Death Before Conversion

KEVIN HARRIS: We got a note from our genius video producer, Jim Zangmeister, about a question from a student going through Reasonable Faith’s Equip course. Let's take a look at the question, but first let's talk a little bit about the latest series of Zangmeister videos on the attributes of God.

DR. CRAIG: The most recent series of videos that the Zangmeister is doing are on God's various attributes. He has an opening video called “What is God Like?” to introduce the subject, and then a video on “God is Spirit” dealing with God's incorporeality or immateriality, and then one on God's self-existence and necessity, and then a video on God's eternality. He's finally just completing one on God's being all-knowing or omniscient. These are very substantive videos. They are a step up from the animated videos that he produced on arguments for God's existence. These are philosophically substantive, but at the same time they're short, they're to the point, and they're very entertaining.

KEVIN HARRIS: I'd also like to mention the free Equip course available from Reasonable Faith that he mentioned. I encourage our listeners and viewers who have not gone through it to do so. Have you gotten good feedback on the course, Bill? Talk to us about why our listeners should go through the course.

DR. CRAIG: The feedback that we're getting from people who have been through it is that they love it, especially teens. They find that this really does equip them to articulate and defend their faith. The reason, I think, our listeners should go through it themselves is that it is a self-monitored education in basic Christian apologetics. It's very entertaining. It's multimedia. You take quizzes along the way to make sure that you're understanding the material before you advance to the next subject. The response to this has been really, really enthusiastic, and I hope that many of the folks listening to us today will avail themselves of it.

KEVIN HARRIS: Here's the note that we got from Jim.

A friend of mine uses Reasonable Faith's Equip to teach apologetics. One of his students sent him this fascinating text.

Imagine an atheist who was about to have a conversion in two hours and become a Christian with faith in God. But right before then someone murders him. Because of the fact that he wasn't saved at the moment he was killed means he goes to hell. This means that someone else's sinful decision sends this man to hell, not himself or God.

This is the first time I've heard this argument, so I'm not sure how common it is. But what do you think would be a good stance against this idea?

I don't want to jump ahead here, Bill, or put words in your mouth, but most people who follow your work know that Molinism is going to come into this scenario at least somewhat.

DR. CRAIG: Yes. That's quite right. But let me say first that I think the student's inference, and I'm quoting here, “someone else's sinful decision sends this man to hell, not himself.” That's quite incorrect. If that man does go to hell it will be because of his own sinfulness and refusal to repent and believe the Gospel that he has heard, and God will judge him on the basis of his own decisions and resistance to the Holy Spirit. He cannot shift the blame and say that it's due to someone else's sinful decision. A Molinist’s perspective on this subject might answer the question in this way. God is so good that he would not allow someone to die prematurely if he knew that by letting him live he would freely give his life to Christ and be saved. So in the case of anyone who does die, it would be true that had he lived longer he still would not have given his life to Christ and therefore God does him no injustice whatsoever. He is judged on the basis of his response to Christ during his lifetime, and he cannot complain, “God, if only I'd lived a little longer then I would have believed.” God can say, "No, I knew that prolonging your life would not make any difference."

KEVIN HARRIS: There are some variations on this question. One that bothered me when I was growing up was my worry that I would send someone to hell because I failed to tell him the Gospel. Evangelists who came to my church would often put us on this guilt trip. If I didn't share the Gospel with that stranger next to me on a flight or on a bus, I might be the only one who could reach him, and I missed the divine appointment. One either gets busy and starts preaching at everyone of the grocery store checkout line or one gives it up because they can't seem to bring anyone to Christ. This is probably pastoral, but can you help with anybody who might be going through a guilt dilemma like that?

DR. CRAIG: I think actually this is a deeply philosophical question. On the website, ReasonableFaith.org, you will find several articles that I have written on what's called Christian particularism (or Christian exclusivism) that deal with this question. My answer to this would be very similar to the answer to the previous question. Nobody is going to go to hell because you refuse to share the Gospel with him, whether that was sinful on your part or not doesn't matter. God knows how that person would have responded if you had shared the Gospel with him. And if you won't share the Gospel with him then God can place that person in other circumstances where he would hear the Gospel from somebody else, or he might not choose to create him at all but create someone instead who wouldn't have freely responded to the Gospel had you shared with him. So given God's middle knowledge of how people would respond freely under whatever circumstances God creates them in, this can remove this guilt-ridden motivation for evangelism and missions. Instead, I think it puts a very positive spin on missions and evangelism. We go out sharing the Gospel with people trusting that God has providentially placed in our path people who he knew would respond to the Gospel if we were to share it with them. So we have the tremendous privilege of being God's messengers in bringing people to Christ as his ambassadors. But it doesn't follow that if we had failed to share the Gospel with someone that therefore that person would have gone to hell instead.

KEVIN HARRIS: Maybe you can elaborate on this a little bit about accountability in this area. One may not witness to or evangelize everybody in the grocery store but what about one's own children or family members? Don't we have the responsibility to lead them to Christ?

DR. CRAIG: Certainly we do, and you noticed in my answer to the previous question I said whether you're not sharing the Gospel with another person was sinful or not. Certainly we can be disobedient in sharing the Gospel with others, but then other times there just isn't the right opportunity. It's not a good time, and we trust God to guide us as he puts us into various situations. But in the case of one's own children or family, we are instructed (especially as fathers) to bring up our children in the nurture and instruction of the Lord. Definitely there is an accountability for sharing the Gospel, but we should not think that the reason we share the Gospel is because if we don't somebody's going to go to hell who would have been saved had we shared the Gospel with them.

KEVIN HARRIS: I'm curious how an open theist would deal with the question that Jim sent in. Does this present a problem for them? I'm thinking that, if on that view, God's knowledge of the future is limited then it may catch him by surprise that the guy died just before conversion. Am I oversimplifying open theism here?

DR. CRAIG: Open theism holds that God does not have exhaustive knowledge of the future but can only anticipate events in the very near future based upon what he sees happening in the present. So it may well be the case that someone dies suddenly in a car accident that wasn't foreseen who, had he lived longer, might have placed his faith in Christ. For the open theist, since God lacks middle knowledge or foreknowledge of the future, he doesn't have providential control over those things and so those things ultimately are finally happenstance.

KEVIN HARRIS: We could chase this a little further. I've got all these stories. A friend of mine was once a member of the Church of Christ denomination, and he had a knockdown dragout with his pastor over this question. The preacher said that baptism was not only necessary for salvation but that you had to come up out of the water before you're saved. If a man was being baptized and he had a heart attack and died while still under the water then, too bad, so sad. He wouldn't go to heaven. I'm not trying to paint that denomination with a broad brush; not at all. But let me ask you what theological views would have the biggest problems in dealing with the scenario that we're discussing.

DR. CRAIG: Let me say that regardless of the question of baptismal regeneration (whatever you believe about that), a Molinist perspective, I think, solves this question just as it has solved the others. God in his providence would not allow someone to have a heart attack under the baptismal waters if he knew that that man would believe in Christ and be regenerated when coming up through the surface. So if somebody did die in the baptismal waters and go to hell, he couldn't complain, “Well, if only I had surfaced I would have been saved!” God could say, “No, no. I knew that had you not died, you still wouldn't have placed your faith in Christ and been saved.” So I think that, again, it's going to be the open theist who has the real problems here, but not the Molinist.

KEVIN HARRIS: As we conclude, reviewing the original question that Jim Zangmeister passed along, the thought experiment involves someone's being murdered two hours before they would have been saved. That brings up how Christians often feel about not sharing the Gospel; that they could be the cause of someone's being eternally separated from God even if it's not murder. I'd like to offer that as I've matured my motivation for sharing my faith – and you certainly already addressed this through Molinism which I thank God for – but as I've matured my motivation for sharing my faith grows as I learn and realize who Jesus is, studying apologetics, has made me enthusiastically look for opportunities to point people to him and represent him well. As we wrap up today, isn't that the main motivation for sharing our faith?

DR. CRAIG: Yes. The main motivation for sharing our faith is not a guilty conscience – that if we don't share our faith then someone will go to hell who would otherwise have gone to heaven. Rather, the motivation for sharing our faith is the positive, joyous realization that we can be God's ambassadors – God's spokesman – and that through us God will bring people into the Kingdom who he knew would respond to the Gospel were we to share it with them. So there are literally divine appointments out there waiting for us. People whom God has put in our paths who will come to faith because God knew that we would share the Gospel with them. What a wonderful, positive motivation for missions and evangelism that is!^[1]