Abstract

In the Christian tradition, it is rather natural to assume that a person can receive salvation only if she believes that certain crucial and relevant propositions are true. Louis Pojman has, however, attacked this assumption. He has formulated what I call the 'ethics' argument against the claim that belief is necessary for salvation. After explicating this argument, I complain that it is based on an unnecessarily controversial premise and that it proves too little. I then construct a parallel argument to the same conclusion that avoids the concerns I raise against Pojman. This new argument depends principally on two intuitive ideas: that 'ought' implies 'can' and that belief is not subject to direct voluntary control