halbhh
The wonder and awe of "all things".
Trailblazer said: But what will happen to the 69% of people in the world who do not believe in Christ? Is it 'bad news' for them?
Apparently you are saying that everyone will have another chance to hear the gospel message after they die, but if they rejected it in this life, why would they accept it after they die? So that still does nit address the question I asked you above.
You are still saying that one has to believe in Jesus to be saved. Christians try to but cannot get around this without admitting that they believe that Jesus is not the Only Way. With all due respect, I think this exclusionary belief has no place in this new age and was never taught by Jesus.
I agree that doctrines are not a substitute for scripture, but there is still a problem and that problem is that scripture can be and is interpreted differently by different people. Doctrines do not solve that problem though.
Quite a few pieces here! It will take many pieces to talk about so many aspects.
As to whether one would get a 2nd chance to hear the gospel, meaning for those that would seem as if they must have heard it, it can't be so easy for us to guess I think. On the one hand if they clearly understood fully the complete gospel during mortal life and rejected it, that would usually be thought to be a conclusive choice, but....one could imagine situations where it isn't so clear, very easily. For example, if the person simply wasn't listening very well, then it become more likely in my guessing to think that would be a case of not having heard it. Much more common today possibly could be a situation of having a part of the gospel, or perhaps not clearly said or in a way that was understood, so as not to really have the full version or the heart of it clearly, and then it would seem to me to be the same as not having heard it at all.
As to the far more speculative question about what other ways one might be drawn to the one true God well in this mortal life, one is left guessing at times. But the one true God does definitely say to "love your neighbor" for instance, so if a person is drawn to God in a real way, that message should be there, or understood, or felt as a compelling sense of what is right to do, or to feel something is wrong when not done. That's just one way to try to guess whether a person is drawn to the one true God. Some Christians try to say that God will find a way, and if you allow also that Christ went to the dead that presumably had not heard any version of the gospel (such as the version in Isaiah) to proclaim the gospel, such as in 1rst Peter, then if you count that as a 'way' also, then it does seem reasonable to think God will find some way no matter what to give everyone a chance. I don't think men can block God. I don't have any way to guess at all the ways He might pull someone to Him. Christ is the "way, the truth, and the Life" in a way that comes across clearly if you read all He says: the way is to love one another, for example. Someone once said to me that they didn't believe this or that about Christ, and I thought in that moment to say: "Who is Jesus? Jesus is the One Who said: 'Love one another as I have loved you'". Surely in this way, it's quite clear that God's way is in Christ's words, and of course to knowingly reject Him is then to reject God's way, the way of love. But notice that many think they know something about Jesus, but don't even know what He said.... Of course, they don't know about Him if they don't know what He said.