Thomism works well enough with a Dogmatic Universalism
but self-subverts when coupled with Dante's Hell
The hard vs hopeful universalism debate needn’t turn on who’s libertarian vs compatibilist, theologically determinist, pantheist or theopanist. Most interlocutors seem sufficiently orthodox & even accept simplicity & analogia.
The rub?
Can we discern good from evil, antemortem?
That’s it. That’s the major impasse.
On the other issues, folks may be hard vs soft, strong vs weak, thick vs thin, etc but usually qualify as still moderate enough. Hopeful universalists, though, do rely on an indefensible thoroughgoing eschatological ignosticism.
Here, I’ll coin a neologism:
Eschatological Ignosticism – definition: afterlife realities that our current moral intuitions, aesthetic inclinations & affective dispositions can’t gauge, antemortem.
It DOES apply to the weights of eternal glories but NOT to the evils of any putative disproportional punishments!
Justin Noia’s “In the Beatific Vision, Both Freedom & Necessity,” TheoLogica (2018) clearly states the “universalism problem” that inheres in postmortem inancaritability & impeccability. It similarly remains a problem for antemortem predestination & election.
I reject his solution.
It won’t work if one affirms an eternal pneumato-Christological universal presence in addition to particular Christo-pneumatological presences, both ordinary & extraordinary. The divine indwelling admits of degrees of divine intimacy not the either-or presence he relies on.
Noia’s account does seem somewhat over against Eleonore Stump’s (Dante’s Hell), which relies on a problematic character–based contingency. He argues (well) that anyone, regardless of character, is necessitated to love God in the beatific vision.
While Stump's account fails to justify hell as commensurate w/the events to which it's a response or to defend how inancaritability can be consistent w/a character-based contingency, it does support my view that David Bentley Hart's rhetoric is - not wrathfully wrong, but - righteously indignant!