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To: Ken H
I thought humans, not God, chose salvation or damnation with their free will.

No, that's not correct. There is an element of free will involved, but it is more proper to speak of God as the Actor, the Instigator. We are the lost sheep. God is the Good Shepherd who finds us.

I don't, but isn't that what Scriptures say will happen if you are not redeemed?

Yes, but why would you assume the Khmer's victims were irredeemed?

I don't follow that. If they died without accepting Jesus, doesn't the N.T. say they're going to Hell forever?

We believe in a just and merciful God. Overly-literal readings of the Scripture tend to reduce God to something less.

We believe all are saved through Jesus, through the Cross. This need not be overtly recognizable to all. If God chooses to redeem an untouched tribesman in the remote wilderness, what business is it of ours?

Does Scripture make such an exception, or is that your opinion?

I believe God's sovereignity is on display in Scripture. It is a well-established Catholic doctrine that while God provided the Church to act as the normative means of communicating His Salvation to us, He is free to save those who are "invincibly ignorant" of the need for Jesus and the Church.

This is not saying all who are putatively ignorant are thereby saved. Far from it. The presumptions would be against such a thing. But God is not tied to the rules He imposes upon us. If He sees fit to work through and save an ignorant one, so be it.

SD

240 posted on 12/06/2004 3:13:43 PM PST by SoothingDave
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To: SoothingDave
Isn't that [eternal Hell] what Scriptures say will happen if you are not redeemed?

Yes, but why would you assume the Khmer's victims were irredeemed?

Because Christianity was rare in Cambodia at the time the Khmer murdered 2 million Cambodians.

We believe in a just and merciful God. Overly-literal readings of the Scripture tend to reduce God to something less.

So when scripture says no one shall enter the Kingdom but through Jesus, that isn't true?

247 posted on 12/06/2004 3:29:03 PM PST by Ken H
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