Damnation and the Annunciation

A brief Catholic post

Today is the feast of the Annunciation, commemorating the declaration of the angel Gabriel to Mary that she was, indeed, full of grace. The Greek adjective is "she who has been highly favored."

Gabriel declares to her that she is to bear a son, which is odd because 1. she isn't married yet and 2. she's been dedicated to virginity (according to the Protoevangelion). Gabriel speaks in the future tense of that which is going to happen to her. It hasn't yet happened. The plan waits. What does it wait for?

Her consent. It waits for the 'fiat', the "let it be done to me according to your word." Mary accepts the gift, and the Uncreated enters into creation. Mary's action is the most momentous thing anyone has ever done.

In recent years there have been flirtations with the doctrine of universal salvation. This is a theological opinion based in kindness, or at least sentimentalism: how could it be that a good God would allow or even actively condemn certain people to Hell? Wouldn't it be the case that eternal love wins in the end? That no one could really resist the Will of God for salvation? This was the teaching of Origen, flirted with by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Edith Stein, and Pope Francis, among others. It's an anti-human doctrine, just as much as Calvinist double-predestination.

It's anti-human because it says that, in the end, your choices do not matter. Whatever you do, you'll get caught up in the divine net. You can't resist it! It means that all of your choices are nothing, bits of bubbles in the bathwater of creation, that pop up and vanish but do nothing to disturb the flow.

Hans urs von Balthasar wrote a book called Dare We Hope that All Men Be Saved in which he argued that, in fact, we may hope for universal salvation. Jesus himself says that he wishes to draw all humans to himself. But von Balthasar also points out that we must fear damnation. It may be that Hell is empty, but you must always fear that you will be the first!

Is it unjust that some be damned? No. In fact, it's a mark of divine justice and even more of divine love. Humans are created for God, and the reason for creation is so that creatures may praise Him in an eternal Eucharist, a thanksgiving of joy. In order to be able to give fitting praise, you have to be able to curse. In order to be able to give thanks, you have to be able to refuse the gift. The possibility of sin is the flip-side of the possibility of salvation. Dante is not wrong to have "Love created me" painted over the door to the Inferno.

The Annunciation provides a glimpse of the proper relationship between God and creature. God presents the gift, and then waits upon the answer. Mary gives her joyful assent, and all good comes forth from her choice.