re: #696 Gus 802

What happens if you keep your nose clean. Generally decent person and never really violated a “10 Commandments” per se. But your an atheist. Maybe die owing about 30,000 dollars.

Heaven or hell?

I certainly don’t know. Charles’s quote from Romans above is not the entire picture. (No single Bible quote is the entire picture.)

The best explanation of this question I ever heard was from an Eastern Orthodox friend, who said “We know who is in the Church, but not who isn’t.” This means two things: First, one can identify professing Christians by their words, but not whether they are in reality what they say they are. Likewise, we cannot know but that someone who appears not to be a believer may in fact be under God’s grace.

Anyone who thinks they’ve got this whole vexed question settled in a black-and-white, x therefore y syllogistic proposition is a bad theologian and needs to do some serious study. Getting away from the literalist reading of the Bible and dipping into the Church Fathers would be a good start.

I highly recommend this to all the self-righteous cranks out there, be they lurkers, trolls or crypto-creationists.