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Course 10 · Lesson 7.3

The fate of those who have not heard the gospel

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 7.3

What you will learn

  • State the question of those who have not heard and why it presses on every doctrine of salvation.
  • Describe the three broad answers: restrictivism (exclusivism), inclusivism and the wider-hope views, and pluralism.
  • Explain what Vatican II, the Orthodox churches, the Reformed confessions and Wesleyan teachers say.
  • Separate what the churches affirm from what they leave to God.

The big idea

If salvation comes through Christ, what of those who have never heard of him? Christians have answered in different ways. Some hold that explicit faith in Christ is necessary and that those who die without it are lost. Others hold that God’s grace in Christ can reach people who do not know him by name, and that salvation is always through Christ even where he is not known. All the major churches reject the view that all religions are equally paths to God. Most acknowledge that the final answer is in God’s hands, and that Christians are called to preach the gospel to everyone.

Key terms

Exclusivism (restrictivism)
The view that salvation requires explicit faith in Christ, so that those who have not heard are not saved by their own religion.
Inclusivism
The view that salvation is only through Christ, but that people may be saved through him without explicit knowledge of him, by responding to the grace they have received.
Pluralism
The view that the world’s religions are different, equally valid paths to God. Most Christian churches reject it as inconsistent with the claim that Christ is the only Savior.
Baptism of desire
In Catholic teaching, the desire for baptism, explicit or implicit, which can bring the grace of salvation without the sacrament.
General and special revelation
God’s disclosure of himself in creation and conscience (general), and in Scripture and Christ (special).
Anonymous Christian
A phrase coined by the Catholic theologian Karl Rahner for a person who lives by grace without knowing the gospel. The term is disputed, even among Catholics.
Harrowing of hell
The tradition that Christ, after his death, descended to the realm of the dead and preached to those there (1 Peter 3:19, 4:6). It is central in Orthodox Easter icons.

Background

The question is old. The New Testament church was a small group preaching to a large world, and the question of those who had lived before Christ or beyond the reach of his message was urgent. Justin Martyr, in the second century, wrote that those who lived according to the Word (Logos) were Christians before Christ, such as Socrates and Abraham. Others, like Cyprian, insisted that there was no salvation outside the church. The question has remained alive through modern missions, and the awareness of many religions has sharpened it.

It is also a question that touches the character of God. If God desires all to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), and if Christ is the only way (John 14:6, Acts 4:12), then how do these fit together? Each tradition tries to hold both. It is wise to notice, as the lesson proceeds, that the question is not mainly about other people. It is about what Christians believe about God and Christ.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The texts

Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). Peter says, “Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul asks, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard?” (Romans 10:14). Hebrews says that without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6).

Other texts point wider. John 1:9 speaks of the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. Paul says in Romans 1 and 2 that God’s power is seen in creation and that the Gentiles have the law written on their hearts. In Acts 10, Cornelius, a God-fearer, is accepted by God before he hears the gospel from Peter, though the story goes on to say that he must hear it. At Athens Paul speaks of a God who is not far from each one (Acts 17:27). First Peter 3:19 and 4:6 speak of Christ preaching to the spirits in prison and to the dead.

Step 2: Restrictivism

The restrictive view holds that explicit faith in Christ is necessary for salvation, because the Bible links faith with hearing and names Christ as the only way. The Westminster Confession says that persons not professing the Christian religion cannot be saved, however diligent they may be to frame their lives according to the light of nature, and that to hold otherwise is very pernicious. Many Reformed, Lutheran and evangelical writers hold this view and press the church to missions as a result. They say that the urgency of the Great Commission only makes sense on this basis, and that the hope for the unreached must not become a reason to stop going.

Restrictivists do not all say that the unreached are justly condemned for rejecting a gospel they never heard. Most say they are condemned for their sin, and that God owes grace to no one. They also leave open that God may save the infants who die and those who cannot understand, a point on which Reformed and Lutheran confessions speak with hope.

Step 3: Inclusivism and the wider hope

The Second Vatican Council taught in Lumen Gentium 16 that those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the gospel of Christ or his Church, but seek God with a sincere heart and try under the influence of grace to do his will as known through conscience, may attain eternal salvation. It adds that God does not deny the help necessary for salvation to those who have not yet come to an explicit knowledge of God, but strive to live a good life. The Catechism repeats this and teaches that all salvation comes from Christ, through the Church. The Church also teaches that the Church’s mission to preach remains urgent. Earlier teaching on ‘no salvation outside the Church’, as in the Council of Florence (1442), is read by the Church today in this light.

Wesley and many Arminians held a wider hope as well. Wesley wrote of pagans who feared God and worked righteousness, and said that God might accept them through Christ without their knowing him, though he held it was not his place to decide. Some Reformed theologians, such as Zwingli in the sixteenth century and some modern writers, have also expressed a wider hope. C. S. Lewis, an Anglican, wrote in his Narnia stories and elsewhere that those who sincerely seek goodness may find that they were serving Christ.

Step 4: The Orthodox approach

The Orthodox Church has not defined an answer. It holds that Christ is the only Savior and that the Church is the Body of Christ, in which salvation is received. It also holds that God’s mercy is not limited by what human beings know. Orthodox writers point to the descent of Christ into Hades, shown in the Easter icon, as a sign that his saving work reaches the dead. They also affirm that it is not for human beings to say who is saved or lost. As a common saying has it, they know where the Church is, but cannot say where it is not.

Step 5: Pluralism and its critics

Pluralism holds that Christ is one among many saviors or that all religions lead to the same God. The philosopher John Hick defended it in the twentieth century. The major churches reject it. The Catholic declaration Dominus Iesus in 2000 and the statements of Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed and evangelical bodies all affirm the uniqueness of Christ. Defenders of pluralism reply that this rests on a narrow reading of Scripture. Christian teachers across traditions reply that the claim of Christ to be the way is not a detail but the center of the faith.

  1. How do you read Romans 10:14 alongside Romans 2:14-16?
  2. Does the urgency of missions depend on holding a restrictive view? Why or why not?
  3. What is the difference between saying that salvation is through Christ alone and saying that people must know Christ’s name?
  4. How should Christians speak of the infants and others who cannot make a profession of faith?
  5. What does Justin’s idea of Christians before Christ suggest?
  6. How should Christians speak to neighbors of other religions in light of these views?

Examples

Cornelius

In Acts 10, Cornelius is a Roman centurion who prays and gives alms. An angel tells him to send for Peter. Peter says that God is no respecter of persons and that in every nation anyone who fears him and works righteousness is accepted. Cornelius and his household hear the gospel and are baptized. Restrictivists say that this shows God sending the gospel to the seeker. Inclusivists say it shows that God accepts seekers before they hear. Both note that the story ends with the gospel.

Two missionaries

Two missionaries, one Reformed and one Catholic, work in the same region. One goes because he believes that people will be lost without hearing the gospel. The other goes because she believes that the gospel brings the fullness of grace and the Church’s life to those who may already be seeking God. They disagree about what is at stake, but both go and both teach. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

Catholic

Salvation is through Christ and his Church, and the Church must preach the gospel to all. Those who through no fault of their own do not know Christ but seek God sincerely and follow conscience may be saved by grace. The Church does not say that they will be, only that God may bring them to salvation in ways known to him.

Orthodox

Christ is the only Savior, and the Church is the Body in which salvation is lived. The Orthodox do not define the fate of those outside, leaving it to God’s mercy, which is wider than human knowledge. The harrowing of hell shows that Christ’s victory reaches beyond the visible Church.

Lutheran

Faith in Christ comes through the hearing of the gospel, and the Lutheran churches stress preaching and baptism. Lutherans hold that those who reject Christ are lost. They do not claim to know the fate of those who have not heard, and they leave that to God, whose will is that all be saved.

Reformed

Many Reformed confessions hold that the ordinary means of salvation is hearing the gospel, and that those without Christ cannot be saved by the light of nature. Some Reformed theologians have held that God may save some outside the ordinary means, while stressing that Scripture gives no promise of it. The Canons of Dort express hope for the infants of believers who die.

Arminian and Wesleyan

God desires all to be saved and gives prevenient grace to all. Wesley taught that those who follow the light they have, fearing God and working righteousness, may be accepted through Christ, though he urged that the gospel be preached everywhere. The lost are lost by refusal of grace.

Evangelical scholars

Evangelical writers disagree, with strong representatives of restrictivism, inclusivism and the view that the dead may receive a chance after death. They share a commitment to the uniqueness of Christ and to missions.

Why it matters

How a Christian answers this question affects missions, interfaith relations and the picture of God. All the answers have difficulties, and none removes the call to bear witness. A student who sees each answer on its own terms is better prepared to speak with neighbors of other faiths and with fellow Christians who differ, and to hold firm convictions with humility about what God has not revealed.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Catholic Church teaches that all religions are equally valid.

Correction: It teaches that Christ is the unique Savior and that it must preach to all. It acknowledges that grace may reach those who do not know Christ, but it denies that all religions are equal.

Misunderstanding: Inclusivism makes missions unnecessary.

Correction: Inclusivist churches such as the Catholic and Orthodox hold that the gospel gives the fullness of salvation, and send missionaries. Many have done so for centuries.

Misunderstanding: Restrictivists believe God condemns people for not hearing what they could not have heard.

Correction: Restrictivists say people are condemned for sin, not for ignorance, and that God owes grace to no one. Many also hold hope for those who cannot respond.

Misunderstanding: Everyone who raises the question is doubting the faith.

Correction: The question is a serious one that great teachers in every tradition have asked, and it does not require doubting Christ.

Knowledge check

What are the three main answers to the question of the unevangelized?

Restrictivism or exclusivism holds that explicit faith in Christ is necessary for salvation. Inclusivism holds that salvation is only through Christ but may reach those who do not know him by name. Pluralism holds that all religions are valid paths, a view the major Christian churches reject as incompatible with Christ’s unique role.

What does Lumen Gentium 16 teach?

It teaches that those who through no fault of their own do not know the gospel or the Church, but seek God with a sincere heart and, moved by grace, try to do his will as known through conscience, can attain eternal salvation. The Council adds that God does not deny the help necessary for salvation to such people.

What does the Westminster Confession say about those outside the Christian religion?

It says that persons who do not profess the Christian religion cannot be saved, however diligently they live by the light of nature, and that to say otherwise is pernicious. Reformed writers hold that the ordinary means of salvation is hearing the gospel. Some have spoken of exceptions known only to God, without any promise of them.

How does the harrowing of hell bear on the question?

The tradition, based on 1 Peter 3:19 and 4:6 and honored especially in the Orthodox Easter icon, holds that Christ descended to the dead and proclaimed his victory to them. For many it signals that his saving work reaches beyond the living. The Church has not defined its extent, and interpreters differ on how widely it applies.

Think it through

  1. Which of the answers do you find most persuasive, and what is your strongest reason?
  2. How can a person hold firm to Christ’s uniqueness and still speak kindly to those of other faiths?
  3. What practical difference does your answer make to how you pray?

Independent assignment

Three answers, three texts

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. State the restrictivist, inclusivist and pluralist answers, each as its holders would, citing at least one text for each of the first two. Then write a paragraph explaining why most churches reject pluralism, and a paragraph on what the restrictivist, inclusivist and wider-hope views hold in common about the call to preach the gospel.

Further study