Is there a chance that Steve Jobs found Christ before he died?

[LW97Nils]

Forgive me, but if someone genuinely repents*, even in extremis, I don’t see how you can assert that. The principle seems contrary to much of the teaching of our Lord in the Gospels, for example, the Parable of the Prodigal Son and the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and for that matter the Good Thief, who obviously had lived a wicked life but was moved to faith, piety and metanoia (repentence; the word metanoia, which we translate in English via Latin and French as repentence literally means “to change one’s mind”, and for this reason Eastern Orthodox clergy during the Preparation phase of the Divine Liturgy hold the loaf of uncut bread to their forehead before beginning to cut it into the Lamb and various other particles that will be consecrated into the Body of our Lord, the remainder of the loaf being blessed as antidoron, which is blessed bread traditionally offered by all of the Eastern churches (Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Assyrian Church of the East, and most, probably all, Eastern Catholic churches**).

*Or rather, attempts to repent. Abba Sisoes the Great, one of the Desert Fathers, while on his deathbed, had this exchange:

“When St Sisoës lay upon his deathbed, the disciples surrounding the Elder saw that his face shone like the sun. They asked the dying man what he saw. Abba Sisoës replied that he saw St Anthony, the Prophets, and the Apostles. His face increased in brightness, and he spoke with someone. The monks asked, "With whom are you speaking, Father?" He said that angels had come for his soul, and he was entreating them to give him a little more time for repentance. The monks said, "You have no need for repentance, Father" St Sisoës said with great humility, "I do not think that I have even begun to repent."

After these words the face of the holy abba shone so brightly that the brethren were not able to look upon him. St Sisoës told them that he saw the Lord Himself. Then there was a flash like lightning, and a fragrant odor, and Abba Sisoës departed to the Heavenly Kingdom.”

**Most Eastern Catholic churches are essentially Orthodox churches in communion with, and subordination to, the Pope in Rome, with the liturgy of the Catholic branches of the Oriental Orthodox (Syriac Catholic, Coptic Catholic, Ethiopian Catholic, Malankara Catholic, Armenian Catholic***) and Assyrian-derived churches (the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, chiefly in the region in and around Baghdad, and the Syro Malabar Catholic Church in India) modified to comply with Chalcedonian Christology, these modifications occurring before Pope Benedict XVI, memory eternal, prior to his election in the mid 2000s, as Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith (the successor to the Holy Office, itself the successor to the Inquisition) determined after careful study that the Christology of the Assyrian Church of the East and of the Oriental Orthodox were actually fully compatible with that of Chalcedon, at least as far as Rome is concerned. There was also some degree of Latinization, for example, the introduction of Western (Roman Rite, Ambrosian Rite, Anglo-Catholic and Lutheran) devotions such as Rosaries and Stations of the Cross).

***Before the genocide against the Christians in Turkey in 1915, which killed 60% of the Pontic Greeks, 90% of the Syriac Christians, but had the largest total body count among the Armenians, the Armenian Catholic Church was the largest Eastern Catholic Church. Although much smaller than the Oriental Orthodox Armenian Apostolic Church, it was much larger than any of the other Eastern Catholic Churches, even the Maronite Catholics of Lebanon, and the Ruthenian Greek Catholics from the Carpathian mountains and the Ukrainian Greek Catholics. Now, 108 years after the Genocide, which Turkey and several countries still fail to acknowledge, the Armenian Catholic Church is one of the smallest Eastern Catholic Churches. This statistic I find moving as it underscores the extreme human tragedy of the dreadful genocide the Syriac Christians call the Sayfo (lit. sword), a genocide which directly inspired Hitler to conduct genocides against the Jewish and Roma (Gypsy) people under Nazi rule during WWII. The principle difference was that whereas the Nazis conducted the genocide in a notoriously efficient, clinical, industrial manner, the Turks just hacked the Christian men, women and children into pieces or killed them via inhuman torture.

Now I raise this historical point for a reason related to this thread, to the issue of deathbed confessions: while obviously it seems unlikely that Hitler would wind up anywhere other than the Outer Darkness on the dread day of judgement, considering what he did and the fact he committed suicide (after killing, presumably with her consent, his newly wed wife Eva Braun), we actually have no way of knowing for sure. Likewise, we cannot be certain of our own salvation. For this reason, we must take to heart the Parable of the Publican and the Pharisee, where our Lord gave us an example to avoid in the case of the ostensibly virtuous Pharisee, who gave thanks to God for not being a sinner, like the Publican, whereas the Publican prayed for God to have mercy on him, a sinner, and was contrite and penitent. The Pharisee on the other hand was corrupted by pride, and as a result of his profound arrogance was in a state of spiritual delusion.

Thus, while it is highly unlikely that anyone we might hope to encounter in life is capable of doing what Hitler did, we should in the interests of humility consider ourselves to be the worst of sinners. Several Eastern Orthodox prayers declare the person making the prayer to be the chief sinner, and similar prayers and attitudes exist or are cultivated in the other Eastern churches, and in several of the Roman Catholic religious orders, for example, the Carthusians and Capuchins, and also within some Protestant denominations, for example, Lutheranism and some Reformed denominations that reject the notion of Once Saved, Always Saved.

Yeah, I don't believe in OSAS either.

 

[Hazelelponi]

He was a practicing Buddhist most of his life, however, shortly before his death, he began to talk about Christ. According to his sister, his last words were “Oh wow, oh, wow, oh wow” (in a positive sense). So what to do you think?

People who die often see things the rest of us cannot.

Whether people are saved is in God's purview alone but death bed conversions and subsequent salvation is a biblical concept, though I wouldn't want to bank on it in order to live like the devil without consequences.