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It is correct that Jesus asked us to go and preach the gospel to all corners of the world. regrding God sending all his messegers to one small part of the earth. Is that fair? the vast area of this earth where most human live is Asia? and the lord did not send even one messenger to Asia? the efficiency of reaching the most people? By simply saying that he chose one race over another, he has created an unfair practice? |
Fair
Consistent with rules, logic, or ethics: a fair tactic. Just stresses conformity with what is legally or ethically right or proper.Would it be FAIR to say, one must study the attributes of the judge The Attributes of God and the law Reasoning Through Romans to determine what is considered fair in any given society?
(C) If I were to go to the mission field and preach to those who otherwise would never hear the gospel, are there persons who would be saved as a result of my preaching, who would otherwise be lost?
(D) If I were to fail to go to the mission field, are there persons to whom I would in consequence not preach who would then be lost, and who would have been saved had I gone to them with the gospel?
Now in weighing a deliberative conditional, we generally assume that its antecedent is true. So doing, you may justifiably assume that the answer to (C') is "Yes." But what if the antecedent is false? In that case, though the answer to (C') remains affirmative, the answer to (C) is negative. For if the antecedent of the counterfactual expressed interrogatively in (C') is false, that is, if you do not go to the mission field, then God via His middle knowledge knew this and so has not placed any potential converts on your unreached field. Thus, there are no persons who are such that if you were to go to the field and preach the gospel they would be saved. Nevertheless, it is still true that if you were to go to the field and preach the gospel, there would be persons awaiting you as prospective converts, since God via His middle knowledge would then have known that you would leave on your mission and so placed potential new believers in your path.
Similarly, assuming that the antecedent of (D') is true, you should answer (D') in the negative because the persons to whom you would fail to preach would suffer from transworld damnation. But if the antecedent of the counterfactual expressed interrogatively in (D') is false, the answer to (D') will remain negative, but the answer to (D) will be "Yes." For if the antecedent is false, then God via His middle knowledge knew this and so has placed potential converts on your soon to be reached field. Thus, there are persons who are such that if you were to fail to go to the field and preach the gospel, they would not be saved. Nevertheless, it is still true that if you were to fail to go to the field and preach the gospel, there would be no persons out there who would be potential converts, since God via His middle knowledge would then have foreknown your failure to go and so placed only persons suffering from transworld damnation on the field.
Thus, you needn't be any more perplexed about your situation than than I am about mine. If the antecedent of (C') is true and of (D') is false, there are actually existing persons who will be saved as a result of your preaching who would otherwise not be saved. On the other hand, if the antecedent of (D') is true and of (C') is false, then there are no persons who, as a result of your failure, will be unsaved but would have been saved had you gone to the field.
In analyzing the logical aspects of the supposed problem, you go on to formulate a pair of difficult counterfactuals. But again your formulation is problematic. Using the third person for the sake of logical clarity, we ought to agree that:
2.(a) There exist persons who are such that either Peter will preach to them or Peter will not preach to them.
(b) On the assumption that Peter will preach to them, it is true that "If Peter were to preach to them, they would accept salvation."
(c) On the assumption that Peter will not preach to them, it is true that "If Peter were to preach to them, they would reject salvation."
Now what is the problem with (2)? Your first objection is that the transworld damnation of these persons depends on your actions. Not at all; your preaching to these people is merely the evidence that they do not have transworld damnation and your not preaching to them to them is evidence that they do. What does depend, at least in part, on your decision--and is different from the above--is whether the people to whom you go are persons who suffer from transworld damnation or persons who do not. How can this be? Your own answer seems to me exactly correct, in the following sense: if God knew that you would not go to the tribe, He would have placed in the tribe only persons afflicted with transworld damnation; but if He knew that you would go to the tribe, He would have placed other persons in the tribe who would have accepted the gospel. You object to this possibility that counterfactuals of creaturely freedom are not under God's control. Correct; but as I understand this possibility, no such control is envisioned. Your error lies in thinking that the same persons are involved whether you go or not. The reason you failed to see this point, I believe, may be because your vision has been obscured at this juncture by theological fatalism; you didn't see that the existence of certain persons in the world can be a soft fact dependent upon your decision to go to the mission field. But given God's middle knowledge and providence, their existence is, indeed, a soft fact.
Suppose, for example, that if the gospel had not been preached to them, then God would have foreknown this via His middle knowledge and so not created them in the first place; hence, they would not have been saved. But they are obviously not damned in such a world. Nor is there any reason to think that in such a world it would be true that were they to exist and the gospel were to be preached to them, they would not accept it.
In conclusion, then, the proposed Molinist solution to the soteriological problem of evil seems to be a consistent defense. Moreover, it is a solution that is worthy of God, something that He both could and would do. By contrast, the Augustinian-Calvinist solution makes the damnation of the lost the result of God's choice, which seems abhorrent; and the Pelagian-Arminian solution seems to make their damnation the result of historical and geographical accident, which seems unconscionable. So what alternative is there? A risk-taking God, who lacks both middle and foreknowledge, seems either indifferent to or helpless with respect to the fate of the unreached, since He is doing so relatively little to bring the gospel to them. Of course, one could simply deny that there is any soteriological problem of evil, as religious pluralists and universalists do; but such positions unfortunately do violence to the biblical data and make preaching the gospel superfluous.
So, Peter, if you feel God's call upon you to go to the foreign mission field, my advice is, by all means, go, "knowing," in the words of the first Christian missionary, "that in the Lord your labor is not in vain" (I Cor. 15. 58).
But what exactly is the problem with God's condemning persons who adhere to non-Christian religions? I do not see that the very notion of hell is incompatible with a just and loving God. According to the New Testament, God does not want anyone to perish, but desires that all persons repent and be saved and come to know the truth (11 Peter 3.9; 1 Timothy 2.4). He therefore seeks to draw all men to Himself. Those who make a well-informed and free decision to reject Christ are self-condemned, since they repudiate God's unique sacrifice for sin. By spurning God's prevenient grace and the solicitation of His Spirit, they shut out God's mercy and seal their own destiny. They, therefore, and not God, are responsible for their condemnation, and God deeply mourns their loss.
Nor does it seem to me that the problem can be simply reduced to the inconsistency of a loving and just God's condemning persons who are either un- , ill-, or misinformed concerning Christ and who therefore lack the opportunity to receive Him. For one could maintain that God graciously applies to such persons the benefits of Christ's atoning death without their conscious knowledge thereof on the basis of their response to the light of general revelation and the truth that they do have, even as He did in the case of Old Testament figures like Job who were outside the covenant of Israel.{12} The testimony of Scripture is that the mass of humanity do not even respond to the light that they do have, and God's condemnation of them is neither unloving nor unjust, since He judges them according to standards of general revelation vastly lower than those which are applied to persons who have been recipients of His special revelation.
Rather the real problem, it seems to me, involves certain counterfactuals of freedom concerning those who do not receive special revelation and so are lost. If we take Scripture seriously, we must admit that the vast majority of persons in the world are condemned and will be forever lost, even if in some relatively rare cases a person might be saved through his response to the light that he has apart from special revelation.{13} But then certain questions inevitably arise: Why did God not supply special revelation to persons who, while rejecting the general revelation they do have, would have responded to the gospel of Christ if they had been sufficiently well-informed concerning it? More fundamentally, Why did God create this world when He knew that so many persons would not receive Christ and would therefore be lost? Even more radically, why did God not create a world in which everyone freely receives Christ and so is saved?
In conclusion, then, I think that a middle knowledge perspective on the problem of the exclusivity of the Christian religion can be quite fruitful. Since all persons are in sin, all are in need of salvation. Since Christ is God's unique expiatory sacrifice for sin, salvation is only through Christ. Since Jesus and his work are historical in character, many persons as a result of historical and geographical accident will not be sufficiently well-informed concerning him and thus unable to respond to him in faith. Such persons who are not sufficiently well-informed about Christ's person and work will be judged on the basis of their response to general revelation and the light that they do have. Perhaps some will be saved through such a response; but on the basis of Scripture we must say that such "anonymous Christians" are relatively rare. Those who are judged and condemned on the basis of their failure to respond to the light of general revelation cannot legitimately complain of unfairness for their not also receiving the light of special revelation, since such persons would not have responded to special revelation had they received it. For God in His providence has so arranged the world that anyone who would receive Christ has the opportunity to do so. Since God loves all persons and desires the salvation of all, He supplies sufficient grace for salvation to every individual, and nobody who would receive Christ if he were to hear the gospel will be denied that opportunity. As Molina puts it, our salvation is in our own hands.
No orthodox Christian likes the doctrine of hell or delights in anyone's condemnation. I truly wish that universalism were true, but it is not. My compassion toward those in other world religions is therefore expressed, not in pretending that they are not lost and dying without Christ, but by my supporting and making every effort myself to communicate to them the life-giving message of salvation through Christ.{27}