Friday, March 29, 2024

Wishful thinking about Judas

In a recent article at Catholic Answers titled “Hope for Judas?” Jimmy Akin tells us that though he used to find convincing the traditional view that Judas is damned, it now seems to him that “we don’t have conclusive proof that Judas is in hell, and there is still a ray of hope for him.”  But there is a difference between hope and wishful thinking.  And with all due respect for Akin, it seems to me that given the evidence, the view that Judas may have been saved crosses the line from the former to the latter.

Scriptural evidence

The reason it has traditionally been held that Judas is in hell is that this seems to be the clear teaching of several scriptural passages, including the words of Christ himself.  In Matthew 26:24, Jesus says of Judas: “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!  It would have been better for that man if he had not been born” (RSV translation).  (Mark 14:21 records the same remark.)  It is extremely difficult at best to see how this could possibly be true of someone who repented and was saved.  It makes perfect sense, though, if Judas was damned.  Matthew also tells us that Judas’s very last act was to commit suicide (27:5), which is mortally sinful.

The evidence of John’s gospel seems no less conclusive.  Praying to the Father about his disciples, Jesus, once again referring to Judas, says that “none of them is lost but the son of perdition” (17:12).  It is, needless to say, extremely hard to see how Judas could be “lost” and of “perdition” and yet be saved. 

Then there is the Acts of the Apostles.  It reports that Peter, referring to Judas’s death and the need to replace him, said: “For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his habitation become desolate, and let there be no one to live in it’ and ‘His office let another take’” (1:20).  This implies the opposite of a happy fate for Judas, and a later verse confirms this pessimistic judgment.  We are told that Matthias was selected “to take the place in this ministry and apostleship from which Judas turned aside, to go to his own place” (1:25).  As Haydock’s commentary notes, the reference appears to be “to his own place of perdition, which he brought himself to” (p. 1435).

Commenting on Christ’s remark in Matthew 26:24, Akin suggests that it may have been intended as a warning rather than a prediction.  On this interpretation, Jesus was merely saying that it would be better for his betrayer not to have been born if he does not repent.  But this leaves it open that Judas did indeed repent.  And in fact, Akin claims, we have evidence that Judas repented in the very next chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, which tells us:

When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, “I have sinned in betraying innocent blood.” (27: 3-4)

But there are several problems with this argument.  The first is that it simply is not plausible on its face to suppose that Christ’s words were meant merely as a warning rather than a prediction about Judas’s actual fate.  That it would be better for the damned not to have been born is true of everyone who might fail to repent – you, me, Judas, and for that matter, Peter, who also went on to betray Jesus (and who, we know, did indeed repent).  And yet Christ does not make this remark about Peter or about anyone else, but only about Judas.  The obvious implication is that the words apply to Judas in a way they do not apply to anyone else, and that can only be the case if he was in fact damned.

A second problem is that Akin ignores the other relevant biblical passages.  In John’s Gospel, Christ says that Judas is “lost” and a “son of perdition.”  Those are peremptory remarks about what is the case, not about what would be the case if Judas did not repent.  Moreover, he says these things to the Father, not to Judas or to any other disciple.  Hence they can hardly be said to be warnings to anyone.  Then there are Peter’s remarks in Acts, which imply an unhappy fate for Judas and were made after Judas’s death, so that they too cannot be mere warnings about what would happen if he did not repent.

A third problem is that the passage cited by Akin has traditionally been understood to be attributing to Judas a merely natural regret for what he had done, not the supernatural sorrow or perfect contrition that would be necessary for salvation.  This is evidenced by what happens immediately after the passage cited by Akin: “They said [to Judas], ‘What is that to us?  See to it yourself.’  And throwing down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; and he went and hanged himself” (27: 4-5).  As Haydock’s commentary notes, Pope St. Leo remarks, accordingly, that Judas showed only “a fruitless repentance, accompanied with a new sin of despair” (p. 1311).  Haydock notes that St. John Chrysostom also interprets the passage from Matthew as attributing only an imperfect repentance to Judas.

To be sure, Akin remarks that “suicide does not always result in hell because a person may not be fully responsible for his action due to lack of knowledge, or psychological factors, and because ‘in ways known to him alone,’ God may help the person to repent.”  That is true, but it does not follow that we have any serious grounds for doubting that Judas’s suicide, specifically, resulted in damnation.  For one thing, there is no actual evidence from scripture that Judas found sincere repentance just before the moment of death.  The very idea is sheer ungrounded speculation at best.  But for another thing, and as we’ve already seen, there are scriptural passages that afford positive evidence that Judas was in fact damned.  And again, that is how they have traditionally been interpreted.

Evidence from the tradition

Later authorities reiterate this clear indication of scripture that Judas is damned.  We’ve already noted that Pope St. Leo the Great and St. John Chrysostom do so.  Leo elaborates on the theme as follows:

To this forgiveness the traitor Judas could not attain: for he, the son of perdition, at whose right the devil stood, gave himself up to despair before Christ accomplished the mystery of universal redemption.  For in that the Lord died for sinners, perchance even he might have found salvation if he had not hastened to hang himself.  But that evil heart, which was now given up to thievish frauds, and now busied with treacherous designs, had never entertained anything of the proofs of the Saviour's mercy… The wicked traitor refused to understand this, and took measures against himself, not in the self-condemnation of repentance, but in the madness of perdition, and thus he who had sold the Author of life to His murderers, even in dying increased the amount of sin which condemned him.

Similarly, in The City of God, St. Augustine writes:

Do we justly execrate the deed of Judas, and does truth itself pronounce that by hanging himself he rather aggravated than expiated the guilt of that most iniquitous betrayal, since, by despairing of God's mercy in his sorrow that wrought death, he left to himself no place for a healing penitence? … For Judas, when he killed himself, killed a wicked man; but he passed from this life chargeable not only with the death of Christ, but with his own: for though he killed himself on account of his crime, his killing himself was another crime. (Book I, Chapter 17)

It is true that Origen and St. Gregory of Nyssa held out hope that Judas repented.  But these Fathers also famously flirted with universalism, which the Church has since condemned, and this renders suspect their understanding of the scriptural passages relevant to this particular topic.

In De Veritate, St. Thomas Aquinas writes:

In the case of Judas, the abuse of grace was the reason for his reprobation, since he was made reprobate because he died without grace.  Moreover, the fact that he did not have grace when he died was not due to God’s unwillingness to give it but to his unwillingness to accept it – as both Anselm and Dionysius point out.  (Question Six, Article 2.  The context is Aquinas’s consideration of an objection to a thesis on predestination that he defends in the article.  But the lines quoted reflect assumptions he shares in common with his critic.)

The Catechism of the Council of Trent promulgated by Pope St. Pius V, in its treatment of penance, says: “[Some] give themselves to such melancholy and grief, as utterly to abandon all hope of salvation… Such certainly was the condition of Judas, who, repenting, hanged himself, and thus lost soul and body” (p. 264).  And in its treatment of the priesthood, the Catechism says:

Some are attracted to the priesthood by ambition and love of honors; while there are others who desire to be ordained simply in order that they may abound in riches… They derive no other fruit from their priesthood than was derived by Judas from the Apostleship, which only brought him everlasting destruction. (p. 319)

The Church has also never prayed for Judas’s soul in her formal worship.  On the contrary, the traditional liturgy for Holy Thursday contains the following prayer:

O God, from whom Judas received the punishment of his guilt, and the thief the reward of his confession, grant us the effect of Thy clemency: that as our Lord Jesus Christ in His passion gave to each a different recompense according to his merits, so may He deliver us from our old sins and grant us the grace of His resurrection.  Who liveth and reigneth.

Further authorities could be cited, but this suffices to make the point that it has been the common view in the history of the Church that Judas is in hell.  Indeed, so confident has the Church been about this that the supposition that Judas is damned has traditionally been reflected even in her catechesis and her worship. 

Now, this would be extremely odd if there really were any serious grounds for hope that Judas is saved.  As the Code of Canon Law famously reminds us, “the salvation of souls… must always be the supreme law in the Church” (1752).  And Christ famously commanded us to pray for our enemies (Matthew 5:44).  How then, consistent with Christ’s teaching and with her supreme law, could the Church for two millennia fail to pray for Judas’s soul if there really were any hope for his salvation?  The Church also assures sinners that there is no sin, no matter how grievous, that cannot be forgiven if only one is truly repentant.  What better illustration of this could there possibly be than the repentance of Christ’s own betrayer – if indeed he really had repented?  And yet the Church has not only never held Judas up as a sign of hope, but on the contrary has pointed to him as an illustration of what awaits those who refuse Christ’s mercy.

The only evidence from the tradition Akin cites in defense of his own position are some remarks from Pope St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI.  In particular, he notes that John Paul once stated that it is not “certain” from Matthew 26:24 that Judas is damned.  And Benedict, Akin notes, once remarked that it is “not up to us” to make a judgement about Judas’s suicide.

But this is hardly a powerful response to the case from scripture and tradition that I’ve summarized.  For one thing, John Paul II’s remark was not made in the context of a magisterial document, but rather in the interview book Crossing the Threshold of Hope.  It is merely the expression of his opinion as a private theologian.  Moreover, it is merely an assertion about Matthew 26:24 and fails to address the considerations that indicate that the passage does indeed show that Judas is damned.  Nor does John Paul address the other relevant scriptural passages, or the evidence from the later tradition.

Benedict XVI’s comment was made in the course of a general audience, which has a low degree of authority compared to the relevant passages from scripture, the Fathers, and the rest of the tradition cited above.  Moreover, Benedict also acknowledges that “Jesus pronounces a very severe judgement on [Judas],” and goes on to contrast Judas’s fate with Peter’s:

After his fall Peter repented and found pardon and grace.  Judas also repented, but his repentance degenerated into desperation and thus became self-destructive.  For us it is an invitation to always remember what St Benedict says at the end of the fundamental Chapter Five of his “Rule”: “Never despair of God's mercy”.

Needless to say, these remarks from Benedict tend to support rather than undermine the traditional view that Judas’s suicide shows that he had succumbed to the sin of despair.

“So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”

It may seem frivolous, when dealing with so serious a subject, to allude to a crude comedy film like Dumb and Dumber.  But it contains a line that is so apt that I will take the risk.  In a famous scene, Jim Carrey’s character asks a girl he has a crush on how likely it is that she might someday reciprocate his feelings.  She says the odds are “one out of a million.”  To which he replies: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!  YEAH!!”

What she actually means, of course, is that the odds are so extremely low that, practically speaking, there is no chance at all.  But the lesson he draws is that, because she didn’t quite say that there is zero chance, he has reasonable grounds for hope. 

Jimmy Akin is a smart guy for whom I have nothing but respect, so I am certainly not likening him to the Jim Carrey character!  But on this particular issue, it seems to me that he, like others who have resisted the traditional view that Judas is damned, are committing an error similar to the one that character commits.  Because, they suppose, the evidence from scripture and tradition doesn’t strictly entail that Judas is damned, they judge that it is reasonable to hope that he is not.  In effect, they look at what the evidence is saying and respond: “So you’re telling me there’s a chance!”  And like Carrey’s character, they thereby entirely miss the point.

94 comments:

  1. If I can get into heaven after betraying Jesus for money, despairing, and then commuting suicide, then what could possibly warrant damnation?

    I can understand wanting to nuance the whole topic of hell, like those endless exceptions we feel are necessary when discussing extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus, but we very quickly run the risk of making conversion to Christ and rectitude of will until death optional.

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    1. The answer your question “What could possibly warrant damnation?” is “Literally any sin at all.” The smallest sinful act is enough to separate from the eternal goodness of God. That’s why repentance and acceptance of God’s mercy and grace are the key. As Dr. Feser pointed out, Peter also betrayed Christ. It’s not what Judas did; it’s what he didn’t do.

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  2. to argue that someone (you) or "tradition" can swing the word Hell around and make proclamations that this or that person is in Hell is a step below that (you) can know the mind and grace of God...a grace and love that far out weighs what or Creator decides how far "grace" extends...

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    1. Perhaps you missed the part where I appealed to what Christ Himself says about Judas? Do you know better about grace than He does?

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    2. See, there's reasonable objections, like Norm's below at March 29, 2024 at 10:35 PM, and then there's yours, which amounts to, "How dare you make an argument based on the available evidence in Scripture and the Church Fathers!"

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  3. I pray everyday for many people who have died, including some Hollywood stars who led notoriously sinful lives and seemingly died without benefit of the sacraments, or repentance, although I have no way of knowing that for sure. But I feel somehow prompted to pray for them, and I do.

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    1. Keep on.
      If they are in Purgatory, it will help.
      Otherwise, God will apply it to someone who needs it.
      Either way, you practice Charity.

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  4. It seems to me that Matthew 26:24 doesn't make more sense on your reading as compared to Akin's. Since Jesus is constantly talking in hyperbole, metaphor, parable, warnings, political messages, and so forth I don't see a principled reason to take this verse as 100% literal, as well as speaking of an eternal torture chamber.

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    1. I have this thought as well whenever that verse comes up, mainly because I struggle to see how it could be better for anyone not to have been born since I've been under the impression that existence is good while nonexistence is evil. So, would it not follow that it is better for someone to exist and be damned to hell, than for that same person never to have existed at all? This is why I struggle to take Christ's words about Judas literally, and have tended to conclude that he's being hyperbolic and using a figure of speech to emphasize how terrible Judas's fate will be.

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    2. That’s some weak sauce you offer.

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  5. So the Simple God, who freely brought Judas from nothingness into existence and inhabited that first moment of Judas' existence as well as this present moment of Judas' eternal suffering simultaneously, says Judas should never have been born. But the One saying this is the reason Judas exists in the first place. And the One saying this knew at the instant of conception that Judas would do what Judas was going to do. and the One saying this is The Cause Of Judas' existence. But I'm supposed to blame Judas. You worship an inauspicious god, may we all be saved from the moloch you worship. A god who creates souls while simultaneously existing in the hell those souls are going to because He freely created them is not worthy of worship. I wonder how many will be drawn to Him when He is lifted up.

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    1. You deserve to be slapped.

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    2. Sounds like you need the 101 level introduction to the de auxiliis controversy.

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    3. “So the Simple God,”
      What does that even mean?
      “who freely brought Judas from nothingness into existence and inhabited that first moment of Judas' existence”
      Human beings participate with God in the creation of new human beings, and their upbringing by those parents affects their path in life. It’s God’s permissive will that allowed Judas to come into existence by the free will of his parents. God did not create Judas in the same way Adam and Eve were created. Surely, you must know where babies come from.
      “as well as this present moment of Judas' eternal suffering simultaneously, says Judas should never have been born.”
      This is a complete misrepresentation of Christ’s words. But you know that. Jesus did not say Judas should never have been born, but that it would be better for him if he had not been born.
      “But the One saying this is the reason Judas exists in the first place.” Along with his parents and a long line of ancestors. The Old Testament is the story of how people were not faithful to God in the exercise of their free will.
      “And the One saying this knew at the instant of conception that Judas would do what Judas was going to do.” Finally saying something true?

      “and the One saying this is The Cause Of Judas' existence.” A cause, along with a long line of ancestors culminating in his parents. Are you going to blame his parents and ancestors as well? I doubt it because that’s not your agenda.
      “But I'm supposed to blame Judas.” Will you not acknowledge that there was a crowd shouting “Crucify Him!” and Pontius Pilate, Roman soldiers, the power of the Roman state, the Sanhedrin, and others involved in Jesus’ crucifixion? A cause of Jesus’ crucifixion is my own sins. He willingly gave himself up for ME, and for YOU. And so Jesus’ own divine will is also a cause of his crucifixion.

      “You worship an inauspicious god” As if you are one to judge that.

      “may we all be saved from the moloch you worship.” 6 A god who creates souls while simultaneously existing in the hell those souls are going to because He freely created them is not worthy of worship. I wonder how many will be drawn to Him when He is lifted up.” Who are you to judge God? Did you create the universe? Did you choose to condescend from divinity to humanity and give up your life for mankind?

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    4. For those reading this comment, it is worth pointing out that Christ said it would be better if Judas had never been BORN. He does not say it would be better if Judas had never been conceived. We can draw from this nuance that Judas is still better off existing than not existing, but he does have an unfortunate existence.

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  6. Excellent. The issue that Akin will probably turn to is that the past comments are still fallible, even if getting close to a "consensus of the Fathers." and then couple that with the fact that, regardless of how unlikely it looks, the contemporary magisterium is open to the God of surprises more so than not.

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    1. What’s strange is that people will treat Pope Francis’ comments on capital punishment in the Catechism as definitive and in the same breath brush off the four hundred year old Catechism of Trent as well as Scripture, Fathers, and Doctors of the Church.

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  7. Even if we have no way of knowing, I still would not invest in any Saint Judas Day bling.

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  8. I think you make a good argument professor. But at the same time I think you don't express Pope Benedict XVI's position as clearly as it could have been here. In particular, he frames his argument within the context of the repentance passage.

    "The mystery of the choice remains, all the more since Jesus pronounces a very severe judgement on him: "Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed!" (Mt 26: 24).

    What is more, it darkens the mystery around his eternal fate, knowing that Judas "repented and brought back the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood'" (Mt 27: 3-4). Even though he went to hang himself (cf. Mt 27: 5), it is not up to us to judge his gesture, substituting ourselves for the infinitely merciful and just God."

    It is clear that Pope Benedict XVI, who was a professional biblical theologian, held these two passages in tension with each other, that is he took seriously the chance of genuine repentance atleast at the time of returning the 30 pieces of Silver rather then natural regret, which only leaves the sin of suicide as the candidate for determining his fate.

    Professor Feser writes

    "The obvious implication is that the words apply to Judas in a way they do not apply to anyone else, and that can only be the case if he was in fact damned."

    I think this is the best argument in this article and I concede that it is hard to refute. This is not a knockout but nevertheless the passage could also just refer to the state of Judas' soul at that point of time as compared to the other apostles and the fact that he was on course to committing what is possibly the greatest individual sin known to mankind. Prof mentions that if the passage was conditional it would be for true for anyone in need of repentance but Judas is specifically singled out. I think the key aspect here is "in need of repentance". Pope Benedict XVI in his audience emphasizes the "mystery" of Judas' betrayal as well. The question of "how could he" despite everything Jesus had done for him. This implies that Judas' state of soul was already in a precarious state prior to the events of the passion in comparison to the rest of the apostles.
    Atleast with Peter, his denial seems rather spontaneous not something that he had been planning for sometime. So after becoming apostles of Jesus and just prior to the events of the Passion, it seems reasonable to conclude that only Judas soul was in a state of requiring repentance. Hints of Judas rather unique disposition compared to the other apostles are alluded to in John,

    " Judas Iscariot was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag he used to help himself to what was put into it” (John 12:6)."

    A similar analysis could be given to other passages, "son of perdition" ," lost" etc.

    We also know Jesus, at times, to speak in very strong terms which are traditionally not always taken at face value, For example, Just from the fact that he said "Father, Father, Why have you forsaken me", doesn't entail that God had actually forsaken him. Biblical interpretation is hard and at times certainty is elusive.

    I think that it is extremely likely that Judas is damned. Nevertheless if someone wants to reserve judgement, I think they are certainly in good company of two saintly popes in Pope Benedict XVI and Pope St John Paul II.

    People sometimes try to use Judas as an example of someone who is in hell, but I think the prime evidence of people being in hell is the passage where Jesus said "Many will not be able". This was also the main piece of scripture cited by biblical scholar Michael Patrick Barber in his book on Salvation.

    As for the question of probability , there are many faithful theists today who reject Christianity just based on the sheer improbability of the Incarnation itself, keeping aside the Crucifixion and Passion. Prior to the Incarnation, It would have been reasonable for people to assume that God actually becoming Human had only a 1 in billion chance of occuring. But God works in Mysterious Ways.



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    1. Thanks for the article. I agree with your position, but I do have a question regarding Mt. 26:24...when Jesus says "it would have been better if that man had never been born"...even if we take that to mean Judas is in hell, don't we still have to assume a [slight] level of hyperbole from Jesus in the statement? I thought Aquinas said somewhere that in hell the one grace still granted to someone is the fact that they continue to exist...that "being", even in hell, is better than non-being. If that is the case, even in hell it would be better for Judas to have been born and existed than to not ever exist (as bizarre as that may sound at first). Just curious as to your thoughts on that.

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    2. Faithful “theists”? Faithful to what? Themselves?

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    3. Hi Jason
      Thanks for your engagement.
      Well I did mention the chances of hyperbole in the part of the article where I pointed towards Jesus saying "Father Father, Why Have You Forsaken Me?".

      So I haven't excluded that possibility.

      You make a very interesting and observant point about merely existing and it's relation to goodness.

      I think however one could object to it because even though their existence is good. It isn't good "for" them. It may be good for other reasons. You might notice that Jesus was quite specific when he said, it would have been better "for" that man.

      What may those reasons be? Well , traditionally, theologians like Aquinas and Reginald Garrigou Lagrange say that hell exists to reflect the full extent of God's justice. It could have been temporary but a temporary punishment doesn't fully do justice to an unrepentant mortal sin which causes an offence against the infinite majesty of God. Hence "eternal" damnation.

      So if one has to look for alternate interpretations, it's always best to take the "conditional statements" interpretation. The advantage of it is that it preserves the force of those statements while allowing for some uncertainty on very specific issues that don't really effect the overall theological context. It's the preferred way of many orthodox theologians, Pope Benedict XVI being one.

      For example in his interview with Peter Seewald in God and the World, Pope Benedict takes the Wide and Narrow Gate passage to be a classic example of a warning. And it's also True in that passage that Jesus never says they reach those destination, just the gates. Cardinal Avery Dulles also notes that the bible never gives us any percentages iin this regard. And he also notes that this is deliberate.

      Notice that uncertainty about whether the majority or minority are damned, doesn't change the urgency of missionary impulse. The fact that we don't know should make us all the more urgent about saving souls. So uncertainty doesn't take away the force of statements.

      Anonymous
      Faithful to ,"God" obviously. There may be many theists who believe in God but don't take it seriously. So here I had in my mind theists who believe in God and are devoted to him.
      In particular Muslims find the idea of incarnation abhorrent. That God would never appear in such a lowly way

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    4. Just listened to reflections explanarions of Christ's seven last words. It is interestingly not "My Father, My Father" Wewhy have you forsaken / abandoned Me? Rather he addresses My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?

      We know this can be the prayer of every faithful. Maybe even Judas in despair. We truly just do not know. Vivat Jesus.

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    5. Hi John
      My bad. It is God, not Father. I apologise.

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    6. First, when Jesus cried out "why have you abandoned me", he was quoting Psalm 22.

      Secondly, since it is metaphysically impossible for God the Father to actually separate from God the Son, an utter abandonment was impossible, and the Son as divine knew this throughout, of course.

      Third, God does not abandon those who are in the state of grace and who do not sin, but love Him. It is impossible to love Him in charity without grace, and it is impossible to have that grace without God present to you, because sanctifying grace just is the presence of God in the soul.

      Hence we can be certain that the kind of abandonment that Jesus meant was, at most, some version of a veil in which God the Father intended, and God the Son in his divine will consented, that Jesus in his human soul have an experience of the kind of emptiness and separation from God that may afflict us, so that we are not consciously aware of God's presence to us. His presence was veiled from his human soul's direct awareness.

      But Jesus even in his experienced emptiness continued to will rightly to do the Father's will, which is also what we know many, many saints have done who have experienced what is called "the dark night of the soul". He did not despair of God's love in the condition of feeling alone.

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    7. Hi Tony.,

      I think I agree with everything you say. My point was merely that for all the aforementioned reasons that you stated, we can't take the reference to abandonment at face value given what we know of Christ.

      It isn't the only place where we know Christ to speak in strong terms. The reference to "Cut of the Eye " etc.

      If the point that you want to make is that there are more firmer and grounded reasons for understanding those other statements indifferent ways as opposed to the Judas statements.

      Then again I agree with you, the case for Judas not being in hell isn't very strong. Nevertheless I do think a reasonable case can be made that we don't know for sure even though it's unlikely that Judas is saved.

      If by hope, one means the theological sense "reasonable expectation then I don't agree with it.

      If by hope one means "want it to be the case since we don't know for certain", that I can understand.

      That the evidence of scripture doesn't strictly entail the damnation of Judas seems to be admitted by Professor above.

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    8. Norm, I don't think that the kind of criteria you are applying are the only applicable ones here.

      Then again I agree with you, the case for Judas not being in hell isn't very strong. Nevertheless I do think a reasonable case can be made that we don't know for sure even though it's unlikely that Judas is saved.

      If we are looking at what Jesus said as the evidence given by a really smart guy with some inside knowledge, i.e. a human kind of authority-expert, then that kind of "we don't know for sure" makes sense. But he isn't that kind of source, and the Catholic Church has other criteria to apply.

      There are 3 possible ways, under Catholic analysis, where we should be wary of saying "it's uncertain". The first and obvious is if the Church had issued a dogmatic definition stating that Judas went to Hell. I agree that this has not happened.

      The second is if the teaching that Judas is in hell is, and has been, infallibly taught by way of the ordinary magisterium of bishops throughout the Church. This is a feasible claim: some might argue that it has not been so taught, but there's a weight of evidence that can't be discounted.

      The third is if it has been taught without yet having reached the status of an infallible teaching of the ordinary magisterium of the bishops, i.e. is still in the category of teachings to which we owe religious submission of mind and will, but within that category, sits effectively right on the border of being infallibly taught. The category of religious submission teachings is capable of degree in terms of what kind of deference we give it, and what kind of reservations we maintain against it. This means that some (many) teachings are to be held with LOTS of room for reservation. But it also implies that there are other teachings that are all but certain and your legitimate room to insist on reservations is thin at best.

      Take Pius IX's definition in 1854 that Mary was immaculately conceived. After that event, it was known that the teaching is infallible. But that doesn't mean it wasn't taught infallibly before that. Indeed, by his framing of the issue, it could be said that he had merely made explicit what was already implicit because it had already been taught infallibly by the Ordinary Magisterium. And this would TEND to be the case for ANY new ex cathedra declaration by the pope.

      But epistemically, the storehouse of "those things that have been taught infallibly by the Ordinary Magisterium" and "those things that are right next door to having been taught infallibly by the Ordinary Magisterium" look, to mere non-experts, as practically the same, in terms of our response in how we hold them. And one might say of both classes that we ought to hold them in such a way that there is no practical way to doubt them and still be in tune with the mind of the Church. Yes, technically speaking the latter class might be held with some reservation, but the practical mental space for such reservation is vanishingly small. To run that through the opposite angle: for such teachings, we should be more ready to doubt our reservations against the teaching than to doubt the teaching. And in practice that might mean that when speaking of such a teaching, we might better go silent than express specific reasons which are put forth as if they were definite (sound) reservations to the teaching.

      I guess I am trying to say that within the realm of "Catholic teaching", there are teachings that we should be generally reticent about declaring that they are "uncertain", just because they have not yet had a formal infallible declaration defining them. And this one probably fits the bill.

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    9. Hi Tony

      You make a fair point.
      And I agree that there's s lot of weight and tradition behind the teaching that Judas is in hell.

      I myself am more or less inclined to say that Judas is in hell.

      I would say that the Church has had ample opportunity to make it a formal teaching. It's clearly something that was speculated on since ancient times.

      But I think that when it comes to formally declaring that a person is in hell, the church hesitates. The reasons perhaps has to do in part with Christ's statements about being careful to judge.

      And also another issue is that the Church is careful about over stepping it's authority on Biblical interpretation.

      There's also the matter of two theologically and biblically informed Popes maintaining the position that we can't say for certain.

      I understand your point about caution and we should indeed be cautious.

      I am actually quite willing to concede that Judas is in hell. And I think that the Church can go as far as to formally pronounce it.

      I think that the Church can even go as far as to formally pronounce that hell is not empty and some people will be in hell based on Christ's words, Many will not be able

      I suppose where I'd draw the line is that the Church cannot declare that Hell is more populated than Heaven.

      I think the statement of Christ in Matthew where he contrasts the many and the few using the wide and narrow gate isn't giving us an idea of the comparative figures but rather warning us. This is the understanding of Pope Benedict XVI as well. Indeed in his previous works, he has identified a pattern of "few and many" in the bible and has used this to speculate the few exist of the many. This no doubt informed his understanding of why the Church will have to dramatically reduce in size in order to fulfill its mission.
      People also point out that the narrow gate and wide gate are metaphors for life on Earth and that to enter by the gates is not to reach the final destination.

      Obviously one can take a different tack but I think that atleast that passage is open to interpretation if not the Judas one.

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    10. I am actually quite willing to concede that Judas is in hell. And I think that the Church can go as far as to formally pronounce it.

      I think that the Church can even go as far as to formally pronounce that hell is not empty and some people will be in hell based on Christ's words, Many will not be able

      I suppose where I'd draw the line is that the Church cannot declare that Hell is more populated than Heaven.


      Norm, that's fair enough. I have little problem with that.

      I think the statement of Christ in Matthew where he contrasts the many and the few using the wide and narrow gate isn't giving us an idea of the comparative figures but rather warning us. This is the understanding of Pope Benedict XVI as well. Indeed in his previous works, he has identified a pattern of "few and many" in the bible and has used this to speculate the few exist of the many.

      Sure. But it is also possible to interpret the "few" and "many" as being literally true about conditions at any one time on Earth, AND allow that in the long run a very large portion of "the many" might end up in heaven: suppose that for 90% of their lives, 95% of people live in a state of sin and would go to hell if they died that way, but that some (large) number of them - when they get old and to some extent less enchanted with the pleasures of the world - also repent of their sins and die in a state of grace. It would be true (at every moment) that "the vast majority of people alive are on the broad path to destruction", even though it would NOT true that "the vast majority end up in hell." And Christ's comment would then be, in part, the warning that helps them to turn around and depart from the broad path to destruction.

      But positing that Christ's many descriptions of the wide path of the many vs the narrow gate of the few, along with his descriptions of his ultimate winnowing between the wheat and chaff at the last judgment, should be understood solely as warning and NOT as foretelling is unwarranted: warning doesn't interfere with foretelling. More than that, the notion that the overall weight of all of the passages can be taken as not having ANY implications at all regarding whether there will be large numbers of the damned is also not warranted: the meaning not being precise as to numbers or even ratios doesn't imply that the sum total meaning of the passages doesn't even bear on the question of the numbers. Yes, we don't know everything about how to read those passages, and we might get more comprehension as the Church unfolds the meaning of the Scriptures more fully over time. But "more clearly over time" doesn't negate the meaning we get now.

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    11. Hi Tony

      Yes, I actually kinda , like the interpretation you put forth.
      I might just kinda adopt it since it properly tracks to the state of the person's soul.

      Well, I didn't say that the passage would have no bearing on numbers what so ever. I was just trying to make the point that it didn't necessarily entail the vast majority are doomed.

      I personally actually always liked the way in which Dr Ralph Martin put it in a video once where he mentioned that when it comes to percentages, it may just actually be up to us. If we take Christ's words with a sense of urgency and start evangelizing, we may just end up pulling the numbers of the saved towards the majority :).
      Only time will tell I suppose.

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  9. There always seems to be some lack of clarity on what Judas really did wrong. He told the chief priests where the apostles were staying, and then pointed out Jesus with the kiss. However as Jesus himself said, he could have been arrested anytime he was preaching. Also it doesn’t seem like it would have been difficult to have someone follow the disciples to their overnight bolt hole.

    Nonetheless it’s clearly not as simple as this, or else the priests would not have paid so much for Judas’s services. Jesus clearly sees it as a betrayal, even though it is a necessary one in order to fulfil scripture. We can’t know what was in Judas’s mind, perhaps his intentions were good from his perspective. I’m reminded of Peter’s reply when Jesus tells them that he will be put to death in Jerusalem, saying that he (Peter) would ‘save’ Jesus from this, and then the “Get thee behind me Satan” response. Here Peter is well intentioned, but opposing the will of the Father. Nonetheless, Jesus is rebuking Satan more than Peter, who is merely having his love manipulated.

    Judas on the other hand is allowing himself to be manipulated in secret. He plots in the darkness so to speak - and even if in his mind it would be the chance for Jesus to validate his wisdom and authority before the chief priests, there is an arrogance and pride in him deciding this for Jesus. Behind his back.

    The “good” that Judas goes against is one that is very unpopular nowdays - obedience. It’s seen as something that individual Nazi foot soldiers did, a sign of people weekly being co-opted by power, with the rebel against power and authority being naturally on the side of the angels. The rebel is deep in the narrative of the reformation and of the US narrative of it’s founding. What is different in this narrative from the older ways of thinking is nominalism. The trope of the rebel is self contained, it almost doesn’t matter who or what the rebellion is against in order to get the ‘rebel credentials’. In the older way of thinking, what you were for or against was the overall telos, not the small details. “A house divided cannot stand”. The references to ‘rebel’ in scripture are nearly always bad.

    I wonder if there is a lesson in all of this for us Catholics, and Christians in general. We may not like X liturgy, or the things Y pope says, and we should always examine our conscience on such things. Even speak up on them - ideally quietly to those placed in authority to us. But unless we are 100% clear and certain that we are right and opposing that which is inherently wrong (safeguarding children being an obvious example), maybe obedience to that which has a clear and genuine telos to do the will of God as described by His words, is the best way to avoid falling into the ‘pattern of Judas’?

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    1. However as Jesus himself said, he could have been arrested anytime he was preaching.

      Simon, I don't think this is true: the gospels repeatedly say that the priests and pharisees were unable to grab him out in the open because they feared a popular riot as a response. John 7 and 8 kind of makes this point, they actually sent soldiers, but to no avail: Then they sought to take him: but no man laid hands on him, because his hour was not yet come.

      Also it doesn’t seem like it would have been difficult to have someone follow the disciples to their overnight bolt hole.

      It would seem easy if they had men who could be trusted to manage it, but (as in John 7), when they sent men to arrest him, they came away saying "Never man spake like this man" and unable to force themselves to the task, until Jesus's time was ripe.

      We can’t know what was in Judas’s mind, perhaps his intentions were good from his perspective. I’m reminded of Peter’s reply when Jesus tells them that he will be put to death in Jerusalem, saying that he (Peter) would ‘save’ Jesus from this, and then the “Get thee behind me Satan” response. Here Peter is well intentioned, but opposing the will of the Father. Nonetheless, Jesus is rebuking Satan more than Peter, who is merely having his love manipulated.

      The gospels repeatedly show Christ warning those who refused to believe in him despite all the evidence he put forward that they refused out of adhering instead to their sins. We cannot say exactly which muddled pathway infected Judas's thinking, but we can be confident that (a) whatever pathway it was, he had an intention that seemed to him a good intention, but the action itself that he chose was to betray the confidences in which Christ trusted the apostles, to achieve that "good intention". (b) But we can surmise that far more likely than not, that apparently good intention partook mostly of the evils that came from not having faith in Christ, which Judas seemingly had in common with the chief priests and Pharisees. Was it lack of faith in Christ because Christ refused to be the conquering hero to drive out the Romans? Or refused to enrich his closest adherents? We need not settle on the exact motivational mix that created that fabrication in Judas's mind that "justified" the betrayal - whatever it was, his action still consisted of betrayal of Jesus and the others (Judas had no solid reason to believe that the other apostles would not be taken as well).

      When Jesus rebuked Peter, he was calling Peter a satan, "thou art a scandal unto me: because thou savourest not the things that are of God, but the things that are of men." Peter wanted Jesus's messianic role to imply immunity from death, whereas Jesus revealed he was going to have to die. Sure, Peter was being used and fooled by the real Satan, but the rebuke is aimed at Peter in his own person because it is Peter's own thinking that is wrong-headed. But Peter repented, whereas Judas manifestly aggregated and compounded his sinful thinking until it blossomed into his initiating contact with Jesus's enemies, seeking to be paid for the betrayal.

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  10. Do you think it is a revealed truth (de fide) contained in the scripture that Judas is damned? (If you don’t, then it seems there is no way to argue with certainty that Judas is damned.) Also prof. Feser, thank you in advance for your answer and for your work in philosophy.

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    1. yes I believe it is revealed Judas chose hell.
      It's an interesting discourse to consider
      the man. However Jesus is divine, he knew.

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  11. You fall into the easy trap of looking at things as a man, of what "makes sense" to you. We don't think like God, do not have God thoughts and certainly don't know what God knows.

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  12. I don't know who is in Hell and who is not.

    But I have noticed that nontheists who profess not to believe in Hell get very upset if one consigns others to it.

    And it is not just the narrow shouldered, feminine hands, beard stroking gynecomastic soft male types who get upset, either. Plenty of superficially normal people do as well.

    It's probably a version of that "Human, all too human" ideology: the one wherein it is accepted that far from being definitionally a rational animal, the human is an emotion driven organism swept along by forces, interior or exterior, beyond its control or even its capacity to understand: being a fleshy material effect of these brute, and brutish forces, rather than a free agent.

    Now, if Hell exists, and if it is the hopeless, sulfrous, scorching, worm infested never ending and unceasing horror reported by saints and NDE survivors as well as He Himself, then, I guess that it would be hard to think of even Hitler or Stalin, or Lyndon Johnson, frying and writhing and screaming there forever in the reality set aside for "fallen angels"; those once privileged creatures now transformed accoring to the story, into demons wising to rip apart whatever portion of creation fell into their hands.

    But then, where else would the lost souls go? Since in the final analysis there is only God and that maintained by God where he is actively present in some degree, or a place of God's absence.

    And if He is the Truth, and the Light, and can neither deceive nor be deceived, how could they after exiting time then go on to exist before such a Presence unmediated ... they who have made deception, manipulation and viciousness their very own?

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    1. Are you a theist or non-theist DNW, or are you commentating from an atheistic, agnostic or some type of more exotic ground? The answer to this question , and its defence, would be of great theological and philosophical interest to many.

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  13. Nontraditionalist Catholics usually quote the Catechism of the Catholic Church instead of Trent's Catechism. If Mr. Akin will read or reread Trent's Catechism, he'll find about three passages saying that Judas went to hell.

    Bill McEnaney

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  14. One might ask, "Gee, if Judas got to go to Heaven, why can't the Devil get there, too?" At some point, Universalism gets ridiculous.

    FWIW, Fr Ripperger has said - if I recall correctly - that Judas is in Hell. This is an insight gained through exorcism. Maybe not proof to some, but it dovetails with the traditional Faith.

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  15. i don’t know and neither does anyone else.

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  16. Maybe some Calvinists will defend eternal security when we ask them why Our Lord said that Judas would have been better off if he hadn't been born. Will they commit the no true Scotsman fallacy by telling us that Judas wasn't a real Christian since no real one would have betrayed Christ?

    How do Calvinists interpret Mark 16:16 where Jesus says that anyone who believes and gets baptized will be saved, though anyone who doesn't believe will be damned?

    Believers in eternal security insist that after you accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, you can't lose your salvation. Does that mean that Christ was mistaken in Mark 16:16? I suggest that eternal security is logically inconsistent with that verse. After all, if I can't do anything to lose my salvation, I can become an atheist, die as one, and still go to heaven. Do you see how that contradicts Our Lord's statement when he says that anyone who doesn't believe will be damned? It makes no sense to believe that though there's nothing I can do lose my salvation, I can lose it by becoming an atheist.

    Bill McEnaney

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  17. "One might ask, "Gee, if Judas got to go to Heaven, why can't the Devil get there, too?" At some point, Universalism gets ridiculous."

    That did not stop a purported universalist from asserting just that, in response to my similar observation in a comment thread on the topic of universalism some months ago.

    "Sympathy for the Devil" as it might be called.

    "After all", they, the sympathizers, imagine, " ... he's not so different. Essentially, just another guy with a mentality 'like us', only doing what comes naturally. Not really hateful, or malicious or contemptuous or intending harm to creation and life; just diverse you might say, and a bit vainglorious once upon a time. Got something of a bad rap. He merely wants what he wants and is entitled to like we all do. The Devil won't hate us anymore once we stop hating and marginalizing him. We can trust this will all be worked out once God realizes the error of His ways and lightens up a bit, realizing that desire, er .... "love", always trumps rigid holiness".

    Interesting mindset, that. 'Queers for Palestine' comes to mind as somewhat similar.

    By the way. Happy Easter. Sincerely.

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  18. There's a reason David Bentley Hart keeps warning you against trying your hand at scriptural interpretation when you have no background in biblical studies. As others have pointed out, Jesus frequently speaks in hyperbolic and apocalyptic language (something official Catholic teaching recognizes on a whole range of other issues), so to say "it would be better if he had never been born" means "he's in Hell" is huge leap—unless you're sneaking in theological presuppositions about what Jesus must be talking about. Looking at John 17, the Greek has Judas as the "son of destruction," not perdition. Some modern translations render this as "the one destined to be lost," but even here, what "lost" means is not clear on a literal reading (again, unless you have made a prior decision to equate "lostness" or "destruction" with hell). The idea that Jesus's language of judgment may not be as hell-centric as Christians have often assumed isn't even an obscure academic doctrine anymore: scholars like N. T. Wright have been popularizing it for decades. It's not some liberal conspiracy to dilute hell—it's an attempt to take Jesus's historical context seriously, rather than just assuming everything he says perfectly lines up with what theologians writing hundreds (or thousands) of years later assumed he meant based on their prior doctrinal convictions. You can think Judas is in hell if that makes you happy, but your scriptual case for it as a near-certainty is weak.

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    1. Argument ad hartism. Powerful.

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    2. It's not some liberal conspiracy to dilute hell—it's an attempt to take Jesus's historical context seriously,

      As you yourself explicitly admit, Jesus often talks in apocalyptic terms, and we know quite well that apocalypses in the Second Temple period can have discussions of hells -- see, for instance, 1 Enoch 21, which is not "hundreds (or thousands) of years later". If Jesus is being apocalyptic here, it makes it more, not less, likely that he is talking about something like hell. Apocalyptic literature is famously not a kind of literature that pulls its punches for delicate sensibilities. What you can only mean is that you think that Jesus is not speaking apocalyptically here, despite the fact that he often uses apocalyptic vocabulary. Likewise, we know what the word in John 17 means -- it's not a mysterious or unique word; it literally implies being severed, wholly cut off, stripped away, lost, which is why it is usually translated 'destruction' (or 'perdition', which is in fact an old synonym of 'destruction' that is now found almost entirely in theological contexts). What you can only mean is that you think that Jesus is not, as one might expect from the word, saying that Judas in contrast to the other disciples is cut off from or lost to Jesus and his Father; and, indeed, you have to be, because being severed from God and Christ is one of the traditional ways of conceiving of hell. The traditional interpretation, even if assumed to be wrong,was not developed by people who didn't know what the words meant.

      Thus your opening salvo seems irrelevant here. Hart, for instance, has never denied that many, many Biblical scholars have historically interpreted Jesus as talking about something like hell, and that one can find plenty who still do; the issue here is not Biblical scholarship, because Ed is not giving some weird, fringe interpretation here, but defending the interpretation that is historically most common and still easy to find in Biblical scholarship. And more immediately to the point, since Ed is not arguing with Hart or you, an interpretation that Akin himself is not likely to regard as weird or fringe, since what is being argued about in the post is what is consistent about Catholic doctrine, not quack ideas about what the Catholic holy book means for Catholics once you deliberately strip away all Catholic interpretation.

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    3. I am fairly sure that Ed would have no problem with the literal translation of "son of destruction," the same phrase in Greek which appears in 2 Thessalonians 2:3 for the man of lawlessness. The Greek word for destruction is used in Matthew 7:13 for the fate of the many who take the wide gate as opposed to the narrow gate Jesus wants us to take.

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    4. There's a reason David Bentley Hart keeps warning you against trying your hand at scriptural interpretation when you have no background in biblical studies. As others have pointed out, Jesus frequently speaks in hyperbolic and apocalyptic language (something official Catholic teaching recognizes on a whole range of other issues), so ..."

      So, "other issues" and you should have reread your own comment before posting up; and therein realized that you're carping over a lecture not delivered. Of course the same generous rule you laid down obviously applies to you as well: "You can think ... that [if it] makes you happy, but ..."

      Perhaps you got merely lost and found yourself attending the wrong presentation. The author's range of interests and topics covered are generally posted at the entrance.

      Ed Feser:
      "I also write on politics, from a conservative point of view; and on religion, from a traditional Roman Catholic perspective

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    5. It is so bogus to tell people they are unable to read a text because they’re not a biblical scholar. Some issues are indeed deserving of primarily or solely scholarly assessment but not everything is reckoned to the care of snide “intelligentiles.” I can change the oil on my own car without being a mechanic.

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    6. Yeah, if biblical scholars had covered themselves in glory over the past 100 years, that might give them some cachet in terms of "let's leave the hard questions to the experts". But since there are whole subdisciplines of "biblical studies" that are based on sheer imagined hypothesis with nary a shred of foundation, (or, worse, a foundation in reality based on nothing but opposition to the weight of tradition, as if "this contradicts tradition" were testimony in its favor), we should still sometimes go to non-experts for informed insight.

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  19. Confessing to a co-conspirator isn’t repenting

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  20. There is a grandeur to these arguments which have perhaps the best scriptural basis, but exemplify in miniature greater issues with Christianity...

    As a lapsed Catholic, I respect the argument here and am terrified at the moral relativism and woke nihilism racking the West. I am therefore not a fan of the Marxist Pope Francis. I'd rather not have one billion souls thrown into turmoil, as to their bedrock beliefs, during this postmodern tumult.

    That said, not being able to make the ontological leap myself, I find it morally absurd that ANY human action is commensurate with Hell, and join a long line of thinkers to that effect. There is a grandiosity in believing Judas could "betray God" which betrays something of the oddly human-divine incestuous ethos surrounding the Greek gods on Olympus.

    Christianity is a finely carpentered ship for saving perhaps the most souls from collapse. But its supererogatory metaphysics is better to be admired the way one might a Michelangelo painting -- as a product of Kafkaesque angst which suffering and transcendence I can only respect.

    There is no moral seriousness (for clearly thinking adults outside the Christian ontological leap) in holding Hell would ever be a just punishment, and the now-deprecated dogma of Purgatory rather holds the most humanist value for rapprochement with the larger world.

    I remain divided whether the Church can/should persist thus, especially in these treacherous waters, or engage more intelligently with the modern world. But I'll grant the paradox that low-attendance woke Protestantism shows watering things down appears not to work...

    And it appears very much one cannot start ceding or questioning core dogmas without throwing out the good (the Incarnation, the Beatitudes, etc...) with the bad (Gehenna).

    Fully morally actualized adults cannot go along with this -- and the ontological faith leap by others can viewed by us as both a mystery and a bit of a theological handicap.

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    1. "Now-deprecated"? Where on earth do you get that idea? We pray for the dead in every Mass, we still celebrate All Souls Day every year. Purgatory is still Catholic doctrine.

      You say you don't believe any human action could be commensurate with Hell. What is it you're conceiving Hell to be?

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    2. I take your laudable points re Purgatory; I suppose I meant en passant I had heard it had been de-emphasized by Catholic theology due to it's having suffered an abuse of liberality by those sinners who hope to avoid a harder accounting.

      Having played music at many masses for All Souls' I should have recalled this connection, which I admit was probably tenuously made in my catechesis, it being perhaps a smaller point of Catholic theology.

      Re Hell, even if we get past the encrustations of Dante, it would seem Jesus' image of the town garbage incinerator Gehenna is at the very least both visceral and a not very purgative fire to endure.

      I was raised in a more modern "Hell is the absence of God" household, by two otherwise highly devout and believing Catholic parents, but still now find the questions raised regarding Hell to overpower reason.

      One can of course in faith talk of "mysteries", and by a personal belief in Jesus come to feel when one is in less danger of such an outcome.

      But I don't think the actual notion of a place of eternal punishment, of either the visceral or milquetoast variety, sits very well with a rational concept of a just universe. (Unless perhaps by milquetoast one means Dante's first circle of the noble philosophers who sit and plaintively discourse.)

      As old as these objections are, they are of course also most salient and never really go away...

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  21. "...theist or non-theist DNW, or are you commentating from an atheistic, agnostic or some type of more exotic ground? The answer to this question , and its defence, would be of great theological and philosophical interest to many."


    "Many"? Maybe. Why, they might even be legion.

    Or "they" might just be you; which, from a certain perspective, might amount to more or less the same thing. I cannot say with certainty since all anonymous share the same name.

    But until "they" have particular names, and an individually established and attributable history here, and present their own comittments, they will have to satisfy themselves by looking up my past answer to that question.

    Now however, if the angle of approach in my comment now in question is in any doubt, it was first a sociopolitical observation, and then second, a hypothetically framed rumination premised on the presumed standard operating assumptions of run-of-the-mill pre Vatican II Roman Catholics.

    Have a Happy Easter.

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    1. You did begin by stating that you do not know if Hell exists or not, which immediately puts you at variance with the certainty expressed by the overwhelming majority of Christians and Moslems. That alone suggests that you have an unorthodox or exotic general theology.
      I simply do not understand why you cannot be explicit about your philosophical and theological foundations, as this would both be interesting in itself, but also add context to your many contributions here.

      Wishing you a happy Easter too.

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    2. "Have a Happy Easter" The best comment DNW has ever posted.

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    3. "You did begin by stating that you do not know if Hell exists or not ..."

      No, I began by saying that:

      "I don't know who is in Hell and who is not."

      " ... which immediately puts you at variance with the certainty expressed by the overwhelming majority of Christians and Moslems. "

      So, since I did not begin by stating what you said that I said, I am not put at variance from the overwhelming majority of Christians and Moslems by that.

      I am at complete variance with Islam for what must be a dozen good reasons at minimum, but my statement concerning the population of Hell is not one of them when considered in any meaningful sense.

      "That alone suggests that you have an unorthodox or exotic general theology."

      Since it did not appear, it does not imply.

      "I simply do not understand why you cannot be explicit about your philosophical and theological foundations ...

      I cannot understand why someone so intensely interested in my possible theology, and who insists that I be more forthcoming than I already was some months ago, reconciles that expectation with his own refusal to so much as to pick a consistent and exclusive identifier so his own comments can be properly assigned to the responsible party.

      Pick a name, establish your own history and bona fides, and we can reevaluate your request from there.

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  22. I wonder if those of you who say, "I really don't know whether Judas is in Hell" also would say, "I really don't know whether Peter is in Heaven"? The statements are much the same, and you must hold to both if you require absolute certainty--- though I think it much more likely Peter went to Hell than that Judas did not. And of course you can't say at Aunt Agatha's funeral, "Well, now she's reached her eternal rest," since for all you know, she is frying in Hades.

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    1. I find the traditional view in Judas pretty plausible, but i don't think your example works that well here. This because the Church clearly teaches that St. Peter is in Heaven, we even have a day dedicated to it!

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  23. In any consideration of Judas, it's useful to keep in mind that he did not first fall away when he betrayed Christ nor, earlier, when he became a thief, stealing from the common purse. His falling away came earlier yet, when he rejected belief in the Real Presence (see John 6).

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  24. I do not disagree that Judas is in Hell. His actions make that all but a certainty.

    That said, how can you point to the words of Jesus before Judas' death--and even to Psalms written hundreds of years before, applied to him--without falling into the claim that Judas was *destined* to be damned, that he never had a chance of salvation, and that this is an example of double predestination?

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  25. For all those who comment about our not being "able to know" that X happened, like that Judas went to hell:

    What kind of "knowing" are you talking about?

    There is the kind of knowing that gives the certainty of logical principles, and mathematics: the principle of non-contradiction, that 2+2=4, etc. That's one kind of knowledge.

    But there are other kinds of knowledge. You are currently reading these words on a screen, which has colors, and you see those colors: that kind of knowledge is "sense knowledge". Now, once in a while, our senses report incorrectly: the eye gets damaged, or you took some drugs, or you have colored glasses on, and things look different. Or you have a disease. Any of these COULD affect what your senses report. Do you KNOW you see words of one color against a screen of a different color? Of course you do - that's what the sense knowledge covers.

    Take historical events that you observed: you remember them, and that's why you know they happened. That's a different kind of knowing. But: your memory is faulty. Sometimes you mis-remember what happened, or the order of events, or who said the phrase, etc. Do you still "know" what you remember? Of course you do, your memory serves up correct recalls 10,000 times a day, and while sometimes you can't remember what you want, rarely is it off by telling you X when it was Y. That minuscule incidence of error doesn't force you to constantly say "I don't know if this is really my car, maybe I forgot and sold it to someone" and "maybe these aren't really my clothes, they just happen to fit and are in what seems to be my closet", etc. You claim knowledge about these things all day long.

    Or, take the "knowledge" we have of historical events that you did not observe. You have heard the reports from 1000 different sources: George Washington was our first president. This is that kind of knowing available to historical questions: we don't subject historical "facts" to the same kind of analysis we subject mathematics to. So, do you "KNOW" this fact? Of course you do: within the realm of history and the kind of knowledge possible for that field, we know GW was our first pres.

    So, in considering the KIND of knowledge we ought to be prepared to make here, while we need to apply the right sort of caution and care and not jump at the first thing that comes to mind, but likewise we ought not absurdly keep on saying "but you can't KNOW for certain" when you mean "with the kind of certainly only obtainable in mathematics".

    We aren't being called on to judge Judas's soul ourselves, where his fate rests in our poor hands even though we cannot directly read the state of his soul. Nothing we can say or do about the matter will affect his choices. It is enough if we receive and assent to what Jesus himself said: it would be better for him had he not been born. More than that we need not say; but less than that would be lacking in faith in Christ.

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    1. Let me add that I believe most, maybe even all of the antipathy to the idea that we can say Judas is in hell (with the appropriate level of confidence) comes from the exact same sources as generate the universal salvation theory, with its concomitant reluctance to accept with confidence all of the reasons from Scripture and the Fathers to believe humans sometimes go to hell. That is, with the same refusal to grant to Scripture and the Church's teachings about Scripture reliance on that consistent position held and taught from the Apostles forward that is the straightforward understanding of the material.

      Yes, I know of the narrow and limited theories among a few of the Fathers to cast up concerns about that thesis. When you put those kinds of restraining considerations on the scale with the positive reasons to assert the position that people can go to hell, they seem very much like the concerns that caused people to have concerns about, say, (back before the Church dogmatized these conclusions) that Christ has 2 natures, or that Mary is the Mother of God. The Church's formal acts to issue dogmas on these is NOT the factor that first enabled Christians to be rightly confident that Christ was both God and man, as bishops had rightly thundered with certainty and insistence on this before the dogma was issued formally at Council. Bishops and people rightly had faith that this was the truth because it had been consistently taught by the Apostles from the beginning, and the knowledge of this historical fact grounded BOTH their confidence in the truth AND the willingness at Council for the bishops to affirm the dogma as coming from the Apostles. That is to say, the Council's formal act of stating the dogma is not the primary cause of the confidence Christians had in the true doctrine. And the concerns raised by the naysayers - who had precipitated the need for the formal declaration - are not now, and were not then, adequate foundation for doubts about Christ being both God and man.

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  26. WCB

    "Perhaps you missed the part where I appealed to what Christ Himself says about Judas? "
    -Ed Feser

    The problem is that we have two contradictory gospel tales about the fate of Judas. Plus other tall tales from early Christian Papias. All of this, from anonymous sources means we can't know anything really about what happened. Early Christians easily made a lot of stuff up as the bizarre tales of the demise of Judas from Papias demonstrates.

    If the crucifixion was a plan developed and executed by God himself, Judas played a key role in that. God's doing. To make Judas a pawn this way and them damn Judas for that makes God seem to be a rather illogical and foolish deity.

    A question I like to ask nowadays is, "If you were God, would you do things this way?". Not me anyway.

    WCB

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    1. "I am pretty smart. Magnus Carlson makes chess moves that don't make any sense to me. Therefore they must be bad moves."

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    2. What are you on about WCB?

      What contradictions in the Gospel about Judas?

      I am already skeptical cause you don't cite chapter and verse.

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    3. I've lurked around this blog for a while. I'm quite certain I'm glad WCB isn't God.

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    4. V84 at 11.46AM

      It would be a much better world if he was.

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  27. When Protestants tell me that Judas repented, I remind them that remorse differs from penitence. You're penitent when you're sorry for your sins because they offend God. If I steal $5,000 from you, I can feel remorse without penitence. I can regret my crime because I got caught or because I could have stolen more money from you.

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  28. BTW I want to see a back and forth between Akin and Feser on this. Not because I want to see an epic argument and clash of will and blood sport. No, I WANT to see two civilized bros who disagree on a point discuss it charitably.

    Cause that would be really cool.

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  29. WCB

    "What contradictions in the Gospel about Judas?"
    - Son Of Yakov

    Two accounts of the death of Judas, Matthew 27 and Acts 1 have two very different versions. As I pointed out, Papias relates another tall tale.

    Obviously, all these different tales cannot be true.
    See Wikipedia, Papias of Heirapolis for his tall tales about Judas.

    WCB

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  30. Why complicate things? It seems simple to me.
    Is it 100 % certain that Judas is in hell? Then there is no hope for him.
    Is it not 100 % certain, there is hope.
    It is not about "all but a certainty", it's about a certainty,

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  31. Jesus sometimes employs hyperbole, e.g. he's not really advising people to gouge out an eye in Matthew 5:29. So, here's a question relevant to the interpretation of Matthew 26:24: How can we tell whether a given statement by Jesus is hyperbolic?

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    1. It sure would have been convenient if Jesus could have set up some sort of organization with the authority to make such interpretations!

      Too bad he wasn't actually divine. If he was, he could have given such an organization a particular charism to ensure that their rulings on such things would be correct.

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  32. WCB,
    A contradiction is claiming something is X and not X at the same time and in the same sense.

    You equivocate between contradictions and contrary statements. X=Y vs X=Z. It is only a contradiction if you can show Y does not equal Z. Otherwise it is merely contrary.

    So I am not seeing the contradiction here? Just stories with different details and omissions but no contradictions. They are easily reconciled.

    If anything, Papas proves a good explanation.

    WCB why are yer anti-religious polemics so....lame?

    Really mate. Cannae you do better? I think we deserve that. Yer phoning it in mate. It's tedious.

    Cheers.

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  33. WCB

    Matthew 27 claims Judas threw down the money and went and hanged himself. Acts tells us no, he bought a plot of land with the money and suffered a fall there that killed him. Papias tells us two different versions of the death of Judas. Anybody can check this out for themselves.

    Another version of the death of Judas was he was crushed by a wagon in a narrow street. Obviously, nobody really knew anything at all about any of this and people were making up tall tales about Judas.

    Apollinarius, expanding on Papias
    Judas walked about in this world a sad example of impiety; for his body having swollen to such an extent that he could not pass where a chariot could pass easily, he was crushed by the chariot, so that his bowels gushed out.

    Here is the fourth tall tale. And then we have the Gnostic, non-canonical Gospel Of Judas, a fifth set of tall tales.

    WCB

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    1. I saw a YouTube video claiming George Washington was 12 stories tall and made of radiation and rode a horse made of crystal among other such claims. This is clearly impossible, obviously people like the authors of such YouTube videos and historians have no idea what the real George Washington was like.

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    2. Son of Yachov/Jim the Scott here on my Linux computer that won't let me use Google on Feser's blog for some reason? Or maybe it's the VPN? I care not.....

      @WCB

      You are phoning it in mate & equivocating and silly person that you are, dinnae think I won't call you out on it? Like I have done in the past and you learn nothing mate. Oyi!

      >Matthew 27 claims Judas threw down the money and went and hanged himself. Acts tells us no, he bought a plot of land with the money and suffered a fall there that killed him. Papias tells us two different versions of the death of Judas. Anybody can check this out for themselves.

      So where is the contradiction? I see contrary statements only.

      Jim went to the Store Friday.
      Jim went to the Gas Station Friday.

      So that is the "interpretation" you are reading into the text? So lame. I did read them and Papas (who was very early) said Judas survived his hanging in Matt 27 and bought land with his money and well let us fully quote him.

      QUOTE"Judas did not die by hanging[55] but lived on, having been cut down before he choked to death. Indeed, the Acts of the Apostles makes this clear: "Falling headlong he burst open in the middle and his intestines spilled out."[56] Papias, the disciple of John, recounts this more clearly in the fourth book of the Exposition of the Sayings of the Lord, as follows: "Judas was a terrible, walking example of ungodliness in this world, his flesh so bloated that he was not able to pass through a place where a wagon passes easily, not even his bloated head by itself. For his eyelids, they say, were so swollen that he could not see the light at all, and his eyes could not be seen, even by a doctor using an optical instrument, so far had they sunk below the outer surface. His genitals appeared more loathsome and larger than anyone else's, and when he relieved himself there passed through it pus and worms from every part of his body, much to his shame. After much agony and punishment, they say, he finally died in his own place, and because of the stench the area is deserted and uninhabitable even now; in fact, to this day one cannot pass that place without holding one's nose, so great was the discharge from his body, and so far did it spread over the ground."END

      So where is the contradiction? Papias learned at the feet of John the Apostle. This tradition reconciles the two seeming "contradictory" texts so again where is the contradiction?
      There is none in this case. At worst it is contrary.

      There is no clear contradiction. Yer objection is lame. If no gods exist this is still a lame objection. WCB if Atheism is true you clearly didn't reason your
      way to it. You merely made a lucky guess nothing more.

      Oyi man! Can't do better or are you hopeless?

      Go and think about what you did here young man.

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    3. Son of Yako

      So, the various accounts of Judas' demise do not tally at all, but they do not contradict each other? Again - as with the problem of evil and God's moral character - you mould the meaning of words to suit your agenda, and so make a fool of yourself in the eyes of anyone not mindlessly indoctrinated into your bizarre world view.

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    4. That is yer best response? Geez mate if yer not going to take this serious.....

      Everybody kens that a contradiction is claiming something is X and Not X at the same time and in the same sense.

      If you cannae prove that is the case with Judas that is on you. Or put on yer big boi paints and find a better example or better argument.

      Good day to ye then.

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  35. You get the impression that some traditional Catholics will be disappointed even outraged if Hell is empty...

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    1. I am a traditional Catholic and would be delighted if everyone repented of their sin so as to avoid hell. However, the suggestion that there is such wide spread repentance in our society is not merely implausible; it is laughable. Along with this, the efforts at reading Scripture and Tradition in a hopeful universalist fashion are often selective in the texts considered and fanciful in their interpretations.

      If I am wrong to warn people that they need to repent and get it together NOW, then I do no one harm if everyone will end up in heaven after all. More than this, I follow the example of the Prophets, John the Baptist, Jesus Himself, and the Apostles in their calls for repentance.

      On the other hand, if the wishful thinking universalist is wrong, he does grave harm to sinners by suggesting that those in grave sin will (or probably will) end up in heaven regardless of whether or not they repent through confessing sins, being baptized, etc. He happily gives off that fanciful "I'm okay, your okay" vibe and then, surprise, surprise, no one has any sense of the need to repent from sin due to his laissez faire approach to repentance. There is precious little in Scripture or Tradition to theologically ground this mindset. Those that latch onto that precious little bit do so through often through ignoring the vast testimony of Scripture and Tradition that work against this and through tortuous readings of the texts they do consider. In light of this, the trope that traditional Catholics are greedily hoping that hell is as full as possible is slanderous nonsense.

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    2. You get the impression that some traditional Catholics will be disappointed even outraged if Hell is empty...

      There may be evil-minded men, who want many to go to hell, who also are traditionalists; there also are evil-minded men who are not traditionalists. Harboring evil hopes for others is not a characteristic reserved to traditionalists. Moreover, even among such evil-minded traditionalists, it is not because of their traditionalism that they who want many to go to hell are evil-minded, because there are enormous swathes of traditionalists who are not evil-minded and who do not want hell to be well-populated. If you have encountered one or two evil-minded traditionalists who want others to go to hell, you have encountered the minority.

      But more likely, in reality you have merely encountered traditionalists who interpret Christ's depiction of the Last Judgment as being made in realistic terms, and whose opinion on the numbers involved has nothing whatsoever to do with their hopes and desires for those who still might avoid hell: they hope that all will repent of their sins before it is too late. And in effect you have misunderstood them: an opinion (not hopes) among traditionalists about what does happen is not a desire for it to happen, any more than a doctor who treats rape victims must want there to be many other rape victims merely because he has an opinion that there are probably many rape victims besides the ones he has treated.

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  36. I don't think there's much difference between your view and Akin's view on Judas’s eternal status. I think you both agree it's very unlikely Judas is not in Hell. But I think you somewhat mischaracterized Akin's position, making it appear there's a greater difference between you than there actually is. Akin writes (and which you quote at the top of your piece), "we don’t have conclusive proof that Judas is in hell, and there *is still a ray of hope* for him.”

    A "ray of hope" is, of course, not at all the "good hope" that Christians have of salvation, and sounds to me as essentially the flip, positive side of saying it's still very unlikely.

    But in other places, you use descriptions like, "this would be extremely odd if there *really were any serious grounds for hope* that Judas is saved". If by the word “serious” you mean to imply that Akin believes there is a significant likelihood Judas was saved, that’s not accurate.

    Also, I note you concede there isn't absolute proof Judas is in Hell - using equivocal phrases like "this *seems to be* the clear teaching of several scriptural passages", "extremely hard to see", and "this implies". You stopped short of saying that Judas is, in fact, in Hell. If the evidence is so overwhelming - an open and shut case - then why not just say so?

    I think the most significant difference between you and Akin is that you're focusing on the glass being almost empty, and Akin is focusing on the remnant at the bottom. You’re both seeing essentially the same thing, but you’re using the more traditional, negative perspective, and the Akin is adopting a more recent, positive perspective.

    Which is better pastorally for today in general? It seems our recent popes believe the latter is. But I’m also sympathetic to the concern that too many today behave as if everyone is saved – which could endanger their souls.

    Regardless, I agree it's an interesting and important topic and I appreciate the respectful way you expressed your disagreement with Akin.

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  37. WCB

    "I saw a YouTube video claiming George Washington was 12 stories tall...."

    There are hadiths from Islam that claim Mohammad claimed Adam was 90 feet tall. Some Christians claim Adam was 15 feet tall.

    The wonders of theology.

    WCB

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  38. Honestly I would love for you and Jimmy Akin to have a conversation (rather than a debate) about Thomism and various issues.

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  39. I’ll demur on the larger Judas question, but I want to point out something I believe rather important. In this context- or truly any other- you really ought to treat of Matthew 26:24 and its Markian parallel with more nuance than you have. Because- at face value as translated- those words are about the strongest, most direct, and most decisive argument against Thomism that could ever have been imagined in a single sentence. And they came directly from the mouth of our Lord.

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  40. I agree that the scriptural and liturgical authority seems rather clear. Yet, I have noticed for several years now something odd about the Church's traditional liturgical practice for Holy Thursday.

    If you look to the tenebrae service for Holy Thursday the second Nocturn is a prolonged meditation on Judas' betrayal and Christ's statement that it would be better had he never been born.
    Yet this is the second reading of the nocturn from Saint Augustine:

    "
    Reading 5
    Would to God that they which now exercise us were converted and exercised with us! Yet, while they are as they are, and exercise us, we will not hate them: for we know not of any one of them whether he will endure to the end in his sin. Yea, oftentimes, when thou deemest that thou hatest thine enemy, he whom thou hatest is thy brother, and thou knowest it not. The Holy Scriptures show us that the devil and his angels are already damned unto everlasting fire, and therefore of their repentance it behoveth us to despair; but of theirs only. These are they against whom we wrestle within; to the which wrestling the Apostle stirreth us up where he saith: We wrestle not against flesh and blood, (that is, not against men whom we see,) but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. Eph. vi. 12. He saith not the rulers of this world, lest perchance thou shouldest deem that devils are the lords of heaven and earth; what he doth say is, rulers of the darkness of this world, of that world which they love who love the world, of that world wherein the ungodly and unrighteous do prosper, of that world, in fine, of which the Gospel saith: And the world knew Him not.

    ℟. The vile trader Judas came to the Lord to kiss Him, and He, as a guileless Lamb, refused not a kiss to Judas,
    * Who, for a certain number of pence, betrayed Christ to the Jews.
    ℣. It had been good for that man if he had not been born.
    ℟. Who, for a certain number of pence, betrayed Christ to the Jews.
    "

    What is the meaning of the Church to put this reading in this place? It contrasts Christ's severe judgment with Augustine's claim that only the evil angels are known to be damned for sure.

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  41. I'll make two points. First, Judas lived before his birth because his life began at fertilization. Second, I wonder whether the Greek word for "repented" could mean regretted. Regret differs from penitence because a criminal can regret his crime because he got caught.

    I've always admired Mr. Akin because he strives to interpret beliefs charitably. But sometimes he seems too charitable. He and his employer, Catholic Answers, Inc., seem rationalize or excuse some questionable comments some popes make. I've heard someone call Catholic Answers the Catholic CNN, though I hesitate to describe it that way when it could be insulting.

    Bill McEnaney

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