Mother Mary, Gengis Khan, and the love of God

I have been working through the issue of salvation based on sufficient knowledge versus some other means of finding entry into the Kingdom of God.

But I think that it is of first importance to distinguish between avenues of entrance with the ability to enter at all. As soon as anyone starts musing on a Muslim or atheist or Wiccan being viewed as a Kingdom sibling, that person will almost certainly be accused of denying the saving work of Christ, or declaring that Jesus is not the sole Way, the One Mediator between God and humanity, the only one through whom a person can come to the Father.

So, to utilize our current Prime Minister's favourite phrase, let's be perfectly clear on this: God's intention in creating humankind was to find an outlet for his creativity by shaping another being (besides his mighty angels in their various ranks) that would be his image-bearer, the object of his love, and the steward of the rest of this incredible world.

When that race of humans fell from grace and sullied the relationship with the triune God (and with one another), the Creator did not say, "Well, I blew that one. Let them salvage the mess as best they can with a few hints from me as to what their wisest course is from now on. Too bad that a lot of them will miss the hint."

Nor did he say, "Okay, Plan B. Instead of enjoying them all, lavishing love on them, bringing them back to the relationship I originally proposed, I'll arbitrarily choose some of them for gracious treatment and to Hell (literally) with the rest."

And I don't think that he said this either: "Gosh, things are a mess. Tell you what, I think I'll just sort of pretend that nothing's changed, that everything is like that Garden of Eden story they like to talk about, with no need to sweat all this raunchiness and pain--or sacrificial love either. Mother Teresa, Hitler, William Wilberforce, Pol Pot, my mom, Genghis Khan, what's the difference?"

In other words, it's hard to buy the positions of traditional evangelicalism (salvation by certain knowledge alone), Calvinism/Lutherism (salvation by arbitrary predestination), or universalism (salvation whether you want it or not--take that Christopher Hitchens).

I believe that to be true to what the Scriptures say about God's character (love, justice, grace, mercy, community, wisdom, etc.), his intentions for creation, the cosmic effect of Jesus' death and resurrection, God's consistent treatment of his creatures for all time, and human choice (or free will), another explanation must be found.

The trouble is, I'm not sure I have the mind to think it through. I was a business professor after all, not a philosopher, a theologian, and certainly not a genius.

I was smart enough to marry Sharon, move to Canada's west coast, and cheer for the Canucks. Is that enough?