Journal: Journal for Baptist Theology & Ministry
Volume: JBTM 21:2 (Fall 2024)
Article: What’s In A Name? Justin Martyr, The "Logos Spermatikos", And Contemporary Inclusivism
Author: Thomas G. Doughty, Jr.

What’s In A Name? Justin Martyr, The Logos Spermatikos, And Contemporary Inclusivism

Thomas G. Doughty Jr.

Tommy Doughty serves as assistant professor of theology and worldview; associate dean of Leavell College; director of the Baptist Center for Theology and Ministry; and editor of the Journal for Baptist Theology and Ministry at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.

Both the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum and Bob Stewart had an immense impact on my academic journey in the 2010s. I am so grateful for NOBTS’s commitment to conversations and the pursuit of truth, and the spirit of Greer-Heard for many years set the standard for charity. Likewise, Bob has served as a conversation partner throughout my PhD studies and as a colleague in the academy and ministry. It is my joy to contribute in his honor a simple yet surprising thesis on an early Christian’s view of salvation (or lack thereof) outside the Christian church. Several Greer-Heard Forums centered on the topic of religions, and although this article centers on a seemingly settled question intramural to evangelicals, I hope it prizes the careful consideration exhibited in the Greer-Heard Forums by evangelical, mainline, and skeptical scholars (and Bob!) alike.

Introduction

In the late twentieth century, Protestant calls for Christian inclusivism heightened with the works of Clark H. Pinnock and John Sanders. Both Pinnock and Sanders advocated for a “wider hope” which affirmed God’s universal salvific will and universally accessible salvation. Both also cited a common source in support of their views: second-century apologist Justin Martyr. According to Pinnock and Sanders, Justin was a prototype of general revelation inclusivism, a position which turns on Pinnock’s “faith principle:” “Since God has not left anyone without witness, people are judged on the basis of the light they have received and how they

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have responded to that light.”1 Even Christian exclusivists such as Harold Netland conceded Justin as an “outstanding exception” to the trend of early Christian exclusivism, such that Pinnock’s and Sander’s appeal has been accepted as plausible historical evidence.2

Pinnock and Sanders cited two key ideas from Justin’s Apologies in support of general revelation inclusivism. First, in 1 Apology, Justin called Greek philosophers and other figures before Christ by the name “Christian:’”

Those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham...