An Apologetic Problem: No Hope Where The Gospel Has Not Been Heard? -- By: Nelson B. Baker

Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 04:3 (Nov 1961)
Article: An Apologetic Problem: No Hope Where The Gospel Has Not Been Heard?
Author: Nelson B. Baker


An Apologetic Problem: No Hope
Where The Gospel Has Not Been Heard?

Nelson B. Baker

In his book of autobiographical reflections, The Summing Up; Somerset Maugham gives a reason for his early alienation from Christianity. He attributed to churchmen he knew the idea that men are condemned to perdition because of the accident of being born out of reach of the true view of the Christian faith. He therefore “ceased to believe in God.”1

Recently I heard a missionary on furlough from his work in Africa address a church group. He declared without qualification that every African who did not hear the gospel would go to hell.

Christian leaders have told me that some of their young people were troubled about the fate of the people who had never had a chance to hear the gospel. Only recently I heard a young peopled group refer to a discussion of this problem in an earlier meeting.

The problem is a live one. Do we really believe the facts are as the missionary boldly stated them? Was Somerset Maugham accurately reproducing the teaching of qualified expositors generally? If this is true we have a fearful problem in theodicy upon our hands.

It is the position of this paper that there is relief for those who are honestly troubled about this, and that there is and always has been opportunity for salvation for those out of range of the preaching of the gospel in the Christian era.

I prefer not to begin the argument with the concept of God’s sovereign electing grace; though God is, of course, the initiator of salvation through the Holy Spirit, and men are saved only as they are drawn by Him (cf. John 6:44).

We may begin rather by affirming as a basic position that the Scriptures unequivocally teach, according to any fair interpretation, that salvation is by faith in God, and that this salvation is mediated through Jesus Christ. “There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Where the message of Christ can be adequately known, there must be explicit faith in Him. He is God incarnate. To believe in Him is to believe in God; to disbelieve in Him is to disbelieve in God. Further, I propose that everywhere and in all ages where men savingly believe in God (and He Himself knows whether a given man does or not), they are implicitly exercising faith in Christ, though they have not heard His name. In the final glory, all present will glorify the Lamb for their redemption. But there must be safeguards against the dangers of unwarranted inferences from this.

At once two primary questions may arise as...

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