I know who Keith Green is, but what does he have to do with this?
It’s interesting because I was raised Roman Catholic in the 1950s and 60s – in other words, both sides of Vatican II, when the Catholic Church changed from old-fashioned fire and brimstone to let’s-all-hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbya.
I’ve been trying to figure out how the old-style and the modern Catholic Catechism would answer the OP.
"Would a religious person who lives an evil life go to Heaven?"
On this one, I think the old and new Catholics would agree – without repentence there is no salvation. I’m pretty sure even the most hard-core faith-based Protestants would agree. Most Bibles I’ve read use the word “hypocrite” to describe that person. The most charitable texts describe that person as having a “hollow” heart.
"Would a good person who’s an atheist go to Heaven?"
Old Catholic – If the person is an atheist who rejected God, then he forfeits salvation. If the person is an atheist who never had the chance to hear and accept God’s call, then it’s the same as an unbaptized baby who dies and goes to Limbo but will be welcomed into the kingdom at the Final Judgement.
New Catholic – a person who lives a godly life is responding to the call of God even without conciously accepting Jesus. Only an understanding and rejection of God’s call leads to Hell.
You’ve already gotten some very good replies (including the very first one, which quoted one of the verses I was thinking of). I’ll just add a couple of things I thought of.
To have full faith in Jesus as Lord, and yet to be thoroughly and unrepentingly evil, would seem to imply that he thought Jesus wanted him to be evil. I suppose this might be possible if he were mentally ill, or had been seriously, seriously mistaught. In that case, well, I guess it’s up to God to decide how to deal with him, and I’m glad I’m not in that position.
But Jesus’s harshest words were for people who were “very religious.”
I am reminded of this:
It is possible to be a do-gooder while being, at heart, a loveless SOB. I don’t know whether this applies to your Richard Roe or not, or what his motivation is, or what’s really in his heart. He may very well get to heaven in a “sheep and the goats” way. Or he may have some essential soul-rot that will eventually manifest itself if he doesn’t “get saved.”
I would want to know what his attitude toward Christ is: Would like to believe but can’t? Never really encountered him? Outright rejection? Is he the kind of person who would want to spend eternity with Christ?
I am Wiccan, but was raised Presbyterian, and my father is an elder in that church and also does missionary work in the Sudan. He and I have interesting conversations about the nature of faith, and something similar to this has come up. I can somewhat extrapolate his answers to these questions based on those conversations.
According to my father’s beliefs, Richard will go to hell. One cannot work one’s way into heaven - without full acceptance of Jesus as the Son of God and one’s personal Savior, one can live a perfectly exemplary life and tough noogies, it’s the Pit of Despair for you.
John is different. He MIGHT go to heaven, if he repents of his “sins,” but that would mean him recognizing that they were sins. If he’s Hitler and Stalin in one, did either of those men truly believe that what they were doing in the name of a stronger nation was evil or wrong? If not, then they might not repent because they wouldn’t see a need. And depending on what they did, they might be following God’s orders anyway. BUT, if a person leads a perfectly evil life, and on their deathbed fully accepts Jesus as Savior and repents of all sins, then yes, that person will go to heaven.
I’m a liberal Protestant.
As far as I understand, John Doe can still get into heaven despite his bad acts provided that, prior to his death, he realizes the harm that he has caused by his actions and experiences genuine remorse (i.e., repents his sins). In the absence of this kind of repentance, adopting Christian worship rituals while living a life of sin will not get him into heaven.
I believe a virtuous atheist like Richard Roe will go to heaven. I’m guessing that he won’t have to stay there if he doesn’t want to. To me, accepting Jesus Christ is only one of the possible paths to heaven – for example, other paths would include being a virtuous Jewish or Muslim person.
According to several Church of England Chaplains I’ve discussed this with:
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if an thoroughly evil man sincerely repents on his deathbed, he goes straight to Heaven (Luke 15:7 I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent)
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a well-behaved man who studies the Bible and decides there is no evidence for God will certainly not go to Heaven (John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies)
The best a worthy man (who doesn’t believe in Jesus) can achieve is to go to ‘Limbo’, not to Hell.
The sheep and the goats. by Keith Green
Hmm. I think nobody answered your basic question yet: will an atheist go to heaven?
I think not, in much the same way a Hindu or Buddhist will not go to heaven.
According to Catholic theology, your description of John is oxymoronic. It is impossible to have true faith and to still not do good, since faith inspires good works. So if he’s doing all these heinous deeds, then (at least while he’s doing the deeds) he certainly does not have faith.
Also according to Catholic theology, it is impossible for us to ever be certain that any given person is going to Hell, or has gone to Hell. It is possible to be certain that someone’s in Heaven (that’s what a canonized saint is; someone the Church as a whole is certain is in Heaven), but God works in mysterious ways, and His mercy is infinite, so we can never be certain about the other side. So it is at least possible that either of John or Richard, or both of them, might go to Heaven.
Or to be less hypothetical, is Torquemada in heaven and Gandhi in hell ?
With ther proviso that it’s Jesus’ call (as Chronos said) and with the OP term John is pretty toast and richard seems quite heaven bound.
ETA: Catholic
The way I see it,an All knowing ,all loving, merciful God would not condem either of them. According to Genesis the wages for sin was ‘death’…all people die, and since there is no mention of loss of soul and God knew before they were concieved that they would be as they are, he wouldn’t condem either of them. A loving father would not kill his children or make them suffer for all eternity when he knew ahead of time they would be as they are!!
I once asked a Lutheran pastor whether the Good Samaritan (who was a “non-believer”) would have gone to Heaven. Definitely stumped the panel on that one.
While it’s true that there’s no Scriptural basis for eternal hell, it IS part of standard Christian dogma that all human beings are destined for eternal suffering in brimstone & fire, just for the sake of having been born, unless you accept Jesus Christ. Some sects tone down the hellfire & damnation part, but they do attest that anyone who “turns from the sight of God” will not enter heaven, period.
As for the John Doe / Richard Doe scenario, this is a routine discussion I’ve had with Christians of all different sects. Almost unanimously, they would agree that Richard Doe will NOT go to heaven, despite his altrustic deeds; “It was all for naught,” they would say. No faith in Jesus, no heaven…it’s that simple. Whether or not he burns in hell forever depends entirely on whether that particular sect believes in hell or not.
As for John Doe, they would claim that he is “not a real Christian”, in the same vein that some say Barack Obama is Not a Real Christian, or Mother Teresa was Not a Real Christian, so they will not achieve heaven irregardless of their deeds. But they do say that if John Doe is truly repentant, he will be forgiven. Same goes for Hitler, Stalin, Susan Atkins or Dick Cheney – by genuinely accepting Christ, they will be saved at the eleventh hour.
Ain’t Christianity grand? :rolleyes:
In response to the OP and all other gotcha’ questions about Heaven, Hell, and judgment, there’s really only a little that anyone can say. It is Jesus Christ who makes all judgments. Scripture attests to this plainly and specifically on multiple occasions. It is part of the beliefs of the Catholic Church and the major Protestant churches. (And I presume the Orthodox churches as well, though I’ve never studied their teachings.) So if you’re going around asking various people ‘does Al go to Heave?’ or ‘does Bob go to Hell?’, you’re asking the wrong people. The churches do not in any way, shape, or form pass judgment on whether anyone goes to Heaven or not. That would be presumptuous, because it is Jesus Christ who passes judgment.
The one guiding principle that we do have is that people in Heaven are totally united with God, while people in Hell are completely separated from God. That is the underlying principle clearly present in everything that scripture and tradition say about life after death. One can travel north or one can travel south, but one cannot travel south and reach the north pole in that manner, because it’s a logical impossibility. Similarly one cannot travel away from God and reach God in that manner.
This paragraph is completely incorrect, so anyone who wants to know what the majority of Christians believe should simply ignore it.
Just for fun here’s another scenario I found in a book years ago. In discussing reward and punishment in the next life a man said,
Imagine a line of all the people in the world. At one end of the line is the worst person in the world. At the other end is the best person in the world. Starting from the worst person in the world each person is just a little bit better until we get to the best person.
Can we draw a line between two poeple in this line, seperarated by a hair’s bredth measurement of goodness, and say everyone on thios side goes to heaven {along with the best person, and everyone on this side goes to hell, along with the worst. The point was,does that sound like something a loving God would do?
IMO the “if you believe Jesus dies for your sins and repent you go to heaven and other than that you can’t go” doesn’t make any sense if you believe in any kind of just God. Not only that the NT has lots of passages indicating our actions , which reveal the true nature of our spirit, do indeed matter.
So according to more fundamental evangelical doctrine I’d say they both were hell bound. According to my reading of the NT the guy who actually lived a loving compassionate life but rejected man’s doctrine about God will be rewarded and the guy who claimed to love God but didn’t in his actions will have to pay the consequences of his actions.
I think that the answer to the question relies entirely on which Gospel the person answering prefers. I don’t think it’s possible to reconcile all four Gospels, because they all seem to be written with different theologies in mind.
If you go by Matthew then only it seems to me that is there is no case for the evil Christian being saved, but there is case for the altruistic atheist.
If you go by Mark then you’re stuck because it doesn’t give an answer.
If you go by Luke then you can’t be sure because it doesn’t give that clear an answer.
If you go by John then it seems there is no case for the altruistic atheist being saved, but there is a case for the evil Christian.
It’s really not all that surprising that the youngest gospel would say something so convenient for the Church. John, after all seems to be there just to put the Church doctrines in Jesus mouth and nothing else. The others might have issues, but you compare them to John, it makes John seem to be spun entirely from whole cloth.
This is kind of like the question whether you think your dog will be in heaven. People don’t really have the opinions they are told they have. Someone will say, or you’re ___ sect so you believe ___. But people don’t believe the whole thing just because that’s the label they have. Religious beliefs are like political beliefs, you never buy all planks in the platform.
My (imho) interpretation of the bible:
- If you have faith in God, you can go to Heaven.
- If you sin, and you repent, you can go to Heaven, because God is all-forgiving.
Therefore, regardless of whether you sin or not, you can go to heaven.
Therefore, all muslims, buddhists, shintoists, shamans, pagans, wiccans, hindus, jainists, mormons, etc. are automatically going to hell.
I suppose by “faith in God” you actually mean faith in Jesus in the maner he is potrayed in the Gospel of John? Otherwise you’re list if people automatically going to hell is a bit odd.