Re: [asa] Isolated humans

I've been pondering this all afternoon in relation to
the Natural Theology thread. Although I'm possibly
straying a bit from traditional Christian theology,
here are my thoughts on this nonetheless...

God's revelation is by His grace and we are only held
accountable for whatever revelation we have received.
I see God's "book of revelation" or Truth as coming in
3 parts--the first portion is natural theology, which
reveals to ALL people that [one] God exists and
perhaps the very basics of the Moral Law. The second
portion is the Law in the Biblical sense of the word,
which reveals more fully the Moral Law and more of
God's character. The concluding chapter is the Gospel
(as it says in Romans, the end of the law is Christ)
through which God reveals most vividly His love and
grace.

I think it's apparent to anyone who has read the Bible
that one of the most (or the most?) important virtue
to God is that of faithfulness. Here I distinguish
between faithfulness and perfection--i.e. I consider
my husband to be faithful even though our relationship
is not perfect; faithfulness towards God is
characterized by commitment and submissiveness, not
perfection. It is by faith we are justified according
to the grace of God.

Specifically though, as revealed in the Gospel, it is
faith in the risen Christ--through whom forgiveness of
sins is bestowed and the power of death is overcome.
Ultimately, no one can come to the Father except
through Christ, even those who are faithful yet
imperfect, because God is also holy and we must be
perfected in Christ first. So to your question--what
of those who have never heard of the Gospel? Here's
how I see it...as long as we are faithful to whatever
truth has been revealed to us--whether that be only
natural theology, or nature & law, or nature, law &
Gospel, I see that we are followers of Christ and
therefore forgiven and saved. How can this be? Because
Christ is united with the Father and the Spirit in the
Trinity, and the Trinity is God, therefore by
following God, you are de facto following Christ, even
if you have no knowledge or concept of the Trinity or
the Gospel. (to put it a bit more "scientifically":
Christ + Father + Spirit = Trinity = God; if God, then
Trinity, if Trinity, then Christ, the Father, and the
Spirit) Thus it's said that the Isrealites could be
saved through Christ because they believed in the
promises of God hundreds of years beforehand, even
though they were clueless about Christ's identity or
the concept of the Trinity.

To put it a different way--we consider all people to
be represented in the fall of Genesis (all are guilty
of sin)--even those who were living on other
continents at the time and had no connection to
Mesopotamia; I think then it's also fair to say that
all people are represented in (and have access to the
forgiveness of sin) the crucifixtion and resurrection
of Christ, even though again, they were living on
other continents at the time and had no connection to
Mesopotamia. All those who have faith in and follow
Christ, knowingly (through knowledge of the Gospel) or
unknowingly (just by being faithful towards God in as
much revelation as they do apprehend and receive), are
justified irrespective of time and place. To say
otherwise--that somehow those with no knowledge of
Christ have no access to grace, I think obligates that
the Adam-Christ analogy would be extended to say that
those people had no knowledge of sin to begin with;
either Christ and Adam are universal in both cases, or
else neither is universal and both are dependent on a
person's specific OT/NT knowledge.

This said, do I believe in universal salvation? No, I
do not--as I said, I believe that we ARE held
accountable for that portion of God's Truth which by
grace He has revealed to us; if at any point along the
way we reject this Truth, then we lose justification
and salvation in Christ. So, if all we know is natural
theology and we choose to be Atheists or polytheists,
then we are lost; if we know the OT law but we choose
to flagrantly violate it in a spirit of willful
disobedience (as opposed to those who transgress it
accidently and/or show proper repentance and a return
to God), then we lose salvation in Christ; and if we
hear the Gospel of Christ but reject it, we lose
salvation.

To address your other question--why not leave the
world in ignorance? I would pose a counter
question--why do we send our children to school? Why
not let them live in the blissfulness of childhood
forever? Because it is irresponsible to not provide
for the instruction and proper growth of children;
because without this, though they may enjoy life and
be good people, they will never have a chance to
fulfill their potential, to be all that they were
created to be. We are created to come to a
relationship with God and to grow in that
relationship; thus, we are called to learn and to
teach all that we can about this. But I would add
also, as it says in the Gospel, do not "throw pearls
to the swine" (or was it dogs??)--I think that
although we are commanded to share the Gospel with
others, we must be cognisant of doing so in a way that
they will be able to receive it--in other words, if we
take someone who is only familiar with natural
theology (Chap. 1 of God's truth if you will), and
then immediately give them Chap. 3 without teaching
them Chap. 2 first, then we may be setting someone up
for failure--for rejection of God's Truth when it
comes to them.

Anyway, I'm still working through this theological
question myself, so feel free to critique :)

In Christ,
Christine

--- Randy Isaac <randyisaac@comcast.net> wrote:

> I'm enjoying listening to a 36-lecture course on
> human pre-history by Brian Fagan from U. Cal at
> Santa Barbara. It is fascinating, filling in lots of
> details that I hadn't appreciated. (If any of you
> are interested, you are welcome to come to the ASA
> office and borrow a set).
>
> The last few lectures left me with a question (a
> very old one) that touches on several of the recent
> threads on this list. Fagan described the migration
> of humans to the Americas around 14,000ya. Within
> only a few thousand years, they had spread
> throughout north and south america. During that
> time, with the ending of that ice age, the ocean
> levels rose about 300 feet, effectively cutting off
> all human travel and communication between the
> Americas and Asia or Europe. Similar stories hold
> for Australia, New Zealand, and other places.
>
> The question I have is not a new one, and has been
> hashed around a lot, but it does still bother me.
> Hitchens referred to it in his book and debate as
> well. How do we understand the notion that the
> gospel of Christ's incarnation, crucifixion, and
> resurrection, with all its soterial implications, is
> the unique path for reconciliation to God when a
> significant portion of the human population did not
> even have the possibility of hearing about the
> gospel?
>
> Coming from a very mission-minded church, I've
> always heard pleas for "reaching those who have
> never heard" the gospel, with the responsibility on
> our shoulders to heed the great commission to share
> the good news. Somehow, the fact that a significant
> part of the world could not be reached for many
> centuries with any technology available no matter
> how zealous we may be, seems to put a different
> twist on it.
>
> If "original sin" dates back to the common human
> ancestral community, however that occurred, how is
> it that there is no commonly available gospel? The
> thread on natural theology revealed several
> different views of whether and how much we could
> learn about God through nature. I didn't hear anyone
> argue that we could learn about salvation from
> nature.
>
> The standard answers I grew up with seemed to
> revolve around God's accountability for humans being
> set relative to the amount of information/revelation
> we had so that all were without excuse. That's where
> Romans was usually cited. That of course led to the
> inevitable retort that we should leave indigenous
> people in their ignorance. Which didn't help
> matters.
>
> Far be it from any of us to question why God did it
> this way or claim "God surely wouldn't have done
> that" or the like. Yet, I confess it does leave me
> with a most uncomfortable feeling. Yes, I suppose I
> should just be content with "that's the way it is"
> but....
>
> Randy

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Received on Fri Nov 2 18:28:39 2007