for some reason I get the impression that this concept would go hand-in-hand with pre-determinism, as the Wikipedia article says that "Non-Christians could have 'in [their] basic orientation and fundamental decision accepted the salvific grace of God'" --> in other words, some people are in their nature destined to salvation. I feel like I'm reading this wrong, so correct me if I've missed the point...and I wonder how those who believe in this would elaborate on "fundamental decision."
the idea of universal salvation is more appealing to me. if everyone falls short of the glory of God, and yet are forgiven, why would a person's inability to believe not be forgiven? I just don't understand how nonbelief is somehow the ultimate sin, when there are so many people who want to believe in God but aren't able to.
I see what you mean, I know, that could be used as the basis for some sort of theory of election or pre-destination, and I suppose that is why there are debates about such things.
Personally I understand that as Erich Fromm does in his own interpreation (or reinterpretation depending on your opinion) of religion as providing an orientation towards life and a subject of devotion, I paraphrase and I'm not very eloquent but its something along those lines, so it could mean that someone without a framework which is explicitly Christian but which is congruent with those beliefs would be saved rather than damned, which makes sense to me.
On the subject of belief and whether or not non-belief would be a bar towards salvation, I tend to come back to Meister Eckhart who wrote something about if someone were to die and angels were to strip them of their "life" then if they were unprepared for it and in a state of disbelief about it they would not see them as angels at all but devils, the belief would indeed effect the experience itself. There is another poem about an orange man, who also happens to be pretty sectarian, who dies and goes to heaven discovering that there are papists and popes there he is very disatisfied and becomes a ghost instead, choosing to walk the earth instead because sharing heaven with those people amounts to a personal hell for him, of his own making. Its the same idea.
Most people who are admently non-believers, as opposed simply to disbelievers or unbelivers (nuanced meanings, I know), I think would hate to be in heaven or God's prescence or any kind of afterflife, dont you think? I dont see that God would want to or would have to torment anyone of that kind because God's simple "being" or "existence" would be sufficient to bother them, for eternity depending on how hard hearted they are about it.
