One of the most difficult questions for Christians to answer, especially when posed by adherents of other religions, is the question of what happens to those who have never heard of Jesus? In this post, I will explain how progress in the field of philosophy of religion has given us a possible (and Biblical) solution to this thorny question.
First, Christianity teaches that humans are in a natural state of rebellion against God. We don’t want to know about him, and we don’t want him to have any say in what we are doing. We just want to appropriate all the gifts he’s given us, do whatever we want with them, and then have eternal bliss after we die. We want to do whatever we want and then be forgiven, later.
Along comes Jesus, who, through his sinless life and his death on the cross, heals that rift of rebellion between an all-good God and rebellious man. Now we have a real understanding of the fact that God is real, that he has power over death, and that he has very specific ideas on what we should be doing. If we accept Jesus’ atoning sacrifice and follow his teachings, we can avoid the penalty of our rebellion.
The only problem is that in order to appropriate that free gift of reconciliation, people need to actually know about Jesus. And there are some people in the world who have not even heard of him. Is it fair that these other people will be sent to eternal separation from God, just because they happened to be born in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Enter William Lane Craig to save the day. His solution is that God orders the world in such a way that anyone who would freely choose to acknowledge Jesus and appropriate his teachings in their decision-making will be given eternal life. God knows in advance who would respond, and chooses their time and place of birth, and he supplies them with the amount of evidence they need.
And this agrees with what the Bible teaches. The apostle Paul says this in his apologetic on Mars Hill in Acts 17:22-31:
22 So Paul stood in the midst of the Areopagus and said, “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects.
23 “For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘ N D ‘ Therefore what you worship in ignorance, this I proclaim to you.
24 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands;
25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things;
26 and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation,
27 that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us;
28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’
29 “Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man.
30 “Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all people everywhere should repent,
31 because He has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”
In this research paper, Craig explains in detail how God foreknows how people will choose in every set of circumstances, and how God uses that knowledge to get everyone where they need to be without violating their free will. God wants the best for everybody, and has ordered to whole universe in order to give each of us our best opportunity for eternal life.
Here is a summary of the what is in his paper:
The conviction of the New Testament writers was that there is no salvation apart from Jesus. This orthodox doctrine is widely rejected today because God’s condemnation of persons in other world religions seems incompatible with various attributes of God.
Analysis reveals the real problem to involve certain counterfactuals of freedom, e.g., why did not God create a world in which all people would freely believe in Christ and be saved? Such questions presuppose that God possesses middle knowledge. But it can be shown that no inconsistency exists between God’s having middle knowledge and certain persons’ being damned; on the contrary, it can be positively shown that these two notions are compatible.
Go read this paper and equip yourself to answer this common question!
WINTERY KNIGHT 
Couple of question if they are permitted – What of Matt 25:31-46 ?
No profession or knowledge of Christ as seen in vs 37 and yet they are regarded as “righteous”. In addition, they are permitted “inheritance” into the Kingdom as seen in vs 34?
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Ugh… Salvation based on foreknowledge… Raises more questions than it answers. I’m surprised Craig would give such an Arminian answer.
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LOL! You needed Craig to tell you this? It is a classic teaching of Christianity. But I guess those who are not Calvinists were not taught that God is in control. It’s called the “Sovereignty of God”, one of the Doctrines of Grace.
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While I understand the logic of what Dr. Craig says, I think this approach would just anger people. Here is how I approach this question with others (based on reading from Boa & Moody, Geisler and Craig). Thoughts?
The quick outline to remember main points: (acronym: SFRRA)
1. God want all to be saved
2. God will be fair
3. Two revelations by which everyone knows about God
4. When a person recognizes his need for God and responds to the light he has received, God Himself will respond and reward that person
5. God will not hold people accountable for that which they have no way of knowing.
Details:
1. It is clear from the Bible that God wants all to be saved:
I Tim 2:3 “This is good and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.
2 Peter 3:9 b “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.”
Furthermore, the Bible shows us God’s universal concern for mankind when it tells us that there will be people, “from every nation, tribe, people and language” in heaven (Revelation 7:9).
2. It is also clear that God will be fair: (Something would be desperately wrong if humans showed more compassion than God for those who are lost).
“It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice.” (Job 34:12).
God has “fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness” Acts 17:31
Rom 2:2-16 reveals 3 important aspects of God’s judgment:
God will judge according to truth (including the thoughts and intentions of the heart,
His justice is not clouded by error.(Rom 2:2-5, Heb 4:12)
According to works: Romans 2: 6-10- do they obey the truth or unrighteousness.
According to impartiality Romans 2:11- God does not show favoritism
Responsibility is proportionate to revelation and God knows exactly how much revelation a person received and exactly how he or she responded to it.
Verses indicating that there are different degrees of responsibility and punishment: (Mt. 11:21-24; Luke 12:47-48, Heb 2:2-3)
From everyone who has been given much shall be required (Luke 12:48)
3. Two ways everyone knows about God:
Psalm 19:1-2 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
Acts 14:15-17- Paul told the residents of Lystra that in His creation, God “did not leave himself without witness”.
b. Internal Revelation- We are made in the image of God (James 3:9) with a spiritual dimension and inner awareness of the existence of God.
He has set eternity in our hearts Ecl. 3:11
The fool says in his heart, ‘there is no God’- Psalm 14:1
Our conscience is a divinely given internal testimony of our moral inadequacy (Romans 2:15. “…they show the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness…)
4. When a person recognizes his need for God and responds to the light he has received, God Himself will respond and reward that person.
a. Verses that affirm that those who seek Him find Him:
Jerm.29:13: And you will seek me and find me when you search for Me with all your heart.
Psalm 9:10 For You, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you.
Psalm 145:18 The Lord is near to all who call on Him.
Heb. 11:6 says that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
b. God knows what is in everyone’s heart and he is capable of getting the word of salvation to all who want it.
If He really is the omniscient and omnipotent creator and sustainer of the universe, the Lord can get His message through, no matter where a person is. (cf.Ps. 139:7-12)
Examples of further light to a person who responded:
The Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8), Cornelius (Acts 10).
c. God can speak directly to the human heart: Numerous examples in the Bible of God speaking directly to the human heart:
Abraham, Melchizedek, Abimelech’s dream, Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, the Magi, Baalam. The book I’m Glad you Asked has several contemporary examples listed on pp. 185-187
5. God will not hold people accountable for that which they have no way of knowing.
Everyone has some knowledge about God and sin for which he is accountable. God is aware of the light that each one has, and He knows the response of each human heart.
God will judge based on the revelation that each person has received.
Consider this illustration that demonstrates how God is still just even if men never come to know anything about Jesus Christ: Suppose you are lost in the desert and it is getting dark. You are hungry, thirsty, and know that if you do not find food and shelter soon, you are probably going to die. Then you see a speck of light on the horizon indicating that there is human life out there. If you move away from the light instead of toward it, whose fault is that if you die? It would be your fault, right? Had you chosen to move toward the light, would not the light have grown brighter, revealing who was there? In a similar way, God is not responsible to give us greater light if we have not responded to the light he has already provided through general revelation.
If God really loves us and has demonstrated it by paying the ultimate price in sending Jesus to die on our place, is it not possible He would be willing to do whatever it took to save us?
So, that is my “short” summary. I will say that when I listened to Ravi Zacharias and Dr. Craig answer this question in the audio “The Top FIve Questions People Ask”, they had much more to say on this before Dr. Craig mentioned what you said above. While it may be logically true, to just state that part of it, I cringe a bit because it hides attributes of our merciful, fair loving AND just God.
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IIRC, that is pretty much the way the Roman Catholic Church answers the question, too. Seems not very controversial.
And this is far more comporting with an Arminian view than a Calvinist view.
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But the key is this: someone who does hear the Gospel and does not respond affirmatively to it does not get this “get out of Hell free” card.
But that is not really satisfactory, either. For what if a person hears the Gospel proclaimed at age 22 (and let us assume proclaimed in full and faithfully) and that person does not accept right away? And the next day s/he is killed in an auto accident.
So is he hellbound simply because he had his chance and blew it? Or does God know that he would have accepted Christ had he lived to age 35, and therefore welcomes him into heaven at age 22?
But if the days of our lives are numbered by God himself, then the person died at age 22 by the direct will of God, so it therefore doesn’t make sense even to imagine that God knew that he would have accepted Christ had he lived to age 35, because there was never any chance of him living a day longer than he did.
And for a Calvinist, well, his non-acceptance of the Gospel was fore-ordained, too.
And so . . . what?
I think that the answer we give to this kind of question reveals an awful lot about the answerer and not very much about God.
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I think the answer to your question is simple: the person who didn’t accept God’s revelation would not be taken into Heaven. Even if they lived to be two hundred, they would never truly accept God’s Word. In all possible worlds that contain the person you just described, he has willingly rejected God’s gift of salvation.
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