Is it antithetical if they don’t know of the Lord’s path? If they’re atheists because they know nothing else? What if they were muslim women kept in the dark for their entire existence but lived a life worthy? I’m sincerely asking because I don’t know the answer.
That was the subject of a heated class discussion in college many years ago. Jesus answered it in the Bible “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man come the unto the Father but by me.”
Our professor summed it up by saying that we need to be humbly grateful that God has allowed us to know the truth.
Most people groups who are unaware of the true God and His Son are unaware because their ancestors rejected/forgot him many generations ago. There are long lasting consequences to turning from God.
There were no qualifiers on the staement he made. And he’s said it more than once. That faith in God is not needed to go to heaven. He did not distinguish between a muslim woman and someone who protests at a grade school because they say the words “under God” during the pledge of allegiance.
God is supposed to be first in our heart, but if you don’t have God then by default he’s not first in your heart, wordly things are. I’m not a master theologian, but I can tell you that’s not good.