However, in the middle of the twentieth century, there seems to be a break in the tradition. A number of influential theologians have favored the view that all human beings may or do eventually attain salvation. Karl Rahner argues; since we have no clear revelation to the effect that some are actually lost, we must maintain the truth of the omnipotence of the universal salvific will of God, the redemption of all by Christ, the duty of men to hope for salvation. Especially, Hans Urs von Balthasar is considered orthodox. He rejects the ideas that hell will be emptied at the end of time and that the damned souls and demons will be reconciled with God. He also avoids asserting as a fact that everyone will be saved. But he does say that we have a right and even a duty to hope for the salvation of all, because it is not impossible that even the worst sinners may be moved by God’s grace to repent before they die. He concedes, however, the opposite is also possible. Since we are able to resist the grace of God, none of us is safe. We must therefore leave the question open. But this view has been criticized as well by those who say that the hypothesis of hell as a mere possibility removes all effectiveness from the warnings issued by Jesus and relativism smuggles into the heart of the Catholic a serious doubt about the truth of the Catholic faith.
How do you think about this? Do you believe many go to hell or the salvation of all? I think the parable in the gospel gives us a certain measure to answer these questions.
What strikes me most in the last judgment is that the righteous sheep are confused like the goats. They cannot remember seeing Jesus Christ in the distressful conditions such as being hungry, thirsty, naked, sick and in prison. They are being rewarded for actions they are not sure they did. The confusion is the same to the goats, but the Son of Man’s answer is quite different. The sheep just attended to the physical and social needs of hurting people without considering their status while the goats didn’t do it that way. If the goats had known it was he, we can be assured that they would have helped because the Son of Man has the resources, both money and influence, to repay. “If we had known it was you, O King, and not some miserable nobody or the least, of course we would have helped.” The sheep care without calculation and the goats care with calculation.
This is the key point to ask us whether we treat others without calculation and able to see the importance of daily charity in which we encounter Christs to feed, to clothe and to attend. If we knew who Christ is among us, no one would dare to ignore him. But does the knowledge that Christ is in one of the least around us challenge us? Like in the novel, if we knew how to enter the kingdom of God, no one wouldn’t strive to do that, although some may give up. We ought to fear God who, as Jesus taught, can punish soul and body together in hell. We ought to work out our salvation in fear and trembling. But, in the end, love is the measure—not the love of calculation but the love of no condition. The search for numbers in the demography of hell is futile. It is good that God has left us without exact information. If we knew that virtually everybody would be damned, we would be tempted to despair. If we knew that all, or nearly all, are saved, we might become presumptuous. If we knew that some fixed percent, say fifty, would be saved, we would be caught in an unholy rivalry. We would rejoice in every sign that others were among the lost, since own chances of election would thereby be increased.
We are forbidden to seek our own salvation in a selfish way. We are keepers of our brothers and sisters who often seem the least among us. The more we work for their salvation, the more of God’s favor we can expect for ourselves. That is the all assurance we can have, and it should be enough.