First, do people who probably have never heard about Jesus really exist? Yes, there are tribes, even to this day, who apparently live in isolation from the rest of the modern world.1
Second, is this isolated person a sinner? Yes! The Bible says no one is righteous (Psalm 14: 3; Romans 3: 10), so this isolated person is also a sinner in need of redemption.
Third, should we be concerned about the salvation of those who may have never heard about Jesus? Yes! We are asked to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, so if we are concerned about our salvation, we should also be concerned about the salvation of those around us.
The three broad theistic answers to this question are:
(1) Yes, God saves those who have never heard about Christ.
(2) No, God does not save those who have never heard about Christ.
(3) I don’t know (being agnostic).
(Atheists are either clueless about post-life destination or could assert that there is no existence after death.)
If (1) is a reasonable answer, the answer could imply that Christ is unnecessary for man’s salvation. But historical Christianity affirms the necessity of Christ in man’s salvation. Is Christ necessary or unnecessary? This tension needs to be resolved.
If (2) is a reasonable answer, we need to justify the fact that these isolated people did not get to choose the place of their birth. If they were born into a Christian home or in the modern world, they would more likely hear about Jesus. But God placed these people in their isolated locations. So shouldn’t it be God’s prerogative to ensure that Christ is heard by them? So should not God be blamed for their predicament, if HE does not save them?
If we resort to agnosticism, we either imply the Bible’s silence or our lack of understanding the Bible, in this context. If the Bible addresses this situation, agnosticism cannot be reasonably justified.
The Bible states that God is loving, just, and merciful. Hence God should save isolated people. If God does not save these people, there ought to be a valid reason as to why HE does not save the isolated.
God does not save people unconditionally, for mankind is saved only by faith in Christ through the grace of God. But the isolated people have genuinely not heard of God or Christ, so isn’t the problem in God’s domain?
The problem does not seem to be in God’s domain for Romans 1: 19-21 states:
- God has made HIMSELF known to man through HIS creation.
- Since creation points to God, man should know God from that which are commonly seen and known.
So the problem is not with God, and man is without an excuse.
I need more faith to be an atheist than to be a theist. How can I observe the marvelous creation of God and still maintain that this universe is a product of randomness?
Yet it was Marx-Freud’s view that the theist is subject to a sort of cognitive dysfunction. But Professor Alvin Plantinga, one of the finest Christian philosophical minds of our time, negates Marx-Freud’s contention to state that cognitive dysfunction is innate to an atheist, not a theist. 2
The creation points to God. If I have to choose between the causal options of ‘God’ and ‘chance,’ I would certainly choose God as the Creator. But does this isolated person acknowledge God as the greatest being in existence? Or does he worship a fellow being or a created object as the greatest being? If the isolated person ascribes greatness to himself or a fellow being or a created object, then he seems to reject God.
God has made HIMSELF known to everyone. Hence the isolated man should know God. Therefore, I do not see a possibility of this person’s salvation if he categorically rejects God.
But the general revelation (Creation) does not reveal God’s nature or HIS specific deeds (Trinity, Christ, Cross…). Knowledge of Christ is an outcome of a special revelation. Creation does not reveal Christ to the isolated person.
Since God placed this person in isolation, let us assume that the isolated person acknowledges God, yet is ignorant of Christ. Let us also assume that Christ does not appear to this isolated man in any form or manner – through missionaries, literatures, dreams and visions.
In this context, could we affirm that God would condemn this isolated person to hell?
Some Christians believe that God would condemn this isolated person to hell if he does not believe in Christ. Christian Q&A website ‘Gotquestions.org’ states, “If we assume that those who never hear the gospel are granted mercy from God, we will run into a terrible problem. If people who never hear the gospel are saved, it is logical that we should make sure no one ever hears the gospel. The worst thing we could do would be to share the gospel with a person and have him or her reject it. If that were to happen, he or she would be condemned. People who do not hear the gospel must be condemned, or else there is no motivation for evangelism…”3
This reasoning is seemingly based on two disputable premises:
(P1) A Christian will not evangelize if God were to save those who have never heard the gospel.
(P2) The isolated man may reject the gospel to be condemned, so it would be better to not share the gospel to the isolated man and thus have him saved.
Premise (P1) could be disputed because man is saved by God (through the means of evangelism). Man does not save man, for man merely carries the good news of the gospel, but it is God who solely saves the man. Moreover, human evangelism is not the only way to save man. God can appear to a man in dreams or visions to save him.
Significantly, evangelism should not be performed as an obligation. Evangelism is an act motivated by love for God and fellow men. Therefore, evangelism should not cease at any point in time and for any reason.
Premise (P2) can be disputed as well. Even before the isolated man rejects the gospel, he gets to either:
(P2.1) Accept God (through the general revelation)
or
(P2.2) Reject God
or
(P2.3) Remain ignorant of God.
When the missionary reaches the isolated man, he could be in any of these three situations. If the isolated man has accepted God, the missionary’s job would be made easier to preach the gospel. If the isolated man has rejected or remains ignorant of God, he could still be potentially drawn to the Lord.
On the other hand, if there is no evangelization to the isolated man, the man who has already rejected God (P2.2), and the man who is ignorant of God (P2.3), could end up being unsaved. So why lose an opportunity? Therefore, in order to save the one who has rejected God or to save the one who remains ignorant of God, evangelism to the isolated is necessary.
Shouldn’t the isolated man believe in Christ for his salvation?
When the isolated man [recognizes his sinfulness (inadequacy) and] accepts God through the general revelation, the benefits of Christ’s one time sacrifice is applied to this man by God.
As in the case of the salvation of Old Testament saints, this man will be saved on account of his belief in God (cf. Genesis 15: 6). The benefits of Christ’s one time atoning sacrifice will be granted to this man because of his belief in God. Therefore, the necessity of Christ is maintained.
On the contrary, the isolated man who rejects God and does not know of Christ, will not be granted salvation. The isolated man who is ignorant may have chosen to be ignorant of that which has been made plain to him – God. Hence he may not be saved by God. But if he remains ignorant of God as how a mentally disabled person is, I reckon God would save this person.
I do not intend to replace God or to stand in judgment over others, but given my understanding of the Bible, this is the best possible conclusion I can submit.
Endnotes:
2 http://www.leaderu.com/truth/3truth02.html
3 http://www.gotquestions.org/never-heard.html
Websites cited were last accessed on February 10, 2014.
This article was first published at http://rajkumarrichard.blogspot.in/2014/02/does-god-save-those-who-never-heard.html
I have people who asked me something similar quite often. They always seem concerned about people in the jungle or in India when they are faced with a decision for Christ. But I have never felt like I had a good answer. I will study it out further, but I really hope your conclusion is right. Thanks for the article!
FWIW, near the end of the linked thread in the last comment is the comment which opens with “But What About Hell and God? What About Cosmic Fairness?“ as Cosmic Fairness and Cosmic Unfairness press in upon us and, contrary to the typical Non-Theistic straw-man, the presence or absence of ECT (…eternal conscious torment…) has nothing to do with it.
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LHRMSCBrown
This is a bold statement for it finds Man and God at an interface of Truth and specifically a Truth which is something less than “Christ Crucified” such that the free and informed Man spies said Truth and, then, the free and informed Man, having interfaced with Truth’s Proposal, moves forward with said Engagement or else refuses said Groom, as it were. Some Christians (…unjustifiably…) struggle with that as they’ve got Time and Circumstance lifted up to a place where they are just too much for God’s reach. Another perspective:
We can add this:
The intellectual or soul assent to a set of truth claims which both you and Feser speak of is only half the story. The other half being that it is impossible to *not* interface with reality’s irreducible (Divine) contours. In short, the convertibility of the transcendentals, while pure fiction in Non-Theism, stands as the irreducible ontic within the Christian metaphysic and unearths one (…there are more…) unavoidable reasons why the term un-evangelized is an absurdity.
So far so good.
Though, it seems you may not go far enough in that (…perhaps…) your lens is still (…perhaps…) beholden to frail and mutable contingencies such as Time and Circumstance, rather than to the reach of what is nothing less than *GOD* or “Being Itself” or “All Sufficiency”.
In that arena the referent of the under-evangelized and/or un-evangelized emerge if we do not understand the reach of what is referenced by the term *GOD*. In the blog post of “Paul’s Solution to the Problem of the Unevangelized is the Gospel” at http://www.str.org/node/42356#.WI8LKoWcFPY by Tim Barnett (….at http://www.str.org/ in January of 2017 blog posts etc….) there’s a few comments in the comment box on this. It opens with questions about the un-evangelized and the under-evangelized as it is apparent that we are not at all justified in foisting a premise that the Christian metaphysic is logically compelled to retain those terms nor bound by Scripture to those terms given what we find in Scripture. Frail and mutable contingencies such as Time and Circumstance never can be “just too much” for the reach of what we referent with the term *GOD*.
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LHRMSCBrown
Good analysis. The only critique I have is the premise. To really challenge an atheist and make him think, read the book After Life by Matthew O’Neil and respond to the case he makes on the origins of our idea of hell to make him consider if hell is even something real to be feared.
Adam, Although I have mentioned the atheists in passing, Christians should ponder this theme. This is an intra-Christianity topic for discussion. Thank you.
Since this is an apologetics website, I am just giving you some realistic responses of what will be used against you. Take it or leave it.
Belief in God is the primary concern for an atheist. The secondary concerns for an atheist is Christ and HIS divinity, the reliability of the Bible so on and so forth…the topic we are discussing here becomes a point of interest only when the person in contention believes all the above.
And how do you respond when my response is given to this theology. In keeping with the subtitle of this website, how does this answer seekers, equip Christians, or show the truth of the Christian worldview when my response is given to this?
The CAA unity statement begins with, “In essentials unity, in nonessentials liberty, in all things charity.” First, while salvation by grace through faith in Christ is an essential doctrine of Historic Christianity, this theme – a subset of salvation – is not an essential doctrine of Historic Christianity. This, IMO, does not imply silence on nonessentials, for honest Christians could seek answers to nonessentials as well.
Christian apologetics mandates us to answer questions; this question would be asked by Christians. Hence an answer has been provided.
Yes, answered. But does not equip.
But, thank you for your reponse.
The point of science and reality is well taken, and it does matter. The metaphysical baggage of the Non-Theistic paradigm is interesting, and regardless of how it is wrapped that conversation remains the same. I suppose if it were to arrive in the setting of this topic one could venture down that road. However, as Christians, we have a radical divergence from the Non-Theist in that we hold Fairness to be an actual metric of truth such that any paradigm which finally annihilates that metric is by force of logic a misguided interpretation of reality. Hence in the arena of Man’s final good, his true felicity, the Non-Theist has no intellectual right to a seat at the table if and when the topic is final, or ultimate, or cosmic fairness. It’s a discussion “internal” to and within the handful of paradigms which actually make truth-claims with respect to, not Sean Carroll’s variety of illusory ends but rather upon Cosmic Fairness and/or Cosmic Unfairness. Hell and eternal conscious torment and Conditional Immortality and Annihilationism and Universal and Pantheism (…the Hindu’s, not Spinoza’s and not Buddhism’s naturalism pretending to be some other something….) and so on speak up and weigh in. The thread / comment box at http://www.str.org/node/42493#.WQw7M4jytPY gets pretty involved on the front which has to do with the Non-Theist’s complaint of “But hell is unfair!“. That’s a valid concern and is discussed.
Qualifier on metaphysical baggage:
Description isn’t explanation. Cosmology is not, and cannot “become”, ontology just as physics is not, and cannot “become”, ontology. The contours of the “Fallacy of composition” press in. The irreducible contours of “Being Itself” press in. The only contours which Non-Theism finds are those of “Brute Fact”. Finally, in the end, the syntax of “useful but not true”, the illusory and the absurd at all “levels” of reality, subsumes all claim-making by all claim-makers.
It’s not about missing knowledge of physical systems. It’s about what granting all knowledge of all physical systems does not and cannot even in principle grant to any Non-Theistic paradigm.
Non-Theists too often fail to realize just what “Brute Fact” necessarily forces upon all of their claim-making, which, of course, includes all slices of “reality” which we think of as the physical sciences. They mistake Brute Fact for “…we’ve not figured it out yet, and maybe we never will….“, as in, they equate it with merely one more vector in a series of problems vis-à-vis gaps – and the God of Gaps fallacy typically comes roaring in there. It’s a common error. The Non-Theist is guilty thereby of an argument which is itself based on GAP and not on logic, reason, sound metaphysics, and the testimony of physical systems – as irony emerges. What is needed instead is the knowledge of physical systems in the context of the ultimate self-explanatory principle, such as [1] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2013/10/why-is-there-anything-at-all-its-simple.html and also [2] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2016/02/parfit-on-brute-facts.html and also [3] http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2014/03/an-exchange-with-keith-parsons-part-iv.html begin to discuss.