WinAce

Inspired by a statement from QueenofSwords on another thread, let's discuss what appears to be a deep-rooted absurdity in the belief of salvation by faith. It's a question that's long troubled the greater minds of Christianity, From Paul to Plantinga. Namely, that of the fate of those unfortunate souls born in a time and/or place where knowledge of Christianity and its associated requirements for salvation (acceptance of the theological and historical statements therein, repentance, faith, etc.) were non-existent.

I can see several options that can be invoked:

1. All people who never even find out about Christianity until it's too late are bound to be tormented for ever and ever. This view, while fully consistent with the Old Testament's view of God and Christian theology in general, leaves a lot to be desired.

Suffice it to say that few people would want to worship a god who determines which of his creations to nurture and keep in heavenly bliss, and which to condemn and expel from his sight with no chance of redemption ever being offered, based solely on where and when circumstances dictated they would be born. Nevertheless, there are exceptions. Calvinists would probably have little problem here.

2. People ignorant of Christianity get a "get out of hell free card", so to speak, and much like most Christians believe newborn infants are instantly admitted to heaven, so to do the people who've never heard of Christ in life get instant access.

This is the most liberal approach, but one that has a fatal drawback. For if ignorance of Christianity is literally bliss, with 100% of sufferers being saved regardless, introducing it into a culture would be a curse rather than a blessing. Where one would be safe as long as the gospel message was unheard, being informed would make your fate contingent on acceptance of the message. And even if 50% of those evangelized converted, a whopping half (the rest) would be damned, merely by virtue of hearing the "good news".

Interestingly, this option guts the adage "what you don't know won't hurt you". The appropriate thing to do, merely out of compassion to our fellow man, would be to forcefully suppress the truth of Christianity and prevent it from evangelizing distant tribes with every dying breath. The cost of our own salvation would be regrettable, but what's a few valiant martyrs compared with the eternal salvation of hundreds, if not thousands of people?

3. Those ignorant of Christianity are judged on some other criterion, such as works or humbleness. The virtuous thing to do would be to evangelize Christian morality instead of Christianity itself, a far easier proposition as many of its tenets, such as the Golden Rule and variations thereof, are shared near-universally.

This is a noble sentiment, but it apparently contradicts much of the Bible; whether better or worse, it also immediately begs the question of why such a system isn't in use for the public at large.

For if works or other traits were a substitute for repentance and acceptance of Jesus, one could dispense with the whole affair and offer no special treatment to people merely because of where they're born. After all, sin is sin, and the penalty for sin is death.

If one ignorant of Christian claims effectively reaches the Father without going thru Jesus, one opens the door to exceptions for other groups. Perhaps people who were abused in childhood get a break. Gay people who really can't fight their natural urges just barely make it in. Atheists who honestly examined the evidence for God and Christianity and found it lacking--well, they had too much skeptic brainwaves in their heads...

4. Those who die without hearing of Christianity receive a chance to hear the message and accept or reject it. While a workable solution on the surface, it also suffers from numerous drawbacks.

For example, a common assertion made by Christian apologists is that "free will" would be violated if faced with incontrovertible proof of Jesus' divinity. Disregarding the fact that Judas, Balaam and many others throughout history, according to the Bible, have had incontrovertible proof and exercised their free will against God anyway, being confronted by Him at your death and asked to follow or be turned away to hell would certainly qualify as a coercion.

One could invoke a setup scenario where a person is unaware he's dead and evangelized by an angel appearing to be an ordinary Christian, but this also begs the question of why consistent treatment isn't applied across the board. After all, one can hardly deny that certain Christians are, to put it mildly, kooks.

Who could blame someone for being turned off by the belief if their only or main exposure to it was to card-carrying KKK parents, or proponents of Dominion Theology, or people who said gay individuals should be executed, or those who called Protestants heretics worthy of burning at the stake, for example?

On the other hand, angels surreptitiously attempting to convert everyone after death with a homogenous, convincing, heartfelt and superhuman presentation would certainly fare even better than sitting thru a 96-hour straight William Lane Craig marathon. Even more important, everyone would get the same exact chance with no opportunity for weakness in presentation being the sole reason for disbelief.

Alas, this is not what we see, and the premise thus fails.

5. Everyone living in a society without knowledge of Christianity would have remained non-Christian even if aware of it, and God specifically incarnated their souls into those bodies in advance because he knew they would.
This is perhaps the boldest possible option to assert, as it would require a troubling omniscience aware of alternate possible timelines and how to bring them into existence by fine-tuning simple events, yet undesiring to use this marvelous ability to steer everyone towards salvation.

For if God foresaw that a person would not accept Christianity in his scheduled life, what good would it do to transfer him to another where he wouldn't even have a chance to reject it? One could just as well leave him there and use his actions in other ways.

A much more empathetic option would be foreviewing which conceivable circumstances could cause the person to convert, then implanting his soul in that specific future body. Some people, for example, would believe if only their IQ was a few points lower or higher. Some would if they didn't have that uncle filling their heads with humanist ideas at a young age. Some might need to view what they thought was a miracle (real or imagined), like Thomas the Disciple. And so on.

At the very least, one could increase their chances of attaining salvation instead of forsaking them by bringing them into a squalid, brutal existence in a primal land and then condemning them, in large part, for their own ignorance.

6. Something I haven't considered or read of. I've tried to present an exhaustive list, but due to being a mere human it's likely to contain at least a few omissions clever apologists could propose.

So, there's my question. Now that I think of it, it was more like a Ph.D. thesis on presumed errors in Christian theology, but I'm sure the intelligent and nice people here, like Magus55, will have no trouble answering it.

Queen of Swords

Thanks very much for elaborating on my question to Magus, WinAce. I just have something else to add.

Those ignorant of Christianity are judged on some other criterion, such as works or humbleness.

I wonder what sort of works are sufficient? Does a tribesman have to make a special effort to feed, clothe and shelter people not related to him? Or is it enough to simply lead a good and law-abiding life with one's family?

Moreover, I think there's a verse in the bible about all our good deeds being as filthy rags. So if the above criterion is the one employed in letting people into heaven, I'd like to know what makes one rag less filthy than the other.

sakrilege

What about a bad messenger, an xian who so obnoxious as to turn off the potential converts.

Or what about mixed messages, LDS vs JW vs Baptist.

Do these fit in?

seebs

I currently incline towards thinking that mainstream Christianity has gotten confused about the whole faith thing. In fact, I seem to recall this being answered in the Bible, with the answer being that those who follow the commandments Jesus gave are indeed following them. This contrasts with His observation that there will be those who call him "Lord, Lord" and He will say to them "Depart; I never knew ye."

This, to me, suggests that opinions about the lifespan of Jewish carpenters figure much less in an evaluation of faith than whether or not you love your neighbor as yourself. The latter is a much truer kind of faith; rather than holding to some random point of epistemology, one is showing faith in walking down an ill-trodden path, trusting that it will in some way be beneficial. That's more like "faith" to my sensibilities.

WinAce

QueenofSwords and sakrilege both brought up good additional points. Yet, sadly, this topic is as yet devoid of a serious mainstream Christian reply.

seebs' viewpoint reminds me of something C.S. Lewis wrote in the final book of his Chronicles of Narnia series, when Aslan accepted a sincere worshipper of another god to his new world. This viewpoint does solve a lot of problems, but is generally disliked and attacked more than Catholicism by the people my first was targeted to... I don't think it's going to be a position they adopt.

Additionally, this view is not without its problems. Some people, for example, are paranoid schizophrenics or have other mental illness that impairs their ability to follow Jesus' commandments, something that would be cleared up if they received proper medical treatment.
Depending on such things as their geographic location and social class, however, they can go untreated. Are they going to Hell because they were born with a defective mind in the wrong time and place? That sounds almost too absurd to contemplate.

But if we grant an exemption for the mentally ill for extenuating circumstances, where is the line drawn? Surely, some people wouldn't be obnoxious bigots if only [event X in their lives] [didn't|did] [happen]. </geeky programmer syntax> Others would be perfectly fine people if they just had a bit less testosterone floating thru their bodies and/or a bit more empathy. Still others would benefit from a crash course in reciprocal altruism.

I see no way to cut an arbitrary distinction for any reason that doesn't create ethical problems. Ultimately, the only way I can see this view working is complete universalism, with *everyone* from Hitler to your neighbour being saved in the end. This certainly appears within logical possibility if you add the powers of a god to the mix, however, the fundies would probably go ballistic over such a suggestion.

lpetrich

And there is a further problem: what if someone is aware of Christianity, but has false views about its contents, as a result of believing in some other religion or belief system.

What happens to Jews since Jesus Christ? They usually view him as a completely-human prophet, but not the greatest prophet there ever was -- and usually pay little attention to him.

And some Jews have believed less-flattering things about JC. The Talmud, a huge collection of rabbinical commentaries, says very little about JC, but it claims that he was the illegitimate child of a Roman soldier named Panthera. (his alleged virgin birth also makes him an illegitimate child, it must be said) More recently, some Jews, like the Jews for Judaism people, have gone on record as stating that JC's alleged "prophecy fulfillments" are based on various errors and out-of-context quotes.

What happens to Muslims? Islam recognizes Jesus Christ as prophet, but claims that he was only human, and that Mohammed was a greater prophet than him. The Koran states that JC was not really crucified but lifted up into heaven, with some sort of fake JC crucified in his place. Muslims also believe that the Bible has become corrupted, but that the Koran has not.

What happens to Hindus? Some Hindus believe that JC was an avatar of their god Vishnu, like Krishna and many others.

And what happens to a freethinker who fails to see a fundamental difference between Christianity and other religions? And who thinks that it is much like Islam?

(EDIT: added Islam comment)

seebs

I think they'll adopt it. Maybe not while they have a carbon/oxygen metabolism, but I think they'll adopt it.

I think it is possible to distinguish between "hurt and angry and lashing out" and "malice". I believe the same class of distinction would apply, and answers the question adequately. If there is a line, I think that's where it's drawn.

Malice, it turns out, is exceedingly rare. On the other hand, maybe the line is drawn, not at malice, but at lack of compassion; in other words, even if we agree to measure on a more-useful scale (some kind of intent after accounting for circumstance), we don't know how high or low the bar is, or even whether that's the right model.

seebs

I personally think this question is much more applicable, in most cases, than the "third-world tribesman" case, because it affects billions of people - especially when you consider the fact that, logically, it's necessary that a fair number of Christians are among those who have false views about the contents of Christianity.

Indeed.

I think the general focus on Christianity is on the "simple" case; we talk about whether or not someone "believes", because Jesus said things about "believe in me". I think it's a distraction.

WinAce

Bumpity.

Yahzi

Universal salvation is the only thing that makes the slightest sense at all. Given how much the Xians go on about Love, you have to wonder why this doctrine isn't more common.

Well, you don't wonder much, since Xianity is just a social control mechanism, and teaching that even Hitler gets into Heaven doesn't give you a lot of control.