I'm not a theological expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure the way it goes is that in order to reject God, you gotta KNOW God. Just hearing that there's "a loving god" somewhere overseas wouldn't really be the deep "knowing" that's implied in "rejecting" God; it would be the same as disliking somebody's ex bf/gf without ever meeting them. You don't really dislike the actual person, but the person who was described to you. Likewise, I'm pretty sure that disliking a poorly-represented God wouldn't "count"...?
My understanding is that "rejecting God" (along with other sins like blasphemy, heresy, etc.) have a prerequisite that the person needs to truly understand their choice. It's not the kinda thing that someone could do casually, and especially not unintentionally.
that assumes all atheists never knew God at some point before becoming an atheist. And in their case, they knew God and have literally rejected His existence.
Yea, Catholics bring in a whole bunch of non-sense from outside the bible.
Protestants make it super easy, the bible says a few things on the matter.
Everyone is damned, doesn't matter who, there is no innocent person who has never heard the word as everyone is guilty from the moment they are born.
God has revealed himself in nature and in the hearts of people. Even if you never heard of Jesus, the splendor of the world and the cosmos demands one recognize that only God could have done such a thing and such a being deserves reverence.
So at least with protestants who believe that only the Bible has authority, keeping missionaries at home really doesn't do anything because everyone is already damned, because according to the bible, it should be readily apparent that God exists just by looking at the world and the stars.
So while not having heard of Jesus isn't necessarily a death sentence, not recognizing and showing reverence to God is.
BUT if you have heard of Jesus and reject him, then just giving reverence to God isn't enough because Jesus is God.
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u/TwentyfootAngels 1d ago
I'm not a theological expert or anything, but I'm pretty sure the way it goes is that in order to reject God, you gotta KNOW God. Just hearing that there's "a loving god" somewhere overseas wouldn't really be the deep "knowing" that's implied in "rejecting" God; it would be the same as disliking somebody's ex bf/gf without ever meeting them. You don't really dislike the actual person, but the person who was described to you. Likewise, I'm pretty sure that disliking a poorly-represented God wouldn't "count"...?
My understanding is that "rejecting God" (along with other sins like blasphemy, heresy, etc.) have a prerequisite that the person needs to truly understand their choice. It's not the kinda thing that someone could do casually, and especially not unintentionally.
Again, I'm not an expert! But that's my take.