We are agreed that no one is saved without the gospel! The light of nature is only sufficient to condemn the soul, but only the light of the gospel can save anyone.
I'm only saying that complete and full intellectual understanding of the gospel comes later and may not always happen before regeneration/justification/adoption.
Thanks for the clarification. We are in full agreement on that matter. It is not necessary that a sinner memorize Berkhof's
Systematic Theology in order TO BE saved. However, the salient issue and the one which is fundamental for it is the basis of justification...
1) Is the true, one and only Gospel the only gospel that saves? Or, as is being promoted here and by most all "Tolerant Calvinists", false gospels can be believed and bring salvation?
2) Does the Holy Spirit of God, Who works in and through the Gospel, bringing understanding to the mind, conviction of sin and revealing the person of work of the Lord Christ, use a false gospel to do that?
3) And there is the issue of what the Gospel is. Is the Gospel that saves a 10-second sound byte that has 3 or 4 propositional statements to which a person simply needs to give an intellectual assent? Or, is the Gospel an informative message that declares the person and nature of God and His eternal plan to save a people for Himself, of the Fall and it's horrible effects upon the entire human race, i.e. of the inheritance of a corrupt nature and the imputation of guilt and that all men are totally incapable of saving themselves and in fact have no desire to do so unless God grants them mercy and sends the Spirit to give them a new nature, of the great work of atonement which paid for all the sins for all those whom the Father chose to eternal life and that the perfect righteousness which all men are required to possess has been merited by Christ and which is imputed to all who cast themselves upon Christ in repentance and faith, and lastly of the terrifying judgement which is to come?
All these things have been previously set forth by me and others here throughout this discussion. But again, NONE have brought anything to the discussion except to state their view, as if repeating it enough times will make it true, which many times is nothing more than a reciting of their
experience and/or the
experience of others. NONE have interacted with the biblical passages I have given, nor given a reasonable, logical argument built upon Scripture to make their case. We are still waiting for someone to do this to both refute our view and to prove their view.
![[Linked Image]](http://the-highway.com/Smileys/Sigh.gif)