Dr. John Bergsma

who have an inner sense of the moral law, we say the natural law, because we know that everybody has a sense of the natural law, okay?

And that their consciences possibly may excuse them

at the day of final judgment.

Yeah, it's not spelled out, but it certainly does seem to suggest.

That's right.

And, okay, so that leaves open the possibility that, hey, maybe, you know, Gentiles who don't have special revelation, who don't have the word of God or explicit testimony to Jesus Christ, maybe by obeying what's written on their heart, they might be excused at the day of judgment.

And that's the same thing you will see in the church fathers.

Did you want to see that?

No, I've... You know it.

And I like your first... But the very fathers like Augustine and Irenaeus and Justin Martyr, who are very emphatic about the necessity of joining the church,

They also will have statements within their writings where they leave open the possibility that maybe Socrates and Heraclitus, for example, Justin Martyr mentions those two, that maybe they will be saved because they followed the logos, okay?

John 1 talks about Jesus as being the logos, the reason that animates the universe.

And so Socrates and Heraclitus did a very good job of discerning the...

we would say maybe that God's natural law that animates the cosmos.

And so Justin Martyr was open to the possibility that those virtuous pagans would be saved.

And other fathers leave open the possibility that those, for example, I mean, a common example that the fathers used is,

those who desire baptism, but are killed before they are baptized, nonetheless are saved by what we call a baptism of desire, even though they didn't have the sacraments and they weren't visibly part of the church.

and even the possibility of those who follow the natural law written on their heart.

So if you look at, for example, many theologians from the era of the evangelism of the Americas, many of the Spanish, Franciscans, Dominicans, Jesuits, who are involved in preaching the gospel to the Native Americans in Central and South America.

We're willing to leave open the possibility that virtuous pagans from within these Indian cultures who followed the natural law written in their heart with sincerity and knew the creator God and loved the creator God and were willing to do