"The paradoxes of hell"

Bill Dembski has written a very long essay in defense of inclusivism:

https://billdembski.com/theology-and-religion/the-paradoxes-of-hell/#more-53452

This post will be long, not because my responses to Dembski are all that lengthy, but due to my quoting him before responding. 

Dembski's a Roman Catholic convert to evangelicalism. Had a layover in Eastern Orthodoxy. All these experiences provide him with a comparative frame of reference. I think he took heat from progressive Christians at Princeton, he's been the target of ruthless and relentless attack from the secular scientific establishment, he's been under fire from young-earth creationists, then he was knifed in the back at SWBTS. So many enemies both inside and outside the church. It has a cumulative effect. Finally, he has an autistic son. So all these factors condition his outlook. He's a heroic figure, but there's an understandably reactionary element to his position. It's to his credit that he can muster so much grace under pressure. 

His essay is very intelligent. He's a brilliant thinker. He gives some bad answers to some good questions. His position is confused or downright pernicious. And he doesn't seem to consult commentaries to familiarize himself with the range of interpretations.

But why then is Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom (heaven?) and the rich man in hell? Lazarus presumably predated Christ and so didn’t trust him to be his savior. Certainly there’s no evidence that Lazarus consciously received Jesus as his personal savior...How then did Lazarus make it to heaven? Is Lazarus in heaven because he was poor and begging in front of the rich man’s house — does being poor and oppressed guarantee a ticket to heaven (as in liberation theology’s preferential option for the poor and oppressed)?

Where am I going with this? Among my very conservative Christian colleagues, the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus is a factual story — it really happened. But even among my conservative (but not very conservative) Christian colleagues, it is regarded as a story that could nonetheless have happened (the names, but not the story, have been changed to protect the innocent/guilty).

Well-taken. 

[Quoting Edwards] The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince.

I think we should leave ourselves open to that viewpoint, to give it a fair hearing. In general, though, that melodramatic rhetoric is counterproductive. It makes it harder for people to take the Gospel seriously when it's presented in such historionic terms. 

[Quoting Aquinas] In order that the happiness of the saints may be more delightful to them and that they may render more copious thanks to God for it, they are allowed to see perfectly the sufferings of the damned. [PIII/suppl-Q94-A1]

That claim has no basis in divine revelation. A tradition long overdue for retirement.

Does anyone really believe such teachings, namely, that hell at its mildest is more painful than earth at its worst? Sure, many Christians pretend to believe that the answer to this question is Yes. But pretending to believe is different from actually believing. Actual belief means acting on the belief, and with hell no one acts as though it’s really that bad.

Why do I say we merely pretend to believe in hell’s exceeding horribleness? Consider these words of 1 John 3:17: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” If hell is really as bad as Edwards and Thomas make out, then the avoidance of hell is people’s most urgent need, bar none. Starvation, disease, war, natural disaster, and torture all would in that case pale compared to what awaits people in hell.

But consider again 1 John 3:17: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” And what greater need is there but to escape hell? So, if we’re not doing everything in our power to prevent people from going to hell, and if hell is as bad as all that, then this verse teaches that God’s love is not in us.

1 Jn 3:17 is referring to the needs of fellow Christians rather than the plight of the lost. "Brother" is a Johannine synonym for Christian. So that text fails to prove Dembski's point. The general context of 1 John is about Christian community and heretical schismatics who disfellowship the faithful. 

Peter Singer, an atheist and villain for many Christians, spends 25 percent of his income to help the poor. By contrast, U.S. Christians give about 4 percent of their incomes to charities. According to Singer, if we see someone in dire need, we are morally obliged, even at grave cost to ourselves, to try to meet that need.

That's a dubious standard of comparison. Peter Singer probably has far more disposable income than the average Christian. Moreover, I believe his children are grown, so he doesn't have that expense. In addition, his charity is arguably a form of virtue-signaling to compensate for his heinous reputation on abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, &c. 

But why, then, are Christians doing so little to keep people from going to hell? Why do we give so little to missions or charities? Why don’t we make soul winning our number one priority? Why do we waste so much time watching and playing sports? Why do we put such a premium on leisure activities, such as hunting and fishing, or quilting and scrapbooking? Why do we spend so much money on vanities such as cosmetic surgery, designer clothes, and expensive jewelry? Why do we fast and pray so little? Why do we spend so much time and energy on theological squabbling (cf. 2 Timothy 2:23-24)?

If hell is as bad as Edwards and Thomas make out, then there is no respite, no break, no relief for the inhabitants of hell. Prayers won’t help them. Care packages won’t get delivered. Well wishes will be in vain. Accordingly, there is nothing — absolutely nothing — to be done to lighten the load of someone in hell. So any good we can do for people, we must do NOW. And the ultimate good then becomes keeping people from going to hell; after all, heaven will take care of itself — once you’re there, you’ve got it made.

If hell is as urgent and dire a peril as claimed by Edwards and Thomas, then I submit that the overwhelming majority of Christians think that Singer and James may safely be ignored. In fact, I’d go further and say I’m unfamiliar with any Christians who demonstrate this belief by their actions (myself included). But how else do we know what people actually believe except by their actions? Indeed, we can pretend to believe anything we like. Only action demonstrates belief.

Consider next what happens to our use of money on the extreme view of hell. By the extreme view of hell I mean a view that, as much as possible, tries to maintain the formula “only conscious explicit faith in Jesus can prevent conscious eternal torment in hell,” allowing no more exceptions than absolutely necessary (such as infants and the unaccountable). Practically speaking, this view makes hell’s avoidance the ultimate good (sure, we can talk about heaven, with its beatific vision and divine union, as the ultimate good, but on the extreme view of hell, that’s merely the flip side of the same truth).

So, let’s ask the following question: On the extreme view of hell, how should we spend our money and resources?...I expect that with the funds spent trying to recover my son’s health many people would have converted to Christ who now, because that money was never given, will never hear the Gospel and thus go to hell (if the extreme view of hell is true)...But again, who in one’s right mind thinks this way? And if we don’t think this way, why do we push the extreme view of hell?

Digression: I personally take a hard line against abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. But the extreme view of hell raises the interesting prospect of “Christian euthanasia.” If the sick, the disabled, the weak, the criminal are sucking away resources that could be used to keep other people out of hell, might it not be better simply to kill off the former for the benefit of the latter, especially if the latter substantially outnumber the former?

But the logic of the extreme view of hell, in which only conscious explicit faith in Jesus avoids hell (minus a few minimal exceptions), should lead those holding this view to silently cheer whenever the death of certain resource-consuming people (the Nazis called them “useless eaters”) frees up funds that leads to a greater number of people avoiding hell and going to heaven. In this way, Christians would embrace a weird consequentialist ethics identical to the worst eugenicists of the past. Just to be clear, I regard any such “Christian euthanasia” as a monstrous perversion.

There's some truth to Dembski's indictment. A sobering truth. Many professing Christians need to reexamine their priorities. 

i) That said, it's unclear whether he's targeting inclusivism or the torture chamber view of hell. He's trading on a traditional Dantean view of hell as a wedge tactic, but inclusivism doesn't require that. What hell is like and who goes there are separable issues. 

ii) The Bible says it's okay for Christians to have a normal family life. We're not supposed to sacrifice everything for the sake of Christian missions. It's permissible to concentrate your financial resources on the needs of your own family. 

iii) Moreover, we didn't create the plight of the lost. We're not directly responsible for their situation. What we can do is limited, and much of that is at a local rather than global level (e.g. friendship evangelism). 

God has not put us in a position to effectively witness to most of the lost. And it's not just a matter of limited resources, but opposition to the Gospel at official and personal levels. 

iv) To take a comparison, many children suffer horrendously around the world. Orphans, street kids, child abuse, child prostitution, malnutrition. But the scale of the problem is way beyond our ability to address except in piecemeal fashion. We don't have direct control over most moral evils in the world. It's not our responsibility to fix what we lack the power to fix. God could eliminate poverty, but he doesn't. That's not his priority. We can believe the suffering of children is really that bad, but still be resigned to our relative impotence in the face of their inevitable suffering around the world or behind closed doors. 

v) The world isn't so badly designed that some people will go to hell if we have a normal family life. God saves whomever he wills consistent with our having a normal family life. 

Comment: Given that Christians don’t do nearly enough to keep people from going to hell if they really think hell is so bad, the question arises what they should be doing to keep people from going to hell. I hinted at Christian missions and alleviation of poverty, but these are non-coercive. If hell is really all that bad and Christians have the energy and will to prevent people from going there, coercion becomes readily justifiable, especially if those on their way to hell are seen as being so wicked and misguided that they are leading others to hell. The Spanish Inquisition and the Taliban readily come to mind.

Imagine someone to whom the Gospel is preached and who receives Christian charity, but still does not explicitly acknowledge faith in Jesus. Why not torture such a person into accepting Jesus, perhaps even killing him or her right after giving evidence of faith lest the person recant once the torture is removed? Alternatively, if they still resist under torture, give them a slow and painful public death to deter others from their example...Of course, I regard this entire line of reasoning as obscene.

The argument is intellectually frivolous. Torture can't make anyone have faith in Jesus. Most folk will say anything under torture to make the pain stop. But there's no conviction to what they say. In fact, they may lie. You can force people to say things they don't believe. 

As good theology professors required to sign statements of faith at conservative theological institutions and denominations, my colleagues and I had to exhibit due deference to Edwards, Aquinas, and others who write such things. We go through the motions of pretending that we take these sorts of pronouncements seriously. Yet no one does, as I’ll attempt to show shortly.

There's a spiritual danger when statements of faith function simply as sociological boundary markers to differentiate the in-group from the out-group and keep the donors happy. That can be a cynical facade, and the hollowness of that profession makes Christian institutions vulnerable to sudden collapse. They seem sturdy on the outside, but that's deceptive due to the amount of spiritual dry rot within. They may crumble overnight because invisible termites were eating away at the walls and foundations for years. The implosion is less sudden than it looks. 

Let’s therefore ask if there are any clear criteria for who’s in hell and who isn’t — in other words, is there some clear way of deciding whether someone is going to hell? When I used to teach at conservative theological seminaries, the safest course for keeping one’s job was for faculty to take the hardest line possible on hell: only those with a conscious explicit faith in Jesus are exempted from hell; the rest face unending conscious torment. Amazingly, this line was often taken without any qualification whatsoever. Take any less extreme view of hell, and you were in danger of losing your job. 

Ultimately, we're saved by grace, not by faith. Grace is to the headwaters as faith is to the mouth of the steam. In Calvinism, faith is a result of grace, and they normally go together, so we speak of saving faith, but to be more accurate, saving grace, or its absence, determines who is heavenbound or hellbound. 

How can I say that no one believes this? Well, what do you do with infants who die before they have language and can learn and believe the Gospel, thereby precluding that they have conscious explicit faith in Jesus as their savior? Okay, so here’s one exception. Or perhaps not.

Augustine, for instance, held that infants who die unbaptized go straight to hell. And yet, baptized infants for Augustine did go to heaven. How convenient — the church, as the agent of baptism, thereby guaranteed its necessity in the economy of salvation! 

Since Augustine’s day, and especially in our own, Catholic theology has gotten softer on the topic of hell. When I was learning the catechism for my first holy communion in the Catholic church 50 years ago, my teacher assured me that infants that died unbaptized didn’t in fact go to hell (what a relief!). Instead, they went to Limbo, a place of natural happiness, but not the supernatural happiness of heaven where the baptized believers enjoy the beatific vision and union with God. (I actually remember as a seven-year old being quite troubled by the teacher’s cavalier dismissal of the fate of these unbaptized infants and the evident unfairness, to my mind, of it all.)

Another example of how the church of Rome has backpedaled on an issue of capital importance. 

In any case, even the hyper-conservatives with whom I used to teach and who claim that conscious explicit faith in Jesus is required to avoid conscious eternal torment admit this one exception. But once there’s an exception, there’s a slippery slope, leading to more exceptions. What do you do with my autistic son, who’s a teenager, but is nonverbal and incapable of understanding the Gospel in any “conscious explicit” sense (he functions at about the level of a 2-year old)? 

i) That's another wedge tactic. But is it the case that once we make allowance for one exception, we can't draw any lines as a matter of principle? That's the sorites paradox. But the fact that there may be exceptions or borderline cases doesn't mean we can't draw any valid distinctions. 

For instance, the criminal justice system distinguishes between majority and minority age offenders. A 2-year-old isn't a moral agent to the same degree as a 20-year-old. Now that ranges along a continuum, so where the line is drawn is somewhat arbitrary. The line between 17 and 18 is somewhat arbitrary, which is why some minors are tried as adults. But the fact that the line between 17-18 is stipulative doesn't mean the line between 2 and 20 is arbitrary. 

Likewise, sometimes there's a morally salient distinction between killing someone and letting them die, but sometimes they're morally equivalent. In one case a boy falls into a lake. He can't swim. I could save him but I let him drown. In another case, I push him into the lake. Those are morally equivalent.

If he accidentally falls into a lake infested with crocodiles, I might not try to save him because it's too risky for me. That's not courageous but it's not murder, either.

Suppose I push him into the lake, let him drown, then excuse myself on the grounds that everyone is bound to die sooner or later. It's a continuum. Where do you draw the line? 

And it's true that from the moment of conception we are bound to die. But something's radically amiss when you use the sorites paradox to say nothing counts as murder. Same applies to Dembski's wedge tactic.

ii) In addition, the NT constantly links salvation to faith in Christ. Although I think some exceptions are reasonable, those are theological conjectures, which shouldn't erase the biblical norm. The biblical presumption is that sinners are born lost, and salvation is theirs to gain. They don't first have it, then lose it. Rather, they were born in a lost condition. Even in the case of the elect, they still need to be regenerated.  

iii) Exceptions only apply in exceptional situations. You can't extrapolate from exceptional situations to normal situations since the conditions that warrant exceptions are lacking in normal situations. For instance, in criminal justice there are extenuating circumstance that mitigate guilt. It hardly follows that guilt is mitigated when the mitigating factors are absent. 

Suppose a family member loses their key and has to break into the house at night. If you shoot them because you can't see them in the dark and have reason to believe it's a house-burglar, that hardly justifies shooting them in broad daylight. Mitigation or exculpation only obtains if the mitigating or exculpatory factors obtain. 

It was always interesting to me that many of the authors whose books I used approvingly and taught from at conservative seminaries would never have been allowed to teach or come on faculty at those institutions because their views on everything from alcohol to the Bible and salvation would have been unacceptable to the powers that be (examples of such authors would include C. S. Lewis, William Lane Craig, and Alvin Plantinga).

But they're not the benchmark. Revelation is. 

Usually, conservative theologians who want to take a hard line on hell (and thus ensure the safety of their jobs and standing among fellow hyper-conservatives) but who don’t want to seem unreasonable in sending infants to hell introduce a convenient theological construct known as “the age of accountability.” To justify this construct, Isaiah 7:16 is often cited, where we read about the time in a child’s life before he/she knows to choose good and refuse evil. Presumably, before that time, the child is safe from hell — how can a child (or adult for that matter) who doesn’t know the difference between good and evil be held accountable for moral fault and thus be consigned to the punishment of hell?

But the age of accountability is a curious thing when examined closely. When exactly does it begin? Does it happen gradually? If so, when is there enough accountability so that without conscious explicit faith in Jesus, one goes to hell? Or does it happen all at once, in a threshold effect, so that one day one wakes up, finds oneself to have reached the age of accountability, and thus, if not a Christian, is in danger of hell?

Imagine Alice and Bob. Alice and Bob live in a region of the world where no one is a Christian (i.e., no one there has conscious explicit faith in Jesus). Alice, had she lived another day, would have reached the age of accountability. But she happens to die just before she would have reached the age of accountability, and so goes straight to heaven. Bob, on the other hand, is less fortunate. He wakes up one morning to find that he’s reached the age of accountability, but that very day he dies. Sadly, he goes straight to hell. Again, who really believes this?

Observation: It seems to me that age of accountability should play some role in our deliberations about who goes and doesn’t go to hell. That said, I’m not entirely comfortable with the concept. Certainly, I would regard newborns as unaccountable, and thus as not properly punished for any sins that they presumably could not, because of their immaturity, have committed or be predisposed to commit. I would add here severely mentally disabled individuals. But it seems that even young children quickly engage in selfish and even cruel actions, such as stealing from, bullying, and ostracizing their peers. Moreover, guilt is readily read off their faces. Is age of accountability a legitimate theological construct with a true point of reference in reality or is it more a convenient fiction? Depending on mood and day of the week I could go either way on this question.

i) That's another example of the sorites paradox. There are limitations to the principle (see above).

ii) I prefer the age of reason to the age of accountability. Yes, there's no exact cutoff, but it's still the case that humans undergo a process of cognitive development as they mature. We draw roughhewn distinctions in terms of what's age-appropriate. Although that's inexact, it's reasonable and necessary. 

iii) The age of reason is person-variable. Some kids are precocious. 

iv) I agree with him that it's ad hoc to make salvation contingent on lucky or unlucky timing. However, I draw a different conclusion from that. Although I think some people who die young are heavenbound, I don't assume that all who die young are heavenbound. It's not simply a question of when they die, but the counterfactual consideration of how they'd turn out if they hadn't died prematurely. In the intermediate state they continue to mature–for better or worse. 

As another exception to the claim that only conscious explicit faith in Jesus can prevent conscious eternal torment in hell, consider all those who lived before Jesus’ cross and resurrection. Obviously, they couldn’t have had conscious explicit faith in Jesus because, before God took human form in the person of Jesus, there was no Jesus to serve as the object of conscious explicit faith. So what happened to all those people?

The usual response of theologians is that there were true worshippers of the one true God before Jesus, who worshipped God with what light they had — and that this was therefore good enough to get them into heaven. That seems reasonable enough. All the same, when the fullness of God’s light came to earth in Christ Jesus, then people were obliged to believe explicitly in him. Before that, God cut them slack.

But it's more pointed than that. Not just the light they had, but whether they had the light of revelation given to Moses (or Abraham). Not pagans, but Jews–or gentiles who came to faith in the God of Judaism. 

There’s also a tradition, adverted to in the Apostle’s Creed, of Jesus having descended into hell (Hades) and preaching to its inhabitants. 

That's a fallible creed. Not my authority source. 

This is consistent with 1 Peter 3:18–19: “Christ was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit. After being made alive, he went and made proclamation to the imprisoned spirits.”

This passage raises lots of questions, not least why Jesus needed to preach to the dead in Hades, what was the efficacy of this preaching, and whether any of those imprisoned spirits found liberation as a consequence of that preaching, thus ending up in heaven rather than hell (in this case, Gehenna — the final hell).

Because that's an enigmatic passage, we should put too much weight on it. My own view is that it's in the tradition of biblical taunt songs (e.g. Isa 14; 18), probably directed at fallen angels. Satan tried to defeat Jesus. Jesus won, Satan lost. 

It’s a common Christian view that we have only this life to make our peace with God and that after the moment of death, we’ve exceeded the statute of limitations on God’s mercy. A common proof text in this regard is Hebrews 9:27: “It is the destiny of people to die once and after that to face judgment.”

Putting all these disparate pieces together, however, seems anything but straightforward. It’s evident from the Old Testament that people could be saved apart from the covenant of Abraham. Take Melchizedek, for instance, mentioned in Genesis 14, who is called a priest of the most high God and who, in Hebrews 5–7, is taken as emblematic of the priesthood of Jesus. 

i) El Elyon seems to have its origins as a pagan designation. It can be applied to the one true God, but the title itself is neutral. The referent depends on the intent of the speaker. What kind of deity the speaker had in mind.

ii) Melchizedek's theological function is symbolic. He probably spoke better than he knew, from the viewpoint of Hebrews. 

Or consider Job, who, despite his travails and not being an Israelite, was obviously in right relationship with God and on his way to heaven.

i) That's complicated. Did Job live in the patriarchal period? Or did he live during the Israelite theocracy? He could become a believer in Yahweh through contact with the Jewish people. 

ii) In addition, even though it's probably based on a true story, it takes great literary license, so , we need to distinguish between the historical Job and how he functions as a character in the narrative. 

Okay, so you can get to heaven before New Testament times if you’re righteous and worshipping the one true God...Come again? Really? Let’s bring back Alice and Bob, only this time Alice and Bob are righteous worshippers of the one true God who are contemporaries of Jesus but live so far from the land of Israel that they never heard of him. Alice has the good fortune of dying before Jesus’ cross and resurrection, and so goes straight to heaven. Bob, sadly, dies right after Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection. Given that Jesus’ cross and resurrection are now a fait accompli, and given that God henceforward demands conscious explicit faith in Jesus for salvation, Bob goes straight to hell. Again, this just seems crazy.

But if Bob’s death immediately after Jesus’ cross and resurrection is not enough to consign him to hell provided he is a righteous worshipper of the true God, albeit without conscious explicit faith in Jesus, then why should it matter if Bob dies a week, a month, a year, a decade, a century, or a millennium after Jesus’ cross and resurrection? Why should time, or for that matter distance, from Jesus’ cross and resurrection matter?

I agree with Dembski that there's a parallel between distance in time and distance in space. Again, though, consider how the OT generally depicts the spiritual condition of the heathen. Or Paul's depiction (Eph 2:1-3; 4:17-18; Tit 3:3-4). The biblical view is that humans are hopelessly lost unless God intervenes through redemption, revelation, and renewal. Pagans aren't regarded as innocently ignorant unbelievers just waiting for Christian missionaries. 

Scripture itself suggests that spatiotemporal limitations that keep people from conscious explicit faith in Jesus cannot keep them from heaven or force them into hell. Consider Paul in Romans 2:14–16...This is a remarkable passage, and it’s evident that Paul holds that there really are righteous gentiles such as he describes since in context he’s contrasting such gentiles with Jews who have the law but are not living it...

Dembski seems unaware that some commentators identify that group as Christian gentiles or God-fearers. 

…But we need look no further than the book of Acts for an example of such a righteous gentile, namely Cornelius, about whom and his family Peter has this to say (Acts 10:34–35): “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right.”

Dembski overlooks the fact that Cornelius was an intellectual convert to Judaism. He's not a pagan. He explicitly worships the God of Israel. 

As still another class of exceptions to the rule that conscious explicit faith in Jesus is required to escape conscious eternal torment in hell, consider two types of amnesiacs, the retrograde and the anterograde. There are people with retrograde amnesia who cannot remember who they were and what they’ve done before an injury or illness. Life, in a sense, begins for them anew. We can assume they are old enough and have sufficient cognitive and moral faculties to have reached the age of accountability. Moreover, before their amnesia, let’s assume they were sinners and on their way to hell. But now they have no recollection of their past sins.

Is the slate now clear for them? Do they get to start life afresh? What if they die right after suffering their amnesia but before committing any new sins? Do they now go to heaven? What if they had accepted Jesus in their old life, but now can’t remember doing so and henceforth remain unresponsive to the Gospel? I’m happy to let God sort this one out, but in any case it’s clear that demanding conscious explicit faith of retrograde amnesiacs would need some qualification.

In such ruminations about hell, even more interesting is anterograde amnesia, which usually is associated with certain brain lesions resulting from an accident. The victim, in this case, is able to recall his or her life perfectly up to the point of the accident, but thereafter only form memories of about a fifteen-minute duration (think Dory the fish in Finding Nemo). In other words, the person has short-term memory, but is unable to form new long-term memories. Let’s imagine therefore someone who suffered such an accident, reached the age of accountability, and was sufficiently sinful as to be on his/her way to hell before suffering amnesia.

The problem now, however, is that this person, without being able to remember anything long-term, is essentially living in the past. In the past, that person had no conscious explicit faith in Jesus. In the present, unfortunately, any conscious explicit faith in Jesus will be lost in fifteen minutes. Thus, day after day, you keep sharing the Gospel with this person. Some days he/she accepts the Gospel in one fifteen-minute time block, only promptly to forget having accepted it, and thereafter for the rest of the day refuses to accept it.

Is a person with anterograde amnesia going to heaven or hell? What if this person died right before the end of a fifteen-minute time block during which he/she accepted Jesus, thus still having conscious explicit faith in Jesus? Would that ensure heaven? What if the person died only a moment later, having entirely forgotten the Gospel and his/her acceptance of it? 

i) Ignorance of the Gospel isn't exculpatory. Sinners aren't damned because they reject the Gospel. It's like saying, if you're bitten by a black mamba, you will die without antivenom. However, it's not the absence antivenom that kills you but the presence of venom. 

ii) True, a Christian doesn't lose his salvation if he loses his mind due to brain cancer, senile dementia. 

Leaving aside God-fearers and amnesiacs, let’s return to the very young and/or unaccountable (i.e., those who have yet to reach or are incapable of reaching the age of accountability). Once these are automatically admitted to heaven (or at least excluded from hell), another strange thing happens, which was hinted at in the first of our Alice and Bob examples.

Normally, we regard it as tragic when a young child dies — so much unfulfilled potential, so many unmet dreams, so many songs that will never be sung. On the other hand, when someone dies in old age after a full, rich life, we don’t regard it as tragic. Instead, even if there are tears and loss, we also celebrate the life. And sometimes we even celebrate the life when the person isn’t that old but has left a positive mark on the world. Consider, for instance, the following memorial service for the Hawaiian singer IZ:

But if those under the age of accountability automatically go to heaven, then really we should be celebrating their deaths. After all, they’re now enjoying themselves with the delights of heaven. Conversely, if those over the age of accountability don’t automatically go to heaven, then we should approach their deaths with misgivings. Thus, when older people die who have not made explicit profession of faith in Jesus, we should lament their deaths as a tragedy in which hell has (or may have) just acquired new inhabitants. Again, who believes this?

In Pascal’s famous wager, you’re better off betting on God and heaven being real because if they are, then you’ll be more likely to get there; but if you think that they are unreal, then if they are in fact real, you’ll end up in hell. The risk of being wrong about hell thus totally outweighs the risk of being wrong about heaven. So a risk analysis suggests you should believe or pretend to believe that heaven is real.

But in that case, a parallel risk analysis should get us to prefer that the young die and not go on to maturity so that they don’t risk the very possibility of hell. Accordingly, we should wish for and applaud the dying of the very young. Similarly, we should prefer that the unaccountable stay unaccountable.

If we think that conscious explicit faith is necessary for those capable of it in order to avoid hell, then we should be overjoyed at all these (naturally) aborted embryos and (artificially) aborted fetuses. All of them are then on their way to heaven. In fact, abortion could then be seen as an industry for populating heaven. Abortion, if you will, turns maternity wards into eternity wards! (I owe this turn of phrase to the cartoonist Wayne Stayskal.)

But such conclusions are monstrous. Isn’t it better in the grand scheme of things if humans come to maturity and live a full life — mistakes, vices, warts and all? Doesn’t that make for a more interesting, more purposeful, more meaningful universe? What sort of worldview regards it as a net benefit to keep humans in a state of immaturity in order to forestall hell? What nonsense.

Perverse incentives: If we knew for certain that fetuses and infants that die (with or without being baptized) all end up in heaven, it could provide an incentive to kill them — after all, we would thus ensure their eternal happiness since otherwise they risk the hell of Edwards and Thomas.

True, I don't believe that, but not because I think those who die before the age of reason automatically go to heaven. I don't presume that's the case. It wouldn't surprise me if some who die before the age of reason land in hell. So I'm not impaled on the horns of his dilemma. 

Consider again my autistic son. Whatever one means by the age of accountability, he hasn’t reached it...But if my autistic son did come out of his autism and start to communicate verbally, with sufficient comprehension so that he could have conscious explicit faith in Jesus, he would also have the option of rejecting the Gospel and thus ending up in hell. So, which should I prefer, my son to stay autistic and be guaranteed a place in heaven, or for him to come out of his autism and risk hell, the sort of hell that Edwards and Thomas are convinced would await him if he rejected Christ?

I think that's ultimately a question of election and reprobation. 

Reformed theology (i.e., the theology of John Calvin and his successors), it turns out, has a convenient way around such perverse incentives. Within that theology, only the elect go to heaven...So, are all who die in infancy elect? The Westminster Confession conveniently sidesteps that question, neither affirming nor denying that infants and the unaccountable who die in that state are elect. The Westminster Confession thus blocks perverse incentives that would make abortion salvific. But in leaving open the possibility that some infants who die in infancy may be non-elect, it betrays the harshness and austerity with which reformed theology is widely credited.

I think it's reasonable to infer that some who die before the age of reason are elect. But I think we lack biblical information to regard that as universally true. The Westminster Divines are to be commended for resisting the temptation to codify wishful thinking. We lack a clear answer in revelation. How else could we know the answer to a question like that? 

But is it really wrong to say that a Muslim (or anyone from a non-Christian or insufficiently orthodox religious group) might go to heaven?...Presumably, God could impart the essence of the Gospel to the person who is microseconds from death, elicit faith in those few microseconds, and thereby save the person. 

That's a travesty of conversion. The whirlwind altar call. Make a snap decision for Jesus. I reject that paradigm. 

Increasingly in our day one reads of people unreached by the Gospel who have had visitations by Jesus and who thereupon become Christians. So what’s to prevent that from happening at the moment of death? In fact, we have no idea to what extent this may be happening. But it’s certainly a possibility on even the most conservative understanding of Christianity and hell.

Visions of Jesus are a catalyst for Christian conversion, but that in itself doesn't make them Christian. Christian faith requires some knowledge about the life of Christ. Who he is. His mission. 

So, in response to the question “Can a Muslim be saved,” I would say “Sure.” 

Islam is a religion that developed in conscious opposition to Christianity. Islam is anti-Christian. A deliberate repudiation of the Christian faith. 

As a Christian, I would add that ultimately it is only through Christ that one is saved, and thus that a Muslim, if saved, is saved in spite of rather than because of his/her religion. But the same could be said for any religion, even Christianity. It’s not religion that saves, not even Christianity, but the living Christ who rose from the dead and relates directly to our inner being. How this Christ chooses to save is not for us to specify.

That's the position of C. S. Lewis. You can be saved by Christ without believing in Christ. But the NT systematically links the two. 

The thought of someone being saved at the moment of death raises an interesting inverse possibility, namely, someone remaining a Christian up to the moment of death and thereupon renouncing the faith and going to hell (in those microseconds from fall to death). Some Christians hold to the perseverance of the saints or a once-saved-always-saved theology in which something like this could not happen — once you’re saved you stay saved.

The microseconds view is a reductio ad absurdum. 

The Protestant preoccupation with certainty or assurance of salvation, which is very much in evidence among present-day Evangelicals, goes right back to the start of Protestantism, beginning with Martin Luther’s scrupulosity about his own sin, always second-guessing himself, and never finding solace in the Catholic rites of confession and penance. His breakthrough came in reading the Apostle Paul and his teachings about being saved by faith through grace. Ah, here was the release Luther was looking for. Because he had faith, he could be assured that he was saved and on his way to heaven.

But is anyone really warranted in having such total assurance of going to heaven? Is it even a good thing to have such assurance? It’s interesting to me, as a philosopher, to see, around the time of the Reformation, philosophy taking an epistemological turn that emphasized how we come to know and how we can have knowledge that is sure and certain (Descartes, who came a few generations after Luther exemplified this approach to philosophy–cf. his cogito ergo sum, in which he found total certainty in his existence based on his capacity to think).

In Calvinism, salvation doesn't require the assurance of salvation.

If we assume that universalism, the view that everyone goes to heaven and that hell is therefore empty, is false, then something has to be the difference maker in getting people to heaven and helping them avoid hell. 

Saving grace.

So, what separates the two? 

Saving grace.

In the story, the sheep are those who acted compassionately, helping people in need (such as visiting the sick and imprisoned). On the other hand, the goats are those who failed to act compassionately, refusing to help people in need (such as leaving the sick and imprisoned unvisited)...Nothing in this parable suggests the need for conscious explicit faith in Christ. Quite the contrary. It’s only in eternity that the significance and consequences of their actions become explicit.

That's a popular misinterpretation by failing to notice that the passage has reference to needy Christians, not needy people in general. 

But having forgiven others (“Father,” says Jesus on the cross, “forgive them for they know not what they do”).

The textual authenticity of that statement is insecure. 

Nowhere does Jesus suggest that unforgiveness can somehow be compensated for or offset by something else, such as faith...We are called to forgive, and only by forgiving can we ourselves be forgiven — that seems the clear teaching of Jesus in the New Testament. 

That's simplistic. Scripture often speaks in generalities. But these aren't absolute claims. Unqualified statements in one place may be qualified in another place. There's a duty to forgive a penitent Christian who wronged you. 

Throughout this section I’ve focused on Jesus and his teaching about the importance of works to salvation (getting to heaven and avoiding hell). But one can find the same teaching in Paul. Consider, for instance, the following passage from Romans 2:6-11.

That's a tricky passage because it seems to contradict Paul's typical position. One explanation, defended by scholars and commentators like Longenecker, McFadden, and Thielman, is that it's hypothetical. That interpretation is consistent with Paul's emphatic, repeated position.

Let’s now shift gears and consider another strand of New Testament teaching in which faith alone seems adequate to get us to heaven and avoid hell. Probably the best known verse in the Bible is John 3:16.

That's part of the same conversation stressing the necessity of regeneration. 

But certain teachings of Paul, when added to this discussion, suggest that faith to the exclusion of works is what saves and leads us to heaven…Repeatedly in Romans Paul stresses that we are saved not by works but by faith. Perhaps the clearest statement of this view, however, occurs by Paul in Ephesians 2:8–9, which reads: “By grace you are saved through faith. This is not of yourselves, but the gift of God; not of works, lest anyone should boast.”...In Galatians 2:16 Paul elaborates on how the “works of the law” fail to save us and that faith alone suffices.

Paul's standard formula is that we're justified by faith alone, not that we're saved by faith alone. And Eph 2:8-9 indicates that salvation is ultimately due to grace alone. Saving grace includes regeneration and sanctification. 

Paul’s theology teaches that good works don’t save us — for that we need faith. But, Paul’s theology also teaches that bad works can sink us — regardless of the faith we claim.

Yes, they're asymmetrical. 

This, then, is my problem with casting hell as the place where God forever vents his anger...So here’s another paradox. On the one hand, God wants to get beyond his anger, and indeed wants to deal with his anger by saving the very people who have made him angry. On the other hand, hell is an expression of God’s anger, a way of dealing with his anger, even a monument to his anger. 

I don't think God literally gets mad at sinners. I don't think we have the ability to make him mad. Imagine how much power we'd have over God if we could push his buttons. That's too Homeric. Open theist hermeneutics. The tail wagging the God. 

I think divine "wrath" is a colorful synonym for divine justice. An anthropomorphic metaphor for God's retributive justice or eschatological justice. 

The decision of eternal destinies is in God’s hands. If anyone lands in hell, it’s because God has sent them there. At no point in Scripture do we get the sense that God is wringing his hands, second-guessing himself, desperately trying to find a loophole to avoid sending people to hell. When God sends people to hell, it’s because they deserve to go there, and it’s in anger that he sends them there.

Nice to seem him reject Lewis's oft-quoted sentiment that the gates of hell are locked from the inside.