Question
Gramps,
Sorry, I just can’t understand Sons of Perdition, even though I have studied it. If a person has to have a perfect knowledge of Christ how can Hitler or other such evil people be son’s of perdition? They certainly did not have a perfect knowledge, did they? Will Hitler be forgiven? The men who crucified Christ were very evil, but Christ asked His Father to forgive them, because they didn’t know what they were doing. ISIS is killing innocent Christians, are they Sons of Perdition? Thank you.
Bonnie
Answer
Bonnie,
There is a very small handful of people that can truly judge and state the eternal status of other people. They are the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. On vary rare occasions they might inspire or otherwise instruct a prophet to declare someone’s status in scriptures, Satan being the chief example, but this is very rare.
Now there have been many well meaning people that try to piece together what they know of the Lord’s thoughts and mind from the scriptures. Using what they know of people’s actions from history declare the historical figures eternal standing before God. Per Elder Dallin H. Oak’s talk on judging righteous judgement (“Judge Not” and Judging) this declaration is an unrighteous judgement.
People do this for many reasons. One of the most common, I suspect, is that it makes them feel better about themselves if they think God shares the same opinion about a person that they do. It seems to me that those people would be better off having faith that God will judge righteously, and trust in His wisdom to whatever the verdict might be.
Now in a nut shell: a Son of Perdition is a person that exercises their agency to refuse Christ and his atonement, in spite of all the efforts of Christ to persuade them otherwise. Many people in this life refuse Christ and His atonement. Christ has not finished His efforts to show them the right way. Therefore they do not qualify. Christ’s effort will not stop until every “knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess” that He is the Christ. Even if it is not until long after the person has died that they do so. This will give everyone the chance to choose exactly what they are willing to accept from God.
Gramps