Support For Christianity Among Some Of The Foremost Mediums

Something that doesn't get enough attention in discussions of mediumship is how often some of the mediums with the most documented paranormal abilities have supported Christianity in one way or another. I'm not saying that their mediumship was consistent with Christianity, that these mediums were in contact with the spirits they claimed to be in contact with, or anything like that. As I've explained before, I think that there's a lot of genuine paranormal activity (along with much that's inauthentic) in mediumship, near-death experiences, and other such contexts. But I think what's often involved is human paranormal capacities, meaning that the experiences often reflect the human mind, including its fallibility, sinful tendencies, and so on. Still, it's worth noting how prominent support for Christianity and certain aspects of Christianity (e.g., monotheism, a future judgment) often have been among mediums, near-death experiencers, people who have deathbed experiences, and so forth. That doesn't sit well with the sort of religious pluralism, universalism, relativism, and such that we often hear from many advocates of the paranormal in our day.

Gregory Shushan provides some examples in his recent book on the afterlife:

Would you indoctrinate your child to save their soul?

A typically malicious analysis on Rauser's part:

https://randalrauser.com/2019/11/would-you-indoctrinate-your-child-to-save-their-soul/

This is Rauser's trademark wedge tactic. 

1. Christian parent aren't ultimately responsible for the eternal fate of their kids because they don't control the outcome.

2. There's a risk of defection if you only show them to one side of the argument as well as a risk of defection if you show them to both. So that's a wash. There's no presumption that if you only show them to one side of the argument, they are more likely to stay in the fold. Consider the countless testimonies of apostates who discovered objections to Christianity and the Bible. They were defenseless because they were never schooled in Christian apologetics.

3. But the most fundamental flaw in Rauser's argument is his defective concept of saving faith in exclusivism. Saving faith isn't an accidental default faith where a Christian is an apostate waiting to happen, who only believes in Christianity because he's been shielded from alternatives. 

That never was saving faith. That never was personal faith in God or Christ or Scripture. Rather, that was childish faith in the authority figures in his life, like his parents or pastor. And that's fine when you're a child, but you're supposed to outgrow blind faith in your parents. You can't leech off of parental faith for the rest of your life. You have to develop your own conviction. 

It's like kids who lose their faith in Christianity when they find out that their parents "lied" to them about Christianity. But that just means they became disillusioned with their parents (for stupid reasons). In a sense it's good to lose that kind of faith, because that frees up space for personal faith. 

Into the cave

Religious pluralists and universalists (the distinction is cosmetic) think all roads lead to God–whatever "God" is. Is there a face behind the mask, or is it nothing but masks? 

Perhaps the standard metaphor is mountain trails. Different trails on different sides of the mountain all converge on the summit. A winsome if rather banal metaphor.

By contrast, here's a different metaphor. There's only one tunnel out of the cave. There are ever so many tunnels that entice you further into the cave. Tunnels with no outlet. Or branching tunnels. One wrong turn takes you to the next wrong turn. A network of tunnels leading nowhere. Well, not exactly nowhere. Rather, penetrating ever deeper into the cave. Putting the outside world further behind with every fateful step. A trap.  

Hell: against universalism

An excerpt from Hell: against universalism by Ioanna-Maria Patsalidou.

Modern Catholicism on hell

Here's a good example of how post-Vatican II theology struggles to make the transition from traditional Catholic exclusivism to modern Catholic inclusivism. How to straddle two diametrically opposed positions. This is euphemistically dubbed the development of doctrine. 

https://www.wordonfire.org/hope/

Why is postmortem salvation false?

Why doesn't God save anyone after they die? Isn't death an arbitrary cuff-off point? No second chance just because you're dead?

The answer depends on unspoken assumptions behind the question. In the case of Calvinism, the traditional position isn't based, in the first instance, on starting with a theological principle, then drawing an inference. Rather, it's based on what Scripture indicates about the fate of the dead. In many places, Scripture indicates that at the moment of death, the dying individual is either heavenbound or hellbound, and the trajectory they were already on at the moment of death continues in the same direction into the afterlife. Calvinism simply accepts that revelation.

However, another way of viewing the issue is the point at which a person's salvation or damnation is settled. From a Reformed standpoint, one reason there's no postmortem salvation is because their eternal destiny was never unsettled. It's not as if their eternal destiny was unsettled during their lifetime, while the moment of locks in a particular outcome. Rather, there's a sense in which that was settled before they ever existed. It's not as if their ultimate fate is still indeterminate after they die, so that the final outcome remains open-ended. Rather, the plot was written ahead of time. 

If God intends to save someone, he can save them before they die. He can save everyone he intends to save prior to death. There's no logjam at the moment of death, that must be broken after death. That was all sorted out in advance.   

In freewill theism, by contrast, the problem is the opposite. Why is their destined ever settled, once and for all time? According to inclusivism, you're not necessarily heavenbound or hellbound at the moment of death. Even if you die an unbeliever, you weren't on one pathway or the other at the moment of death. You had no set direction in this life. You had no set direction at the time of death. It was open-ended heading into death.

But that presents a dilemma for freewill theism. Even if God can save you in the afterlife, what makes that stick? Why can't you lose your salvation in the afterlife? 

Sophisticated freewill theists allow for will-setting, where prior libertarian choices in the past may fix the direction of our future choices. But that means your damnation may already be cemented well before you die rather than when you die–much less after you die.

The cult of the dead

Protestant England was particularly troubled after the war [WWI] was over, because most of its very Protestant churches were unable to permit prayers fro the dead that so many bereaved families would have liked to offer. Spiritualism, with its promise of renewed contact with the departed briefly flourished because of this, prompting Rudyard Kipling to write his poem "En-Dor," warning the bereaved that they were being cruelly manipulated for gain. P. Hitchens, The Rage Against God (Zondervan), 117. 

The cult of the dead is widespread in paganism. Necromancy is a common expression. And this remains popular with mourners who attend a séance in the desperate hope of contacting a departed loved one. A way to exploit people in crisis. 

There are different paradigms for the cult of the dead. In the West, Catholicism is the best known. That includes prayers for the dead. On that paradigm, your eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death, but prayers can expedite the passage from Purgatory to heaven. Prayers for the dead are only availing for souls in Purgatory. You must die in a state of grace. If you die in mortal sin, you're out of luck. That's an exclusivist paradigm, although modern Catholicism is increasingly inclusivist. When traditional Protestant theology forbids prayers for the dead, that's the specific context. 

Then you have inclusivism in freewill theism, which may include postmortem salvation. On that view, you're not heavebound or hellbound at the moment of death. Your eternal destiny is indeterminate at the moment of death. That will be settled after you die. This is driven by one or more theological assumptions. Primarily, freewill theism's belief that everyone should have an equal opportunity to be saved, yet in this life, spiritual opportunities are highly inequitable, so postmortem salvation compensates for disparities in this life. It's also a way to reconcile inclusivism with the Gospel demand that indexes salvation to faith in Christ. If that's not possible in this life, you get a second chance in the afterlife. 

Another paradigm extrapolates from the principle of retroactive prayer. This can be combined with exclusivism. On this view, prayers for the dead don't change the decedent's postmortem condition. Rather, if availing, they affect his spiritual trajectory before he died. 

The basic idea is that God's relation to time is different from the supplicant. It isn't always necessary to pray before the event, as if God must wait to find out what we pray for, then act after the fact. If God is outside of time, or God knows the future, then God can set the answer to prayer in motion before we pray. That's consistent with exclusivism, but fundamentally different from the traditional Catholic paradigm. If you think about it, many prayers require the chain of events to be underway prior to prayer for the prayer to be answerable. On this view, prayers for the dead are just a special case of that general principle. The decedent's eternal destiny is fixed at the moment of death, yet postmortem prayers may retroactively affect his final destiny prior to death.  

I've discussed this before. Now I'd like to quote from a recent article that provides some additional argumentation: William M. Webb, "Petitionary Prayer for the Dead and the Boethian Concept of a Timeless God," International Philosophical Quarterly 59/1 (2019), 65-76. 

I disagree with Webb's characterization of God's viewpoint as a timeless present. I regard God as strictly timeless. But his argument doesn't turn on that nuance. 

What is faith?

In Christian theology, faith is normally considered to be a necessary condition of salvation. I've discussed how, in Reformed theology, regeneration is more fundamental than faith. Regeneration is the source of faith (although faith also requires a mental object). 

One component of faith is belief. But that's ambiguous. Epistemologists distinguish between occurrent belief and dispositional belief. We aren't conscious of everything we know or believe. In that respect, belief is very similar to memory. It's available. On tap. Occurrent beliefs come and go but dispositional belief is relatively constant–although some beliefs undergo change. Even at a dispositional level, you don't believe all the same things throughout life. 

In that respect, belief has a hypothetical dimension. In part a matter of how you'd think and respond in case you found yourself in a particular situation. The situation brings outlook out to the fore. 

So, for instance, does a Christian cease to be a believer when he sleeps? He may have some occurrent beliefs in his dreams, but generally, his beliefs, including his Christian beliefs, are unconscious or subconscious when he sleeps. 

And even when he's awake, he isn't continuously aware of his Christian beliefs. More often, his Christian beliefs lie behind some of his choices and actions rather than in the forefront. They exert a subconscious influence.

This distinctions have some possible bearing on the nature of exclusivism. Insofar as salvation is contingent on orthodox beliefs, that generally operates at the dispositional level rather than occurrently. 

Jewish evangelism

One of the sore points in Jewish evangelism is the position that Jews are damned unless they believe in Jesus (i.e. the messianship, deity, and Incarnation of Jesus). Of course, that's not unique to Judaism. That's standard exclusivism, which applies to non-Christians generally. And there wouldn't be much point evangelizing Jews if it didn't matter what you believe about Jesus.

Many people naturally resent being told they're hellbound unless they become Christian. Suppose, though, we turn this around. Imagine if Christianity said all Jews are going to heaven. Would Jews be impressed?

Religiously conservative Jews think Christianity is an idolatrous, polytheistic heresy. So why would they care if a false religion gives their own religion the thumbs up? Isn't a Christian endorsement of rabbinic Judaism worthless from their standpoint? 

"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.

Reformed exclusivism

Critics of Calvinism regard Calvinism as an especially harsh version of exclusivism. They castigate unconditional election and they criticize the Reformed position that regeneration is causally prior to faith. The point of this post is not to defend those tenets directly, but to consider a potential fringe benefit. 

i) In traditional evangelical exclusivism, premortem faith in Christ is a prima facie prerequisite of salvation. But there are caveats. That's usually confined to mentally competent individuals. Exceptions are often made for those who lack the cognitive faculties to exercise Christian faith. People below a certain age. People with severe congenital brain damage. 

Christians who become senile. Christians with brain cancer. The latter two lose their faith, but they don't lose their salvation. Rather, they lose the cognitive faculties to believe. 

That's not necessarily the same thing as declaring all those groups to be heavenbound. Because Scripture doesn't give definitive answers to the salvific status of special cases, some evangelical theologians suspend judgment while others stake out the universal salvation of all who die before the age of reason (to take one example). 

ii) Although Scripture attributes salvation to faith in Christ, Scripture also attributes salvation to regeneration. It's lopsided to focus on saving faith to the exclusion of saving regeneration. 

iii) According to evangelical freewill theism, faith causes regeneration. According to Calvinism, regeneration (in tandem with the Gospel) causes faith. In Calvinism, regeneration is causally and sometimes temporally prior to saving faith. There can be a chronological gap between regeneration and saving faith. For instance, God can regenerate someone as a young child or even in the womb, but they may not come to faith until they reach the age of reason or later. Likewise, in Calvinism, election is logically/teleologically prior to conception (indeed, prior to time). 

iv) Suppose (ex hypothesi) that God regenerates a Muslim with a view to the Muslim coming to Christian faith, only God regenerates the Muslim several years before he comes to faith in Christ. At that stage in the process, the Muslim hasn't been exposed to the Gospel. But suppose the effect of regeneration is to make him doubt or lose faith in Islam. At that stage he lacks an alternative. But regeneration broke through the social conditioning which made Islam unquestionable prior to regeneration. And suppose that prompts him to search for religious alternatives–until he discovers a Bible. Regeneration planted a seed that eventually germinated in faith. But there was some delay.

v) In principle, God might elect or regenerate someone who's killed in a traffic accident before coming to faith in Christ. I wouldn't press that. In general, God coordinates election and regeneration with the Gospel. 

That said, I'm not sure how we can rule out the possibility that God elects and regenerates some people who die before coming to Christ. Their faith will be postponed to the afterlife. Indeed, many Calvinists already believe that happens in special cases (see above). Is salvation a matter of lucky timing? If you die a minute before, you're damned? 

Ironically, something freewill theists find so objectionable in Calvinism has the potential to make it more magnanimous than traditional evangelical freewill theism. Not something to bank on, but an open question in Reformed theology.  By contrast, faith and regeneration are chronologically inseparable in traditional evangelical freewill theism, resulting in a harsher version of exclusivism. 

So many Christians–so few lions!

A standard objection to Christianity is whether inclusivism is fair. Is it fair that so many never had a chance to hear the Gospel? This is an issue in freewill theism as well as Calvinism.

There are familiar strategies in fielding this objection. But I'd like to remark on a neglected consideration. It's striking how frequently unbelievers respond to the Gospel with seething antipathy. It's not as if they exclaim, "That's just what I was always waiting for! Where have you been all my life!" 

I'm not saying nobody responds that way. But notice how many people, when exposed to the Gospel, how many people, when given the opportunity, far from welcoming the message, greet the message with implacable enmity, to the point of persecuting or martyring Christians. Silencing them. Torturing them to death. "So many Christians–so few lions!"

It's not as if many people go to hell simply because they never had a chance to hear the Gospel. As though, had they only been given the opportunity, they'd be overjoyed and feel privileged. So often unbelievers react like drowning swimmers who fight the lifeguard: "How dare you save my life!"

I'm not saying this covers every case, but it's worth pondering. How frequently those who need it the most are the most antagonistic. Violently belligerent.  

The Negative And Subjective Side Of Near-Death Experiences

Near-death experiences (NDEs) are often cited as evidence against Christianity and other exclusivistic belief systems. Supposedly, NDEs suggest that everybody or almost everybody goes to heaven. The God of NDEs isn't the God of the Bible. And so on.

Alex Tsakiris recently interviewed Penny Sartori, a prominent NDE researcher. A lot of important points were made during the interview, and I recommend listening to the whole thing. But here are some of the highlights, followed by some comments of my own.

Door into heaven

Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him the gatekeeper opens…7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture (Jn 10:1-3,9).

7 And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: ‘The words of the holy one, the true one, who has the key of David, who opens and no one will shut, who shuts and no one opens. 8 I know your works. Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut (Rev 3:7-8).

After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said,“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this” (Rev 4:1). 

i) A neglected line of evidence for the common authorship of John's Gospel and Revelation is the door motif. In both documents, Jesus functions as the doorway to heaven.

It might be objected that in Jn 10, Jesus is the door, whereas in Rev 3:8, is distinct from the door. However, the metaphor is flexible. Jn 10 alternates between the door and the doorkeeper. Rev 3:7-8 has the same alternation. To say Jesus is the door or Jesus has the key are variations on the same metaphor. 

ii) A door is a screening device, allowing authorized individuals to enter while disallowing unauthorized individuals from entering. Jesus is the way to salvation. But because Jesus is the only way to salvation, he is simultaneously an entrance and a barrier. A person can only enter through him.  

iii) The image of a door between this world and the world to come is simple yet arresting. In this life, heaven seems far away. We can't see it or touch it. We can't hear the saints and angels on the other side. Yet in reality, it's as if there's an invisible door connecting our world to the world to come. A door that becomes visible at the moment of death. It was there all along. We just don't know where to look. And the door is locked until the moment of death. By passing through the door, we leave this world behind.  

iv) A door demarcates the outside from the inside. In addition, it may be dark outside, but light inside. When the door is open, you walk into the light. Moreover, the light guides you to the door. If it's dark outside, and the door is closed, the door is invisible. If the door is opened, it suddenly becomes visible.

v) In Jn 10 and Rev 3:7-10,20, the door is a metaphor. But in Rev 4:1, the door is a simulation rather than a metaphor. John has a vision of a door, and passes through the visionary door. His experience is a sample of what Jesus promised to the beleaguered Philadelphian Christians. 

Although the door is imaginary or figurative, it's possible, if God so wills, for a dying Christian to experience death as seeing an open door, approaching the door, and passing through the door into the light beyond–just as John did in his vision. The body dies, releasing the soul. 

Shades of faith

In Reformed soteriology, there are some clearcut groups of people. The primary distinction is between elect and reprobate. That's fixed. 

An overlapping distinction is between regenerate and unregenerate. It's overlapping because election and regeneration go back to God's timeless choice, whereas regeneration occurs in time. The elect can be regenerated at different stages of life. Unlike election and reprobation, regeneration is fluid in that respect. 

There are other related, generally clearcut distinctions. You have a group of people who live and die outside the pale of the Gospel. You have another group who are devoted to atheism. Likewise, you have a group who consciously repudiate the Christian faith.

There is, though, an in-between group, or type of group. For instance:

Since Christian faith is primarily trust rather than intellectual mastery, even a young child can give a credible profession. In judging what is credible leaders must take into account the capacities of the one who is expressing faith. 

For very young children, the children’s response to their parents is the primary avenue for expressing their relation to God. Parents represent God to their children, by virtue of their authority, their responsibilities, and their role as a channel for God’s blessings. Children first learn what God is like primarily through their parents’ love and discipline. The Fatherhood of God is represented through a good human father. God’s forgiveness of sins is represented primarily through the parents’ forgiveness and patience towards their children. 

http://frame-poythress.org/linking-small-children-with-infants-in-the-theology-of-baptizing/

Although Poythress is referring to young children, the principle raises questions about analogous situations. If a parent, especially a Christian parent, can be a temporary stand-in for God or Christ, and if trusting a parent is implicit faith or vicarious faith, then can some adults, who are not professing Christians, be saved indirectly because a Christian friend or family member subliminally represents Christ to them and for them? 

They are the closest that some people come to Jesus. Insofar as that they love, trust, and admire their Christian friend or family member, and do so in part for his Christian virtues and graces, are they believing in Jesus via a Christian representative? Does he stand for Christ in their affections, even if they don't consciously make that connection? 

There are certain passages where believing in or acting on behalf of a Christian representative is equivalent to believing in or acting for Jesus:

The King will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me" (Mt 25:40). 

The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me (Lk 10:16). 

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me (Jn 13:20).

Unlike inclusivism, which cuts the nerve of evangelism, this still depends on a Christian witness and Christian presence. 

Some people, due to social conditioning, have a tremendous impediment to Christian faith. An impediment they never entirely overcome. Are there situations where a Christian friend or relative forms the bridge? What I've discussed is too speculative to furnish a firm answer. It may be enough to give reason for hope, but not enough for confidence. 

The wider hope

1. Let's define exclusivism as the view that to be saved during the Christian era a mentally competent person must exercise explicit faith in Jesus prior to death. That's controversial, but it's the bedrock of Christian evangelism. 

2. According to one version of inclusivism, a person can be saved through a receptive response to general revelation. According to a related version, a person can be saved through implicit faith. 

3. Then you have mediating positions that are technically exclusivistic, but are really face-saving versions of inclusivism. For instance, the theory of postmortem salvation, where people can be saved by exercising faith in Jesus after they die. Technically, that might be classified as exclusivism, but it's functionally equivalent to inclusivism. Put another way, it's a radical modification of what exclusivism traditionally meant. In that attenuated sense, even universalism is exclusivistic. At which point the contrast between exclusivism and inclusivism becomes moot. 

4. You also have William Lane Craig's conjecture that God has arranged history so that no unreached person would be receptive to the Gospel if given the opportunity. That suffers from several problems:

i) There's no evidence that it's true.

ii) It depends on the dubious theory of middle knowledge.

iii) It conflicts with Craig's belief that: 

The hypothesis is that God has done the very best He can, given the true counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him...God doesn’t create such a choice for Himself. The counterfactuals of creaturely freedom which confront Him are outside His control. He has to play with the hand He has been dealt. 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism-and-the-soteriological-problem-of-evil-once-more#ixzz4ahX0FLaH

But in that event, there's no justification for assuming that the card deck God has to work with includes a hand containing a feasible world in which no unreached person would be receptive to the Gospel if given the opportunity.

iv) By the same token, that's in competition with another one of Craig's conjectures:

Maybe His desire to achieve an optimal balance between saved and lost overrides the benefits of a world with less natural and moral evil. 

http://www.reasonablefaith.org/molinism-and-the-soteriological-problem-of-evil-once-more#ixzz4ahY17lxy

But that means God must be dealt two royal flushes in a row. He must be lucky enough to have a feasible world which combines both an optimal balance between the saved and the lost as well as where no unreached person would be receptive to the Gospel if given the opportunity. But on his own grounds, Craig has no warrant for believing that the card deck includes a feasible hand where both rosy scenarios coincide. 

5. C. S. Lewis famously said: "But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other [unreached] people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him.

That, of course, is very different from saying no one can be saved except through faith in Christ. 

6. There's internal pressure in freewill theism towards inclusivism because freewill theists typically subscribe to universal atonement and God's ardent desire to save everyone. But that's in tension with belief that salvation is contingent on a condition which is unavailable to many people: knowledge of the Gospel. 

Like it or not, Calvinism doesn't suffer from that internal pressure. Its commitment to exclusivism is internally consistent, given reprobation and limited atonement.  

Offhand, the only Reformed theologian I'm aware of who embraced a "wider hope" is William Shedd. He's fairly idiosyncratic. His position is likely colored by his Christian platonism. 

Let's consider some wedge issues:

7. OT saints

i) OT Jews didn't need to exercise explicit faith in Jesus to be saved. 

True, but that means the content of saving faith is indexed to progressive revelation. To whom much is given, much is required. 

ii) From the standpoint of pre-Christian Jews, there's a distinction between believing in the Messiah and believing in Jesus. They didn't know who the Messiah would be, but they knew what the Messiah would be. From our retrospective standpoint, we know that Jesus and the Messiah are one in the same person. From their prospective standpoint, they couldn't know that Jesus would be the Messiah. They didn't know about the life of Jesus. But they could still believe in the Messiah. 

It's like saying you can believe in Superman without believing in Clark Kent. If you don't know that Clark Kent is Superman, that doesn't prevent you from believing in Superman. 

To draw another distinction, you can know a role or know a character without knowing the actor who will play the role or play the character. 

iii) According to the NT, and Hebrews in particular, there was a transitional phase where, once you know who the Messiah is (Jesus), it's no longer enough just to believe in the Messiah: you must believe that Jesus is the Messiah. At that point, rejecting Jesus is tantamount to rejecting the Messiah, since Jesus is the Messiah. You can no longer separate the two. 

iv) An inclusivist might object that while there's a chronological distinction between Jews who lived before Jesus and Jews who lived after Jesus, that's analogous to a geographical distinction for gentiles who live outside the pale of the Gospel. They are in a position comparable to pre-Christian Jews. Even though they live after Jesus, they might as well be living before Jesus, because their geographical barrier is equivalent to a chronological barrier. Time and place are both buffers. 

But a problem with that comparison is that you had the same geographical distinction in OT times. Yahweh revealed himself to Israel in a way that he didn't generally reveal himself to pagan nations. And to the extent that he made himself known to pagan nations, it was in connection with Israel. Post-Christian pagans are not in a situation analogous to pre-Christian Jews. Rather, they're in the same situation as pre-Christian pagans. God generally distinguished between Jews and Gentiles, except where their lives intersected. 

8. Pagan saints

Some inclusivists classify some Biblical figures as "pagan saints": Enoch, Job, Noah, Melchizedek, Abimelech, Jethro, Naaman, the Queen of Sheba, Nebuchadnezzar, Ninevites, and Cornelius. But there are serious problems with that category:

i) Except for Cornelius, the Bible doesn't say they were saved. 

ii) To the extent that some of them were saved, they came to saving knowledge through contact with the chosen people.

iii) Some of them were recipients of special revelation.

iv) Cornelius was a Godfearer. An intellectual convert to Judaism (although he eschewed circumcision). He's in the position of an OT saint. 

v) How many inclusivists regard Job as a historical rather than fictional character?

vi) It's possible that Melchizedek was pagan. That doesn't make him a "pagan saint". That doesn't mean he was saved. His function is essentially symbolic. His typological role is separable from his person. What matters is what he represents, not his character. 

9. Babies

Even Calvinists believe that "elect" infants dying in infancy are saved. So faith in Jesus is not a sine qua non for salvation. But there are serious problems with that comparison:

i) The argument either proves too much or too little. It's not just that babies lack faith in Jesus. They lack implicit faith. They lack faith in general revelation. 

ii) Children below the age of reason lack the cognitive development to form propositional beliefs. That's not analogous to mentally competent agents. Rather, that's analogous to the developmentally disabled, or the senile. 

iii) Although "elect" infants dying in infancy aren't saved by faith, they are saved by grace. They are saved by regeneration.

iv) But it might be objected that if that's the case, why can't other people be saved by grace or by regeneration rather than faith?

No doubt God could do so if he chose to. But mercy is discretionary rather than obligatory. Fact is, the Bible stresses the necessity of faith in Christ for salvation when addressing adults. Whether or not we find it arbitrary, that's our frame of reference. Even if there are exceptions, that is only known to God. We must operate by his revealed will, not his secret will–assuming God makes exceptions. 

10. Christophanies

The OT records divine disclosure by theophanies and angelophanies, as well as dreams and visions. In the Bible, pagans are sometimes recipients of revelatory dreams. Some Christians identify certain OT angelophanies as Christophanies. Likewise, you have modern-day reports of Jesus appearing to Muslims in dreams, which are instrumental in their conversion. 

If so, then in principle, why couldn't there be Christophanies to the unevangelized? To take one hypothetical scenario why couldn't Manitou sometimes be a Christophany to heathen Indians who had no access to the Gospel? 

Several issues:

i) Even if that's hypothetically possible, unless we have evidence that it ever happens, so what?

ii) According to the Christian paradigm, faith in Jesus involves believing the gist of a biographical narrative about who Jesus is and what he did. By itself, a Christophany is not an object of faith. Even in the OT, event-media and word-media work in tandem.

iii) The OT presents the situation of the heathen as morally and spiritually dire. So does the NT (e.g. Rom 1:21-32; Eph 2:1-3,12; 4:17-19; Tit 3:3). Likewise, when Christian missionaries push into unevangelized lands, they encounter animism, paganism, and depravity. They don't encounter people-groups to whom God appeared in disguised Christophanies. 

iv) If, moreover, God were to instigate a religious movement through a Christophany, without biblical revelation, that would rapidly degenerate into a pagan cult. 

v) Now, for all we know, it's possible that God has appeared to select individuals throughout history, across the globe. But certainly not enough to establish a religious movement that allegorizes Christianity. At best, it could only be in reference to isolated cases. 

What Set Christianity Apart In The Ancient World

A New Testament scholar, Larry Hurtado, recently published a book about how ancient Christianity differed from and changed the world of its day. The book is titled Destroyer Of The Gods (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2016), and I recently finished posting a series of quotes from it on Facebook. Here's a listing of some of the topics covered, with links to each post:

Introduction, Why Christianity Succeeded, Constantine's Motives

Monotheism, Exclusivism, How The Christian View Of God Differed From A Jewish View

How Roman Opposition To Christianity Differed From Opposition To Other Religions, Christianity's Economic Impact

Early Christianity's Contribution To Religious Liberty

The Literary Character Of Early Christianity, Apologetics

Images, Altars, Sacrifices, Priesthood, Buildings, Baptism, Weekly Meetings, Prayer

Abortion, Infant Abandonment, Violence, Sex, Gender, Slavery

Love

Anyone Can be Saved: A Defense of “Traditional” Southern Baptist Soteriology

http://drdavidlallen.com/uncategorized/new-book-anyone-can-be-saved/

Hmm. I thought traditional SB soteriology subscribes to exclusivism. Putting aside special cases (e.g. those who die before the age of reason), traditional SB soteriology says those who live and die outside the pale of the Gospel cannot be saved. That's a presupposition of traditional SB foreign missions. Faith is Christ is necessary for salvation. So anyone cannot be saved. 

So the book would only make sense if it represents a shift from exclusivism to inclusivism, viz. Jerry Walls, John Sanders, Gabriel Fackre, Clark Pinnock. 

Patricia Pearson's Opening Heaven's Door

Patricia Pearson recently wrote a book about paranormal phenomena, especially as they relate to the afterlife. The book is titled Opening Heaven's Door (New York, New York: Atria Books, 2014), and it's received significant media attention (like here and here). Pearson has been interviewed by Alex Tsakiris, though I don't know when the interview will be made public.

The book provides a helpful introduction to deathbed visions, sensed presences, near-death experiences (NDEs), and other paranormal phenomena. She includes a lot of recent research. And she provides some good answers to common objections to the paranormal nature of these occurrences.

There's a lot that's good about the book, but I'm going to focus on some of the problems I have with it. It's representative of a large percentage of modern literature on the paranormal, having many of the same weaknesses.

A Fundamentalist Makes A Rare Appearance

A commenter on a Skeptiko forum recently mentioned that "a fundamentalist has in fact appeared at the Skeptiko site". You get the impression that a fundamentalist is some sort of rare species that's seldom seen in those regions. He's referring to me. If anybody is interested, here's the thread where I posted. The discussion is primarily about near-death experiences and exclusivism, but some other topics came up as well. The poster who referred to me as a fundamentalist, even though I described myself as a conservative Christian instead, probably wouldn't want a derisive term like fundamentalist applied to him. Notice, too, how much of my argument he ignores and how he distorts the portion he responds to. But those aren't the issues I want to focus on here.

I recently wrote about the neglect of paranormal issues among Christians. Why don't Evangelicals, conservative Catholics, conservative Eastern Orthodox, and other conservative professing Christians have far more of a presence at places like Skeptiko?