Hitler seems to be innocent of the only real sin that DCP thinks can keep one out of heaven - disbelief:DCP wrote:I have indicated here on several prior occasions that I’m inclined to a quasi-universalism. I believe in a Heavenly Father who loves his children with a love so intense and powerful and pure that I doubt that any mortal can really comprehend it, let alone be capable of it. Moreover, I take very seriously what the apostle Paul says at 1 Timothy 2:4, a passage that I cited a few days ago in a different context: (though I quote it here, for the sake of clarity, in the New King James Version): God “desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”
I know that no even reasonably decent earthly parents want anything less than the best for their children, and that they would welcome the return of a prodigal at any point, whether early or late. And I can’t imagine that our Heavenly Parents are less loving than we are.
Some, wishing to test the limits of my “quasi-universalism,” have posed to me the question of Adolf Hitler. And understandably so, because he is about the most challenging specimen imaginable. I always respond that, even in his case, I simply don’t know; it is not my place to judge any other person’s ultimate destination. That is God’s role, not mine. I simply don’t know in any particular instance — not even Hitler’s — what factors made a person who he is. What combined aspects of childhood upbringing, traumatic psychological experience, flawed moral training, intellectual ability, social pressure, mental illness, defective education, brain chemistry, or the like led a person to act in a particular way? I simply can’t wholly know. It’s beyond my pay grade, and I feel no obligation at all to issue definitive pronouncements on the subject.
Whether Adolf Hitler actually has a chance at salvation, I do not know. I would hate to be standing in his shoes. I would especially hate to stand before God in his shoes.
Still, I’ve long loved and often cited a comment of the late Pope St. John Paul II: When asked whether a Christian must believe in Hell, he replied “Yes. But we can hope that it will be empty.”
Sadly, though, I doubt that it will be empty. The so-called “sons of perdition” seem to me to be individuals who, even at the end, rather than admitting that they were wrong and rather than repenting, will shake their fists at heaven and curse God. Such people will be few, but I suspect that there will be at least some.
I can imagine that there might be a few who will self-destructively nurse their prideful grudges against God all the way into the eternities. These will be the “sons of perditions.”
I’m struck by President Richards’s remark to “Hitler” in his dream: “”I am your brother. You are my brother. In our heavenly home we lived together in love and peace.” I’ve thought often along these lines: Even the worst persons in this life are children, sons and daughters, of God. None of those who chose Satan in the pre-mortal council made it to this life; every one of us on earth “passed” our first estate. And yet, what a wreck some of us have made of our mortal probations! All of us, of course, have fallen short. But some lives, seen in the light of their antemortal divine promise, are absolutely tragic, whatever their ultimate destination turns out to be. And this should make us feel not merely anger at them, but deep, deep sorrow for them.
Hitler seems pretty safe according to DCP's worldview. What's a few million Jews murdered, as long as he comes to God and doesn't reject Him. The ones who should really worry, are the skeptics like Bertrand Russell. The famous twentieth-century British philosopher was once asked what he would say to explain his atheism if he were to confront God after his death. Russell's famous reply was: “Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence.”"Hence today I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." - Mein Kampf, Vol. 1, Chapter 2.
"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter." - Speech, April 12, 1922.
"We tolerate no one in our ranks who attacks the ideas of Christianity... in fact our movement is Christian. We are filled with a desire for Catholics and Protestants to discover one another in the deep distress of our own people." - Speech, Passau, October 27, 1928.
"The folkish-minded man, in particular, has the sacred duty, each in his own denomination, of making people stop just talking superficially of God's will, and actually fulfill God's will, and not let God's word be desecrated. For God's will gave men their form, their essence, and their abilities. Anyone who destroys His work is declaring war on the Lord's creation, the divine will." - Mein Kampf, Vol. 2, Chapter 10.
DCP seems to think that there are a non-zero number of souls who, when confronted with the reality of God and the ultimate goodness of God, would still reject God. I think that's pretty unlikely. But if God does turn out to be the Mormon version of God, who created a world where coffee, tea, and comfortable underwear were sins - and his morality revolves around these trivialities, I think we would be living in something like Christopher Hitchens' celestial North Korea.
A God who can't see how ridiculous the prohibition on coffee flavored ice cream is, for example, being around that God for eternity may be its own form of Hell. Daniel may be right after all, eating jello and funeral potatoes for eternity on a Cruise Lady boat, laughing at those of us who had the gall to scoff at the word of wisdom.
