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Building Bridges - Healing Division

Hans Urs von Balthasar's big dare
to hope in an empty hell theory

The following is an excerpt from "A Church in Crisis" by Ralph Martin

Before I met Dr. McClymond and read his massive two-volume work on the rise of universalism and its spiritualist roots, I had reason to research the relationship between the well-known Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar and his relationship to the alleged mystic Adrienne von Speyr.

Balthasar is perhaps the most influential purveyor of the hope that all be saved. He says that the following statement perfectly expresses what he is saying:

it can become “infinitely improbable” that anyone can persist in resisting God’s grace.362

Because of his wide influence, I felt the need to study the sources of his views. His views have led many to presume that virtually everyone will be saved, despite the witness of Scripture, tradition, and the official teaching of the Church.

I was shocked to discover that von Speyr was a major influence on the development of Balthasar’s thought in this area and that she often claimed to be in direct communication with St. Ignatius, whom she asserted wanted Balthasar to leave the Jesuits, which he did on the basis of her revelations. He also claimed that, in her visions of hell, she didn’t see anyone there, which supported his own lifelong leanings toward that conclusion. Some of his firsthand accounts of the unusual nature of their relationship (he wrote two books about their relationship) raise serious concerns about what spiritual influences were at work in the formulation of his theories and his hope that all will be saved.

SPIRITUAL INFLUENCES ON BALTHASAR’S HOPEFUL UNIVERSALISM

I’m going to quote at length from an article I’ve written that carefully documents what I am concerned about. (See Martin, Will Many Be Saved?, 139.)

I am devoting more space to this because it very much relates to one of the main deceptions we are identifying and addressing in this book, the deception that it can be infinitely improbable that anyone is in hell. But it also illustrates how strange spiritual influences can infiltrate themselves into high places, through apparently very intelligent and spiritual people.

In Balthasar’s own words:

As her confessor and spiritual director, I observed her interior life most closely, yet in twenty-seven years I never had the least doubt about the authentic mission that was hers…. I not only made some of the most difficult decisions of my life—including my leaving the Jesuit Order—following her advice, but I also strove to bring my way of looking at Christian revelation into conformity with hers…. Today, after her death, her work appears far more important to me than mine, and the publication of her still unpublished writings takes precedence over all personal work of my own.364

Balthasar openly talks about the unusual nature of their relationship—he moved in with Speyr and her second husband and lived with them for fifteen years in order to facilitate their close collaboration.

Their activity seems to include what today we would call “recovered memories” and “spiritual channeling,” and Balthasar offers some startling defenses of their relationship. As her confessor, Balthasar was given the ability to transfer Adrienne (back) to each of the various stages of her life, in order to run through her biography. This made it possible for her to recall much of what she had forgotten…. At each stage, she used the language she had spoken at the time—whether as a small child, as a high-school student, or as a medical student. This transferring of Adrienne back into her past (always in conversation with me) had a further effect, which for her was quite crucial: it gave me a presence in her earlier life.365 Balthasar admiringly reports:

On her countless “journeys” she was transported to places in the world where trouble of some kind was taking place. She would then be transported into the soul of, say, someone who was finding it hard to make his confession, so that she could give him inner help. In this way she was able to support the dying, people being tortured and burned alive in concentration camps, men on battlefields and in prison, in fact suffering of every kind…. There were many mystical phenomena in Adrienne’s life—stigmata, transferences, the radiating of light, levitation, speaking with tongues, and other things of that kind but they all occurred in a totally unemphatic way. They were mere accompaniments to show forth the heart of the matter: what was to be passed on to the Church invisibly through prayer and strenuous penance, visibly through the dictated works…. Adrienne once told me that my mother, whom she had met in heaven … had entrusted me to her. 366

Speyr’s reports of what her heavenly revelations wanted Balthasar to do often involved exhortations for him to trust her more:

Ignatius, who insisted that he (Balthasar) should be more communicative and give Adrienne more responsibility, didn’t always appreciate von Balthasar’s prudence and restraint: “Adrienne von Speyr needs trust and love, she hasn’t received much during her life.”367 Speyr stated that she was in constant communication with St. Ignatius, a claim that Balthasar completely accepted. Speyr offered to ask Ignatius questions that Balthasar wished to submit to him. Speyr reported to Balthasar that St. Ignatius, after meeting St. John the Evangelist in heaven, had become much more Johannine in his thinking and that the community they were to found together (“our child”) should therefore be Johannine. It was St. Ignatius’s guidance, given through Speyr, that confirmed Balthasar in leaving the Jesuits and moving in with Speyr and her husband to carry out their common mission. “Quite early on very quiet and gentle suggestions began to be made that the mission of St. Ignatius would perhaps be more important than remaining in the Society.”368

Speyr knew what a huge decision this was and suggested that maybe if she died, Balthasar wouldn’t have to leave the Jesuits. Balthasar forbade her to die, left the Jesuits, moved in with her and her husband, and the two become more deeply entwined than ever. Once, during a retreat that Balthasar was giving, Speyr spoke about what her role would be in it, indicating that this was revealed to her by St. Ignatius:

He [St. Ignatius] would like Adrienne to be sent to heaven for the next few days. H.U. must do this and let Adrienne share the Exercises with him from heaven. After each conference, she must give a short commentary on how things look from there, in the light of the Trinity. With this in mind, on each occasion, H.U. should take her out of heaven for, say, a quarter of an hour and ask her questions. He can think up all kinds of questions…. If he wants to, H.U. can call upon SP [Sanctus Pater = St. Ignatius] if there is something he does not understand or wants to know…. She will also share in a large part of the confessions of other people. From where she is, she can go almost anywhere she thinks necessary, or where H.U. thinks she should go. H.U. has therefore a certain power over heaven, which later, when A. no longer returns, will be important for him…. Anything negative, anything that does not come off, must always be seen as a learning experience, never as an estrangement from Father (St. Ignatius). Father is glad to be allowed to help his children.369

Apparently, things that don’t seem to work out as expected are not to put in question the authenticity of the link with St. Ignatius but are to be viewed as learning experiences. There were two main emphases in their common work. The first was finding a way to introduce into Catholic theology an interpretation of Scripture and doctrine, based on Speyr’s descent into hell, experiences, revelations, and theology that would allow Balthasar to propose that it is “infinitely improbable” that any human being will ultimately be able to resist God’s salvific grace. The other main emphasis which, in some ways, they considered the most important fruit of their common effort was the birthing of a new secular institute to be called the Community of St. John. Speyr reported to Balthasar her numerous communications from Mary and the saints and the Lord himself about the importance of founding the community. At one point, when she was troubled because a Jesuit had told her that founders need to be saints, Balthasar consoled her by saying they wouldn’t be founding a “grand order” like the Jesuits or Franciscans and that their community will be “more modest.” To which Speyr replied, based on her revelations:

It will become something great. It will spread out…. She prayed constantly for the “Child” and learned a great deal about it. She also prayed for my “inadequacy,” so that I would be able to cooperate properly…. As for her spiritual life, she said that “the Child” and the general task always stood at the center of the visions … and “the new parents” really ought to bear responsibility for the birth.370

The community itself has never become “something great” and has never “spread out;” it has remained very small and local. Speyr’s exhortations and prayers about Balthasar’s “inadequacy” are tame compared to what Balthasar recounts of her lengthy and severe rebukes of him—for the most part for not providing enough emotional support or defending her enough from her critics. He describes this as her “relentless rebuking and training of her confessor” and recounts some truly harrowing scenes that he nevertheless seems to be abjectly grateful for. During her first Holy Week as a Catholic, she reported that she experienced the Passion and complained that Balthasar wasn’t “there” for her. This feeling that Balthasar wasn’t supporting her enough intensified, and on July 11, 1941, Speyr summoned Balthasar to her office, so that she could, as he later put it, “show her contempt for me face to face.” At first Speyr wouldn’t say anything, knowing that it could cost their friendship, but Balthasar urged her to speak and she did:

... quietly, with a kind of ice-cold severity. It is not her voice. Someone else is speaking out of her…. A terrifying indictment continues for almost an hour…. She says she is like a young mother in a labor ward. The medical students look at her and make cynical, indecent remarks. Her husband hasn’t the time. He’s busy somewhere else, perhaps with another woman…. Finally the child arrives. He is inspected from every angle, weighed, registered. The mother nearly dies of shame. She feels violated…. Later she spoke about the woman’s sexual role: “Carrying the child is naturally the woman’s role, but the husband ought to support her and take care of her. After all, the child is his as well as hers.”371

At other times, Speyr expresses concern about Balthasar’s spiritual life and says she sees darkness settling into his soul, a lack of “total love” of God, and his “lack of prayer.”372

Yet, despite her misgivings and regular rebukes, she affirms: “If the Lord and his Mother didn’t hold your hand forcefully … it would be very dangerous for me, because in this moment I view God entirely through you. But it would be absurd to think that you could show me another but the true God.”373

These comments warrant reflection. The mutuality of the total trust in one another’s revelations/ theology/guidance is clear. Each has surrendered a critical ability and has embarked on a path of trust in the revelations and theological interpretations of the other. The fear that Speyr expresses—that Balthasar’s vision of God could be false—which she quickly rejects, is worth noting. It’s possible that Balthasar had to overcome similar fears in what he was receiving from Speyr, although what he expresses is only complete trust.

Balthasar reports that her rebuke of his lack of support led to a conflict with his Jesuit superiors over her “which began the long and painful story of my departure from the Jesuits.”374 Forbidden to any longer go to her house, they continued meeting in his office until he left the Jesuits and moved into her house.375

Martin, Ralph. A Church in Crisis: Pathways Forward (pp. 284-291). Emmaus Road Publishing. Kindle Edition.

Footnotes

Review (April 1979): 81. 361 McClymond, The Devil’s Redemption. I was going to recommend specific chapters in this two-volume work that deal with the esoteric/occult influences, but significant references surface throughout both volumes. If you look at the index, you can pick out what particular chapters might be most relevant to your interests in terms of historical period, denominational influences, etc.

362 See Martin, Will Many Be Saved?, 139.

363 All of the quotations, and some of the commentary, for this chapter can be found in Ralph Martin, “Balthasar and Speyr: First Steps in a Discernment of Spirits,” Angelicum 91, no. 2 (2014): 273–301. This article, which traces the influence of Speyr on Balthasar and his thought, was published in Angelicum, the theological journal of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome. It’s also available at the EBSCO host research database. The conclusions from this article are totally based on Balthasar’s own published descriptions of what happened in the relationship and how important it was for him.

364 H. Balthasar, First Glance at Adrienne von Speyr, trans. A. Lawry and S. Englund (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1981), 13.

365 H. Balthasar, Our Task: A Report and a Plan, trans. J. Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1994), 14. 366 Balthasar, Our Task, 70, 72–73. 367 J. Roten, “The Two Halves of the Moon,” in Hans Urs von Balthasar: His Life and Work, ed. D. Schindler (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1991), 73.

368 Balthasar, Our Task, 19.

369 Balthasar, First Glance, 185–186. 370 Balthasar, Our Task, 50–51, 54. 371 Balthasar, Our Task, 77–79. 372 Roten, “The Two Halves,” 70.

373 Roten, “The Two Halves,” 82.

374 Balthasar, Our Task, 79.

375 This account of Balthasar’s testimony about his relationship with Speyr and her immense influence on his theological views and personal life decisions is perhaps shocking enough to lead some to wonder if it is accurate and balanced. I can only remind readers to remember that it is all based on Balthasar’s published testimony in the two books he wrote about their relationship—and encourage them to read the whole article cited above, which contains additional information that is as equally shocking as what could fit in this chapter.

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