The creator of the Dilbert comic series, Scott Adams, just died today after a long battle with metastatic prostate cancer. He was also a popular author focusing on matters of daily life, and cultural commentary. I followed him on X. He had been publishing videos discussing his cancer, and the state he was in at that moment. Only a few weeks ago he said that he didn’t have much time left. Just a day or two ago he was placed into hospice care; and today he died. During these last few weeks, he said that he was considering becoming a Christian. His thinking sounded something like Pascal’s divine wager: i.e., if the Gospel is real then it will only be of great eternal benefit for the believer; if it isn’t real, then there was no loss. He wrote this a few weeks ago. But on his deathbed, he wrote the following:

I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. The part about me not being a believer should be quickly resolved if I wake up in heaven. I won’t need any more convincing than that. And I hope I am still qualified for entry.[1]

I’ve seen many responses to Scott’s admission from Christians stating that, unfortunately, they don’t think Scott was a real believer. They assert that he was simply using Jesus as a means to ensure that if God and Jesus are real, that he would end up in heaven. They don’t take this to be a saving, effectual faith. And yet, I would argue that it is most surely saving faith.

How many among us had all of the details, had some level of certain certitude that Christ was real, or that God’s grace in Christ could actually save us? We surely were placing our hope in Jesus for just that. But there was no level of certitude required in order to validate a real saving faith before God. In Scott’s final statement, noted above, he did what every single one of us have done, in order to come into a full relationship with the triune God. Some of us did that when we were young children (like me), others of us did that in our young adulthood, some later in life; and in Scott’s case (like the thief on the cross), on his deathbed. He didn’t go to the Buddha, or Mohammed, or the spirit god in the heavens; he didn’t go to the universal soul where atman is brahman for salvation. He had enough witness around him, and conviction of the Holy Spirit to know that if he were going to be eternally justified, saved before God, that it could only be through Jesus Christ.

In his above statement he ends it with, ‘And I hope I am still qualified for entry.’ He still didn’t fully grasp the freeness of the Gospel, and yet he thrust himself upon the very grace of the Gospel in his final hour. Of all people, genuine Christians ought to see this as a saving cry for mercy to the living God. Of all people, Christians should recognize Scott’s final plea, even entwined in much misunderstanding, as our own cry to the risen Christ. Scott waited till the very end to give his life to Christ. He didn’t have time to be fully discipled into the free grace he became participant with the second he said, ‘I accept Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I look forward to spending an eternity with him. . ..’ If that isn’t a saving confession, just as Christ’s plea to the Father, ‘Father into thy hands I commit my spirit,’ then God forbid it: I am not saved either. It seems to me that many of the Christians who are claiming that Adams didn’t have saving faith don’t really understand the freeness of the Gospel themselves. If anyone ought to be concerned, it ought to be these folks. And yet, God’s grace and mercy, just as in Adams’ case is big enough to absorb such petty and childish and immature misunderstandings as well.

Furthermore, and this a theological note: Since there isn’t a threshold of faith, as if some type of feeling, or created quality we can manipulate, there is no abstract creaturely register that must be punched through which someone can be saved. Salvation is purely of God in Christ; indeed, that is the whole point of the Gospel. God in Christ assumed our humanity, and by his poverty for us, he made us rich through participation with Him, as He resurrected all of humanity, objectively (carnally), in his vicarious humanity, thereby making the way for all who would say Yes out of His Yes and Amen for us by the Holy Spirit, to become spiritually and subjectively participant with His risen and ascended humanity for us. This is what grounded and grounds Scott’s final placement of trust in Jesus Christ. Not some level of salvific knowledge. Not full awareness of the triunity of God. Just that he was a beggar in need of a big hand to save him out of the pit of despondency he found himself in in his hospice room. The Way for Adams to be saved, even at the last minute, was always already a reality insofar that God freely elected to become Scott, to become us, in order that by the grace of adoption, we might become Him; as co-heirs with Jesus Christ; thus participating and sharing in the glory that the Son has always and eternally shared with the Father in the communion of the Holy Spirit. Scott wasn’t aware of all of the mechanics, and neither are we, really. But he knew that if there was and is salvation to be had, then it had to be through Jesus Christ. And by God’s wisdom and mercy that is all that is required.

I look forward to fellowshipping with Scott Adams in the Eschaton someday soon! Maranatha

[1] source here.