Re: [asa] Isolated humans

I come at this from a different direction. If God is love, as scripture
declares, then he will do for every creature that which is best for them.
Isaiah's reaction (ch. 6) indicates that even a good man is terrified in
the presence of the thrice holy God. To put sinful creatures in that
awesome presence would be perhaps the most painful possible condition for
them. So a minimal awareness would be the act of love. For the perverse,
their memory of their wickedness would be torment, lacking in those who,
in ignorance of redemption, would not be tormented by their memories. The
only way I see that I can enjoy being in the presence of the Almighty is
that by grace I will be made like the Son before that meeting. This
approach seems to me to cut out a lot of the complexity of open theology,
which springs from modern considerations rather than what I find in
scripture.
Dave (ASA)

On Fri, 2 Nov 2007 20:47:41 -0400 "David Opderbeck"
<dopderbeck@gmail.com> writes:
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?

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Received on Sat Nov 3 00:29:18 2007