I have previously shown you that at his personal blog, specifically in the article Apologetics in Action, Southern Baptist minister Dallas Willard—spiritual twin of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster—tells us, “It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved.” The reasons behind Willard’s speculation are first of all, his longtime practice of corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), where one receives a delusion that CSM practitioners refer to as transformation.

And then secondly, this experience also causes these CSM practitioners to feel—ala Roman Catholic mystic Meister Eckhart—that God already dwells within all of mankind [1], which leads these new mystics to the belief that “if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved.” This is why we know Willard really is telling us that he feels people can make themselves “good” enough to be saved by being sincere in their religious traditions—no matter what faith they might be. [2]

This is crystal clear from the following. Below Willard’s role-playing as if in “an evangelistic conversation with a 20 year old girl” who is a Christian “but finds her worldview challenged when she goes to college.” Willard is supposedly acting as her pastor when, in this hypothetical situation, she tells him:

I used to believe strongly in the Christian faith, but now I think that there are many ways to see the world, and that, just because they differ, doesn’t mean they are right or wrong. (Online source)

There’s some back-and-forth concerning belief in God; but what’s most important to our discussion here is when she says:

“But I still struggle with how I should view those who have other beliefs. I’m not sure I am ready to condemn them as wrong. I know some very good Buddhists. What is their destiny?” (Online source)

Warning: We are now about to enter the mystical world of  Humpty Dumpty Language as Willard says:

I would take her to Romans 2:6-10: “God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger.”

What Paul is clearly saying is that if anyone is worthy of being saved, they will be saved. At that point many Christians get very anxious, saying that absolutely no one is worthy of being saved. The implication of that is that a person can be almost totally good, but miss the message about Jesus, and be sent to hell. What kind of a God would do that?

I am not going to stand in the way of anyone whom God wants to save. I am not going to say “he can’t save them.” I am happy for God to save anyone he wants in any way he can. It is possible for someone who does not know Jesus to be saved. But anyone who is going to be saved is going to be saved by Jesus: “There is no other name given under heaven by which men can be saved.” (Online source, emphasis mine)

For our purposes here I’ll not wrestle with the snake; instead, I want you to pay very close attention to what I highlighted above, and particularly to what I underlined. Notice what Willard is suggesting here; he’s saying there is such a thing as being “worthy of being saved”; a person can be “good,” and that someone can be saved (means being regenerated) who does not even know Jesus. Now, in case you’re inclined to think Willard has changed his mind since then, the other day in the Apprising Ministries piece Is Dallas Willard A Christian? I showed you where he recently said the same things again.

This time while Willard’s answering questions put to him by his friend John Ortberg beginning at 07:22 of the audio clip below you’ll hear Willard say once more, “Now, I believe that everyone who deserves to be saved will be saved no matter where they are or what they do.” And then Willard goes on continuing to contradict the Bible when he says:

It’s so important to understand that God is not biased about these matters [being saved and devout] and He is open and in touch with everyone in the world, and for all who seek them with all of their heart—and that is defined in terms of coming to love Him, and not just have the right beliefs about Him—but coming to love Him, and loving their neighbor as themselves.

Now it’s that this point I’ll share with you something I find rather odd about these mentors of the Emerging Church like Willard and Foster, who’re the ones that spawned the current neo-liberal Apostles of Unbelief around the Emergent Church such as EC icon Rob Bell. Suddenly these mystics such as Willard, who delight dwelling in mystery, absolutely feel they know that God “is open and in touch with everyone” who’s supposedly seeking Him “with all their heart.” And this when what Willard is saying is in direct contradiction to what we know God has actually said in His revealed Word in the Bible.

Well, I’d have to say that it’s very likely their real problem is one of selective biblical hearing and then knowing just what they want to know. So this seems a good place to end this piece for now; and Lord willing, next time we’ll go roaming through Romans to see what God has to say about the speculations of Dallas Willard, beginning with:

as it is written: “There is none righteous, not even one; There is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God; All have turned aside, together they have become useless; There is none who does good, there is not even one.” (Romans 3:10-12)

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Endnotes: 

1. Mystics will refer to this as “the divine spark,” which I refute in Understanding The New Spirituality: God Indwells Mankind.
2. Practitioners of CSM often call it discovering the “authentic” or “true” self; I cover this further in The Real Truth About Your “True Self”.

See also:

DELUSIONS OF DALLAS WILLARD

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF RICHARD FOSTER ROOTED IN THE EASTERN DESERT AND THOMAS MERTON

DISCIPLINES TO DECEPTION IN SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY 

THE NON-GOSPEL OF THE EMERGING CHURCH 2.0

THE NEW CHRISTIANITY OF BRIAN MCLAREN AND THE EMERGING CHURCH 

MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS