Hans Urs von Balthasar's Hopeful Universalism - Jordan Daniel Wood

[@MatthewWayne33]

Balthasar has been pivotal in my own spiritual growth

[@dariofromthefuture3075]

Really enjoying your videos. You keep them deep, but to the point and digestible. Keep ‘em coming!

[@ivorfaulkner4768]

Yes, rather than an eternity of Hell, there’s Purgatory: a purging, in preparation for meeting God, the Ground of Being itself. God is not a Divine Tyrant. My God has a Heart.

[@Peppers_mintus]

Our God is a worthless God, I kept on praising Him, He is too beyond too too Beyond and Above

[@kevinrombouts3027]

Isn't God's will ultimate and unchanging whereas ours ultimately temporal. Isn't God's love a refining fire? Surely the whole direction of scripture towards the restoration of all things plus our knowledge of a merciful, loving God ought to lead us securely and confidently into Christian universalism? Is there another way God could be " all in all"? ( 1 Corin 15) if you can answer my questions I would be interested to know. Thanks.

[@kamilziemian995]

Christ said in the Gospel that He course into the everlasting fire these who don't serve Him on earth. I can't explain this passage away.

[@kevinrombouts3027]

Isn't the Christian hope a sure hope? Isn't that precisely why it is "an anchor for our souls"? Doesn't mercy triumph over judgement? Isn't the purpose of judgement to bring to restoration or is it purely retributive?

[@conexionneuronal8820]

sometimes if feels that it's retributive

[@WolfAndLamb3]

Exactly my thought. Why should the hope in universal salvation be any different than the hope that God will eventually resurrect the dead? All Christians accept the latter without question, but not the former for some reason. These are both one and the same hope -- that God will eventually bring about the highest good.

[@kevinrombouts3027]

I have a problem with his definition of hope. It sounds a bit like I hope the weather is fine for my barbecue tomorrow evening. The biblical definition says hope is an ANCHOR for our souls. How will God be all in all in 1 Corinthians 15:20 if there is even one person in a state of eternal conscious torment. David Bentley Hart's book " That all Shall be Saved" provides compelling reasoning plus biblical indicators for universal salvation in my opinion.

[@conexionneuronal8820]

that is correct, it's sounds a bit like that, I prefer David's argument

[@kamilziemian995]

4:53 Proud member of this crowd here!

[@quallington]

incredible video. Thanks!

[@jasonegeland1446]

Very good stuff!

[@IrishEddie317]

What you have to remember about Von Balthazar is that he belonged to a religion which has dogmatically stated that people will spend an eternity in hell. His hopefulness, therefore, is a way to protect himself against being yanked up before some tribunal of unsympathetic theological torturers and being labeled as a heretic with all the appropriate punishments. In essence, what he was doing was being a very wise man.

[@Jordan-hz1wr]

Agreed. He essentially said all must be saved, without saying all must be saved. It really is a stupid qualification to have to make (blame that on dogmatic pronouncements in general) but ultimately is a quite genius approach in my mind.

[@wierdpocket]

Balthazar isn’t “hiding” to protect himself; he’s smart enough to know that if his tradition was wrong, it isn’t a tradition worth binding oneself to. There’s no reason not take him as his word. He really is being humble in the fullest sense, how can one know the extent and force of will, either of God or man’s? Strong universalists seem to underestimate the gift of the will God has given us and how deeply it can be pitted against God. There may very well be a soul that truly desires to burn in agony rather than serve the creator of the universe - on principle. I have already known people in this life who seethe with anger when they think of their very existence - as something “unfair”, as life itself as a kind of cosmic injustice. We should hope and pray and work so that these wounded souls would be healed, but it seems extremely arrogant to imagine that we know how every human will will orient itself to God.

[@Jordan-hz1wr]

@@wierdpocket Strong universalists (at least should) understand that yes a willing response to God MUST occur within human freedom, but that it indeed will. To some extent however this is still relying on a faulty libertarian model of freedom, to which those people who truly desire to burn in agony can hardly be said to be "free". So I understand the distinction you and Balthazar are trying to make and I respect it and admire it. Intellectually speaking, I simply think it does not go far enough and stops short of its full logical conclusion.

[@derpfaddesweisen]

@@wierdpocket Tradition has been wrong so often. For example the doctrine, that salvation exists only in the church, it has been interpreted in such a way that it basically says the opposite now. People need to abandon the idea of an infallible authority, it causes harm and makes progress harder than it needs to be.

[@jackolyte]

Speaking candidly here, if we don't have an infallible authority of SOME kind, even a very limited one, what basis do we have for knowing we are pursuing the truth, encountering the true Christ? The Biblical canon rests on the authority of the Church, at the very minimum we must believe there's some sort of unique witness the Church provides to attest that Scripture is indeed inspired. Combined with the strong attestation of apostolic succession in the early church, I'm inclined to believe that some form of bishopric is integral to the structure of the Church, even if it's been distorted by some.

[@kamilziemian995]

3:58 I hope that one particular person won't die from serious illness this year. Do I hope that NOBODY dies from serious illness this year? No, because I'm not so detached from reality, to hope from something so close to impossible.

[@martinmartin1363]

Von Balthazar’s teachings are based on the mystic he promoted Adrienne Von speyr and especially on her version of the decent into Hell by Jesus which is contrary to the council of Trent which says Jesus descended into the paradise of the bosom of Abraham the hell of waiting, and Bishop challenor wrote on this too, St. John of the cross warned of trusting in mysticism.

[@kamilziemian995]

6:25 Since there is no difference between "infinitely improbable" and "impossible" (if such difference exists, please, let some one explain it to me), he just proved everyone that was worrying about slippery slope into "confident universalism".

[@bman5257]

That’s a quote of St. Edith Stein which is cited by Hans Urs Von Balthasar

[@kamilziemian995]

@@bman5257 This add nothing to the merit of the discussion.

[@bman5257]

@@kamilziemian995 Umm yes it does, because it goes to show not an annunciation of Balthasar’s position but a citation he used in support of his position.

[@kamilziemian995]

@@bman5257 Don't beat around the bush.

[@kamilziemian995]

10:10 If someone can explain to me, what is a flaw in this reasoning, I want to hear. I find non.

[@warmachine8006]

That's because there isn't lol. If I had to go to bat for this view then I'd say you could still end up in hell for a really long time in torment, but you could avoid this fate by living righteously

[@anniemiller7729]

A card counter can know the cards God holds. The scandle is that God lays his cards on the table for all to see. All will be saved. This man feared man rather than God by trying to straddle the fence. Well he actually fell to man's wish and not God's certainty.

[@here_we_go_again2571]

Hans Urs von Balthasar led a lot of people down the proverbial primrose path

[@Peppers_mintus]

Balthasar made God a truly Transcendental God One does not know.