what happens to those who die having never heard the Gospel?
When I was a little kid, we learned that unbaptized babies went to limbo. I never quite understood that and felt that those babies were short changed and not by their own doing. I just made the leap in my thinking, for example, of the various indigenous tribes, that they would go there also.
These days, I have a hard time believing that God would separate people that way. Your thought process makes sense, Rajan.
Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth and the life" (Jn. 14:6).
"When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse them or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus" (Rom. 2:14-16).
I think these verses may shed some light on the possibility of what might happen to those who haven't heard the Gospel, of course we cannot absolutely know because it is God's prerogative. There is a big difference in not knowing the Gospel and rejecting, or ignoring the Gospel. In keeping with justice - and God is the perfection of justice - I like to use the analogy that justice requires a second grader not be held to eighth grade academic standards. This premise of justice is good news for those who are concerned about the lives lost before birth. When the thought of Purgatory, or Limbo, Hades, or Sheol comes in to play we can also recall Jesus' descent to the dead, to the "prison" St. Peter mentions in his Epistle. Perhaps this is the case with those who die never knowing the Gospel. One wonders if perhaps those souls are visited in that similar state and "preached the Gospel" as Jesus did at his death, being given the chance to accept. We inherently know there is objective truth no matter whether we know Jesus said it is found in him or not. Do those who may not know Jesus pursue truth wherever it may lead them (which would ultimately be Jesus)? This seems to be criteria; to live in the right way, responding favorably to the "law written on our hearts".
