Thanks Bill,

I appreciate your care and thoughtfulness in responding to the puzzle about the minimum necessary knowledge is to secure salvation.

To summarize your response, there is no minimum knowledge required for salvation.  Rather than being judged on what we know, we are assessed on our wholeheartedness in being willing to know whatever God chooses to reveal to us as individuals.  That is, when we do our best as best as we understand our best to be, Jesus does the rest, wrapping us in his righteousness and we are thus seen as wholly righteous and will “pass the final judgement with flying colors,” as you write.

I agree that you will not miss out on eternal life because of having followed this prescription.

Yet, how does Jesus telling the universe, ‘Trust me, I know this man’s heart,’ counter Satan’s accusation that the Creator is secretly arbitrary in excusing some sinners but not others, and counter his assertion that the creation was set up to make sin inevitable?