Chapter 13, Salvation

 

Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

A small crack can let a flood in so a sin can have endless consequences and result in Hell which is everlasting punishment

 

Reason Says

There is so comparison between the two situations.  One is physical but we are talking about deserving – which is abstract and intangible.  Are the Christians saying that we are entitled to punish somebody forever just because we see a sin as a small crack that permits us to do whatever we like to the sinner?  Or do they think only God should be allowed to treat the sinner as he pleases even if it means torturing the sinner forever.

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Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

Sincerity is necessary for salvation but it is not sufficient and nobody advocates that sincerity is enough except in religious matters and that is not on. What you need to save you is a saviour not sincerity. 

 

Reason Says:

Sincerity is more important than any saviour.  What use is a saviour you cannot be sincere about?  Sincerely believing a fire won’t burn you will not stop it burning you but that does not mean your sincerity is a bad thing or shouldn’t be rewarded.  You can do good and it can all go wrong and you deserve a reward for it for you intended to be good.

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Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

Scripture seems to indicate that the following seven things are needed for salvation,

1.      Sincerity

2.     Total commitment to the truth whatever it may be

3.     Choosing good not evil

4.     Love goodness as a power of the divine

5.     Repentance for sin

6.     Faith in God as revealed by nature and in the conscience

7.     Response to your perception of divine grace even if it is very unclear

 

Reason Says: 

When Jesus was asked to show the way to salvation, he replied that he was the way and the truth and the life and nobody comes to the Father or God without him.  He said this to a holy Jew who did the seven things and it still wasn’t enough. Explicit knowledge of Jesus Christ is needed for salvation.   He told the holy Jew Nicodemus that he needed to be saved.  Jesus claimed to be the good shepherd and that his own sheep knew him and he knew his own sheep and there was only one fold.  He said he had other sheep who were not of this fold.  The listeners would have taken Jesus to have meant that the fold was the Jews who followed him and the other sheep where the non-Jews.  He clearly stated in this that there was no salvation without explicit knowledge of him.

 

The first Christian apostle who wrote was Paul who said that the gospel was simply the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  If people can be saved without at least becoming aware that somebody died for their sins and rose again then the gospel is not the death and resurrection but, as long as you are sincere and do good you will be saved.

 

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Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

Explicit knowledge of Jesus is not necessary for salvation.  Abraham and Moses and Elijah were saved without explicit knowledge

 

Reason says:

But the Bible never says that these figures had no such knowledge.  Elijah was taken up to Heaven so he might have known.

 

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Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

We don’t do missionary work because we think that all unbelievers will go to Hell but in case they would go to Hell if we didn’t convert them.

 

 

Reason says: 

So missionaries are expected to go into the most dangerous part of the world (where people are most in danger of dying and going to Hell) in preference to the safer areas to bring the gospel that saves to them. 

 

Is it not wiser to hold that people should not risk their lives over religion? 

 

To give your life to suffer to bring the gospel to others shows you don’t believe that most of the unbelievers will be saved. 

 

To do so shows how horrific you consider a person being damned is.  In that case, you are inviting a person who has dead loved one who may have went to Hell to suffer terribly over this possibility.  A faith that does this to the bereaved is pure evil despite the “comfort” it presents. 

 

Christianity has a more complicated morality than most of the pagans so evidently a pagan is better off being left alone for then their conscience is easier to satisfy and they have a better chance of heaven than a Christian.

 

Unless all unbelievers will go to Hell Christians have no grounds for holding that they need to do missionary work. 

 

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Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

When Jesus said only a few will be saved he didn’t mean it was a few in the mathematical sense but only in the sense that even if all are saved barring a handful there is still too few saved.  He didn’t reply when asked if a few would be saved but just said to try and enter the narrow gate in other words mind your own business. 

 

Reason says:

If somebody says few they mean few unless the context demands otherwise. This interpretation is just an attempt to twist the facts.  And when Jesus said enter the narrow gate he was answering the question.  He was saying it is very difficult.  We are all attached to something ungodly and the rich are more attached to such than us and Jesus said it is easier for a camel to enter the eye of a needle than for a rich man to be saved.  So it must not be very easy for anybody. 

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Handbook of Christian Apologetics Says

To say that Jesus alone saves is not judgmental for Jesus said it, and Jesus judges sin but forgives the doer of the sin, and a non-judgmental God has no morals and is not the kind of God anybody would want.

 

Reason Says:

It is judgmental.  If I accept a belief in a saviour who judges it is me who is judging because I create my belief.  It is judging in the sense that sincerity is insulted as not being enough.

 

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