Rebutting Necessitarian Universalism: Three Thomistic Arguments – Prof. Mats Wahlberg
The Thomistic Institute
The Thomistic Institute
4.8 • 873 Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2025
⏱️ 43 minutes
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Summary
Prof. Mats Wahlberg argues that “necessitarian universalism”—the claim that hell is metaphysically impossible and that God must save all rational creatures—is incompatible with core Christian metaphysical commitments, and he develops three Thomistic arguments to show that the possibility of eternal damnation follows from God’s wisdom, respect for created natures, and desire for truly free self-gift.
This lecture was given on September 6th, 2025, at Dominican House of Studies.
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About the Speakers:
Mats Wahlberg, Ph.D., is docent and associate professor of systematic theology, a member of the Academy of Catholic Theology, and a research fellow in the Discipline Group of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiology at the Faculty of Theology, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. In 2021, he was the Aquinas Chair at the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (the Angelicum) in Rome.
He has published two monographs, Reshaping Natural Theology: Seeing Nature as Creation (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and Revelation as Testimony: A Philosophical-Theological Study (Eerdmans, 2014), as well as many articles in journals such as Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, and First Things.
His research interests include arguments for God’s existence, the problem of evil, the doctrine of revelation, theology and science (especially the theological implications of evolution) and the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. Wahlberg's research about the problem of evil and evolution has been funded by the John Templeton Foundation.
Keywords: Beatific Vision, Catholic Doctrine of Hell and Damnation, Creator–Creature Distinction, David Bentley Hart and Universal Salvation, Divine Goodness, Divine Providence, Necessitarian Universalism and Possible Worlds, Permanent Separation from God, Thomistic Account of Debitum Naturae, Thomistic Defense of the Possibility of Hell, Universalism
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | College students are struggling to find Christ in a culture that rejects God. |
| 0:04.4 | They need the Christmas message of hope and truth now more than ever. |
| 0:08.0 | Thanks to a generous matching gift, every dollar you give to the Thomistic Institute before December 31st will be doubled, |
| 0:14.7 | so your gift will touch twice as many souls. |
| 0:17.6 | You can give the greatest of all gifts by sending the light of Christ to students aching |
| 0:22.1 | for truth. Please use the link below or go to to mystic institute.org slash donate to give today. |
| 0:31.6 | Welcome to the Tomistic Institute podcast. Our mission is to promote the Catholic intellectual |
| 0:36.8 | tradition in the university, the |
| 0:38.6 | church, and the wider public square. The lectures on this podcast are organized by university |
| 0:43.7 | students at Thomistic Institute chapters around the world. To learn more and to attend these events, |
| 0:49.4 | visit us at Thomisticinstitute.org. Could a good god reprobate and thereby permit the eternal loss |
| 0:58.6 | of rational creatures? Magisterial teaching makes clear that the Catholic answer to this question |
| 1:05.0 | is yes. The possibility of eternal damnation for both humans and angels is a Defeide teaching of the Catholic Church, |
| 1:13.6 | as is the actuality of damnation in the case of the devil and his demons. |
| 1:18.6 | This teaching commits the Catholic faithful to reject what I will call necessitarian universalism. |
| 1:26.6 | This version of the doctrine of universal salvation prominently represented by thinkers |
| 1:31.6 | like David Bentley Hart and Thomas Talbot says that the idea of hell is logically |
| 1:37.5 | incoherent or metaphysically impossible, which means that there is no possible world in |
| 1:43.9 | which a rational creature is damned. |
| 1:47.0 | Necessitarian universalism should be distinguished from what I will call contingent universalism, |
| 1:53.0 | which implicitly or explicitly analogies at least the abstract or theoretical possibility of damnation, but argues that we may hope, or in some |
| 2:03.5 | cases that we should confidently believe, that all humans or all rational creatures may or |
... |
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