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Religion

2007-12-01 09:11:00

Is it really true that more than half of all people are not saved?

There are several verses in the Bible that deal with how many people are saved. Matthew 7:13-14: Enter through the narrow gate. The gate that leads to damnation is wide, the road is clear, and many choose to travel it. But how narrow is the gate that leads to life, how rough the road, and how few there are who find it! And Luke 13:24: Try to come in through the narrow door. Many, I tell you, will try to enter and be unable. Do these mean that more than half of all people are not saved?

While Jesus did say what you have cited, as well as some other passages in the Bible which state similar ideas, we have no way of knowing what our Lord meant by few and many. Certainly, he desires that all of us be saved (cf 1 Tim 2:4)! And certainly he gives everyone, even the unborn infant in the womb, the opportunity to go to heaven. But nobody knows how many are saved and how many are damned. The overwhelming generosity and goodness of God incline us to believe that a majority of persons, who ever lived on this planet, will benefit from the vast ocean of mercy that flows from the side of the crucified Christ and will attain heaven. Nevertheless, some persons deliberately ignore God, abuse their free-will against God’s commandments, die without repenting of the evils they have done, and so end up in hell. Such persons reject the grace and mercy of God, and they freely choose hell over heaven. God respects the human free-will. He does not force anyone to be saved. Various saints and religious teachers have suggested that a majority of human beings (even 90%) end up in hell, so that only a few (perhaps 10%) make it to heaven. Still, the truth is: they don t know any more about the final & eternal census than I do, and I don’t know. Even the saints don’t know. They can only guess. When a person experiences wars and terrorist-criminals, the evils of real poverty and drug-infested, gang-dominated neighborhoods, it is easy to draw the conclusion that most people go to hell. But, looking beyond that local scene and considering the goodness of many dedicated generous, peace-loving and holy persons throughout the world, striving to please God, it seems probable that the good will outnumber the evil in the final reckoning. Certain Protestant sects have attempted to interpret the Book of Revelation, chapter seven, as stating that only 144,000 persons will be saved. Naturally those sects expect their members to be included in that number, to the exclusion of other persons and groups. But they too don’t know. St. John the Revelator used that symbolic number to express a great multitude. For the ancients the numbers 7 and 12 and 100 symbolize perfection or completion; the number 1000 represents infinity. Thus, 12 x 12 x 1000 means that an almost infinite number of persons will achieve perfection and thus be in heaven. Surely, in that book of symbols, St. John can be speaking with a literary device called hyperbole or exaggeration. For example, if you are caught in a swamp on a warm summer night, you will be attacked by millions of mosquitoes, while the actual number of those pests might be sixty-five thousand, four-hundred and thirty. Whatever the percentages of the saved and the damned turn out to be, there is no reason for sincere devout disciples of Jesus and his holy Mother to lose hope. We must place our trust in them, and pray that the Father will deliver us from evil, and that the Blessed Mother will pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.