Re: [asa] Isolated humans

A recent book on this is Terrance Tiessen's "Who Can Be Saved." I haven't
read the whole book -- honestly, this is an issue that bothers me as well,
and I'm more than a little afraid to dive into it too much. Tiessen argues
for what he calls an "accesibilist" view, which seems to be somewhere in
between exclusivism (the traditional evangelical position) and inclusivism
(a position associated with open theism and I believe John Sanders and Clark
Pinnock -- I have Sander's book "No Other Name" on this issue but also have
been afraid to read it, and I have not yet picked up a copy of Pinnocks "A
Wideness in God's Mercy.")

If I understand the gist of Tiessen's argument, he suggests that God somehow
can give everyone a chance to respond to the gospel. None of these views
are universalist, but the accesibilist and inclusivist positions have drawn
lots of fire from conservative quarters. Tiessen's book, BTW, was blurbed
by Christopher J.H. Wright, Director of John Stott's Langham Fellowship, who
wrote a fabulous book on missions called "The Mission of God." Wright's
thesis essentially is that missions ought to be more holistically focused on
all aspects of the Kingdom.

But ultimately, particularly with respect to people who lived before Christ
or who otherwise had no contact with the gospel, is this another place where
we simply have to presuppose and trust that God is loving, just, knowing,
true, and good, and limit ourselves to what is right before us?

On 11/2/07, Merv <mrb22667@kansas.net> wrote:
>
> I have heard Christians (including young-earthers) speculating that
> perhaps Christ reveals himself to them in his own way (maybe even after
> physical death) and that all will have a chance to accept or reject him one
> way or another. Admittedly this is extra-biblical speculation for the
> express purpose of preserving our sense of appropriate divine justice in
> just these questions. I'm not aware of any passages that refute the
> possibility, and once Paul uses an interesting premise (I Cor. 15:29)
> asking rhetorically why else would somebody be "baptized for the dead" as
> he is making another point. Perhaps some extravagant Catholic traditions
> have grown up from these kinds of hints. But I think in the end, it does
> come down to trust. We have a sense of justice that must be at least in
> part God given, and if we can't trust God to do the ultimate right thing by
> everybody, then, well, we've got bigger problems than nit-picking about
> who's in and who's out.
>
> You're right about the missions dilemma. Interestingly enough many
> Calvinists have always been strong on missions which always seemed ironic to
> me, since they of all people could have the motivation to sit back and say
> it's already all been pre-ordained by God and we can't save anybody. But
> they don't try to look at that side of it. They just see the command "Go
> and make disciples ..." and consider that to be their marching orders. The
> results are in God's hands. Even though I'm not a Calvinist, I think
> that's a spiritually well-grounded and Biblical approach to all this. I
> also like C.S. Lewis' approach with the Calorman who, to his own surprise,
> wound up in Aslan's paradise despite his life spent in apparent worship of a
> different god. "No good deed done for Tash is done for Tash but is done
> unto me, and no vile deed done in my name is done for me but is done for
> Tash" --or so I think the words went. (I know works don't save... but
> they are the evidence of salvation.)
>
> If a native never hears the direct news, perhaps he still responds to a
> revelation that is given to him beyond what is available in "natural
> theology". And whatever name he gives it, if any, it may well be Christ at
> work in his heart. Which preserves the essential doctrine that only Christ
> saves. ("Fourth Wiseman" by Henry Van Dyke is a wonderful story.)
>
> --Merv
>
> Randy Isaac wrote:
>
> 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
>
>
>

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Fri Nov 2 20:48:43 2007