Who will be saved?

Since I'm just kind of jumping around anyway, I thought this might be an interesting topic. There are two basic camps for this basic question of "who will be saved?" Although, truth be told there are probably as many different nuances as there are people. The two basic camps are the following 1. God determines who will be saved before the creation of the world and 2. People are allowed to choose whether they will accept God's salvation or not.

Now, those may be the two basic groups, but there are a lot of other groups as well. Some would say that the only way a person can be saved is if they call explicitly on the name of Jesus Christ and admit that he is the only way to salvation. Some would disagree and say that if someone has never heard of Jesus Christ, but honestly and sincerely seeks the "creator God" and trusts him for her salvation, then she will be saved. Then some would say that God's grace will be given to all in the same way that Adam's sin was attributed to all.

Pretty much everyone who falls into the first group, will also advocate the exclusiveness view, and the universal view. If God has ordained who will be saved, then he has also ordained who will hear the gospel. Or he would have ordained that it didn't matter who hears the gospel, he will unilaterally save them anyway. There are scriptures that seem to support all of this.

However, I believe that the overall witness of the scripture supports view #2 and the view that God can forgive someone for not having the opportunity to hear of his providence. I think the ultimate revelation of who God is is in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus makes it pretty clear that the main issue for following him is commitment, not knowledge. Otherwise Peter would have been disqualified quite a bit, as well as every other disciple. This does not mean that disciples should give up on orthodoxy, but as they will not truly achieve it, it is not requisite to be saved.

In addition, the scriptures that indicate that God desires all to be saved stand in direct opposition to the belief that God has chosen who will be saved and who won't. In addition, the life of Jesus himself flies directly in the face of all that. Jesus was not selective about who could know him and who couldn't.

Obviously there is tons of disagreement on this. There are volumes upon volumes on each side of the aisle. I think the main thing is that I cannot honestly conceive of Jesus choosing some to be sent to heaven and some to be sent to hell. Some can, but to steal a line from Dr. Olson, "I have a hard time distinguishing between God and the devil if God chooses some for eternal punishment."