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Regarding my post #1436 I think I failed to make my key point. In Romans the issue at hand is indeed the Gentiles, but note how the question of "not hearing" is answered.

When Paul quotes "Their voice has gone out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world." it answers the question regarding the Gentiles, but it still means the same thing it did in Psalms. Through all the earth and all languages. Paul's response has a broader message.

J. Ronald Blue's words are much clearer than mine. (Chairman and Associate Professor of World Missions, Dallas Theological Seminary.) I clipped the relevent parts from an article of his:

Scripture confirms that God indeed does abandon or give up those who, not knowing of Christ’s redemption, have suppressed divine truth. God has revealed the nature of His arrangements in Scripture.

The only valid resolution to the seeming dilemma over the state of the unevangelized is to be found in God’s Word. All other solutions are mere conjecture. Man’s attempt to bridge the gap between a holy God and a depraved human race is a part of that continuing conjecture. The average unbeliever makes God a little less “hard and judgmental” and thereby a little less righteous and just than He really is. The average Christian makes man a little more “sincere and searching” and thereby more righteous than he really is. These futile attempts to bring God down or to lift man up are shattered by Scripture.

Paul makes it very clear in the opening section of his letter to the Romans that all men are by nature sinners and all stand under God’s just retribution. Already under condemnation, no one has any rights before an almighty God. This is not some new truth. Paul quotes the Old Testament to show that “there is none righteous, not even one...there is none who seeks for God”

Paul makes it clear that God’s revelation has been both penetrating and persistent. He explains that the truth of God has been revealed to all men. Those who have never heard of Christ nonetheless know of God. Consequently man is held inexcusable (Rom 1:20).

There is sufficient knowledge for each person to be criminally liable for sin. The issue therefore is not that the unevangelized have not put their trust in a Person of whom they have never heard, but that they have suppressed the truth they have both received and understood.

No matter how isolated a man may be from the revelation of God’s righteousness in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that man is entirely without excuse. God might be charged with injustice were He to send people to hell on the basis of their failure to respond to revelation they have never received. His judgment is not on unrevealed truth but on the clear revelation received and rejected by those who are condemned.

Paul’s argument in Romans not only outlines the basis of God’s judgment but shows that God does not send people to destruction, He simply lets them go on that self-designed course. It is abundantly clear that God has judged the unevangelized billions of the world. His judgment is just. It is based on revelation clearly received and willfully refused by the defendant. His sentence is fair. It is a release by God for man to pursue his own destruction and eternal death.

Contrary to the restricted views that Paul is simply describing the moral condition of the pagan world when he wrote the letter to the Romans, or that Paul presents in Romans 1:18-32 a theological interpretation of the religious history of the nations as it took place after the dispersion of the people from Babylon as recorded in Genesis 11:1-9,31 the extent of Paul’s arguments are clearly of a broader scope. He is speaking of mankind universally.
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I hope you find some value in this.

Peace,
JWinNC