William Lane Craig has affirmed that it is possible for people to be “saved through Christ’s atoning death by their response to God’s general revelation in nature and conscience.” He holds that the profession of Jesus is a sufficient but not necessary condition for salvation, and uses the examples of Abraham and Moses to prove the point - for they were not capable of professing Jesus, as they did not know about him, and yet are presumably among the saved.
Let’s call this view:
Christian Ontic-Exclusivism (COE): A person may not be saved apart from Christ’s atoning death, though they may be saved apart from knowing about his atoning death.
It seems impossible for an Orthodox Christian to deny *at least* this doctrine. But perhaps it’s too weak. Many (especially conservative Evangelical) Christians wish to affirm something stronger, which we’ll call:
Christian Noetic-Exclusivism (CNE): A person is only saved due to Christ’s atoning death and they must also explicitly confess and affirm this claim to be saved.
It seems like it’d be easy to defeat CNE - just consider the case of Abraham. He’s a man that’s presumably among the saved and yet never explicitly confessed Jesus. But there’s two suggestions that I can think of to mitigate this response: (a) The limbo of the fathers response and (b) the dispensation response. The limbo response, which depends on a controversial interpretation of 1 Peter 3:18-19, would hold that Abraham and the other patriarchs were not among the saved and were held in limbo until Christ preached the gospel to them on Holy Saturday. Upon receiving the gospel, they became saved. This is a very controversial take and seems to imply the possibility of post-mortem conversion. As for (b), it’d hold that CNE was false prior to the life of Jesus, but holds subsequent to his ascension. Perhaps it can find support in Acts 17:30-31. I’m not endorsing either of these views, just trying to map the territory.
Still, if we ultimately reject CNE, COE seems to invite problems. We might call it the problem of Lewisian Inclusivism, wherein the urgency and need for missions is undermined as people can be saved apart from the explicit promulgation of the gospel. How are we to avoid this pitfall of COE?
Here’s one doctrine that may help with COE:
Strong Implicit Faith: Faith in Jesus that will activate when presented with the Gospel.
For if a person outright rejects Jesus, then they do not truly love God. But if they love God, then their failure to trust in Christ *must* be due to their never having heard of Christ. That is, if a person is responding positively to the minimal information they have about God, then they will respond positively to God’s revelation in Jesus if and when it is presented to them.
Further, even if some avail themselves of the revelation available in nature and conscience are saved and are members of non-Christian religions, it does not follow that they are saved on the basis of their religion. They may be saved *in* their religion, but not because of it.
The second way to help with COE is to hold to the rarity of people who embrace God’s revelation in nature and conscience. If we hold that the gospel is a more effective means to attract people to God than that of general revelation, that through it only and not through the mere witness of God in nature will some be saved, then it seems that we can stave off the problems implicit in Lewisian Inclusivism.
Still, maybe we were too quick to abandon CNE. After all, there is a difference between the man who has only God’s revelation in nature and conscience versus the Old Testament patriarchs - for they had direct and special revelation from God on top of the general revelation.
This hints towards another solution. We can weaken CNE to accommodate this insight and make it more plausible:
Weakened-CNE: A person is only saved due to Christ’s atoning death and they must also have explicit faith in this claim, either (a) in its vague not-yet prophetic promissory form or (b) in its fulfilled form.
This requires a bit of explanation. The ‘fulfilled form’ of this faith is a faith that holds and accepts the historical person, Jesus of Nazareth, as the man who has accomplished our salvation. The vague form of this faith is a faith that holds and accepts the promises that a person will come and accomplish our salvation for us. These promises and prophecies are direct and specially revealed to the patriarchs, and it’s their faith in them that saves them. Historically, Protestants have pointed at the protoevangelium in Genesis 3, the promise to Abraham that God would provide the lamb in Genesis 22, and the cultic symbolism embodied in the Temple throughout the OT as the implicit and vague presentation of the Gospel.
I think this move better preserves the spirit of conservative Evangelicalism and has some precedent in earlier Protestant thought. Still, even Weakened-CNE has another problem. If children and severely mentally handicapped people are saved, Weakened-CNE cannot hold for them in an ordinary sense.
A few responses are available: Perhaps God in the afterlife rapidly matures infants and heals the mentally handicapped so that they may make an informed decision for the gospel, so that they are still saved only on the basis of CNE. This would commit one to post-mortem conversion. Or perhaps we could further weaken CNE to hold only in the normal cases of morally culpable persons. Perhaps that seems ad hoc, but it’s at least well motivated.
Or we can just ultimately embrace a Calvinist soteriology and hold that, post-ascension, the elect are co-extensive with a subset of those who have heard the gospel proclaimed. So there are no individuals among the elect who have not heard the gospel, and this due to God's decision. Simple.
Or we can just embrace William Lane Craig's Molinist solution and hold that all who would have positively responded to the gospel will in fact have an opportunity to hear it. The man on the island would not have responded to it, so has no guarantee of hearing it, and will instead be condemned on the basis of his poor response to conscience and nature.
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