It doesn’t threaten the very concept of hell because it can’t. Christ himself said people are going there, as do the epistles.
We can, and should HOPE that people, even everybody, won’t. Because we (and God) desires all people to be saved. But just because you hope something happens doesn’t mean it will.
I can hope that I have three kids and don’t get hit by a bus tomorrow, but I might.
Cardinal Kaspar, in his reflections on von Balthasar in his book on mercy, has a different take regarding your observation about hell, that Christ said people are going there. I have underlined and emphasized the parts of this quote from his book which I see as especially pertinent to this discussion:
"According to von Balthasar, in the Bible we are dealing with two different assertions, both of which are to be taken seriously and which cannot be sublated into a neat, higher synthesis. According to him, we can only make progress if we take into account the literary genre of both series of statements. In both cases, we are not actually dealing with an anticipatory account of what will happen at the end of time. The assertions about universal salvation are statements of hope for all, but they are not assertions about the factual salvation of every individual. Conversely, the assertions about judgment and the statements about hell do not intend to say,** about any one individual or about the majority of humankind,** that factually they will be subjected to the pains of hell. Revelation has not identified the eternal damnation of any concrete individual; and the Church has never taught, in any dogmatically obligatory way, that any particular human being has ever been subjected to eternal damnation.
With both assertions, we are dealing with statements that transcend the realm of our mundane, space-and-time bound experience. We are dealing with limit statements, which do not make possible a concrete, realistic picture. They communicate no objective information. These statements are not concerned with making factual assertions, but rather are concerned with calling people to make a decision. On the one hand, they are concerned with encouraging people to trust in God’s mercy; on the other, they are an urgent appeal to conversion. Thus, the statements about hell are words of warning, which admonish us to repent… Therefore, neither a cheap optimism nor a hell-fearing pessimism about salvation does justice to the biblical statements."
The more I read this book, the more I like it.
The thing about hope is, there has to be a real possibility of something actually happening for a concept such as hope to have any basis. So when I think about hope and salvation, it is more than just wishful thinking.
