The other day, Citizen Tom left a couple of very interesting questions in the comments section, and I thought I’d share the questions and my attempt at answers with everyone because these are not only interesting but asked by a great many people. So, I’ll tackle the first one today, and the second tomorrow.
Q: Couple of questions. I have tried to resolve these two issues on my own, but there seems to be a lot of division. And the answers I have heard don’t seem satisfactory.
What happens to people who have never even heard of Jesus? Since the New Testament provides a list of Old Testament heroes and Paul writes in Romans that Gentiles have the law written on their hearts, I presume that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to those ignorant of Jesus is the law written upon our hearts and the conscience that pleads with all of us to do what is right. That make sense?
A: Yes, I think it makes sense, and you might very well be right, although many would want to argue. Yet I am not one of those people, and I’ll tell you why. Remember, the question is: What happens to people who have never even heard of Jesus? I come from a Theological background that teaches that “Where the Bible speaks, we speak, and where the Bible is silent, we are silent.” The Bible doesn’t speak to this question specifically; therefore, I don’t know the answer for certain, which creates a dilemma.
This dilemma has brought about so much confusion for people and so much division, but we aren’t going to fall into that trap. Let’s avoid the trap by recognizing that we are now dealing with something called “Hermeneutics,” or “the study of interpretation.” There are many different methods of interpretation, and you might recognize some of them, for example, there is the Hierarchical Method which holds that only recognized experts or professionals can interpret. There is the Literal Method which holds that everything in the Scriptures must be understood literally and chronologically. I normally use the Historical-Critical Method which I’ll talk about shortly, for now, understand there are several others as well, and each has it advantages and disadvantages, and… they are not only used to interpret Scripture, they also can be used for other things.
As I approach the this or any other Bible question, I need to see what the Bible says on the topic; usually, this starts with word searches. When I have a list of texts that may provide answers, I must ask these questions for each of those texts: 1) who wrote it 2) when it was written 3) to whom was it written 4) what the purpose for was writing it 5) which covenant was it written under. Once we have those answers, we can usually rule some out of our inquiry. The remaining texts still need to be examined some more for context: section context and passage context, before we use them to reach a conclusion. Here’s an example that went wrong for a group of church ladies years ago:
When I was a fairly new member of a church leadership team, they came to me with a list of people who should be kicked out of our congregation if they didn’t stop smoking cigarettes. I asked if they had guidance from Scripture for their complaint and was told that smoking is sin because the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. So, I asked them what the context was for that teaching, and they didn’t know. They were a tad surprised when I told them that Paul was talking about sex with a prostitute in that passage, not smoking; smoking is dumb, not a sin. This is the Historical-Critical Method in a nutshell.
The next step is this: Scriptural guidance comes in at least one of these: Direct command of God, an approved (by God) Apostolic command, or by a necessary inference. Mind you, there is a huge difference between a necessary inference and a possible inference. In today’s question, we have none of these. When we do not have any of these three criteria, then we may have an opinion, but that opinion is not a doctrinal fact or teaching, and that is the substance of “where the Bible speaks, we speak, and where the Bible is silent, we’re silent.”
Citizen Tom offered his solution to the dilemma above, and it makes sense to me, even though I might probably offer a different solution: We can disagree without rancor on questions like this one.
As for my view, it is simple, maybe simplistic: Our God is merciful and just. He is not looking to condemn people on technicalities; He is a loving God. He knows our deeds and He knows our thoughts and motivations- and He knows whether we have rejected His Son or if we have never had the opportunity to receive His offer of salvation. I am happy to leave the question up to Him and I’m quite confident He will do what is right as He always does what is right. This is my possible inference.
Thanks again to Citizen Tom for the question, there is one other that he asked, and it’s a doctrinal doozy that you won’t want to miss right here tomorrow, see you then!
I have followed Citizen Tom for many years now and his blog is always interesting, you might want to check it out!
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