Before Christ: There were ~50 billion people who were born and died before Christ. And of the roughly 200 million people alive at the time of Christ, half lived in either East Asia (Han China) or the Indian subcontinent, and another 20 M in Africa, having no exposure to Jesus. Then we have those children who die before reaching an age that allows them to commit to our Lord (~35 billion according to a calculation from ChatGPT). Then we have the uncontacted tribes of approximately 200,000 (Amazon, for example), and isolated communities in deep forests, high mountains or islands, totaling about 2.5 million. So by most measures, there are, or have been, ~90 billion people who could not have committed to Christ.
My Question: What do various faiths tell us about how to think about those people being candidates for Godâs salvation?
Various faiths have various ways to answer this question. They range from everyone goes to heaven to only members of my church go to heaven and everything inbetween. You donât answer the question by calculating how many people were alive at various times.
Well, Jesus is quite clear about this: âI am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.â -John 14:6
This doesnât mean that everyone who lived before Jesus was lost, nor does it mean that everyone who doesnât outwardly recognize Jesus today is lost (unless they are personally culpable for that rejection, and only God knows when that is the case). But it certainly does mean that no one is saved except through Him.
How this happens is ultimately a mystery. I am fairly sure that many non-Christians may still be saved, and I personally believe that before the end of their lives (even if only in their very last moments) every person is given a real opportunity either to accept or to reject the Truth. By this I mean a moment of genuine clarity, purified from all the errors that may have impaired their judgment. After all, itâs easy to see why someone raised as a Muslim or a Hindu would find conversion difficult, since those teachings may have become deeply entrenched in their mind and conscience (which is why, although many of them convert, others donât). I am speaking of something that takes place before actual death. For God, this is certainly not impossible.
Something that highlights even more the centrality of Jesus is what happened during the three days between His death and Resurrection, as the Church teaches that the ancient patriarchs and, more broadly, the righteous who died before Christ were not in the hell of the damned, but in the realm of the dead, deprived of the vision of God while awaiting the Redeemer. They were in a state of peace, unlike the damned, but they were not yet in Heaven, because Jesus had not yet died for our sins. After His death, Christ truly descended there, not to free the damned, but to free the just who had gone before Him. In this way, He opened Heaven to the righteous of the Old Covenant, including those whom tradition associates with âAbrahamâs bosom.â
Even the Fathers of the Church speak of Christâs descent to the lower realms and its purpose.
Just a couple of examples, though many more could be given:
Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 4.11https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310104.htm âHe was truly laid as Man in a tomb of rock; but rocks were rent asunder by terror because of Him. He went down into the regions beneath the earth, that thence also He might redeem the righteous. For, tell me, could thou wish the living only to enjoy His grace, and that, though most of them are unholy; and not wish those who from Adam had for a long while been imprisoned to have now gained their liberty?â
Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV.27.2CHURCH FATHERS: Against Heresies, IV.27 (St. Irenaeus) : âIt was for this reason, too, that the Lord descended into the regions beneath the earth, preaching His advent there also, and [declaring] the remission of sins received by those who believe in Him. 1 Peter 3:19-20. Now all those believed in Him who had hope towards Him, that is, those who proclaimed His advent, and submitted to His dispensations, the righteous men, the prophets, and the patriarchs, to whom He remitted sins in the same way as He did to us, which sins we should not lay to their charge, if we would not despise the grace of God. â
So, to answer your question: nobody was, is, or will be saved apart from Christ.
âŚbecause it gives un the feeling of a better understanding. But there are certainly many other ways for any of us to come to grips with our belief that a kind, just and gracious God would not leave anyone behind just because of the timing or geography of their birth.
Another way was alluded to by your reference to Christ descending into the ârealm of the deadâ to âsaveâ those who had already died without salvation. That is indeed another possibility.
Yet another would be the concept of âInclusivismâ wherein a person who is good, and seeks the truth may be saved through Christ even if they never heard His name. 1Timothy 2:4 says âGod desires all people to be savedâ.
Yet another might be âuniversal reconciliationâ where all people may be reconciled to God, but it troubles many of us who feel the necessity for a judgement of us.
At the end of the day, it âfeels betterâ to many of us (me e.g.) to think that God and Christ may be the only bridge, but His power and grace are not limited by human geography, history or awareness. So rather than call it âpicking and choosing our factsâ, we simply are reconciling tensions even as we cannot eliminate them, and we are prioritizing our quotes from the Bible. C.S. Lewis told us that no one reads the Bible neutrally. We read it through a lens which builds a hierarchy of truths. We need and thus search for a way to cohere around a central message, and reconcile competing narratives to a central theme and structure for our beliefs. Sometimes in demands that we place emphasis on different parts and even reinterpret others.
So I was not looking for someone, or rather anyone, to tell me the answer to the question I asked (What do various faiths believe) so much as I was trying to find different ways of thinking about and prioritizing what I see as commonly held certainties, in the face of conflicting elements of faith.
In many matters of faith, we have limited guidelines and the rest is up to God to decide.
If someone wants to find peace with God, I can tell confidently that the peace and forgiveness can be found through faith in Jesus, who is the way, the truth and the life. That is the âlimitedâ guideline for eternal life.
What happens to the others is ânot my businessâ, except in that we followers of Jesus were given the task to tell the good news about Jesus and the Kingdom of God, and to disciple followers of Jesus.
If I would start to judge people, I would take the role of God. That would not be good. Better to learn and accept that we do not have and do not even need all knowledge.
Of course it is not. But if that was determinant in addressing our curiosity and drive to a better understanding, we would be rather intellectually incurious. That strikes me as far too close-minded for those of us who strive to find âtruthsâ.
I have been a curious person who strives to know more. I have also been thinking about this question for decades. I came to the conclusion that we do not really know and I assume that we do not even need to know.
Spreading the good news to all the nations and tribes, praying for these people and reflecting the love of God is our task. The eternal fate of these people is between them and God. I assume that too much knowledge about their fate might be a mentally heavy burden - joy in some cases but possibly sorrow in many more cases. That burden might be too much for those who really care.
In my opinion, everyone, including those who never knew Christ in this life, are candidates for Godâs salvation. After death, each person encounters the truth of their life and its consequences in light of Christâs life, death, resurrection, and ascension. The decisive criterion is whether one is reconciled to Godâs will as revealed in Christ.
Those reconciled enter heaven. Those needing reconciliation undergo purgation, which involves recognition of the consequences of their decisions and deeds, repentance, and âmaking amendsââwhich assumes the presence of those harmed and the opportunity for forgiveness. Those who ultimately refuse reconciliation are annihilated.
Salvation is therefore universally offered but may not be universally accepted.
Sure but I think that what I said helps explaining how people who never outwardly accepted Christ during this life can be saved. I think itâs as inclusive as it gets and while at the same time doesnât do away with the centrality of Christ.
This is certainly true, which is why I do not rely on personal interpretations of the Bibleânot even my ownâwhenever they conflict with the perennial teaching of the Church. The Magisterium and the Fathers of the Church are, so to speak, my litmus test.
And the interpretation that no one is saved except through Christ is the one that has been taught from the very beginning. This does not mean that one must either explicitly convert to Christianity or be damned, because there are several reasons why some people, through no fault of their own, may fail to recognize the truth of Christ. I believe that all people of good will will be given, at the end of their earthly lives, the opportunity to accept Christ and, if necessary, to undergo a process of purification if they remain attached to certain sins. When I speak of the opportunity to accept Christ, however, I am not referring to something that happens after death * in the full sense, as though one could convert afterwards.
I donât think I am being any less inclusive than you are. Even the Church has never declared the damnation of a single person, though I do believe that some people are in Hell. Under my interpretation (which is also Fr. Mostâs**) only those sinners who are both culpable and stubbornly unrepentant would be damned, and this view has the added advantage of preserving a definitive teaching that has been held from the very beginning
*Citation from here She writes in Diary entry 1507: âAll grace flows from mercy, and the last hour abounds with mercy for us. Let no one doubt concerning the goodness of God; even if a personâs sins were as dark as night, Godâs mercy is stronger than our misery. One thing alone is necessary: that the sinner set ajar the door of his heart, be it ever so little, to let in a ray of Godâs merciful grace, and then God will do the rest. But poor is the soul who has shut the door on Godâs mercy, even at the last hour. It was just such souls who plunged Jesus into deadly sorrow in the Garden of Olives; indeed, it was from His Most Merciful Heart that divine mercy flowed out.â
âSo, the Good Shepherd keeps seeking out His lost sheep, right until they draw their very last breath. Even if they are unconscious at the end, then in the very depths of their souls He searches them out. That is why we can never be sure if some soul was truly lost or not, even if they never showed any outward sign of repentance and faith at all; the Lord searches them out in the depths of their hearts in ways we cannot see. Their âone last chanceâ is at the moment of death. All we can do is pray for them and entrust them to Godâs mercy and know He will do everything He can for them - other than compelling them to repent and believe, which He would never do, for He gives to all the dignity to freely choose their own destiny.â
âFather William G. Most gives us an example of intellectual fortitude as he reconsiders, after the attempts of so many great names of the past, the mystery of predestination.
He sees it contained in Scripture that there is a predestination to heaven, or to membership in the Church.
He reaches a beautiful understanding of this revealed truth by linking predestination with the analogy, also revealed, presenting God as Father. As in a human family, the father wants the good of all his children, and loves them, not on account of their merits, but because he is good, and does not disinherit any of them except for grave and persistent offenses, so the heavenly Father does not deprive any of his adopted children of his inheritance except in the case of a persevering rejection of his offer of salvation. He predestines gratuitously, and even, through extraordinary means, saves some of those who initially and during a long time resisted his graces. He predestines before any prevision of merits, but after the foresight of the lack of any ultimate resistance.â
I believe that both the teaching of Saint Faustina and that of Fr. Most are fully compatible with what the Church has always taught. They also reconcile Godâs mercy and justice.
That is very different from denying teachings that have always been held and are definitive (which is the case of many ânovelâ teachings that happen to deny 2000 years of Christian teachings). That is why I said that the Magisterium and the Fathers of the Church are my litmus test: if something neither conflicts with nor negates a definitive teaching, then it can certainly be believed without falling into error.
Really? This is your understanding of the God about whom Jesus taught? Not a God of forgiveness (an infinite gift that is difficult for our logical, vengeful, punitive human minds to comprehend) but a God of annihilation? Really?
Forgiveness must be accepted; it cannot be imposed on someone who does not wish to receive it. Which is why there are probably people who have been lost forever. But I donât accept annihilationism, since it has been condemned multiple times, just as Origenâs apocatastasis was. They both fail the âlitmus testâ I mentioned.
Youâre breaking my heart! Do you really think a God of mercy would condemn someone to an eternal state in which they continue refusing reconciliation with God or with those they have harmed? That, bluntly, is silly.
I take as my initial inspiration, Jesus who is said to have said on the cross "Forgive them for they know not what they do. Also, from C.S. Lewisâ Tales of Narnia, specifically, in The Last Battle,
The Dwarfs Who Wouldnât Be Taken In
Near the end of the book, a group of dwarfs are brought into what is, in reality, Aslanâs countryâa place of beauty, abundance, and openness. But they cannot perceive it. Instead, they insist they are still trapped in a dark, filthy stable.
They sit in a tight circle, suspicious and defensive, refusing help. When others try to give them food and wine, they believe they are being fed hay and dirty water. When Lucy tries to show them what is really there, they reject it outright.
Lewis summarizes their condition in a famous line:
âThe Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.â
And Aslan explains why they cannot be helped:
They are so afraid of being taken in that they cannot be taken out.
This scene is not about ignorance in the simple senseâitâs about willful interpretive closure:
They interpret everything through suspicion
They refuse trust, even when confronted with reality
Their condition is self-imposed blindness
So even though:
they are objectively in heaven-like reality
truth is fully present around them
they remain locked in what is effectively a self-created hell of perception.
These are your words. If you donât believe God annihilates the unrepentant, I hope youâll please clarify your words to reduce the potential for misinterpretation. Thank you.
This is very close to the Orthodox Churchâs idea of God being heaven for the saved and hell for the damned.
However Terry, we shouldnât forget that the Gospels itself talk about the resurrection of the wicked
John 5:28-29: âDo not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come outâthose who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.â
Even discounting the teachings of the Church for the sake of the argument, that passage alone is borderline impossible to square with either annihilationism or apocatastasis.
Let me know what you think because these words from the Gospel of John are quite clear on the subject.
What I mean is not that God arbitrarily annihilates people as an act of punishment. Rather, if someone ultimately refuses reconciliation with Godâwho is the source of lifeâthen there is no life left for them to participate in. In that sense, annihilation is the consequence of a final refusal of reconciliation, not a denial of Godâs mercy. God offers reconciliation; it may still be refused.
May I ask why you assume that this narrative about people who have died is an accurate narrative? Do you know for certain that when human beings die they take with them this kind of self-imposed blindness? Are you absolutely sure that God has created souls in such a way that there are no layers of beauty and love and forgiveness beneath the surface levels of the human brain (that is, soul layers that are much more extraordinary than many humans realize)? Are you convinced that the WYSIWYG brain of a human being is an accurate reflection of the soul? Or are you just assuming this makes so much sense that of course it must be true that souls are refusing Godâs love when they die?
I trust in a loving and forgiving God who is much smarter than this.
Again â this is such a sad picture of who God really is.
Forgiveness isnât about the person who receives it. Itâs about the person who gives it.
Forgiveness isnât like a sheet of Velcro, with hooks on one side that are useless unless theyâre fully caught by the hooks on the other side. Forgiveness is a free will choice that is voluntarily given by one who has been injured or harmed by the actions of another. Forgiveness is a choice to set aside any desire for revenge or cause-and-effect punishment, a choice to wrap the harm in a layer of love that will dissolve into healing when the time is right. Forgiveness is a choice to break cycles of tit-for-tat harm, a choice to hold harms in a safe place till redemption can be fulfilled, a choice to let the Heartâs strength prevail in ways the Mind is incapable of understanding.
Forgiveness operates, in effect, in ways that are the complete opposite of the doctrinal laws of karma (believed by many to explain why people are born into lives of suffering). Forgiveness is also not constrained in any way by the perceived covenant laws of Judaism or Christianity. Forgiveness isnât about law, rules, cause-and-effect justice, or payments. Itâs about Love and Healing and protection of the Divine Heart. Itâs what Jesus taught, and itâs still the hardest spiritual blessing for human beings to understand.
We can accept Godâs forgiveness while weâre here on Earth as human beings, or we can accept it when we die and return Home. Itâs always there for us, though, because God never abandons Godâs own children.
Iâm not assuming it is a literal or complete description of the afterlifeâonly using it as an illustration of a real possibility about human response to truth.
No, I donât claim certainty. Iâm pointing to a possibility, not asserting a universal or final condition.
Not at all. In fact, Iâm open to the idea that there are deeper capacities for reconciliation than we can see in this life.
No. I would distinguish between what we observe in this life and what a person may yet become in relation to God.
NoâIâm not assuming that outcome. Iâm saying that refusal is a meaningful possibility, not a foregone conclusion.
And itâs precisely my trust in a loving and forgiving God, as reflected in the life, crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, that leads me to think reconciliation may go deeperâand perhaps furtherâthan we can presently see.
So to clarify my position: Iâm not claiming that anyone is finally irreconcilable. If, in fact, no one ultimately refuses reconciliation with God or with others, then annihilation would not occur, and purgation would be sufficient. My point is simply that reconciliation is real and meaningfulânot automaticâbut I remain open to the possibility that Godâs mercy brings all to it.
Forgiveness can be freely given by the one who has been harmed. In that sense, it doesnât depend on the other person. But I think you and I may be distinguishing between two different things: forgiveness and reconciliation.
Forgiveness can be unilateralâI can forgive someone whether or not they receive it or accept it. But reconciliation is relational. It requires some form of response from the other person.
I say that not just theoretically, but from experience. I have forgiven people who have not forgiven me, and in those cases, there is no restored relationship.
So while I agree that forgiveness originates in love and is freely given, I donât think that by itself guarantees reconciliation. That seems to require something more than one-sided actionâeven if that âsomething moreâ is ultimately enabled by God.
I personally feel that reconciliation is not automatic, but is, in fact, such a powerful emotional experience when we die that we are forever changed as souls by the immensity of the gift of Godâs forgiveness and reconciliation. In the face of that much strong-but-tough-but-fleeting-but-eternal Love â Love that is soft as lambâs eyelashes and strong as diamond bits â weâre humbled and grateful in ways that human words canât express.