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What about those who never heard about Jesus?
Skeptic's Argument:
1. Salvation is based
upon one's love for Christ.
2. There are people
who, because of circumstance, have not heard of
Christ, therefore, they cannot love Him and will not
be saved. Therefore, their eternal destiny is a
matter of circumstance, luck or timing.
3. There are some
cultures that would impose tremendous penalties
against those who would worship Christ, making
salvation dependent upon where one is born, which is
a matter of luck. Therefore, their eternal destiny
is a matter of luck.
4. If one's eternal
destiny is a matter of chance and luck, it is not
fair because all do not have an opportunity to be
saved.
5. Therefore, a god
that would base one's eternal destiny on
circumstance, chance and luck is not good or fair.
ASAJ's counterargument:
The appropriate
counterargument is as follows:
1) If a person knows
what is good, and always chooses by his free will to
do what is good, then he will be fit to enter
heaven. His eternal destiny is not based upon
circumstance or luck; His eternal destiny is based
upon A) knowledge of what is good and B) his free
will decision to always do that which is good.
2) Those who never heard of
Christ, because of circumstance, luck or timing,
could still obtain salvation by using their free
will to always do what was good and right. Their
eternal destiny, therefore, is not based on
circumstance or luck, but on their own
volition.
3) Those who have heard of
Christ, but who are forced by societal pressure to
denounce Christ, still can be saved by the decision
to worship Christ with their mind, heart and soul. A
government may be able to take away one's free
speech, but they cannot take away one's
thoughts. Therefore, their eternal destiny is
not based on luck, or chance, but on their own
volition.
4) No person who knows what is
good, always chooses to do what is good. All humans
fall short of the high standard needed to enter into
heaven. Therefore, no one deserves the reward of
heaven.
5) Therefore, a god that would
allow no man to enter heaven is just, because each
would get exactly what they deserve.
But because God is also
merciful, He provided a way for some to escape
justice and still enter heaven:
Skeptic's Argument
Regarding God's Mercy:
1. Only those who love Jesus
will escape justice.
2. To love Jesus, one has to
have the opportunity to know Him.
3. The opportunity to have
knowledge of Jesus is based on circumstance and
luck.
4. Basing mercy on
circumstance and luck is not fair, because some are
getting a reward that they don't deserve.
5. Therefore, God is not fair.
ASAJ's counterargument:
This
subject is addressed in Matthew 20:1-16, in the
parable of the workers in the vineyard. I also
address it in a somewhat different context in
"The Games Skeptics Play".
1)
Only those who love Jesus will escape justice.
2)
To love Jesus, one has to have the opportunity to
know Him.
3)
The opportunity to know Jesus is based on
circumstance and luck.
4) Mercy,
by definition, is never deserved. Mercy, by
definition, is not fair; it always entails giving
someone more than what they deserve by way of
reward, or less than what they deserve by way of
punishment. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if
all have the same opportunity to acquire it.
5)
Therefore, to those who have no opportunity to know
Jesus, God is just. To those who have opportunity to
know Jesus and who decide to take that opportunity
to love Him, God is merciful.
If
you were the person who is being judged justly, if
you had any love for the other person who was judged
mercifully, you would rejoice that this person is
allowed to enter heaven. If your heart was good, you
would see the unfairness, but recognize the goodness
of the judge out of the love you have for your
brother. If you have no love for your brother, you
would only see the unfairness and your bitterness
over his lenient sentence would cause you to see the
mercy in the judgment as a bad thing.
If
you are the person who was granted a lenient
sentence, if you had any love for the person who was
sentenced justly, you may experience guilt over your
lighter sentence, but even though the judgment was
unfair in your case, justice is being served because
the other person is getting exactly what they
deserve. Will you thank the judge for his mercy, or
condemn him for it?
Herein,
lies the hypocrisy of those who make this argument:
In order to make the argument, one has to have
knowledge of Christ. But because this knowledge of
Christ is based on luck and circumstance, and
because, therefore, not everyone in the whole wide
world will have an opportunity to have it, the
person making the argument chooses to discard it.
But this is not how people act in the real world.
I
never heard a State Lottery winner announcing on TV,
"I'm giving this 2.5 million back to the state
because some of you, whether through personal
circumstances or the misfortune of having been born
in India, which does not have a state lottery, did
not have an equal opportunity to win it."
I never heard a football player say, "I'm
giving up my contract with a Pro Team because some
people, through accident and chance, have lost their
legs, and therefore had no opportunity to play with
the Pros." This is not how people act in the
real world, yet this is what the person, who makes
the original argument, is saying.
Denial
of Free Will Debate Tip:
The
arguments for and against free will can become very
complex; I may address those arguments at a later
date. However, some skeptics will argue that free
will does not exist in order to declare that men are
not responsible for their actions, and, therefore,
they cannot be labeled as immoral. They will also
state that God, therefore, is immoral for punishing
them. They will say that man's behaviour is based on
determinism and that behaviour is the effect of the
combined causes of environment, circumstance,
internal chemistry, nature, etc..
If
denial of free will is presented to you within this
context, instead of trying to present free will
arguments at that point, argue that God's behaviour
is also a result of determinism, and since God has
no free will and cannot control His own nature, God
is not responsible for His behaviour, and,
therefore, cannot be considered immoral when He
punishes men for what they cannot control. (Big
Smile!)
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