[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

I did not say God should damn them and neither you nor any man knows how God is going to deal with the people who lived before Christ or after him and never had an opportunity to hear of him. Jesus did say "I am the way the truth and the light and no man comes to the father except by me." How do YOU deal with that statement?

It is an old problem never answered in the scriptures-the only authoritative statement by the Good Lord. If it is NOT IN THE SCRIPTURE then mankind does not KNOW! What is God going to do with the soul of the Eight year old Athenian boy who died in the plague that swept Athens during the War with Sparta?

[.45 Long Colt]

That question is answered plainly in Scripture. They will stand before God with no excuse because they didn’t live in accordance with the light they had. The Bible tells us that in their wickedness they suppressed the truth of God. They will be damned.

God is a god of love, but He is also a god of wrath. His wrath is just as much a part of who He is as His love.

[livius]

Exactly. That means that salvation is possible for all (but certainly not guaranteed for all, depending on their moral decisions), but that it all comes through Christ. The Son is coeternal with the Father. That was my point, and I think that was the Pope’s point.