On heterodoxy and salvation

Dr. Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Seminary, put up a post on his blog a few days ago reflecting on another Dutch Presbyterian, the great theologian Cornelius Van Til (who was, among other things, the founder of the presuppositional school of Christian apologetics). In it, he describes a conversation he had with Dr. Van Til, a discussion of Karl Barth, which had a formative influence on his approach to Christians with whom he disagrees:

Van Til’s remark left a lasting impression on me. He was firm in his verdict that Barth was far removed from historic Christian teaching, yet he was still unwilling to offer a similarly critical assessment of the state of Barth’s soul. Ever since, I have tried to exercise a similar caution. It is one thing to evaluate a person’s theology. It is another thing to decide whether that person has a genuine faith in Christ.There are folks these days who worry about what they see as an overly charitable spirit in people like me. They think it is dangerous to enter into friendly dialogue with thinkers whose theological views are far removed from traditional Christian orthodoxy. They tend to think that if a person is unorthodox they cannot be in a saving relationship with Christ. I take a different view on those matters.

I appreciate this post because I share Dr. Mouw’s caution (and Dr. Van Til’s)—or perhaps I might better say, humility—in this respect; I think we tend to be far too quick to pronounce wrong doctrines salvation-impairing. I do believe there is a point at which people are so far from the truth that they are in fact worshiping a different God (Hinduism, for instance, is obviously a completely different thing than Christianity), but I suspect that that point isn’t exactly where we think it is, and that the line between saving faith and beliefs which do not lead to salvation is perhaps somewhat fuzzier than we assume.HT: Presbyweb