A note on the weight of claims

From Sovereign Grace and the Scope of Election: A Comparative Examination of Attainment Theology and Grace Theology, with Particular Attention to the Question of Whether God's Elect Are Found Among All Nations and Religions

One habit will govern the rest of this document, and the reader is entitled to have it stated. Theological claims come in three weights, and honesty requires keeping them sorted. There is what Scripture explicitly states: that election is unconditional (Romans 9:11), that the new birth is of God and not of man's will (John 1:13), that the redeemed are drawn from every kindred, tongue, people, and nation (Revelation 5:9). There is what Scripture strongly implies: that since infants and the incapable among the elect are saved without hearing, hearing cannot be the universal mechanism of regeneration. And there is what the framework infers from both: that regenerate elect persons may live and die within other religions, quickened by the Spirit without ever learning their Redeemer's name. That third claim is the most debatable inference in this study, and it will be argued as an inference, held with confidence because of what stands behind it, but never passed off as an explicit statement of any text. An argument that knows the weight of its own claims is harder to dismiss than one that shouts them all at the same volume.