psimmond wrote:
Regarding Alice Cooper, I'm not sure I agree with the statement made a few times in this thread that "God does all he can to save each person." Where does the Bible say this? Don't you think more people would be saved if every human had a Saul experience: Seeing Jesus, hearing his voice from heaven, being blinded and then having a vision that a certain man would lay hands on you and your sight would be restored? I think it's more accurate to say God does enough; his grace is sufficient so that all men are without excuse.
God could have angels write the gospel in the sky for all to see, but it seems he wants people to exercise faith--kind of like when he hid truth in parables so those who were really interested would have to seek him out later to say, "Explain this to us."
I have thought the same, but I'm not sure. Faith (as defined in
Hebrews 11:1+) is obviously important. God seems to want a holy people for Himself who accept Jesus' Lordship by faith. This would
seem to help explain why God doesn't just schedule an appointment to talk face to face with every person and why this life is the time when a person can choose to be part of God's people (
Heb 9:27).
On the other hand, Jesus' parable in
Luke 16:31 talks about people who won't believe even if someone rises from the dead to talk to them.
And I have heard people explain away certain miracles as mass hallucination. So perhaps those people would explain away their own miraculous experience in the same way. I also think of
Romans 1:20.