In my past several posts, I've been building a case for why I believe that some sort of theory of Christian inclusivism is necessary if Christians want to believe everything the Bible says about which individuals will be eternally saved.

As a reminder, Christian inclusivism is the idea that although Christianity is the only true religion/faith, people who were not Christians and who never heard the gospel during their earthly lives can still be eternally saved, because God truly wants to save all people.

However, despite this, not everyone will be saved, and so universalism isn't a biblical option. Inclusivism also denies that all religions lead to the same God or the same heaven, and thus, it is not the same as religious pluralism.

I believe that a theologically-sound theory of inclusivism could be an option for Christians who might otherwise be tempted to endorse universalism. It could also resolve the negative consequences for God's character that can be implied by exclusivism.

A good theory of inclusivism could also reduce the anxiety that Christians may feel regarding the eternal destiny of our neighbors, friends, and family members who don't currently believe in Jesus, or who died without accepting Jesus, despite our best efforts to witness to them.

Three Possibilities For Christian Inclusivism

There may be historical precedent for Christian inclusivism, as demonstrated by the behavior of the earliest Christians.

It is suggested that Christians in the early church believed that God was at work in all people, and so these Christians could live with "a subtle combination of relaxation and urgency in relation to non-Christians. On the one hand, they do not seem obsessed about the fate of the majority of pagans among whom they lived, yet on the other hand they still engaged in vigorous mission activity among them."1

So although I'm convinced that some form of Christian inclusivism seems to be biblically necessary, and it might even have historical precedent, the challenge is to explain how it works.

That is, Christian inclusivists need to explain on what basis God will judge people who never heard the gospel (or who died before they had the ability to understand and personally respond to the gospel) that could lead to at least some of those people being eternally saved.

There are several possibilities I have heard Christians propose, including:

1. Each person has an encounter with God/Jesus after death, giving individuals who have not previously had a chance to accept or reject the gospel the opportunity to make their final decision regarding God's offer of salvation then. I explored this option in my post here.
2. God judges people based on what their earthly actions revealed about their hearts being oriented either toward God or away from God. I discussed this option here.
3. God judges people based on how they responded to the truths about God that they did have access to during their lives through nature, or maybe, through otherwise false religions.

A disclaimer: I haven't read every book or article on Christian inclusivism that exists. However, it seems to me that most proposals for Christian inclusivism would fall into one of these categories, or might make use of a combination of these basic but distinct claims.

In the rest of this post, I will examine the third and last option, and explain why I believe it is not as persuasive as the first or second options.

People Can Know Something About God Through Nature

David said that the sky and stars testify about God to all people:

The heavens proclaim the glory of God. The skies display his craftsmanship. Day after day they continue to speak; night after night they make him known. They speak without a sound or word; their voice is never heard. Yet their message has gone throughout the earth, and their words to all the world. (Psalm 19:1-4, NLT)

Psalm 8 likewise praises God's design of the stars, humanity, and all the animals.

In Romans 1:18-23, Paul said that all people should know something about God from what they can see in nature. Two specific divine traits that Paul mentions include God's "eternal power" and "divine nature."

In theology, the idea of knowing something about God from nature is called general revelation, because it is available to all people, at all times. In contrast, special revelation is communication given directly from God, such as was given to the human authors of the books that would become the Old and New Testaments.

In the theology class I was a TA for, it was common for students to endorse the idea of general revelation by pointing to beautiful sunsets, rainbows, forests, mountains, and the stars as being examples of God's glory and goodness.

The 18th century theologian Jonathan Edwards loved walking in nature. One reason for this was because he believed he could see many things in nature that pointed to spiritual truths about God, or to other truths that were found in Scripture. He wrote:

I believe that the whole universe, heaven and earth, air and seas, and the divine constitution and history of the holy Scriptures, be full of images of divine things, as full as a language is of words; and that the multitude of those things that I have mentioned are but a very small part of what is really intended to be signified and typified by these things.2

Edwards filled several notebooks with lists of the theological ideas that he believed could be seen in the sun, moon, stars, snakes and spiders, grass and vegetation, rivers, trees, clouds, and animals, among other things.3 For example, the beauty of nature represented God's goodness, grace, and love, while thunder and lightning represented God's wrath at sin.4

So this is one way that some Christians say they can see God through nature.

Alternatively, Christians who lean more toward science might point out how the physical properties of the universe, our solar system,4a and even the Earth itself appear to be "finely tuned" to support the existence of life.4b This is called the anthropic principle, and it is often referred to as support for the idea that God created the universe.

Similar arguments for God's amazing design of living things could be made from the irreducible complexity of certain aspects of biological organisms.4c In irreducibly complex systems, without every component being exactly the way it is, the entire system loses all functionality. These examples are strong support for the idea that God created life, because these irreducibly-complex biological systems could not have evolved piece-by-piece.

Therefore, it is certainly possible for Christians to argue that nature provides evidence of God's existence, power, and glory.

But Nature Is Not Enough To Lead People To Salvation

However, there is a major difficulty for theories of Christian inclusivism that rely on general revelation.

This difficulty is that Paul also said that because all people can know some basic truths about God by looking at nature, all people are "without excuse" when they suppress this truth and refuse to honor God or thank God (Romans 1:18-23). Then, as a judgment, God allows these people's minds to be darkened so that they fall into idolatry, sexual immorality, and a variety of other sins (Romans 1:24-32).

So in effect, Paul's explanation in Romans 1 is an elaboration of the point he makes later, that,

No one is righteous—not even one. No one is truly wise; no one is seeking God. All have turned away; all have become useless. No one does good, not a single one (Romans 3:10-12 NLT, quoting Psalm 14:2-3)

Other Bible verses make the same point, such as Ecclesiastes 7:20, Isaiah 53:6, and Romans 3:23. All people are sinners due to being descendants of Adam and Eve, who sinned when they doubted God's word in the Garden of Eden and chose to disobey God's instructions (Romans 5:12-14).

Because of Romans 1:18-23, Bible commentators and theologians usually say that general revelation does not provide enough information about God for people to be eternally saved.

For example, John Calvin argued that although some things about God are revealed in nature, the problem is that sinful humans can't properly perceive God by looking at nature without also having been told about God through God's Word. Yet, once someone has faith in God because they have been told about him, then they can see God's glory in creation.5

Jonathan Edwards made the same point when he argued that Christians learn from Scripture how to interpret the spiritual meaning of what they see in nature. We also need the help of the Holy Spirit in order to properly understand spiritual things. Without the Holy Spirit and Scripture as a guide, Edwards thought that people are effectively 'blind' to seeing God's glory in nature.6

This argument can appear to be supported by how the famous skeptic David Hume argued that when we look at nature on its own, without any other sources of information, it is difficult to make any conclusions about what sort of God might have created it.

For example, Hume said that things such as earthquakes, diseases, and other natural disasters might suggest that the designer of the world (if there is one) is incompetent. Or maybe, these things show that the world is the product of both good and bad forces or gods, or even a whole pantheon of gods, each with their own area of expertise.7

Some atheists have made similar objections against a perfectly good and loving God based on the suffering they see in nature.

For example, Charles Darwin famously said, "I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidæ [parasitic wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars."8

Sir David Attenborough also rejected the idea of a good and loving God, citing an instance of a parasitic worm that he found living inside a child's eyeball.9

Christian apologists rightly point out that any such suffering in nature is the result of the first sin of Adam and Eve. Because of the first sin, the natural world became partly corrupted and subject to a curse, until it will be set free at some point in the future when Jesus returns (Romans 8:20-22). Thus, there are ways that Christians can defend God's goodness despite the suffering that we currently see in nature.

Regardless, Paul's statement in Romans 1:18-21 must still be true, because every word of Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Peter 1:21), and the Holy Spirit is God, who never lies (Titus 1:2).

So it seems that what is revealed in nature about God is enough for people to know that God exists, and this makes them accountable to God when they turn away from God. Yet it does not seem that nature on its own provides enough information for people to know that they need to believe in Jesus in order to be eternally saved.

However, because God truly wants all people to be saved, then there must be some way for this to be possible, even for people who lived in times or places when they did not have access to the Bible or to Jewish or Christian missionaries.

So if nature is ruled out as a way for people to know enough about God to be saved, then what other source of information about God might unevangelized people have access to?

Some inclusivists suggest that maybe God is able to make use of whatever genuine truths about him are found in otherwise false religions. If people respond positively to these truths, then God might consider their faith in these truths to be equivalent to having faith in Jesus. In this way, these people might be able to be eternally saved, even without having known specifically about Jesus or the gospel.

C. S. Lewis hints at something like this possibility at the end of his Narnia series.

Does God Accept The Worship and Service of False Deities As Worship and Service Of Himself?

In the The Last Battle, the final novel of C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series, Lewis imagined a character named Emeth. Emeth is a soldier in an enemy army and worships a false god named Tash.

At this point in the book, many of the characters are gathered together outside a horse stable. A conniving monkey says that inside the stable is "Tashlan," which is a mash-up of the names Tash and Aslan. In Narnia, Aslan is equivalent to Jesus Christ. The monkey has claimed that Tash is the same as Aslan, and so the soldier Emeth is eager to go into the stable to meet his god Tash.10

Emeth goes in, but everyone else assumes that he will be killed. During the subsequent battle between the Narnians and the enemy army, the boy Eustace is captured and thrown into the stable by an enemy soldier. Other characters are likewise thrown in, including the human leader of the Narnian army, and Eustace's friend Jill.

Inside the stable, Eustace, Jill, and the Narnian leader find themselves in the presence of various humans who had been on Aslan's side in previous Narnia books. They are all depicted in glorified bodies, wearing fine robes and crowns.11 They are in a sort of heavenly dimension, with fruit trees, green grass, sunshine, and a clear sky, rather than inside a horse stable.

One of the characters, Queen Lucy, describes what has been happening from her perspective inside this heavenly dimension. When Emeth came through the stable door, expecting to see his false god Tash, he actually met these other good characters. But Emeth seemed to be in a daze or trance, and he didn't quite realize where he was, so he wandered off somewhere.12

Aslan then appears and ends the world of Narnia, after performing a final judgment of all creatures. Aslan welcomes the creatures who loved him into the heavenly alternative-dimension. After all of this, the saved characters come across Emeth again, who has also been saved from the destruction of Narnia.

Emeth explains to them that,

For always since I was a boy I have served Tash and my great desire was to know more of him and, if it might be, to look upon his face. But the name of Aslan was hateful to me.13

When Emeth found himself to be in this heavenly alternative-dimension, he wandered around looking for Tash. Instead of Tash, though, he met Aslan. Emeth says,

Then I fell at his feet and thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not him. Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be Tisroc [emperor] of the world and live and not to have seen him. But the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, "Son, thou art welcome." But I said, "Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash." He answered, "Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.... For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore, if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted".14

So it seems that Lewis is proposing a theory of Christian inclusivism where anyone who truly seeks what he or she thinks is God, and also does what is right, is accepted by God. This is similar to when the Apostle Peter said, "Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears [i.e., respects] him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34-35).

Yet this verse (and Lewis' story) must be interpreted in ways that do not teach salvation by works. It is clear from the Bible that no one is saved by the good works that they do during their lives, but only by faith in God/Jesus (e.g., Ephesians 2:8-9).

Lewis is also careful to clarify that the false god Tash is not actually the same as Aslan, in order to avoid the unbiblical idea of religious pluralism, which suggests that all religions worship the same God.

But it could also appear that Lewis is saying that Emeth was saved because he responded to the truth about God that he knew from his false religion. Lewis' depiction of Emeth's entry into heaven might also imply that people from other religions who are eternally saved will initially think that they have entered heaven due to their false gods or their false religion.

However, the Bible says that "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).

So Christians need to be careful about implying that people from other religions will enter directly into heaven without recognizing who Jesus is and what he has done for them.

Because of Philippians 2:10-11, I am quite certain that, unlike Lewis' depiction of Emeth, any Hindus who end up being saved will not be wandering around heaven wondering where all their gods are. Any ancient Greeks who are saved will not be in heaven asking for directions to Mount Olympus, and any saved Muslims will not think they earned their way into heaven through performing the works prescribed by the 'Five Pillars' of Islam.

In fact, it might actually be better to see Lewis' story as primarily promoting a combination of the first two inclusivistic options I listed earlier: a post-mortem encounter with Jesus, along with the idea that God will judge each person's heart as it was revealed by a person's actions.

I just wish that Lewis had depicted this a little more clearly, to avoid mistakenly suggesting that in heaven, some people may not initially realize that the reason they have been eternally saved is because of Jesus's death for their sins.

It would also be important for a theory of Christian inclusivism to avoid implying that God doesn't ultimately care which religion a person follows, as long as the person tries to do what is good. Otherwise, it does not make sense why Jesus instructed Christians to take the gospel to all people (Matthew 28:19-20). Therefore, it does not seem that all religions are equal when it comes to fulfilling God's purposes for people's lives.

However, obviously, Christian evangelists have not been able to reach all people. Might there still be some way that God can reach these people with his truth, even maybe through their otherwise-false religions?

Is There Truth In Other Religions?

C.S. Lewis is not the only Christian who has suggested that people from other religions can still possibly be eternally saved. This is also Clark Pinnock's basic proposal in his book A Wideness in God's Mercy: The Finality of Jesus Christ in a World of Religions (Zondervan, 1992).

Pinnock says that on the basis of Acts 14:16-17,

Since God has not left anyone without witness, people are judged on the basis of the light they have received and how they have responded to that light. Faith in God is what saves, not possessing certain minimum information. Hebrews is clear: "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him" (Hebrews 11:6).15

So far, this is all supportable by Scripture, and I have argued similarly in my blog post here. However, where Pinnock takes it is more questionable. Although it is slightly long, here is Pinnock's summary of how he understands the salvation of people who never knew about Jesus or the gospel:

People cannot respond to light that did not reach them. They can only respond to revelation that did. Scripture and reason both imply that no one can be held responsible for truth of which they were inculpably ignorant; they are judged on the basis of the truth they know. A person is saved by faith, even if the content of belief is deficient (and whose is not?). The Bible does not teach that one must confess the name of Jesus to be saved. Job did not know it. David did not know it. Babies dying in infancy do not know it. It is not so much a question whether the unevangelized know Jesus as whether Jesus knows them (Matthew 7:23). One does not have to be conscious of the work of Christ done on one's behalf in order to benefit from that work. The issue God cares about is the direction of the heart, not the content of theology. Paul says that faith makes the difference. God is the "Savior of all men [potentially], and especially of those who believe [actually]" (1 Timothy 4:10). This is the path I will take to explain how the unevangelized gain access to God and are finally saved.16

The question then for this post is what true 'light' might be found in other religions that unevangelized people could respond to, in order for them to be eternally saved.

Pinnock suggests that,

God calls on all persons to seek him, whether they seek him from within religion or outside it. There is enough truth in most religions for people to take hold of and put their trust in God's mercy.17

For example, Pinnock claims,

Though Christianity and Islam, for instance, are vastly different, they are not without important similarities. Christians and Muslims, together with large numbers of people from other traditions of the world, believe there is one God who created the universe and they admire the work of his hands. Christians do not have a monopoly on belief in one God. Even oriental religious systems with an absence of clear belief in a personal God do not lack for abiding insight into religious and philosophical truth. Even there, the light shines and points to a greater light.18

Yet I am reminded of how James said, "You believe that God is one; you do well. Even the demons believe—and shudder!" (James 2:19). Thus, belief in monotheism alone is not particularly praiseworthy.

Futhermore, historically, monotheism has actually been a key reason that Muslims and Jews have rejected the idea that Jesus is God. Christians have been persecuted by both groups because worshipping Jesus as God while also worshipping God the Father appears to contradict the idea of monotheism.

Thus, starting from the point of there being only one God is not necessarily helpful for inter-religious dialogue, unless these other monotheistic religions are prepared to accept the Christian belief that God is a Triune being of three divine persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit (e.g., Matthew 3:16-17, 28:19).

Additionally, Pinnock seems to be implying that a belief in monotheism alone is enough to save someone.

In contrast, at least C.S. Lewis' version of inclusivism had some provision for considering a person's heart and/or works, and whether these works are in alignment with God's loving character, which would exclude those who commit atrocities in the name of a false god. In Pinnock's version, it seems that if people were convinced that their monotheistic god told them to do something terrible, and they acted on it, then that would be a praiseworthy act of faith!

Even more troubling is how Pinnock claims that Christians have things to learn from other religions:

Other religions have resources for speaking truth and referring to realities that Christians need to learn about. As George Lindbeck says, "Whatever the faults of Hellenization, it must be seen as a process in which Christians learned much of inestimable value from ancient paganisms and from the culture and philosophies that were their offspring".19

This is very questionable, especially since Pinnock does not provide any specific examples of things that were of 'inestimable value' that Christians learned from the pagan Greeks. Pinnock only mentions how Paul claimed that God had not left himself without a witness in any nation (Acts 14:16-17), and how Paul strategically made use of some things that Greek poets had said in some of Paul's initial presentations of the gospel to Greeks (Acts 17:28).20

And actually, rather than being a benefit, there are arguments to be made that ideas which crept into Christianity from other religions have actually harmed Christian theology.

For example, Randy Alcorn has pointed out how the Greek philosophy of Platonism which disdains the physical world has undermined Christians' understanding of bodily resurrection and what we should expect eternal life to be like on the New Earth.21

Thomas F. Torrance has also investigated how the proper biblical understanding of God's grace (i.e., God acting graciously toward people in various ways, most importantly, by sending Jesus to atone for sin) was gradually distorted through the influence of Greek philosophy on various early church leaders, until God's grace came to be thought of as some sort of mystical substance or energy that could be dispensed by the church's sacraments.22

In a later book, Pinnock himself argues that Greek metaphysical assumptions about God may have led to possible misportrayals of God. For example, God came to be seen as ultra-transcendant, timeless, unchangeable, impassible, and thus unresponsive to the world, much like the Greek philosophers believed, unlike the Biblical depiction of God as relational, passionate, and flexible enough to adapt to people's free choices.23

Furthermore, Pinnock admits that there can be some problematic ideas found in other religions that would prevent someone from believing in God as he truly is:

For example, the antimetaphyiscal tendency of Buddhist theology would not help a person trying to conceptualize God as loving and personal. The Muslim emphasis on works righteousness would not propel people to seek the mercy of God. The Hindu notion of illusion would not encourage people to take this life and its tasks seriously.24

Therefore, it seems that Pinnock has not clearly proven that there is enough 'light' in other religions to allow those who follow them to be saved.

And unfortunately, Pinnock's appeals to Old Testament figures such as Job to support his claims is actually a logical fallacy called a red herring, because these people are not relevant to this topic of how God will judge unevangelized people, as I will show in the next section.

Are There 'Pagan' Saints?

One difficulty with Pinnock's theory of inclusivism is how he often labels people like Abel, Abram, Job, Enoch, Melchizedek, Abimelech, and Noah as "pagan saints," simply because they did not know as much about God as Jews or Christians today do.25

About these people, Pinnock says,

These were men who sought God and were rewarded for their faith (Hebrews 11:6). Though the content of their theology might have been pre-Christian and deficient from a later standpoint, they were moving in the direction toward God, no matter whether their religion helped or hindered their approach.26

Throughout his book, Pinnock refers to these individuals as proof of his argument that people from other religions can still be saved if they have faith in God. However, I think this claim is somewhat disingenuous.

Most Christians would argue that people like Job, Enoch, Noah, and Abraham were eternally saved because they trusted in the one true God, even though greater details about God and how God would save people through Jesus were not yet revealed. They did not worship idols or participate in some other false religion, as Pinnock might imply when he describes them as pagans.

For example, Job famously said, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another" (Job 19:25-27).

Job also offered sacrifices to God as compensation or atonement for sins (Job 1:5). This shows he had some awareness of what sin was, and that sacrifice somehow pleased God and/or took away God's displeasure at sin.

So Job was not a 'pagan' saint who worshipped some false god, because he worshipped the true God in the way that he had been taught. Job had faith that he would be resurrected because God would redeem him by sending a savior. In terms of the content of Job's theology, that's pretty good, considering that Job is often thought to be one of the oldest books of the Bible.

Noah and Enoch are similar to Job, because both these men walked closely with the true God.

Enoch pleased God so much that it seems he was taken directly to heaven in a sort of personal Rapture before the worldwide Flood came (Genesis 5:24).

Noah was also a preacher of righteousness to the world of his time (2 Peter 2:5), and he is said to have walked with God (Genesis 6:9) in the sense of having a close personal relationship with God. Noah is listed in Hebrews 11 as an example of someone who had strong faith in God (Hebrews 11:7).

Thus, both Enoch and Noah were not 'pagans', in the sense of following other religions and worshipping idols or other false gods.

Abram, who would later be renamed Abraham, is not recorded in the Bible as personally being part of a false religion or worshipping idols, although his family before him did so for at least some time before they left Ur (Joshua 24:2, Genesis 31:53, Genesis 11:31).

Still, after God called Abram to leave his home and head out to a new land that God would show him, Abraham had faith in God's promise to give him many descendants (Genesis 15:3-6, Hebrews 11:8-10). Abraham's faith in God's promise was enough for him to be eternally saved, and this is why Abraham is an example of all who would later put their faith in God (Romans 4:3-12). Like Job, Abraham also had faith in God's ability to bring people back from the dead (Hebrews 11:17-19).

So if Pinnock wanted to make a case that people from other false religions can still be saved, he would need to find someone in the Bible who was actually worshipping a false god, but who was saved because of the 'truth' that was still found in this false religion, without that person giving up their false religion and turning to put their faith in the true God.

However, I do not believe there is any such example in the Bible.

Even Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came to eventually recognize Daniel's God as the only true God who had sovereignty over the kings of the world, after God had humbled Nebuchadnezzar for seven years (Daniel 4:34-37). Darius the Mede also believed in God after he saw God rescue Daniel from being eaten in the lion's den (Daniel 6:25-27). So these two individuals are not helpful examples for a theory of inclusivism.

Pinnock refers to the Queen of Sheba who came to hear Solomon's wisdom as an example of someone who was 'unevangelized' who will still be saved. 27 Jesus said that this queen would rise up on the last day and would condemn those who heard Jesus but rejected him, implying that she is saved (Matthew 12:42). However, the Queen of Sheba does not count as a worshiper of a false god, because at the end of her time of learning from Solomon, she praised God who she recognized as the Lord of Israel (1 Kings 10:8-9). So she really wasn't 'unevangelized' after all, contra Pinnock's claim.

Melchizedek also does not qualify as being 'unevangelized,' because he is described as being a priest of God Most High (Genesis 14:18-20, Hebrews 7:1-3). In the book of Hebrews, Melchizedek is used as an example or foreshadowing of Jesus, and it is unlikely that the author of Hebrews would have compared Jesus to Melchizedek if Melchizedek had worshipped a false god (Hebrews 5:5-6, 6:19-20, 7:15-25). The fact that Abraham tithed to Melchizedek also seems to show that Abraham recognized him as being a true follower and priest of God. The author of Hebrews even says that Melchizedek was superior to the Levitical priests of Israel (Hebrews 7:4-13).

Cornelius, the Roman centurion, was described as being a non-Jewish person who still respected and prayed to Israel's God, and so was well-spoken of by the Jewish people (Acts 10:1-2, 10:22). Although Cornelius had not yet heard the gospel until God sent Peter to him, he certainly wasn't a 'pagan' in the sense of worshipping false gods. Plus, he and his family became Christians.

What about Abimelech? Pinnock refers to King Abimelech as being a Canaanite who had greater faith in God than Abraham did.28 Yet this is a bit of an overstatement.

Abimelech received a warning about divine judgment from God in a dream, and acted on it by returning Sarah to Abraham after having believed that she was available to marry (Genesis 20:3-7). However, it is not completely clear what Abimelech's beliefs were about God, either before or after this incident.

Abraham said he thought that there was no one who feared God in Abimelech's kingdom, and this is why he felt the need to lie about Sarah being his wife (Genesis 20:11). This, though, only reflects Abraham's personal judgment of Abimelech's faith, and says nothing about Abimelech's true beliefs.

So it's impossible to say whether Abimelech believed in God before his dream. Since there is not enough evidence, it may be best to see Abimelech as being similar to the king of Nineveh, who also repented after being warned about God's judgment (Jonah 3:6-9), rather than as someone who had faithfully worshipped the true God all along.

The Syrian commander Naaman is perhaps the closest example to a 'pagan saint' that I can think of in the Bible, but even he doesn't meet the necessary criteria to support Pinnock's theory of religious inclusivism.

After Naaman was cured of leprosy by following the prophet Elisha's instructions, Naaman said, "Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel" (2 Kings 5:15), and he promised to not offer sacrifices to any other gods (2 Kings 5:17). However, Naaman also asked to be pardoned when, in service of his master, he would have to go into a pagan temple and bow his head as part of his duties (2 Kings 5:18). Elisha told him to not worry about it (2 Kings 5:19).

So I would say that Naaman was truly saved because he became a believer in God, but he was not a 'pagan saint' before he became a believer in Israel's God.

However, Naaman is an interesting suggestion that, for example, it might not be a sin for formerly-Muslim Christians to go into a mosque to pray because it is socially expected or legally required of them. This would be true especially in a country where it is forbidden to openly be a Christian, provided that they pray to the true God in their hearts. Yet Naaman is still not a Biblical example of someone being saved because they had faith in and worshipped a different god.

Therefore, I do not see any examples in Scripture that could support Pinnock's argument that there are people who can be saved by believing in or worshipping a different god than the true God of Israel, Yahweh, who is known by Christians as God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

A More Plausible Option: The Prisca Theologia Theory

Despite the lack of supporting biblical evidence, if Christian inclusivists still want to argue that there is some way for God to reveal himself to unevangelized people through the 'truths' that can be found in other religions or traditions, there is a more plausible way to do so.

For example, Pinnock refers to Moses' father-in-law Jethro, who was the priest of Midian (Exodus 18:1-12). About him, Pinnock says,

Jethro had known and worshiped God outside the covenant with Israel before he met Moses, and was delighted to learn how great God was to deliver Israel out of Egypt. He realized that the god he had served was better revealed as Yahweh, and therefore joined in the worship of him with Moses and Aaron.29

So yet again, if this is true, then Jethro was not worshipping a false or 'pagan' god. He simply did not know as much about God as the Israelites did, because of the special covenant that God had made with Abraham and his descendants. But if Jethro was worshipping the true God, then we might ask, how did he know enough about the true God to be considered a priest? The same question also applies for Melchizedek.

A plausible answer may come from the prisca theologia theory, sometimes also called ancient theology. This is the idea that all people groups have had some exposure to the truth about God because of knowledge that had been passed down to them from ancient sources that can be traced back to even before the worldwide Flood.

This idea was used by early Christian apologists such as Phlio, Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Lactantius, and Eusibius, in order to argue that the best Greek and Roman philosophers were working with the same truths that were given to the Jews and Christians through Scripture. Jonathan Edwards also made use of this theory to respond to critics of Christianity who said that God was unfair to not give equal divine revelation to all people.30

I think this theory has some decent potential, and it is compatible with Biblical history. For example, Adam and Eve were told the initial gospel that the "seed" of the woman would defeat Satan, although this savior would be wounded in the process (Genesis 3:15). This verse is usually thought of as the earliest prophecy that the Messiah would be born from a virgin.

The idea of animal sacrifices to temporarily cover sins also goes back to how God created the first clothes for Adam and Eve from animal skins to cover their newfound shame (Genesis 3:21). This is why Abel's sacrifice of a lamb was pleasing to God, but Cain's sacrifice of produce he had grown was not (Genesis 4:4-7).

The idea of animal sacrifice was passed down to Noah, who knew about 'clean' animals that could be sacrificed to God (Genesis 7:1-3, 8:20). What else might Adam and Eve have known about God that they passed down to their sons and daughters, all the way down to Noah? Then Noah and his family could have passed it on to their descendants after the Flood.

What makes the prisca thelogia theory more plausible is to remember that before the Flood, people lived much longer than they do now.

Adam lived to 930 years old, and when the ages of other patriarchs are put on a timeline with Adam, it is amazing to see that Noah was born only 126 years after Adam died! Noah's grandfather Methuselah, and his father Lamech, both lived for about 250 and 50 years, respectively, while Adam was still alive.31

Therefore, what Adam knew about God could have passed almost directly to Noah with just one or two intermediaries.

Noah and his sons also lived for several hundred years after the Flood, although future generations' lifespans were rapidly decreasing. Shem's lifespan, for example, overlaps with Abraham's, and Shem even outlived Abraham by a few decades!32

This means that it should have been possible for accurate information about God to have been passed along by Noah and his sons to several future generations after the Flood, with very few intermediaries.

Some evidence for the prisca theologia theory may come from the intriguing suggestion that the basic gospel message is "written in the stars" through the constellations of the zodiac, and that this was known to several different groups of ancient people.

In 1882, Joseph Seiss wrote a book called The Gospel in the Stars. He emphasized that God made the sun, moon, planets, and stars to be signs to humanity, on the basis of Genesis 1:14. Seiss noted how astronomy was very important to ancient cultures such as the Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, and how everyone seems to have learned the same constellations from extremely ancient sources, even dating back to before the worldwide Flood.33

Because of this, Seiss claimed:

It thus appears that in treating of these starry groupings and pictures we are dealing with something very different from the inventions of paganism and mythology—with something as sacred in origin, as venerable in age, and as edifying in import as anything known to man. Corrupt religion and classic fable have interfered to obscure and pervert their meaning, and scientific self-will has crowded them with impertinent and unmeaning additions; but, in reality, they constitute the primeval Bible—a divine record of the true faith and hope of man, the oldest in human possession.34

Seiss goes into striking detail in his book regarding all the biblical doctrines that he believes can be seen in the constellations. It's really fascinating and encouraging, and I would definitely recommend Seiss' book. If Seiss is right, then the constellations could be one way that ancient people could have been reminded of the gospel message that had been passed down to them from Adam and Eve, through Noah's family.

Difficulties With the Prisca Theologia Theory

Yet the difficulty for the prisca theologia theory begins after the Tower of Babel incident. It was then that God sent yet-another judgment on all the people of the world, in order to restrain sinful humanity's ambitions. God confused everyone's languages so that the formerly-unified post-Flood society had to break up into smaller groups and spread out around the world (Genesis 11:1-9).

Presumably, when this separation occurred, some of the knowledge about God that this pre-Babel society had would have gone along with at least some members of each new people group.

For example, many cultures around the world have stories of a worldwide Flood that can be seen as distorted accounts of Noah's ark.35 The most famous one is called the Epic of Gilgamesh, which mentions how an immortal man survived a worldwide Flood in a cube-shaped ark. Some Bible critics have claimed that the Epic of Gilgamesh was the source of the story of the Flood in Genesis. Yet for a number of reasons, it is clear that the Epic of Gilgamesh is just one more distortion, while Genesis contains the original accurate story.36

These distorted Flood stories, though, are just one example of how, even if ancient people groups took with them some truths that they had learned about God from Noah and his descendants, this knowledge was lost, distorted, or corrupted as time went by.

Jonathan Edwards argued that this sort of corruption is what eventually led pagan cultures into idolatry and human sacrifice. Yet ingeniously, Edwards also saw these two sinful things as also preparing pagan cultures to hear the gospel.

For example, the idea of a deity becoming connected to a physical idol may have, in a way, prepared these cultures to understand the idea of the incarnation of the Son of God as the human Jesus. Also, human sacrifices done to appease angry gods could have prepared these cultures to understand how Jesus' death on the cross saved all humanity from God's wrath at sin (e.g., Romans 5:8-10, 3:24-26).37

The prisca theologia theory could also explain the variety of pagan stories that seem vaguely similar to some details about Jesus Christ. In many stories in pagan cultures, there are tales about a special child whose mother was a virgin, and the child would become a savior that would die and return to life again.38 These could all be seen as variations of Genesis 3:15.

It has also been suggested that human reason might have been one way that God could still reach out to unevangelized people.

For example, Pinnock optimistically refers to how some early church authors like Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and others may have thought that as long as people lived their lives according to the 'logos' (in ancient Greek, logos meant 'divine word', 'reason', or 'wisdom') they could be saved, even if they didn't know about Jesus. This is because the 'logos' was actually the Word of God, the second Person of the Trinity, who became incarnate as Jesus Christ (John 1:1-14).39

Edwards, though, was pessimistic about the role of reason in salvation. He said that people in non-Christian cultures, despite having access to some truths of divine revelation handed down from ancient sources such as Adam or the patriarchs, have denied or distorted these truths through their unregenerate reason.40

So at least theoretically, it seems possible that all people should be able to know something about God either from what they see in nature, or from the truths of reason, or from whatever knowledge of God may have been passed down to them from Adam and Eve and Noah. Some of these truths may have persisted in otherwise false religions, and if people had believed in these truths, then perhaps God could mercifully consider their faith as being equivalent to having faith in Jesus.

However, because of the corruption of nature and human reason due to sin, and the distortions of the prisca theologia over time into other religions, it is questionable as to how much people can actually learn about God from these sources.

Therefore, I do not believe that this third option is as useful when it comes to creating a persuasive Christian theory of inclusivism.

Furthermore, the idea of the prisca theologia may backfire, and make people worry about the truthfulness of the Bible, and whether the stories contained in it might only be corruptions or distortions of earlier truths, too.

However, there is good reason to trust that this is not the case, and to believe that the Bible is in fact the divinely-preserved record of truth that goes back as far as Adam and Eve. These reasons will now be discussed in the final section of this (admittedly longer than I would prefer) blog post.

Why We Should Trust That The Bible Is Accurate

So, why should we believe that the Bible alone contains the uncorrupted truth about God and the world's history, while all other people's traditions and religions are corruptions of it?

A scholar named M. W. J. Phelan proposes a fascinating theory about the origin of the book of Genesis, especially the earliest portions, and how they came to be included in the Torah (i.e., the first five books of the Bible).

Phelan notes that many of the stories in the earlier portions of Genesis end with a phrase saying "these were the generations of [INSERT NAME HERE],", as a sort of sign-off on the portion of Scripture that was written by the person it names. These personal sign-offs are called toledoth.41

Thus, based on this evidence, we can say that Adam himself wrote up to what is now Genesis 5:1, which includes the genealogy of Cain as far as Adam knew it until Adam died. Noah then inherited these records, and personally wrote up to Genesis 6:9, based on what he was told from his father Lamech and grandfather Methuselah. Noah's sons collectively wrote up to Genesis 10:1, and Shem wrote up to Genesis 11:10, thanks to Shem's long lifespan. Abraham's father Terah wrote up to Genesis 11:27, Then Ishmael and Isaac wrote up to Genesis 25:12 and Genesis 25:19, because Isaac outlived Ishmael. Esau and Jacob wrote up to Genesis 37:2, which is where Moses and Aaron picked it up and continued to Numbers 3:1, when Moses took over writing the rest of the Torah.42

Phelan suspects that Moses and Aaron were able to access and retrieve records of Joseph's story from the Egyptian records before they left Egypt, and Moses, having been raised as an Egyptian prince, would have had the training to read these documents.43 Thus, Moses was a Holy-Spirit-inspired collator and editor of all these records, and he passed them down to Joshua when the Israelites entered Canaan. Minor edits to give context for later readers may have been made by Samuel, and the original text may have been converted into the later 'square' style of Hebrew letters by Ezra.44

In this way, Phelan produces a persuasive counter-explanation to the typical 'scholarly' explanation for the origins of the Torah. The typical explanation is called the documentary hypothesis, and it relies on at least four anonymous editors who worked much later in Israel's history and are referred to simply as J, E, P, and D.

I find Phelan's analysis to be very persuasive because he demonstrates the integrity of all these ancient accounts by analyzing their literary structure, as well as other features of the ancient text, to show that the accounts have not been significantly edited from what was written by the original Holy-Spirit-inspired authors.

The only small question in this theory is: how did the possession of these records pass from Shem to Abraham?

Supposedly, there are Jewish traditions that Melchizedek actually was Shem.45 The name Melchizedek in Hebrew means "king of righteousness," and it is possible that it was a hereditary position that was passed down the generations from Adam to Shem,46 who ended up becoming the king/priest of ancient Jerusalem. Thus, Shem could have passed on his family records to Abraham when they met, as described in Genesis 14.

Alternatively, Phelan proposes that the records may have been inherited by Abraham's father Terah, who was a distant descendant of Shem according to Genesis 11:10-26, and Terah then gave them to Abraham.47

Phelan's theory of how the records passed down also seems to presume that Moses could actually read the sources that went back to Adam, even after the Tower of Babel incident when languages were confused. How can this be explained?

It is claimed that, "There is a predominantly Jewish school of thought which holds, very seriously, that Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, that is, is the original language of mankind (and of God) that was spoken before the Confusion of Tongues and Babel".48

It's true that in God's providence, God could easily have allowed the Hebrew language to persist unchanged after Babel among select descendants of Shem, where it passed down all the way to Terah, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and finally, Moses and Aaron and the rest of the Israelites who left Egypt. Thus, Moses could have been able to read all the ancient sources that had been passed down to him, and compiled them into the Torah, without worrying about having to translate them into Hebrew.

Therefore, it is certainly plausible to believe that, after the Tower of Babel, all the other non-Hebrew-speaking people groups took some of the truth with them as they spread out across the world. The initial members should have known about God and about God's plan to send a redeemer who would be the son of a virgin, and who would die as the ultimate sacrifice for sin. They would also have known the history of the world up to the point of the tower of Babel, including the stories of creation, the fall into sin, and the worldwide flood.

However, all these people-groups eventually corrupted this truth into pagan myths, except for the people who eventually became the Israelites. This is not because the Israelites were any better or less sinful than other groups of people, but was simply because they had access to the divinely-inspired proto-Scriptures that were passed down from Noah.

So it does make sense that from one perspective, it could seem like all the people who make up these other non-Israelite cultures are collectively 'guilty' for losing or corrupting the knowledge of God that they had access to. This knowledge may have included what they had know about God through nature (such as possibly the meanings of the constellations of the zodiac).

Yet it still seems wrong that God would hold all members of these people groups as accountable for this situation, since later generations had no way to recover the knowledge that earlier generations had lost or corrupted.

Furthermore, despite God allowing all non-Israelite cultures to go their own ways for a time (Acts 14:16, 17:26-31), God still wants to save everyone (2 Peter 3:9, 1 Timothy 2:4). Therefore, there must be some way that people from these cultures could be saved, even if not through the knowledge they could learn about God through nature, or from their pagan religions and traditions that were corruptions of ancient divine truths.

Conclusion

This is the end of my series of posts exploring the three main approaches to Christian inclusivism. As mentioned before, I find that the first two (an after-death encounter with Jesus, or judgment based on what works reveal of a person's heart), both seem much more plausible than the last option which was explored in this post.

In a future post, I want to propose my own theory of Christian inclusivism that I think can explain how everyone who loves Love will accept and believe in Jesus as their Savior, if given an opportunity to do so at the final judgment. In this way, the Bible verses that say that no one will be saved apart from faith in Jesus can be compatible with salvation being truly open to all people, even those who haven't heard the gospel in this life, or who died before they were capable of personally accepting or rejecting Jesus Christ.

However, such a theory also needs to explain why evangelism is still necessary, and the value of becoming a Christian in this life. Such an explanation is possible, and thus, I think a Biblically-sound theory of Christian inclusivism is definitely a possibility. Keep watching for my next blog post!

By the way, in case you haven't heard the incredibly good news of the gospel and how you can have eternal life for free, simply by believing in Jesus, then check out my summary here.

Footnotes:

• 1. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 36-37, referring to George Lindbeck, The Nature of Doctrine: Religion and Theology in a Postliberal Age (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1984), 58.
• 2. Jonathan Edwards, "Types," in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 152.
• 3. See Jonathan Edwards’ notebooks "Images of Divine Things," and "Types," in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008).
• 4. Jonathan Edwards, "Images of Divine Things," in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), no. 28, page 58.
• 4a. Mark Harwood, "How good is our neighbourhood!" Creation 39(1): 24–26, January 2017.
• 4b. Jonathan Sarfati, "The Universe Is Finely Tuned For Life", Creation Ministries International, 2020.
• 4c. Jonathan Sarfati and Michael Matthews, Refuting Evolution 2, Chapter 10, Creation Ministries International.
• 5. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. 1, ed. John T. McNeill, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 2011), 1.4, 1.5, and 1.6, on pages 47-74.
• 6. John J. Bombaro, Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 68. Bombaro cites Jonathan Edwards,"Types of the Messiah," in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 11, Typological Writings, eds. Wallace E. Anderson, Mason I. Lowance Jr., and David H. Watters (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 192. Here, Edwards seems to imply that the types are made for God’s people or the church to understand, but he makes no mention of the reprobates’ 'blindness' per se.
• 7. David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, 1779, Part 5, 24-26.
• 8. Dylan Miller, "Parasitic wasps: Darwin’s ultimate evil?" Open Think, Dalhousie University, July 20, 2021. For example, the Glyptapanteles wasp lays its eggs inside caterpillars, and then the larvae hatch and feed off the caterpillar until it dies.
• 9. Robert Gurney, "What about parasites?" Creation 31 3 (June 2009): 34–37.
• 10. C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in The Chronicles of Narnia (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 728.
• 11. C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in The Chronicles of Narnia (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 739-740.
• 12. C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in The Chronicles of Narnia (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 744-745.
• 13. C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in The Chronicles of Narnia (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 755.
• 14. C. S. Lewis, "The Last Battle," in The Chronicles of Narnia (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2008), 756-777.
• 15. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 158.
• 16. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 158.
• 17. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 111.
• 18. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 139-140.
• 19. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 139.
• 20. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 139.
• 21. Randy Alcorn, Heaven (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House, 2004), 52, 112-113, 176-178, 265.
• 22. T. F. Torrance, The Doctrine of Grace in the Apostolic Fathers (London: Oliver and Boyd, 1948), 54, 77-89, 98-99, 135-136, 139-141. "Grace was the gift of spiritual energy that ranged itself within the heart of the believer, and delivered him from evil by bringing him understanding of truth, power to resist evil and live a holy life" (140). "The Church was regarded as endowed in some way or other with this spiritual power which made the believer godlike, and in fact united him to God. The Church as the body of Christ was looked on as the depository of pneumatic grace, which might be dispensed in sacramentalist fashion after the analogy of the mystery religions" (141).
• 23. Clark H. Pinnock, Most Moved Mover (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2001), 65-74.
• 24. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 112.
• 25. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 22, 26-27, 30, 40.
• 26. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 111.
• 27. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 153.
• 28. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 111-112.
• 29. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 26-27.
• 30. Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 581-585.
• 31. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 403.
• 32. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 403.
• 33. Joseph A. Seiss, The Gospel in the Stars (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 21-24.
• 34. Joseph A. Seiss, The Gospel in the Stars (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 23-24.
• 35. Rebecca Conolly and Russell Grigg, "Flood!", Creation 23 (1), December 2000: 26–30. For much more in-depth research, see Bill Cooper, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis (The Creation Science Movement, 2011), 160-366.
• 36. Jonathan Sarfati, "Noah’s Flood and the Gilgamesh Epic", Creation 28 (4), September 2006: 12–17. See also Bill Cooper, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis (The Creation Science Movement, 2011), 381-389.
• 37. Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 584, 586-588. See also Joseph de Maistre, "Elucidation on Sacrifices" in The Collected Works of Joseph de Maistre, where he argues that ancient people had long understood the idea of animal sacrifices as pleasing the gods and taking away guilt, which later turned into the idea of human sacrifice, which was properly fulfilled in Jesus's death.
• 38. Joseph A. Seiss, The Gospel in the Stars (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1972), 25-29. See also Michael J. McClymond and Gerald R. McDermott, The Theology of Jonathan Edwards (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012), 583, which mentions how in both the Hindu Vedas and Chinese I Ching there are "stories about a hero who expiated crimes by his own sufferings, and that many heathen from different traditions acknowledged a divine incarnation and realized that virtue comes only by an infusion of grace." Edwards also recorded examples of heathen stories about gods and goddesses that he believed could be seen as distortions of Biblical figures (583).
• 39. Clark H. Pinnock, A Wideness in God's Mercy (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1992), 36.
• 40. John J. Bombaro, Jonathan Edwards’s Vision of Reality: The Relationship of God to the World, Redemption History, and the Reprobate (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2012), 262. Bombaro cites Jonathan Edwards, "The Miscellanies: 833–1152" in Works of Jonathan Edwards Online, Vol. 20, ed. Amy Plantinga Pauw (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), nos. 959, 986, and 1020 on pages 239, 309–311, and 351, respectively.
• 41. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 228-229. See also Jonathan D. Sarfati, The Genesis Account (Powder Springs, GA: Creation Ministries International, 2015), 17-22. Sarfati, however, argues the toledoth may be seen as introducing the material which comes after them. This would change the authorship of certain portions of Genesis slightly, but it still supports the view that these accounts were written by eyewitnesses immediately involved in the events, and not later editors.
• 42. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 212-215, 228-237.
• 43. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 212-215, 234-235, 255.
• 44. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 258.
• 45. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 254.
• 46. Verse By Verse Ministry International, "Who was Melchizedek and what is the Order of Melchizedek?", March 7, 2014.
• 47. M. W. J. Phelan, The Inspiration of the Pentateuch (Waterlooville, Twoedged Sword Productions, 2005), 254.
• 48. Bill Cooper, The Authenticity of the Book of Genesis (The Creation Science Movement, 2011), 389.