Dark thoughts have clouded our minds. For centuries, thanks largely to the Augustinian tradition that has so influenced evangelicals, we have been taught that God chooses a few who will be saved and has decided not to save the vast majority of humanity. God is planning (in his sovereign freedom) to send most of those outside the church to hell, and he is perfectly within his rights to do so. If as a result large numbers perish, theologians have assured us that God would feel no remorse and certainly deserve no blame. The result of such instruction is that many read the Bible with pessimistic control belief and find it hard to relate humanly to other people.
- Charles H. Pinnock
One really has to ask oneself how, given an eternally valid bifurcation of mankind like this, simple love of one's neighbor, or even love of one's enemy in the Christian sense, could still be possible. It should not remain unmentioned, however, that certain late Catholic Scholastics, for their part, had racked their brains about whether, assuming that God were to reveal to me privately that one of my fellow men was destined to hell, I should still love that person with Christian love or would, instead, have to treat him with politeness only."
-Hans Urs von Balthasar
