@GreatBigBore I think most Christian denominations would actually say God doesn't allow anyone who truly wants to find him to not find him.

The question is whether that's a situation that ever arises. Most Christians would distinguish between a sincere longing for spiritual truth or an experience and a longing for God. Just because we want to fill the "God shaped holes" in us all doesn't mean we try to fill them with God

@curiousdannii I have two basic assumptions. I allow that either one or both could be wrong. First, millions of Christians believe that most, if not all, Muslims will go to Hell, because Muslims assert very firmly that Jesus is not God, is not the son of God, and came to us as strictly a prophet, not a savior. Second, millions -- perhaps hundreds of millions -- of Muslims seek God with hearts indistinguishable from the hearts of those same Christians.

@curiousdannii As I mentioned to @LeeWoofenden, my question on C.SE was an attempt to find someone who addresses the question that burns in my heart, why would God allow this? Why would God accept the request of one person who sincerely asks him for guidance, but reject the request of another person who asks him with identical sincerity?

@curiousdannii I am beginning to think that there are two groups of Christians with respect to this question. First, the group that says, God does not allow that to happen, but honors Muslim requests even-handedly with respect to those of Christians. Second, the group that says, those Muslims must not be approaching God properly, otherwise he would have shown them the truth, and they would be Christians rather than Muslims.

@curiousdannii Thus neither group would feel the need to address the question I'm asking.

Hi @curiousdannii. I can't stay long. If you know of anyone who actually does address my question, please do point me in their direction. The more specifically they address it, the better. I realize that I could dig through Thomas Aquinas for a couple of years and infer his answer. Perhaps I'm lazy, but I'm hoping for something a bit less involved.

@GreatBigBore Or they are addressing it, by denying it. If both of your assumptions were true then that would be a very despicable god and he would have very few followers

@curiousdannii You're one of those nice Christians I keep hearing about.

@GreatBigBore I'm not sure what you mean...

@curiousdannii You think the god I've described is despicable.

@curiousdannii I am happy that there are Christians who think like you and @LeeWoofenden. I wish there were more of you, and fewer of the type I've described.

@GreatBigBore Well yeah. I also think it's unbiblical.

@GreatBigBore I've never met a single Christian who believes both your assumptions. I don't think I've even heard of any.

@curiousdannii Wow

@curiousdannii Ok, I've met plenty who do believe most, if not all, Muslims will go to Hell. I should be clear: I'm not assuming the thing about the Muslim view of Jesus; I know that for a fact.

@GreatBigBore Of course. I, along with most Christians, believe that those who reject the Gospel have no hope of salvation.

@curiousdannii I suppose I stated my second assumption too subjectively.

@GreatBigBore I don't think it's too subjective, it's pretty clear. It's just wrong ;)

@curiousdannii Oh, ok, I misunderstood your approach. I thought you were saying, just generally, that both can't be true. I realize now, you're saying, very specifically, that the second one is definitely not true.

Am I following you correctly?

@GreatBigBore Well a sizable number of Christians would say the first is wrong. Probably a majority would say it is correct though.

@curiousdannii Well, to be clear: my assumption is not about the correctness of the doctrine. My assumption is about there being many who believe it.

Oh yeah, what you said.

And some would say the second is true, but personally I say it is completely wrong.

We make the same assumption.

@GreatBigBore But I really doubt there are many, if any, who believe both.

Ok, but I need to clarify

And there are some who believe neither.

My assumptions are: (1) Millions of Christians believe X and (2) This thing about Muslims is true

So I think you would say that #1 is correct and #2 is incorrect.

@GreatBigBore Well then everyone accepts assumption 1, though many do not themselves believe X

@GreatBigBore yeah

Right. So I guess I didn't have to mention assumption #1; I mentioned it because a guy in C.SE challenged me on it, as though he had no idea what I was talking about.

@GreatBigBore Got a link? He may have been challenging X itself rather than the fact that most Christians believe it

I deleted the question in humiliation and frustration, sorry

Anyway, that's not the point of what I'm concerned about. I shouldn't have brought it up

And I realize now, once again, that my main assumption, that there are countless Muslims who approach God with a heart indistinguishable from that of countless Christians, is the one that is debatable (or dead wrong, depending on one's confidence)

@GreatBigBore And I guess it is subjective in that what the "heart" is is up for debate

Right. I'm just going on the lack-of-imagination fallacy. I can't remember what it's really called. Like, "I can't believe this proposition, therefore it can't be true."

Personal incredulity

Possibly with a pinch of appeal to emotion

@curiousdannii So I'm guessing that you would find it unnecessary for anyone to address my question other than to say that it's based on a faulty assumption. I hope I'm understanding you correctly. If not, please forgive me, and correct me if you like. I have to go. Peace and luck to you.

@GreatBigBore I guess there might be some who would believe both. The regulative principle of worship says it matters immensely whether you use God's prescribed means of worship, and that sincerity of heart and intention won't protect you from God's judgement if you offer strange fire (Lev 10)

But I think the more common approach would be to challenge the assumption. Muslims may seek answers for their questions with the same sincerity as Christians, they may desire spiritual peace, they may seek the same forgiveness, but that doesn't mean they seek God as Christians do.

(And even for those who accept a strong form of the regulative principle of worship, and would say that wrongful worship will result in God's judgement, they may not say that that judgement will be the negation of salvation.)

@GreatBigBore Sure, some might reject the assumption with arguments that are fallacies. But a fallacious argument against an assumption is not an argument for it.

@GreatBigBore See you later. I'm happy to keep discussing this :)

@GreatBigBore Just to be clear, @curiousdannii and I are in major disagreement over these issues. He (along with probably a majority of Christians, as he says) believes that even Muslims who sincerely seek God through their religion (Islam) and its beliefs will go to hell. I believe that Muslims who sincerely seek God through their religion--and of course, live by their religion--will go to heaven.

@GreatBigBore I wouldn't actually say that Muslims seek God with hearts indistinguishable from Christians. The reason they are Muslims and not Christians is that they have a different perspective on life, generally come from a different cultural background, and have hearts that are not precisely like the hearts of Christians.

@GreatBigBore However, I do believe that good Muslims seek God with the same sincerity and intensity that good Christians do. And I believe that God accepts good Muslims into heaven just as easily as God accepts good Christians into heaven. The differences in character, heart, and culture do not exclude non-Christians from heaven. There are twelve gates to the city, three facing in each direction.

And I should add that this is not just my personal belief. It was taught explicitly by Emanuel Swedenborg in the 18th century, and has been believed by all Swedenborgians ever since.

Then again, Paul himself taught the same thing in Romans 2:1-16. So it's not as if Swedenborg made it up. He was simply paying attention to teachings in the Bible that traditional Christianity has long since rejected.

No, technically Paul didn't say "Muslims" there, because they didn't exist yet. But in the course of that teaching, he speaks of how Jews, "Greeks" (pagan polytheists), and Gentiles (non-Jews or perhaps non-Christians generally) are saved. Even if Muslims didn't come along for another six or seven centuries, they're still included under "Gentiles."

@GreatBigBore The very fact that traditional Christians' anti-Biblical belief that only Christians go to heaven causes them to think that Muslims are less sincere than Christians in their seeking for God is one of the destructive consequences of that false and non-Biblical belief. And it has caused incalculable damage over the years as Christians fight against Muslims, an even against other Christians, believing that the "unsaved" are lesser in God's eyes than are the "saved."

@LeeWoofenden The core of the issue is what the problem is. I'd guess you'd say it's something like wrong living. Evangelical Protestants say it's the personal offense of our rebellion against God. Naturally the form, shape, and direction our worship takes will matter to different extents considering the different problems.

@curiousdannii Muslims who worship God in sincerity of heart and follow God's teachings and commandments as presented to them are not "in rebellion against God."

@LeeWoofenden If Jesus is in reality divine, then they cannot be following God's teachings if those teachings say he is not divine. You may say that the commandments matter more than the doctrinal teachings, which is fine, but you can't say my argument is completely without grounds

@curiousdannii Yes, I can say your argument is completely without grounds because you are distinguishing between Jesus and God, as if one could worship the one without worshiping the other. If Jesus is God, then if you are worshiping God, you are worshiping Jesus, whether or not you realize it.

Besides, as I already said to @GreatBigBore, Paul states explicitly that, and how, non-Christians are saved. So you're just plain wrong.

Jesus also says in Matthew 25:31-46 how people of all nations will be saved in the Judgment. And he says nothing about having faith in Jesus. Rather, he says that those who love and serve their neighbor in need will go to eternal life, whereas those who don't will go to eternal punishment. So once again, you are just plain wrong.

@LeeWoofenden You're making my point for me. If the god of your scriptures says Jesus was not divine, and if in reality Jesus is divine, then your sincere worship of the god of your scriptures cannot be the true God because you cannot separate the worship of the true God from Jesus.

@curiousdannii So do you believe that Christians have a perfect understanding of God, without any error? Do you believe that Christians who have erroneous beliefs about God will go to hell because they are worshiping "the wrong god"?

@LeeWoofenden I have never ruled out that God in his mercy may save some outside of the gospel, even Muslims. What Paul does not say is that sincerity is what saves.

@curiousdannii He says that doing good works and living according to their conscience is what saves them.

And that this happens through Jesus Christ. That is precisely Swedenborg's teaching.

@LeeWoofenden It really depends on what exactly the erroneous beliefs are. Those who believe Jesus never died on the cross remove the foundation of the gospel that Jesus saved us through his death and resurrection.

@curiousdannii So you think it's our belief in his death and resurrection that saves us? And not the death and resurrection itself?

What you're really saying is that something we do (having faith) is what saves us, not something that God/Jesus does.

@LeeWoofenden No, of course not, which should be obvious from all I have written. If God has revealed the gospel to us so that we will trust him and accept his promises that he will save us through the death and resurrection of Jesus, but instead we believe that Jesus never died, then we are not only deliberately denying the message he has revealed to us, we are denying ourselves the grounds of the gospel and we are denying ourselves the promise.

@curiousdannii And you are denying that by his death on the cross and his resurrection, God, through Jesus Christ, has the power to save all people, regardless of their religion, who love God and love their neighbor, as both Paul and Jesus taught.

@LeeWoofenden No, God saves according to his promise. But will God save those who intentionally deny that promise?

@curiousdannii People of various who worship God and follow God as they are taught to worship and follow God are not "denying the promise." However, Christians who deny Jesus, his death and resurrection, and his divinity, are rejecting the promise, because they are rejecting God as they are taught to believe in God. So Christians who reject Christ cannot be saved.

@LeeWoofenden No, he has the complete power to save all. But he has not promised to save all, but only those who turn to God in repentance and faith.

You have to understand that the bulk of what Paul wrote in his letters, and of what the Gospel writers wrote in the Gospels, was directed at Christian believers.

@curiousdannii Precisely. That's why Muslims who turn to God in repentance and faith will be saved, just as Jesus and Paul and all the rest of Jesus' apostles taught.

@LeeWoofenden If God has taught people to worship, and they worship according to those teachings, then I agree, they will be saved accordingly. What I deny is that the teachings of Islam can come from God when they are so completely against the teachings of God in the scriptures.

@curiousdannii They really aren't as against the teachings of God in the scriptures as you think. Jesus said that all the Law and the Prophets--meaning all of Scripture--depends on loving God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves. There is scarcely a religion in the world that doesn't teach the same thing, even if they may use different terms.

Every legitimate religion teaches the same fundamental truths that Jesus does.

@LeeWoofenden Do those fundamental truths include a personal God who loves and desires relationship with people? If so, then would you say that deism for example is not a legitimate religion?

Also, Islam is in many ways indistinguishable from the religion of the Old Testament. So Islam accepts everything significant in the first major division of Christian scripture.

@curiousdannii Deism is more of a philosophy than a religion. I'm not aware of any church that teaches deism. Though maybe there's one I don't know about.

@curiousdannii However, even a deist who believes God created the universe to operate according to certain principles, and who therefore lives according to principles that s/he thinks God ordained for the universe, is believing in and being faithful to God as the deist believes in God, and therefore can be saved by that faith and faithfulness in life.

It's not my cup of tea, especially since it's rather impersonal and diffuse. But it is an effective belief in God if held to and practiced in sincerity.

@LeeWoofenden Islam teaches that Allah is ultimately unknowable. His transcendence is too great. The scriptures teach that nothing can stop from adequately revealing himself to us so that we might know him.

@curiousdannii The OT also teaches that God is ultimately unknowable. "You cannot see the face of God and live." And yes, Christianity has an intensity of belief in a personal God that is lacking in most other religions. That's a major reason that I am a Christian and not a Muslim or Buddhist.

@curiousdannii Doctrine is meant to guide our moral actions. So yes, it matters. But only if it leads us to live a good life of loving God and loving the neighbor. If it doesn't do that, it is utterly useless, and probably utterly false.

@curiousdannii Incidentally, Hinduism also believes that God incarnates. It's just that Hinduism believes that God incarnates many times, whereas Christianity believes that God incarnates only once. Hindus actually have no problem thinking of Jesus as being an incarnation of God. It's just that they think there have also been other incarnations of God, such as Krishna, and that there will be more incarnations of God in the future, also.

@LeeWoofenden No, the OT says that we must approach and know God on his terms, but the hope of the future is to see God face to face once our ungodliness has been removed (Job 13:15-16)

So Hinduism actually does provide an ability to believe in a personal, knowable God. I'm not saying I agree with its version, but it does have a version of a personal, flesh-and-blood, incarnated God.

@curiousdannii Well, saying that God is "unknowable" is more of an attribution of greatness to God. Islam has its 99 names of God, all of which are attributes of God, and all of which are things that humans can know about God. So Islam has the same teaching as the OT about God being ultimately unknowable, but also knowable in the measure that our finite human intellect can conceptualize God.

@LeeWoofenden But the Biblical scriptures teach that we can not merely know about God but that we can know God

And even Christians should not get hubristic and think that we can truly know God as God exists on God's own level. Our finite minds are not capable of grasping the infinity of God. What we can know is reflections and expressions of God's nature on our own spiritual and material levels of thought.

@curiousdannii I think if you looked into it you would find that philosophical Muslims have a very similar approach to God to that of the Old Testament. Really, Islam is a revival of Old Testament religion which I believe took place under God's providence to wipe out pagan polytheism in a segment of the world's population that was not prepared to accept Christianity.

@LeeWoofenden Sure, but God also created our minds in parallel with his intentions to reveal himself to us, so that while we cannot know the infinite, we can know God exactly as he desires to be known by us, and if not for sin God would not think our knowledge of him as deficient

For one thing, Middle Eastern culture did then, and in many places still does today, accept and practice polygamy, which really isn't compatible with Christianity.

I believe that Christianity is a more advanced religion than Islam. But Islam is a religion that God provided for people whose culture and mindset required that type of religion, and that couldn't accept Christianity because its culture was too alien from a Christian mindset.

@curiousdannii I doubt that many Muslim philosophers and theologians would disagree with that statement.

Not that I'm an expert on Muslim philosophy and theology. But the little bit of reading I've done has shown me that Muslim theologians can also be quite subtle and advanced in their thinking about the nature of God.

We hear in the news mostly about fundamentalist Muslims. And they're no more advanced in their thinking than fundamentalist Christians. They also don't represent the entirety or even the mainstream of Islam, just as fundamentalist Christians don't represent the entirety or even the mainstream of Christianity.

@LeeWoofenden I think you overstate the differences of the cultures (and are close to sounding racist.) If God could call Abraham out of the sun worshiping Chaldeans, if he could reveal himself to Israelites influenced by Egyptian paganism, if he could build churches among people of the Greco-Roman pantheon, then the gospel can communicate to asteroid worshipping, djinn fearing Arabs.

God has no need to communicate explicitly contradictory information in order to reach anyone.

@curiousdannii I think you're underestimating the difference between Christian and non-Christian culture. The ones whom God called out of those other cultures are precisely the ones who can accept a different culture. And it's not racist to believe that there are differences among the races.

@LeeWoofenden God has never called anyone to a Christian culture, he calls people to hear the gospel and repent of their sins in faith.

@curiousdannii And what results in human culture is Christianity.

Now the gospel is hard to accept in cultures which reject the idea of sin, as most Western cultures do today. But even in our cultures the gospel still reaches many.

@curiousdannii A secular culture can't really believe in sin, because sin is, as you often say, rebellion against God. If you don't believe in God, you can't really believe that there's any such thing as sin.

But people embedded in and accepting of secular cultures generally have moral codes that say what's right and wrong. And atheist apologetics to the contrary, I do believe that those moral codes ultimately derive from religion, and from revelation from God, and from there are suffused into society--including into secular society.

Swedenborg speaks of there always being a key religion on earth, which is like the heart and lungs of human society, from which the spiritual lifeblood of truth is distributed to humanity as a whole.

Today, Christian culture is heavily affecting non-Christian cultures around the world, causing various trends toward such things as monogamy, an ideal of equality and dignity for all human beings, and so on.

I believe that as Christian ideals suffuse the world, humanity as a whole will trend toward Christian beliefs as well. But not toward the old, false (in my view) "Christian" beliefs. Those will have to die before Christianity becomes the religion of the whole world.

@LeeWoofenden But at the same time, monogamy is being lost in a lot of the 'West'

@curiousdannii Not really. It is still the ideal. It's just that a lot of people don't achieve the ideal.

Even the push for same-sex marriage in the West is a push for same-sex monogamy.

Polyamory is becoming increasingly acceptable

I would say that the vast majority of people in the West, both male and female, still long for a committed, loving, monogamous relationship.

@curiousdannii Sure. But those who try it out generally discover over time that it really isn't what it's cracked up to be.

@curiousdannii For many years I've followed with some interest the unfolding story of The Farm, which was a hippie commune in Summertown, Tennessee, which has now become more of a hippie community. At first they practiced group marriage, thinking it was more "spiritual." But over time, they mostly discovered that it just didn't work very well. So they became pretty much monogamous de facto.

A lot of young people think that being able to have multiple sexual partners is "free" and "liberated" and all that stuff. But over time they usually realize that it has serious problems and is seriously lacking in long-term satisfaction. So over time they tend to trend toward monogamy.

Outside of fundamentalist Mormonism, there's really no societal, institutionalized polygamy in Western society.

As individuals that is probably the trend, but as a society it is surely going the other way

@curiousdannii You, my friend, are a pessimist. :-P

@LeeWoofenden I would say a realist ;)

@curiousdannii I think what's really happened is that the old external social strictures have been loosened in a major way, allowing people to try out various things, including polyamory, group sex, and all sorts of other rather undesirable (from a Christian perspective) experiments. But those who do try these things out usually end out, in the long run, back in good ol' Christian monogamy.

And those who don't tend not to have a very happy or satisfying life.

It's nothing like in Middle Eastern societies where polygamy is still practiced and still an integral part of society.

The few people in Western society who do practice sustained polygamy must live on the fringes of society. It is simply not acceptable to Western society as a whole.

And I don't think it ever will be.

@LeeWoofenden For their sakes I hope so too

For one thing, feminist ideals of equality for women have become deeply entrenched in Western society. And feminists as a body hate polygamy.

(Which in practice is almost always actually polygyny.)

@LeeWoofenden They would hate polygyny. Some would no doubt approve of group marriages where the women had every right to determine their relationships.

@curiousdannii Well, such things get talked about. But when the rubber hits the road, they almost always settle into monogamy.

I finished my degree at a super liberal, feminist-leaning college in Washington State. And to my knowledge, every one of the heavily feminist female professors was happily married to a man. And the Marxist male professors were generally also married.

The reality is that Western culture is still generally Christian culture, even if much of it has become secularized. And there just isn't a stable place for polygamy in Christian culture.

Meanwhile, much of Middle Eastern culture remains polygamous. Yes, probably the majority of men have only one wife. But that's simply because they can't afford more than one wife. That's probably been the case throughout history in polygamous cultures. It's the wealthy who can have multiple wives. And if they can afford it, they do.

Such cultures are intrinsically different from Christian culture. And that's why they're Muslim, not Christian.

@LeeWoofenden I used indistinguishable badly. I'm still trying to come up with a word to express what I mean. I can't use "just as sincere", because as @curiousdannii has pointed out, sincerity doesn't cut it. What I'm trying to say is that there are Muslims who approach God with all the same relevant qualities as any Christian who is saved. To think that such Muslims will go to Hell bothers me a lot.

@LeeWoofenden I always try to avoid doctrinal discussions, and this subject is the very reason why. I've used Muslims as an example, but only because it's easier to say "Muslims" than to say "Christians with doctrine X that fundamentally conflicts with doctrine Y". That is, Christian group X thinks that Christian group Y is going to Hell, and vice-versa. This is the same problem as the subset of Christians who think Muslims will go to hell.

(Not to mention that all but the most progressive Muslims think that all Christians are going to Hell, because worshiping Jesus is unambiguously the worst sin anyone can possibly commit.)

So I'm just as troubled by such fundamental disagreements among Christians as I am by the fundamental disagreements between Christians and Muslims. I have precisely the same question: Why would God allow JWs, or Catholics, or Swedenborgians, or anyone else to believe they're talking to him when they're actually talking to thin air?

I mean, it seems to me that anyone can pray a sinner's prayer, no matter how naive: "God, I know I'm a sinner, and I want to do your will, please guide me." Why would God accept that prayer from one person but not from another?

Why would God accept such a prayer from one person, who just happens to have been born in a culture that says Jesus is great and Muhammad is a fraud, but reject the exact same prayer from another person, who just happens to have been born in a culture that says Jesus is great but Muhammad is better?

I don't see how one person can be credited for having a belief that has been ingrained by their culture while another person can be penalized for having a different belief that has been equally ingrained.

I'm not asking you guys to explain it to me. I doubt very seriously you could tell me anything I haven't already heard. It all boils down to six or so fundamental answers, no matter how much doctrine or interpretation or tradition or whatever is wrapped around it:

(1) Ask God for guidance and he will show you the way, (2) Don't listen to those other guys, (3) Your rebellious attitude is blinding you to the truth, (4) I don't know why, but I know that God is leading me on the right path

I meant four. I had six in mind, but they boiled down further. The problem is that everyone says these exact same things, and everyone comes to the conclusion that everyone else is wrong. And millions of them think that the other guys are so wrong that they'll go to Hell.

Humans act both individually and collectively. A just God would apply judgments at both levels. A wise person would appreciate the differing nature of these judgments as being just, but a foolish person could easily confuse them and mistake them as unjust.

@bruisedreed I am a foolish person

@GreatBigBore so am I, but perhaps in slightly different ways

@bruisedreed I'm the kind of foolish person you described

@GreatBigBore If that is true, then recognising it as such is a major step on the path to wisdom.

@bruisedreed Forgive me, I choose the path of foolishness

@GreatBigBore That's a hard road friend, but you don't need to walk it

@bruisedreed It is the easier path for me, because my heart makes the wise path unbearable

Hi @LeeWoofenden. I was just doing a final proofreading pass before signing off for the evening. I look forward to any replies you may have. Peace and luck to you

@GreatBigBore The difference is, even though I think other Christians, and many non-Christians, are wrong on various doctrinal points, I don't think any of them are going to hell because they're mistaken or misinformed about doctrine. I vehemently disagree with most of the Christians on this site on the most basic tenets of Christian doctrine. But so far my opinion is that all of those people that I disagree with are headed toward heaven, not hell.

@LeeWoofenden Ah, right, none of these questions apply to your beliefs. As I said before, I wish I had met your Jesus when I was young.

And I say "my opinion" because really, I have no idea. Only God knows that. But they seem to me to be good, sincere people who are doing their best to live the way they believe God wants them to live. And therefore I think they're going to heaven, not hell, regardless of the errors in their beliefs.

On the other hand, I have many times been told, mostly by evangelical Protestants, but by other brands of Christians as well, that I am going to hell because I believe the wrong thing.

@LeeWoofenden I guess we'll be in hell together, for whatever that's worth. Nice hat. Peace and luck

@GreatBigBore I believe that all people who talk to God, however they conceive of God, actually are talking to God if they are doing it from sincerity of heart and a desire to be faithful to God and live a good life as they believe God wants them to live. Even Catholics who pray to saints are not heard by those saints, but by God, in my view. And even pagans who worship idols are really worshiping God if their heart is sincere and they sincerely believe that those idols are God.

The OT regularly and forcefully tells the Israelites not to worship idols. But it never says that pagans who worship idols are going to hell. Israelites were forbidden to worship idols because in doing so they would be unfaithful to God as they believed in God. Similarly, the NT tells Christians that they must believe in Christ. And Christians who refuse to believe in and be faithful to Christ are headed to hell because they have rejected God as they (are supposed to) believe in God.

@GreatBigBore As I once said to a fundamentalist Christian who told me that I was going to hell because I believed the wrong thing, "Fortunately, that's God's decision, not yours." ;-)

Your core beliefs will determine your life trajectory. If your 'beliefs' don't seem to be doing that, then they are not really what you believe, just what you think or say you believe.

@bruisedreed Who are you talking to?

@LeeWoofenden Whoever delights in the truth.

@bruisedreed I was hoping for a name . . . .

@LeeWoofenden This is a group chat room - a post can be directed to the group as opposed to any one individual.

@bruisedreed Okay, let me be more specific: Were you responding to me? Or to someone else? Or just saying a random thing in chat?

@LeeWoofenden I think I've answered that question adequately already.

@bruisedreed Well, if you wanted a response from me, let me know.

@LeeWoofenden I think that's incredibly naive. And the next post is also incredibly logically flawed.

@LeeWoofenden @GreatBigBore I don't think people are going to hell because they don't believe the same things I do. I am worried they might go to hell because they don't know Jesus. And the ones that say they do but consistently describe a completely different Jesus than I know and read of in scripture. I am afraid the people you are both speaking of are those who say "Lord, Lord" but Jesus simply says "I never knew you."

On the other hand I'm told that all those that call on the name of the Lord will be saved. So I'm not so arrogant to say that I know who does and does not know Jesus. But in the end, its still through Jesus.

@Joshua Yep. Paul said that Jews, Greeks, and Gentiles who are saved by doing good works according to their conscience are all saved through Jesus. Romans 2:1-16.

@Joshua You must finish the sentence: "Then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evildoers'" (Matthew 7:23, italics added). The people whom Jesus "never knew" are the evildoers, not merely people who don't intellectually believe in Jesus in the "correct" way.

@Joshua If I said something to imply that people will go to Hell because they don't believe the same things you do, then please accept my apologies. As for going to Hell because they don't know Jesus, that takes me right back to the original problem:

the person who naively approaches God, prays some kind of a sinner's prayer, and then doesn't find Jesus due to some cultural issue, whether a Muslim in a predominantly Muslim country, or a JW in a JW community (or take your pick from among all the Christian sects who don't know the Jesus you know).

Hi @LeeWoofenden, I really need to stop doing this!

Good night all. Peace, luck, and blessings to everyone.

@GreatBigBore Yeah, I'm out, too. Honest! :-)

@LeeWoofenden But v22 before that says they were doing good things in his name. And Jesus calls them lawless. So your "doing good" definition still doesn't hold water. (Evildoers implies they were doing evil when the phrase is more like "those who practice lawlessness") Clearly they thought they were doing good things, even according to their conscience, but something else was missing.

@GreatBigBore That sounds to me like a slightly different problem. I believe Jesus knows and will save those who are his. I believe in free will but also in predestination and God's sovereignty. I know that may seem like contradictory, but I can't explain all that now. Point is, don't let worrying about if God is doing His job right or not stop you from believing.

@Joshua What Jesus does not say anywhere in the passage is, "Depart from me, you who don't have faith alone." He first speaks about "doing the will of my Father," then that "evildoers" must "depart from me." Clearly these people are not doing the good that the Father wants them to do. So the message is not, "Only those who have faith in me will be saved." It is, "Those who make a show of doing signs and wonders in my name, but in fact live evil, lawless lives, will not be saved.

This passage simply cannot be properly interpreted to support justification by faith alone, or salvation by faith in general. It clearly teaches that those who do not do the will of the Father, but instead live evil, lawless lives, will be damned no matter how much of a show of "doing powerful works in God's name" they put on.

This is supported and led into by the previous passage, Matthew 7:15-19, in which Jesus warns us to beware of false prophets, "who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves," and says that we will know them by their fruits. Jesus is talking about people who try to appear to be preaching God's message and doing God's will, but in fact are living evil lives.

The most likely target, then, is religious leaders of various sorts who put on a public show of being a powerfully religious person and preacher of God's word, but in fact are personally evil, lawless people. Any number of televangelists who have been caught with their pants down, or living in luxury while their people struggle financially, come to mind.

The fact that those who do what Jesus commands are saved, while those who do not are damned, is underlined in the passage that immediately follows:

> Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.

> And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall! (Matthew 7:24-27)

There is no possible way that Jesus is saying that those who have faith are saved, while those who do not are damned, unless by "faith" you understand "faithfulness," which means not only believing, but acting upon one's belief. And the simple fact of the matter is that the words "faith" and "belief" do not appear anywhere in Matthew 7. It is all about doing vs. not doing good, or doing good vs. doing evil.

@LeeWoofenden Well as usual you aren't using a correct definition of faith alone and you are mixing causalities. But the faith we speak of is faithful, yes. If you go further back in Matthew he speaks of fruit. It would be an oversimplification to call the fruit our deed, because it encompasses both actions and results over a larger sample (fruit takes a season to grow). However, Jesus is not condemning the fruit, he is condemning the fruit from which it grows.

So, yes, Jesus does essentially say in Matthew 7 that it is not about doing good or doing evil, but by the health of the tree or vine. That is the "root" issue. (hehe) The fruit help us to discern the tree and shows the truth of its condition, but the fruit did not retroactively decide the condition of the tree.

Matt 7:16-18 "You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit"

@Joshua Yes, fruit comes from the tree or vine on which it grows. I.e., the outward act comes from the inner state of the person. And in the opening sequence of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:1-12, Jesus lists many of the inner qualities from which the outer actions come.

Among those qualities are poverty of spirit, mourning, meekness, hunger and thirst for righteousness, mercifulness, purity of heart, and so on. He doesn't list "faith" there. In fact, in the entire Sermon on the Mount of Matthew 5-7, the word "faith" is used only once: "you of little faith" in Matthew 6:30.

Meanwhile the whole sermon is filled with teachings about good, evil, righteousness, action, lack of action, love, mercy, and so on.

If you are going to try to make the Sermon on the Mount all about faith, you are going to demonstrate my observation that Protestants simply can't read the Bible with any understanding because their minds have been so inundated and ingrained with faith, faith, faith, faith, faith that they can't see anything else in the Bible, even where everything written there is about love, mercy, righteousness, kindness, and good works.

@LeeWoofenden ok so we agree that doing good things doesn't make you good? Keeping in mind our past discussion about actions and intentions.

@Joshua Speaking in an exact way, doing good things doesn't make you good. It means that God is good in you. But the Bible does speak in a looser sense about "righteous people" and "good people," so in that loose sense, yes, doing good makes you a good person. You just have to keep in mind that it's not really you who is good, but God is good in you.

And yes, yes, this assumes that you are doing genuine good from a good heart, not doing hypocritical good from an evil heart.