There is a difficulty with John MacArthur's exclusivist position. If a Christian holds that conversion to Christianity is essential for salvation, he, by implication, holds that hundreds of thousands of people are deprived of salvation by what appears to be an accident of place or time of birth. How does he square this implication with the idea of an omni-benevolent and all-loving God?
The position of the Catholic Church, as expressed in the Second Vatican Council of 1963-1965, seems to avoid this difficulty:
847 Those who, through no fault of their own, do not know the Gospel of Christ or his Church, but who nevertheless seek God with a sincere heart, and, moved by grace, try in their actions to do his will as they know it through the dictates of their conscience - those too may achieve eternal salvation.I have not come to a conclusion on which position I should take. But I must admit that I am uncomfortable with MacArthur's position. Perhaps it is my limited understanding of what love is.
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