Those Who Have Never Heard, Part 3: Divine Foreknowledge

Let’s take a few moments to talk about predestination versus free will. Just kidding. Well, sort of. As you know, this question comes up a lot, especially as related to the issue of personal salvation. In high school, the teacher in one of my Bible courses once divided the class in two and actually had us engage in a debate on the issue. I don’t remember which side won. 

If you’re like me, you’re maybe a little tired of the question. However, a little bit of serious thinking about divine foreknowledge and predestination can really help us with a different question, the one I’ll be considering in this reflection—the question of the fate of “those who have never heard” the gospel. In a previous reflection, I set the stage for our consideration of this question by talking about the three main ways people typically approach the question of who will and who will not be saved (exclusivism, universalism, and inclusivism). In another reflection, I discussed a couple of frequently-overlooked circumstances (population growth and infant mortality) that—in my humble opinion—greatly curtail the severity of the problems created by the “those who have never heard” question. If you haven’t read those, I encourage you to do so now.

Here, I want to discuss a particular perspective on God’s foreknowledge and predestination that may entirely eliminate the problems associated with the question of “those who have never heard.” An article written by Christian philosopher William Lane Craig first introduced me to this approach. In fact, in much of what follows I will attempt to lay out in plain terms some of the material Craig presented in his article.

According to Craig, God knows how every single person would respond to Him under any possible set of circumstances. With this knowledge, God has thus ordered the world in such a way that any person who never hears the gospel during earthly life would—in fact—have rejected iteven if he or she had heard the gospel. 

If that just flew right over your head, don’t worry. I think everything will become more clear as we consider some details. Just put on your thinking cap and hang with me for a bit, okay? 

We can think about God’s knowledge in three stages. 

Stages one and two describe God’s “thought process” regarding how to arrange things (or, in more philosophical terms, which world to actualize). In the first stage, God envisions every possible combination of various states of affairs, including any possible decision that any free creature could (but not necessarily would) make in any of those circumstances. In other words, God, in the infinite vastness of His intellect, visualizes all at once how things could play out in any logically possible world. 

Remember Bob the Mayan from my previous reflection? Let’s revisit Bob for a moment, and, for the sake of illustration, address one of the countless factors God might consider in deciding which world to actualize. In stage one of God’s thought process, He sees all the worlds in which Bob only keeps cats as pets, all the worlds in which he only keeps dogs, and every possible world in between. God sees all the worlds in which Bob has no pets. God is even able to see worlds in which Bob has a pathological fear of cats (and would never, under any circumstances whatsoever, adopt one) but still chooses to keep cats anyway. Such worlds may not actually be feasible, but they are logically possible. 

In the second stage, God narrows down His knowledge from stage one and envisions what states of affairs would actually lead to any other, including what any free creature would actually choose under any possible set of circumstances. God’s knowledge in this middle stage is called “middle knowledge.” (The philosophical position associated with “middle knowledge” was pioneered by 16th century Jesuit thinker Luis de Molina, and is often called Molinism.) Armed with this additional knowledge, God winnows down His initial list of possible worlds into a set of actually feasible worlds that takes human free-will into account. This means that all worlds in which Bob has a pathological fear of cats andkeeps cats get eliminated from the list. 

God then chooses to actualize one of these feasible worlds, presumably the one He considers most optimal. So then, God’s knowledge in the third and final stage is His knowledge of the actual world. 

To illustrate, let’s say that the world God chose to actualize is the one in which Bob has the greatest chance of coming to know God in a saving way. If Bob’s greatest chance of coming to know God in a saving way somehow involves owning a cat (let’s say he marvels at his pet’s ability to leap from one tree branch to another and land with near-perfect balance, and then thinks to himself, “Such graceful and agile creatures couldn’t exist by mere chance, but must have been created by an intelligent designer”), then Bob will not have a pathological fear of cats in the actual world.

Let’s assume that God chose to actualize our world in the way I just described. Let’s also assume two additional things—first, that in any of the feasible (stage 2) worlds in which some people would accept God, some would also reject Him; second, let’s say that there are some people who would reject God in any of the feasible worlds (Craig calls this “transworld damnation”). We can’t prove these additional assumptions, but we can’t disprove them either. They are both logically possible. 

We can now bring all of this to bear on the problem of “those who have never heard,” and say that it’s at least possible that God chose to actualize such a world that any person who never hears the gospel in earthly life would have rejected it even if he or she had heard the gospel. Pretty interesting, yes? 

We can confidently say that it’s possible that God arranged things this way, but can we say He probably did with the same degree of confidence? I don’t know, probably not. But I do know that if anyone can pull something like this off, it’s our creator God, whose thoughts and ways transcend ours as much as the heavens do the earth (Isaiah 55:8-9; Romans 11:33). 

So—what does this gain us? If true, our problem shrinks to nil. And as we saw, no one can argue against it with 100% certainty. At the very least, then, no one can hold up the question of “those who have never heard” as a surefire defeater of the Christian worldview.

Those Who Have Never Heard, Part 2: Two Circumstances

Did you know that the total number of people on earth right now makes up about six percent of the total number of people ever born? Or how about this—the world’s population is today roughly four times as large as it was 100 years ago. Pretty crazy, right? The recent population boom significantly alters how we approach the question I introduced in the previous reflection—the question of “those who have never heard.” 

In part 1, I introduced our question and then set the stage for the discussion by looking at the three main ways people typically approach the question of who will and who will not be saved—exclusivism, inclusivism, anduniversalism. I settled on a modified form of exclusivism which holds that while most people become saved as a result of a Christian sharing the gospel of Christ with him or her, there may be select others who become saved as result of a dream or vision directly from Christ (or something along those lines).

My primary aim here is to make you aware of two often-overlooked demographic circumstances, and to address how those circumstances greatly reduce the need to worry about the question of “those who have never heard.” The first has to do with population growth. The second relates to infant and child mortality rates. Let’s take a look at population growth first. 

According to estimates I gathered from multiple resources (see below), the global population around the year 1 CE amounted to less than 300 million. By about 1800, the population passed one billion for the first time. By 2000, the population had passed six billion. People estimate that by 2050, the world’s population will amount to over nine billion. 

If you are visually oriented, take a look at this chart:

Here’s the main point I’m building up to: The modern Protestant missions movement began around the same time as this exponential boom. On top of that, consider the astronomical increase in human travel and communication capabilities that started around the time of the 18thcentury enlightenment, and has only been steadily increasing ever since. 

Just think about it: As the global population exploded, access to the gospel of Jesus Christ exploded along with it, so much so that we can even say that a sizable percentage of everyone ever born lived in an age of unprecedented gospel access. And this percentage will keep growing the longer the Lord tarries. When the current chapter of the human story comes to an end, it’s possible that the number of people who lived with some level of gospel access will outweigh—perhaps even vastly outweigh—the number of those who didn’t. In the words of a friend of mine, “It almost seems like God knew what He was doing.” 

A second circumstance I want to make you aware of relates to infant and child mortality rates. I read about this in Don Richardson’s book Heaven Wins: Heaven, Hell and the Hope of Every Person. Richardson estimates that, due to a combination of pre-birth, infant, and child death, roughly 70% of all human beings ever conceived never lived past age five. (After reviewing Richardson’s numbers, I put the number closer to 64%.) If we assume an age of moral accountability (and I think the Bible gives great reason to affirm this—see, for example, James 4:17), then every single one of these children went straight into the presence of Jesus. (See Robert Lightner, Safe in the Arms of Jesus: God’s Provision for the Death of Those Who Cannot Believe [Kregel Publications, 2000].)

Allow me to pause a moment to acknowledge the grim nature of this circumstance. No one can deny the profound tragedy of losing a child. It is one of the most terrible things a parent can endure in this broken world. I do not bring it up lightly. But I wanted to mention it because it bears on our question. After all, if Richardson’s estimates even remotely approximate the actual situation, we can affirm the salvation of a vast majority of all people ever conceived. We know from Scripture that God specializes in hijacking evil circumstances for good (Romans 8:28), sometimes even horrendously evil circumstances like the Cross. Perhaps this qualifies as one such circumstance.

In sum, these two circumstances make two things very likely. First, a much larger percentage of people than you might think will have had at least some chance to receive the gospel during earthly life. Second, a massive percentage of all people ever conceived automatically go to heaven. You can see why these circumstances make the question of “those who have never heard” much less potentially problematic. Before bringing this topic to a close, let’s look at it from one more angle. 

In the next reflection (part 3), I want to walk you through a way of looking at God’s foreknowledge that hopefully will help us deal with whatever problems remain.

Population resources:

http://www.ecology.com/population-estimates-year-2050/

https://ourworldindata.org/world-population-growth

http://worldpopulationhistory.org/map/1/mercator/1/0/25/

http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2002/HowManyPeopleHaveEverLivedonEarth.aspx

Those Who Have Never Heard, Part 1: Three Viewpoints

Imagine hell with me for a moment. The roar and hiss of the flames mingle with a chorus of tormented screams in a ceaseless, eternal drone of horror. The people cry out in different languages, some of the voices high-pitched, others low. Sweet memories from life linger in their minds—the thrill of falling in love, a newborn’s piercing first cries, the sensation of wet grass on bare feet, the breathtaking deep oranges and reds of a sunset. All of it, lovely. All of it, gone forever. Only darkness and flame and bitterness remain.

Would anyone want this? I can't imagine so. Yet, we know from Scripture that all who reject God’s offer of salvation in Jesus will end up in such a place. This probably didn’t bother Christians of past ages, because pre-modern Westerners probably thought they comprised the majority of the world’s population. If someone rejected the gospel, he or she did so with full knowledge, and full culpability. But today, we know that millions have died throughout history without ever hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. And if God can only save a person from eternal damnation when that person knowingly makes a free-will decision to trust in Christ, millions have gone to their graves with zero opportunity to escape hell.

This thought horrifies me, and I believe rightly so. Why would our omnipotent God arrange things this way? Does He really desire the salvation of all people as it says in 1 Timothy 2:4? This challenge, the challenge of “those who have never heard,” can be a real bear of a problem in the minds of Christians who think seriously about their faith and its implications. It raises questions of fairness. But more than this, it challenges the legitimacy of the Christian faith. To bring this out, let me ask a question: is a truth that is only available to certain people at certain times in history really the truth at all?

I’ve done a lot of thinking about this question. Beginning with this reflection (and followed by two more), I hope to show that finding answers might not be as difficult as you may think.

To set the stage, I want here to briefly address three major ways people have typically approached the question of who will and will not be saved. This will surface some of the tensions involved in our question. I also think we may begin to find some answers here. In another reflection, I want to talk about two circumstances that I think make the question much less problematic. In the final reflection, I will explore an interesting way of approaching the question that can help us deal with any remaining problems.

The three ways people have typically approached the question of who will and who will not be saved are these—exclusivism, universalism, and a more middle-ground approach called inclusivism. In exclusivism, God requires explicit knowledge of the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus (“special revelation”) for salvation. So, let’s say it’s the year 100 CE. A twenty-something ancient Mayan man—let’s call him Bob—catches an incurable disease and dies. Now, Bob is far from a perfect person, but he never killed anybody or cheated on his wife. Because he never had a chance to hear and respond to the gospel, however, he ends up in hell.

Exclusivism is far and away the most common position held among evangelical Christians, and with good reason. Among the three positions, it involves the least amount of “hermeneutical gymnastics” when approaching the relevant scriptural passages (for example, John 14:6; Acts 4:12; 1 Timothy 2:5).

On the opposite end of the spectrum is universalism. In this view, God will ultimately accept everyone into heaven, regardless of their deeds or faith (or lack thereof). Instead of being a relatively decent guy, let’s say that Bob the Mayan gets sick and dies after a wild life of partying and all manner of vice. No problem. God will eventually accept him into heaven, even though he may have to first spend two or three hundred years in hell to atone for his wickedness. As attractive as this may sound, it just isn’t biblical. The Scriptures clearly speak of two categories of people (the saved and the unsaved) and two possible destinies (heaven for the saved, hell for the unsaved).

In between exclusivism and universalism, we find a middle-ground position called inclusivism. In inclusivism, God can save a person on Christ’s merits without that person necessarily knowing anything about Jesus or the Bible (what theologians call special revelation). Rather, God can save people on the basis of their response to what can be learned from nature and reason (theologians call this general revelation). Let’s suppose again that Bob is a relatively decent guy. He recognizes that he (along with everyone else) possesses an internal sense of right and wrong—a conscience—even though he does not know where this comes from. What’s more, for all his life Bob has tried to order his thoughts and actions so as to satisfy the demands of his conscience. When Bob dies, God accepts him into heaven on Christ’s merits, not because he heard and responded to the gospel, but because he responded appropriately “to the light that he had.”

You can see why inclusivism might make our question less challenging. In this view, explicit knowledge of Christ is not an absolute requirement for salvation. For the inclusivist, there is hope that we’ll see people in heaven who died without gospel access. Personally, I hope we will see many such people in heaven.

We must concede, however, that many evangelicals do not consider inclusivism to be a valid biblical position. Beyond that, even most inclusivists lack a high degree of confidence that many people have actually been saved in the way we just considered. This lack of confidence seems justified. After all, why would Christ have given us the Great Commission to evangelize the entire world with the gospel of Christ (including pagan lands) if God could and would save mass numbers of people apart from the gospel message?

Exclusivism, inclusivism, and universalism—these are the three typical approaches held by many. But I cannot bring our discussion to a close without mentioning a fourth possible option that, to my knowledge, doesn’t have a name. It’s a mediating position between exclusivism and inclusivism. It’s really a variation of exclusivism, but one that leans in an inclusivist direction. This fourth position is based on the idea that even though most people become saved as a result of a Christian sharing the gospel of Christ with him or her, there may be some who become saved apart from a human gospel-bearer. Let’s revisit our Mayan friend Bob one last time. Bob lies on his deathbed after having lived a decent life in response to God’s general revelation. God, seeing that Bob has tried to live morally, sends him a gospel vision. Bob responds in belief before he dies, and God accepts him into heaven.

The downside of this view is that we don’t have many stories of this sort of thing happening in the world. There is one notable recent exception, however. I am referring to the “Jesus dream” phenomenon in the Muslim world. Stories of Muslims experiencing dreams and visions of Jesus—or of a white-robed man who sets them along a path that culminates in conversion—have been coming out of the Muslim world for the past several years. I highly recommend Tom Doyle’s book Dreams and Visions: Is Jesus Awakening the Muslim World? on the subject. Many would tell you that even when a Muslim experiences a Jesus dream, he or she still requires contact with a Christian in order to know enough to convert. I think most cases validate this. But from what I remember, at least one of the documented stories in Doyle’s book involves a Muslim who received enough information during the Jesus encounter (or encounters) to be converted. If God can do this for Muslims, why could He not do it for anyone at any point in history throughout the world?

So there you have it—the three major ways of thinking about who will and who will not be saved. I hope our discussion has at least got you thinking about our question of “those who have never heard the gospel.” And I believe our modified exclusivism gives us a way to begin releasing some of the tension and still remain firmly planted in orthodox territory.

In my next reflection, I want to make you aware of a couple of frequently-overlooked circumstances that, in my humble opinion, make this bear of a problem into a much smaller animal. Like a coyote. Or a bobcat. Or something.