I think the question is, "can't God do any better than that?" Or put another way, "Isn't God capable of doing any better than us in coming up a way of reconciling the demands of justice with the demand for compassion, understanding and mercy?"

I reckon God is capable of doing so. I've got no idea what it is though! So what do I teach my people?

I teach them that the Christian tradition gives us the knowledge of only one way to heaven. That doesn't mean that God doesn't make provisions for any other ways. It just means that there is only one way that we can say anything about with any sort of confidence or authority, and that way is by entrusting yourself into the risen body of the crucified Christ. There is every possibility and perhaps every probability that there will be a whole bunch of other people in heaven who never knowingly did that, but God has not revealed to us anything of the basis on which he might be saving them. Because we have experienced just how gratuitous and all-inclusive the love and mercy of the risen Christ are, we would expect that God's desire to save everyone will find a much more creative reconciliation with God's desire to punish sin than we could ever dream up, but it hasn't been revealed to us.

Nathan