life” (33:8-9).Why does the wicked man need further warning if the Lord has already warned him? Because “conscience is by degrees almost blinded through the habit of committing sin (Catechism, #1791). Oh yes, Fr. Neuhaus tells the wicked man to turn from his ways, but he can’t be heard saying to the wicked that “the wages of sin is death” (Rom. 6:23), and without that the wicked man will not understand the gravity of his situation and will likely respond, “Why bother to turn from my ways?” To which Neuhaus’s only answer would be, “You probably wouldn’t understand.” Alas, the wicked man would not be effectively warned.

I must say that Fr. Neuhaus’s book is the most depressing book I’ve read in memory. Had it been written by someone like Fr. Hans Küng or Fr. Richard McBrien, it would only have elicited a yawn. But from Fr. Neuhaus? Someone so many of us orthodox Catholics look to for leadership! If enough orthodox Catholics follow Neuhaus’s lead, the orthodox Catholic cause will be stripped of any ultimate significance, won’t matter anymore. Let Hans Küng be the next pope, and let him name Garry Wills and Frances Kissling cardinals — the media would love it, the Church would be popular, and the Lord would forgive all (if Neuhaus is to be believed).

Let me hasten to add that I find this book so depressing not because I want to see people burn in Hell forever and ever. Indeed, I confess to thinking that if I were God I’d have arranged the world differently, and that if I were God I’d make Hell a place for appropriate punishment, after which those in Hell are given another chance to repent and be saved. But I’m not God and I don’t make the rules. My sensibility is irrelevant. I therefore believe — and teach — what the Bible and the Magisterium teach: There is no exit from Hell. Ghastly, but very sobering. I don’t know who is going to Hell, but I do know what must be done to avoid it, and I do see many endangered souls, yea, even my own.

Why do I bother? Because I do not presume that I will be saved or that everyone (which would include me) will be saved. I bother because I want to be with my Lord in Heaven and do what I can to see as many people as possible share in that fathomless and unending joy.