"What about those who have never heard the Gospel?" My response.
I was having a discussion with
some friends the other day and it found its way around to discussing religion.
One question was raised and I wasn't quite sure how to answer it. One of them
asked, "If God is all powerful and all knowing, why does he let people (those
who haven't heard the Word) die? They're given no chance be believe or not and
are condemned to hell because of it."
It being very late when we
were having this conversation and I was unable to come up with an adequate
response so I'm curious what you would say to someone if they posed that
question to you.
Thanks for your time
~Cheryl
Hey Cheryl!
That's a good question.
This is question is called the
"fate of the unevangelized" in theology. I think you mean, "why
does God allow them to go to hell" rather than "why does God allow
them to die." I think you mean that, of course, because non-Christians die
all the time. Physical death is the final event of (nearly) all humans.
To be clear: people aren't
condemned to hell because they didn't hear the gospel. They are condemned to
hell because they are sinners. It's like saying, if you don't mind the analogy:
When people have a terrible illness (like cancer), they die because cancer killed them, not because
they didn't take medicine. "Not taking medicine" doesn't kill
someone. Similarly, "not hearing the gospel" doesn't kill someone.
The "terrible illness" of sin is what "kills" a person. (I
say more about this in my book on Amazon.com.)
To be clear: all Christians
believe that the death of Jesus did something for other humans, something
objective. His death has a “saving effect” for humans when it is applied to them. He didn't just set a
good example. His death actually did something for us that we could not do for
ourselves.
(I recorded a podcast on this that you might find
helpful: http://traffic.libsyn.com/davidpendergrass/What_does_it_mean_that_Jesus_died_for_me.mp3
).
So, Christians all agree that
the saving benefit of Jesus’s death is applied;
we disagree on what it takes for it to be
applied. That is, what are the conditions necessary for Jesus’s death to
help me? Do I need to hear something? Say something? Believe something?
There are three major views on
this issue (and this is extremely brief!). So, what must a person do or believe
before Jesus’s saving death will be applied to them?
1. Exclusivism – A person must hear/read
the gospel and respond in faith (and for many, be baptized). If the person
doesn’t hear in this life time then,
in the end, the proper punishment for that person will be hell because of his/her sinning throughout life.
2. Inclusivism – A person must repent to
the degree that they can based on the amount of knowledge s/he has of God. If
the person doesn’t live according to the Moral Law placed within him/her to the
best of his/her ability, and repent of a life of selfishness, etc., then that
person will deserve hell. Obviously, this view holds that God judges people according to a different
standard than the first view, since each person has different capacities and opportunities (such as the mentally
handicapped, children, those who never have access to the gospel, etc.).
3. Molinism (or Middle Knowledge) – A person
must hear/read the gospel and respond in faith. And…God knows exactly what a
person would choose if presented with the
gospel. So, if a person never hear/reads the gospel it means s/he would have not responded in faith even
if s/he received the gospel. So, if the gospel doesn’t make it to them, it
means that they would have said, “no,” anyway.
Another minor view is that
after death, those who have never heard are presented the gospel and given a chance
before judgment. Another view (very popular among Roman Catholics) is that
people who go to hell will eventually be punished enough, be purified, and be
allowed access to Heaven (the doctrine of Purgatory).
In short, I believe
Inclusivism is the most compelling (for a variety of reasons, including
biblical). Here is a good book on the issue: http://www.amazon.com/What-About-Those-Never-Heard/dp/0830816062/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1445907906&sr=8-2&keywords=fate+of+the+unevangelized
These are my thoughts! I hope
you have fun reading!
David