Saturday, December 10, 2005
FR. SCANLAN ON BALTHASAR'S UNIVERSALISM
The article was first published in New Oxford Review, Inc., March 2000. Currently it can be read on the Catholic Culture website. It unpacks Balthasar's theology centered on the hope that all will be saved. In these closing statements, Fr. Scanlon describes the undermining of Catholic doctrine by Balthasar's theology:
Compassion To A Fault
If Jesus suffered from divine amnesia, then there is more in doubt than just the eternal whereabouts of Judas. If Jesus' omniscience and infallibility were nonfunctional, then Christianity itself is in doubt. Mark 13:32 ("neither the Son, nor the angels know the day and the hour") can be explained in harmony with the Fathers and the Tradition of the Church. One should note that when Mark uses the term "Son" he is not referring to Jesus as Son of God, with an emphasis on Jesus' divine nature, but as "Son of Man," with an emphasis on Jesus' human nature (Mk. 8:31, 9:9, 10:33, 13:26). Thus, when Jesus refers to His own knowledge or act of knowing (neither the Son ... knows), this is most probably a reference to the origin of this knowledge, or Jesus' human act of knowing through His human consciousness. In other words, Jesus is saying that "the Son" (of Man) does not "know" the day or the hour of His coming "from" His human nature (although He knew these things from His divine nature). This is in harmony with the Fathers and the popes of the Church who have consistently interpreted Mark 13:32 down through the ages to mean that Jesus knew the day and the hour but chose not to reveal it to mankind. And, if a scriptural passage can be interpreted in harmony with the rest of the Church and Scriptures, the Catholic must accept this interpretation. When Balthasar interpreted Mark 13:32 apart from the Tradition and Magisterium of the Church, especially in flat contradiction to Pope Vigilius's "anathema," he sided with Nestorians, Arians, and other heretics.
St. Teresa of Avila stated about a doubt or "thought" against a Church teaching, even a "small truth" of the Church: "just to pause over this thought is already very wrong." Similarly, the Venerable John Henry Newman, in Discourses to Mixed Congregations, stated that, "no one should enter the Church without a firm purpose of taking her word in all matters of doctrine and morals, and that, on the ground of her coming directly from the God of Truth." Moreover, he said about a Catholic who "set out about following a doubt which has occurred to him": "I have not to warn him against losing his faith, he is not merely in danger of losing it, he has lost it; from the nature of the case he has lost it; he fell from grace at the moment when he deliberately entertained and pursued his doubt" (emphasis added). From this perspective the most disquieting feature of Balthasar's "hope" for universal salvation is that it smuggles into the heart of the Catholic a serious doubt about the truth of the Catholic faith under the guise of one of the most beautiful and natural aspects of love, namely, compassion.
Fr. Scanlon notes that Balthasar is an Hegelian philosopher, and that "according to Hegel's understanding, religious statements, concepts, or dogmas can be contradictory and only find their resolution or synthesis in God who is Absolute Truth." He says that Balthasar "believed that contradiction is a part of truth...even expressions of scriptural truths can be opposites or contrary." Balthasar agreed with Hegel that "only God is 'the absolute truth' and 'all truth is not, negation itself is in God.'" That opens up doctrine to a form of relativity as the article indicates.
Yet those speaking for the Church even at the highest level lament that relativism is one of our consuming deceptions. How is it that a philosopher who puts forth a concept of the relativism of God and the possibility that no and yes can be compatible is the theologian of choice of the Chief Shepherd? This concept of holding no and yes at the same time affects not only specific doctrines like universalism. It undermines the very nature of doctrine and the very Truth of Jesus Christ. If Jesus can be God and not God at the same time, how can He be taken seriously? And yet that seems to be what could be concluded by the idea that something can be both true and false.
Does Benedict, like his chosen theologian, also hold mutually contradictory concepts at the same time--a sort of pluriform truth? This question arose recently in a comment box. Is it possible that interreligious dialogue stems from a concept that Jesus Christ saves coupled with a concept that other gods of other religions save as well? It does seem to be the underlying concept promoted in interreligious dialogue that all people of faith travel up the mountain by a different path, but arrive at the identical place on top. I don't know of another way to interpret what the monks are doing. In TRUTH AND TOLERANCE, Cardinal Ratzinger indicated that an assumption of the dialogue table is that all come with equal paths to God, yet at the same time he promotes this dialogue and also says that Jesus Christ is the only Savior. How can you have it both ways?
The deeper I probe into Catholic thought, the more concerned I become for the future of Catholicism in intellectual circles! We need to see some convincing reconciliation of the pre-Vatican II Church with the post-Vatican II Church, and the sooner the better. From my limited knowledge, I don't think they can be reconciled. And then there is that nagging curiosity Adrienne von Speyer.
Webb indicates in THE OCCULT ESTABLISHMENT that the Martinists were Christian occultists who opposed the masonic occultists at the time of the Paris occult revival. Are there still Martinists? Could Balthasar have been one?
Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!
