Tony Evans' Scandalous Theology

Welcome to the HolyNope podcast. I am the HolyNope, and with me is the Holy Dope, David Loewy. And today we are going to talk about Mr. Tony Evans. What's going on with Tony Evans, David?

Well, I wish I could say that things are going well for him, but they're not. Recently, of course as probably many of the listeners know, he stepped down from ministry at his church in Texas due to some unnamed serious sin which had come to light somehow.

We don't know the details of it. And he has stepped down from his pulpit. Also, as far as I can tell from some cursory research, it seems like his show, The Urban Alternative, has been pulled from all or most of the radio stations which he had been on for decades.

So we don't know what the nature is of this particular sin, other than the fact that he says that he did not do something criminal or illegal, which is such a strange thing to say. I don't know, simply conjecture, what that could possibly mean, why he would have to say that, that it wasn't a criminal thing that he did.

But he sinned in some way in his step down. I think the reason why we wanted to do a show about Tony Evans and break from our breakdown of Come Out in Jesus' Name is not even in particular whatever this particular sin is, but because of something which now has been brought to light more popularly, and that is statements that he had made years ago, which I was not aware of until relatively recently, where he espouses a form of Pelagianism and another heretical position that he calls Transdispensationalism, which is not biblical, it's not even close to biblical, it's not even found anywhere in the Bible, and I think we're going to be talking about that today on this show as well.

He is certainly a man beloved by many people in spite of some of the troubling teaching that he has been acquainted with throughout the years, and there's one clip in particular that we want to look at today that sort of exposes this form of Pelagianism about which you are talking.

Defining Pelagianism and Original Sin

How would you define for our audience Pelagianism, David?

Well, Pelagius was a British monk that lived during the same time as Augustine. He was a contemporary of Augustine's, and he was, as I say, up in the British Isles, and concerned, in his words, being concerned about holy living, he taught that man needed to make choices in order to live a holy life, which, of course, we would also agree that man, Christians, should make choices to, in obedience to God, to live in accordance with God's commands.

But Pelagius also taught that the sin of Adam was not handed down to his progeny. Pelagius did not believe in original sin. That man, Pelagius in essence taught, that man is born as a blank slate, and that we have it within ourselves to live lives which are either pleasing or displeasing to God.

That Adam's sin did not carry down to his children. He himself was guilty of it, but we, being the descendants of Adam, are not. And so Augustine fought against this. One of the things that Pelagius was upset with Augustine about is Augustine said, he did a prayer, Augustine issued a prayer where he said, Lord, command what thou wilt and give what thou commandest.

In other words, what he's saying, what Augustine was saying is, Lord, command whatever you wish for me to do. But in addition to that, Lord, I'm asking you to give me the ability to carry out the commands which you command me to do.

To Pelagius, this didn't make any sense because Pelagius says, well, why on earth would God ever command something that man was unable to do in himself? This is the argument that Pelagius made. And the reason he made that argument was because he was saying, of course man has it within himself to carry out God's commands because Adam's sin doesn't carry down to the rest of us.

This is what Pelagius' position is. And Augustine fought against this position and argued for the scriptural teaching of original sin, that all of us by nature are in Adam, as in Adam all die, so in Christ also be made alive.

And that is the explanation not only for why we are sinners, we're sinners by nature, not merely by choice, but also it's the explanation for death. Why death even affects infants. If infants are innocent of original sin and do not have any taint of sin at all, then Pelagius has no explanation for why the curse of death is upon infants.

That's just one thing that I'm sure we'll get to in a little bit because Tony Evans brings this up, one about infants who have died and he has his own explanation of that. But in a nutshell, basically Pelagius taught that man does not have a sin nature and by extrapolation from that, because man does not have a sin nature, if he makes right choices his entire life, man can enter heaven without the grace of Jesus, without trusting in Jesus because we have it within ourselves to follow the law.

Of course, this is heresy. It was condemned in 419 AD at the Council of Carthage. It has been condemned for 1605 years, but Tony Evans is promoting this. And that's, it's really grievous actually, because as you say, he's a beloved teacher, not just with like those who hold to like really wacky, crazy theological positions, but within broader, wider evangelicalism, which makes, which really does speak to the state of the evangelical church in America today that people wouldn't care about these things.

I think that there's a lot of evangelicals that would listen to what we're about to listen to from Tony Evans and see that there's nothing wrong with it, and at least not be able to articulate what is wrong with this form of Pelagianism that is being promoted by Tony Evans.

So let's listen to some of this clip and then respond to it.

Tony Evans on Original Sin and Unreached People Groups

I try to answer some of the hard questions. What about those who can't leave, children, those who were born with mental deficiencies? What about those who don't get access to the word, and yet they are condemned by a holy God?

How does all that work? We try to tackle some of those questions too. Well, let's jump into it then. What about children? What do you say about children who have died? Well, here's the thesis, and this is where there will probably be a theological skirmish over this one, but I believe that Jesus Christ and his death covered original sin.

The thing that the death of Christ did was cover and overrule original sin so that no man is condemned because they're born an Adam, but men are condemned because they consciously reject salvation. Since infants cannot consciously reject salvation, and since original sin was covered, infants go to heaven, people who have mental deficiencies, so that they can't understand it, go to heaven.

And then I have the big controversial one, and that is... I was getting ready to go because I was going to say, now wait a minute, because if I take that as a thesis, then of course I no longer have any real work.

I can sit back here because those who haven't heard the gospel, of course, as long as they don't hear it, they're straight. They're okay. Well, if you could take that as a thesis, but you can't. And the reason why you can't is this.

The Bible says in Romans 1 that men suppress the truth. You cannot suppress what you don't have. It's like holding a beach ball on the water. It wants to come up, but you're forcing it down. Revelation of God in nature or in conscience, they are condemning themselves because something wants to come up that they keep forcing down.

That's not the scenario I'm painting. I'm painting a scenario where a person wants to know the true God, desires to know the true God. That gives God three options. One, God can send him a missionary, the traditional way.

Two, God can give him a direct revelation of himself, like he did Paul on Damascus Road. Or three, and here it is, God can trans-dispensationalize him. That is, relate to him out of another dispensation because dispensations are based on information given so that people had to do was believe what God had revealed and they were saved.

If a person believes, somebody's up there that created this, but I want to know him. If that person were to have a heart attack at that moment, God could not condemn him and be just because God says, he who seeks shall find.

So since God makes that promise in direct revelation, then he has to judge him out of another dispensation.

He says in that very strange diatribe that if a person rejects the light of general revelation or special revelation, this is not what he's talking about. But if a person really wants to know God, then God has to save that person based on whatever light they have.

That's the argument that Tony Evans is making. Except there are many problems with this. He also says that God cannot judge a person if they have not heard about Jesus Christ. If they have not heard about the gospel, God would not be just if he judges that person.

I mean, that's such an attack on the sovereignty of God, the Godhood of God, the judgment of God, to say that God cannot judge somebody unless he gives them the gospel. Unless they hear the gospel, it's impossible for God to judge them.

Such a wicked casting of a picture of God. It's not the God of the Bible. And I want to say just a couple of things as he was speaking there that I thought of. I mean, one is this. Romans 3 and starting at verse 10 says, as it is written, none is righteous.

No, not one. Jews and Greeks are alike under sin. So Jews had the revelation of God. The Greeks did not have the revelation of God. And yet both are alike under sin. But then he goes on, the Apostle Paul, and he says this.

No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they have become worthless. No one does good, not even one. So this idea that he's espousing of the quote-unquote righteous pagan or the righteous heathen, the Apostle responds to such an argument that he already can foresee somebody's going to make this argument.

What about the good man who lives in the tribe in the jungle somewhere? What about him? And Paul's answer to the what about him is to say this. That person's not seeking God. That person has turned aside from the light of general revelation and has sinned.

When he's talking, well, yeah, if you reject general revelation and if you reject special revelation, well, here's the point, Tony Evans. Every natural man does reject general revelation and special revelation until a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit goes on in that person's life.

And the Holy Spirit takes out the heart of stone and gives the heart of flesh for that person to believe. Outside of that happening, every person already does reject the light of God's general revelation.

And when we say general revelation, what we mean by that is the revelation of nature, the stars, the moon, the heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of the sands, the mountains, the trees, that man has no excuse and thus is condemned by his own sin.

Even those who have never heard the gospel, they stand condemned already. Man is by nature condemned. This is the very thing that Tony Evans is denying here. And like that interviewer astutely said as he was listening to Tony Evans, the interviewer said to him, well, this takes away all missionary work then, doesn't it?

Because if a person can be saved simply by following, quote, unquote, whatever light they have, then you better not preach the gospel to such a person because then they might hear it and reject it. But if they follow the light that they have, according to Tony Evans, then they'll be saved under some trans-dispensationalism, some different dispensation of grace outside of faith in Jesus Christ, which goes against Acts 4 .12.

There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. This is the reason why the feet of those who bring good news are beautiful. Because if they didn't bring the good news, those who are in pagan lands would be lost and condemned forever because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

All have. And no one, not even one, seeks God in their flesh. I want to know this God. No one does. That's what Paul says. And it takes the supernatural work of God in a person's life in order to cause them to turn to Christ.

So, I mean, even just in the first ten seconds of what he says, there's like three different hermetical things that Tony Evans says there. Tony Evans was a person who I listened to when I was a young Christian.

I did not know any better, or perhaps he did not hold these views at that time. If he did, I would not have known as a 22-year-old brand-new Christian listening to WNBI moody radio. I would not have known if he was like, this is transdispensationalism.

Jesus died to take away original sin from everybody. I would have just been like, oh, OK, I guess, whatever. These are like words that are going flying over the top of my head. So it's possible that he has held these views for a long time, and I just didn't know it.

But this sincerely grieves me, man. It grieves me that like moody radio and 1 ,500 other radio stations didn't care enough about the gospel, about orthodoxy to say at that time, which I think that interview was given like seven, eight years ago, to say at that time, hey, Tony, man, we're not going to play your sermons anymore because you're actually like a real legitimate heretic for holding these things.

That's actual heresy. This is something different even than Arminianism versus Calvinism. It's something different than some variation of an eschatological position. This is actual heresy that was condemned 1 ,600 years ago, and he's espousing it and promoting it on evangelical radio stations.

And this is really, really bad stuff, man, and I think the church needs to wake up and stand against it.

The Problem with Trans-Dispensational Salvation

Looking at exactly what it is he says, we know that he believes that men of their own free volition can seek for God in a way that is pleasing to God, to which God becomes bound to respond and save that person, if we're talking about someone living in an unreached people group, through transdispensationalism, meaning if they are in an unreached people group that they, according to Tony, don't need special revelation.

They don't need the word of Christ through which, by the preaching of which comes faith. They don't need the word of Christ. All they need is general revelation and to respond appropriately to general revelation, whatever that seeking would look like for an unreached person.

The problem is, as you've quoted from Romans 3, no one seeks for God. And so if there's a Hindu in some foreign land who's never heard the gospel, does not have access to special revelation, which this is what we mean, by the way, by an unreached people group, meaning that you will be born, you will live, and you will die without ever hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is impossible for a practicing Hindu in one of those foreign lands who's never heard the gospel to not be suppressing the truth. There seems to be this idea that false religions, someone practicing a false religion is somehow closer to God than someone who rejects religion, someone who is an atheist.

Some militant atheist must be much farther from God than a practicing Hindu. And, of course, people like Joel Osteen would say, well, Hindus love God, you know, because they're worshiping the divine, they're seeking truth or whatever.

But Paul in Romans 1 posits false religions not as that with which we can build bridges with people in order to move them that one step closer to the true gospel or to a true relationship with God. Paul presents false religions and that level of idolatry as the height of man's rebellion against God.

So there is no good Hindu or Buddhist or any practicer of a religion out there. They are all in open, willing rebellion against their creator. And the light of nature is only sufficient to condemn them to hell.

No one seeks for God. And so God is under no obligation, therefore, to save that person because they've said, well, somebody made the sun and I want to worship.

Yeah, I would even say that this is something as I was listening to you talk about this that just came to my mind. And that is that even the term which he himself made up trans dispensationalism, the reason that he calls it that is because he's saying that such a person, the Hindu who follows Hinduism, but believes that this is the way to God for for him and never hears the gospel, that such a person is saved based on whatever light that they're given and their following of that light and not the rejection of it.

But even that in itself is wrong on a number of levels. And here's the reason why. First of all, I have to say, having a soft spot in my heart for actual evangelical dispensationalists, OK, is that that has nothing to do with what dispensationalists believe.

There's there's no one at the Moody Bible Institute who is a professor there who is teaching what Tony Evans is teaching here. OK, that's so even using the word dispensationalism, all that that's actually really going to do is cause people to really have a critique of something that no true dispensationalist actually holds on to.

But secondly, it betrays a misunderstanding of what even if you give him the the benefit of the doubt and say there are such things as dispensations. All right. I know that as a covenant theology guy, I'm ill guy that you are.

I'm probably historic premill myself. But as a as a covenant guy, you would disagree with dispensationalists based on other matters than what he's talking about here. But what he's saying actually misunderstands even what the dispensation of the Old Covenant is actually teaching, because he said it would be like such a person was being judged as the Old Testament saints were judged.

Except where the Old Testament saints judged based on whether they followed the laws well enough. Absolutely not. That is a wrong understanding of how the Old Testament saints were judged. The Old Testament saints were judged in the same way that the New Testament saints were judged.

How was Abraham justified? Was it by his works? Was it by his following the light or whatever? His walking in accordance? How was Moses justified by his work walking along with the law? Is that how he's justified?

No, Abraham was justified by faith alone, by faith in the Christ who was to come. Moses was justified not by his obedience to the law. None of the Israelites were justified by their obedience to the law.

No one is justified by obedience to the law. And if they could be there, why would Christ have to come and die on the cross? Right. No one is. So even his understanding of how the Old Testament saints were saved betrays a lack of understanding of salvation in the first place.

It makes me wonder, like, does Tony Evans believe that a person can be saved by works? I think he does. I think he actually believes in salvation by works.

Old Testament saints were saved by grace through faith. And the only way any unreached person is going to be saved is by grace through faith. Faith comes by hearing the word of Christ. Meaning that if we don't have access to special revelation, we cannot be saved.

Special Revelation, Dreams, and Romans 10

Now, I want to ask your opinion on something else he mentioned in relation to this. And that is that God must do one of three things to this person. And one of those things was that God must grant them supernatural revelation.

And so when I have discussed the issue of unreached people groups, especially with semi-Pelagians or Arminians, it's a tricky issue for Arminians and for semi-Pelagians, because they believe that I have an inherent ability to choose God.

And that is innate within me. And no one can take that from me. But that choice must be in response to special revelation, which is granted by the grace of God and the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit.

And so the question becomes, can God reveal in a dream or a vision or whatever, special revelation to someone in an unreached people group, a revelation that is sufficient for their salvation? Are you asking me that?

There's the question, can God do that? And does God do that? Or should we expect God to do that? Yeah.

So, phrasing of the question, can, right, using the word can, can God do something? Of course, my answer to that is, unless it goes contrary to his own nature and attributes, God can do whatever he wishes to do.

Or, unless such a thing goes against what his word has already revealed. So, if he's already revealed something about himself, can he then go and do contrary to what he's revealed about himself? No, because he's revealed such a truth about himself.

So, can God reveal himself in whatever way he wishes to? Yes. But does he, though? No. And here's the reason why. Because Hebrews chapter 1, starting at verse 1, says this, Long ago, at many times, and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

So, what are some of the ways that God spoke to the fathers by the prophets? Well, he gave the prophets dreams, for instance. He calls Samuel, in the book of 1 Samuel, he calls him to himself, Samuel, Samuel.

And Samuel gets out of bed and goes to Eli. And many of our listeners would understand, know that story. He reveals himself through a burning bush to Moses. He reveals himself through a fire to Manoah.

And he ascends in the fire. He reveals himself at the trees of Mamre to Abraham. So, he revealed himself in diverse ways, many different ways. But then what else does the book of Hebrews say? He spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

Verse 2,. But in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed as the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. So, when Christ came, Christ gave us the revelation, the full revelation of himself, and his apostles, whom he sent out, wrote the books of the Bible that we have called the New Testament.

And this is the way in which the Lord speaks to us now. This is the, if you want to use the word, dispensation. This is the dispensation in which we live, the dispensation of the grace of God. And this is the way that he speaks to us.

Now, here's the thing. Paul addresses this as well. When he says in Romans chapter 10, let me just read this. He says this, How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? So, he says right before, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

All right, but if somebody doesn't know the Lord, or they don't believe in the Lord, then how will they call on his name to be saved? This is the answer that Paul's giving. And how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard?

This is the question, like the Bible always has the answer, right? We would expect then, for Paul, if Tony Evans is going to be justified in what he just said, or the hypothetical question that you're asking, what about these people, can they just like receive dreams and special different things, God speaking to them, that this would be the place where the apostle would say, well, how are they to believe in him of whom they've never heard?

Well, they'll just get a dream. Like, you know, God's going to like knock on the door of their heart in a dream, and then they have to invite him in. And if they don't invite him in, then he'll stay outside, I guess.

It's not what he says. He says, and how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are set as it is written, how beautiful are the feet of those who preach good news?

So this is the way that the pagan is saved, by missionaries going out and preaching the gospel to those people, boldly going into places where the gospel has never gone, and preaching the truth to those people, and the Holy Spirit then taking his word that he inspired, and applying it to the listener's heart for that person to repent and believe, applying it, taking out the heart of stone and giving a heart of flesh.

And I would submit that since the Bible says, salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved, and Paul says, how are they to believe unless someone is sent to them, that this is the missionary mandate, this is the great commission, this is the reason why Jesus tells his disciples to go into all the earth and to preach the gospel to all of creation, this is the reason why, because there is no salvation outside of repenting and believing in the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Outside of that, everyone perishes. For someone to say, well, that's not fair, God has to save them, is a complete misunderstanding of the nature of sin, of the nature of man's rebellion, of the nature of the grace of God.

Someone who says that puts themselves in the place of God, and they say, I'm more compassionate than God is, because if I was God, I would just save all of those people. So God has to do it the way that I want him to do it.

That's what that's actually doing, by saying that there's some way to save other than the way that God has said in his word.

Yeah, yeah. First, I fully agree with you, your thoughts on Romans 10. Paul says it very plainly. How shall they believe if they haven't heard? How shall they hear if the preacher is not sent to them?

Special revelation is required for salvation. I have encountered this a lot with semi-Pelagians, modern-day Arminians, that because their whole soteriology hinges upon the free choice of men, that everyone has a choice, and that choice isn't, I'm going to seek after the general revelation.

What they mean is that all people have a choice to choose or reject Jesus. That's their position, and when you start talking with them about it, they will say that, and maybe they've never articulated that before, but they believe that every person has the opportunity to accept or reject Jesus, and we go to hell for rejecting Jesus, who we've heard about and we've chosen not to believe.

Well, the reality of unreached people groups presents a real problem for the semi-Pelagian, for the Pelagian at this point, because not everyone has a choice. Not everyone has the opportunity to have Jesus in front of them, as it were, and say, no, I reject him.

I reject him. Not everyone has that choice presented to them. And so the next problem arises for the Pelagian, the justice of God. If salvation depends upon the free choice of men in response to special revelation, God must not be just to give all men special, if he doesn't give all men special revelation.

There's a big problem, not only with the nature of man, then, but with the character of God, that Pelagianism, Semi -Pelagianism, Arminianism, whatever you want to call it these days, can't answer.

Well, and this is the question that the Apostle already anticipated that people would be asking when he says in Romans 9, verse 14, what shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? Why? Because he says, before Jacob or Esau was born, he said, Jacob I loved, but Esau I have hated.

So such a person, like you're talking about, would say, well then, how is God being just then? He chooses this one for salvation. He chooses this one to not have salvation. And what does Paul say? By no means, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.

So then, it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God who has mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, for this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.

So the reason that God raised up the pagan Pharaoh and hardened his heart after the sixth plague, every other plague, God hardened Pharaoh's heart. God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Why did he do it? He did it because he was going to use Pharaoh to glorify himself through judgment on Pharaoh and on the Egyptians and on the Egyptians' gods.

And that's the reason that he raised him up. So, again, it goes back to, this is all an attempt by such people as Tony Evans to put themselves in the place of God and to say, I'm more compassionate than what Paul reveals in Romans 9 about the character of God.

I'm more compassionate than that. And so I'm going to throw out what Paul says about the nature of God and the nature of God's sovereign choice and the way that God can have a right over his clay to make some for noble use and some for common use.

That such a person says, I don't believe in any of that. I need to explain all of that away and say, no, a truly compassionate God is a God who must give every single person the opportunity to hear about Jesus and either accept Jesus or reject Jesus.

And that acceptance or rejection has to do completely and totally with something within themselves or else God's not fair and I'm not going to believe in such a God. This is the argument that they're postulating.

And what I'm saying is, that God that Tony Evans is proclaiming here is not the true God. It is a false God. We have to throw out entire, not just verses of scripture, sections of scripture, sections of arguments that the apostles are making in order to make what he's saying even close to fitting.

Which it doesn't fit at all anyway because there's no place in the Bible that says that a pagan can somehow work his way up to heaven without faith in Jesus Christ or will be judged on some prior dispensation, which never existed, which never existed.

Yeah, I think that the predicament that the Pelagian finds himself in at this moment forces him then to say, well God, because God is just, because no one's going to honestly charge God with injustice, that because God is just in some way, somehow, he's going to give everybody that choice.

That choice to accept or reject Jesus and if they reject then they're doomed. So they don't know how and they relegate it to the unknown, the abstract. Somehow God's going to give them enough so that in their rejection they can be justly condemned.

And that's usually, I think at this point, the thinking of dreams for specific people. But then again, we're dealing with why is God giving this person a dream and not this person? Why is God giving this person enough information and not this other person in the unreached people group?

And then we come back to God's sovereign choice. God's free will in whom he saves and how he saves them, which is ultimately what the Pelagian needs to bow his knee to.

The Justice of God and the Condemnation of the Unreached

Well, so I think that there are pits on either side of what the true doctrine is here on this subject. There are pits on either side. You have the Pelagian and I would even go so far as to say semi-Pelagian Arminian pit, which then puts all of the impetus upon man's vaunted free will as an explanation for his acceptance or rejection, why he's going to go to heaven or not.

It's all based on whatever man's free will is. And that is a pit. And it's not what Paul says. That's not what John says in John chapter 1, when he says, born not of the flesh, nor of the will of man, nor of blood, but born of God, that it is God's choice.

So you have the pit on one side rejecting that, that it's God's choice instead of man. And then you have a pit on the other side, which unfortunately holds the very terrible name of hyper-Calvinism, which would say that man has no responsibility whatsoever.

And it is all only God's sovereign choice. And so man shouldn't even preach the gospel because God is so sovereign that man's intellect or will has nothing whatsoever to do with believing in Jesus or not believing in Jesus.

I do believe, and I have to say this might turn off some of the people who are listening here, but it's our show, so we can say what we want, as long as it's biblical, which I believe what I'm about to say is biblical.

And here it is. I believe it's only Calvinism that actually embraces the mystery. Calvinism embraces the mystery of man's responsibility and God's sovereignty. And outside of the doctrines of grace, you fall into one or the other of those two pits.

And it is only the doctrines of grace which will affirm that man absolutely has a responsibility to believe and chooses not to. And also that God is sovereign over every single thing that ever occurs in the whole universe.

And I don't know how those two things fit together, and I can never explain it this side of heaven, but I hold on to those things because the Bible teaches them. That's the reason why. And what Tony Evans is doing here, I really do believe this.

He's trying to make up doctrine that is not in the Bible in order, if I give him the highest benefit of the doubt, he's making up unbiblical doctrine in order to somehow defend the character of God, which needs no defending, and his way of defending it is actually attacking the character of God because he's saying things that are absolutely untrue about the natural man and those who have never heard, and making up terms that have no foundation whatsoever in the Bible.

And if I'm going to give him the greatest benefit of the doubt, he's doing this because in his mind he thinks this is the only way for me to explain how God can still be fair and send people to hell who have never heard the gospel.

That's the reason why. I believe that's the reason why he's doing that. But that still makes him a false teacher, because the reality is, those people who do not hear the gospel of Christ, there can be no salvation for them.