Are we (Christians) better than the heathen who do not know God?

[Xeno.of.athens]

Give it some thought, the question isn't about being innately better or even about being better because of education but rather it is about being better in heart and conduct than the heathen who do not know God.

What then? Do we excel them? No, not so. For we have charged both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. As it is written: There is not any man just. There is none that understandeth: there is none that seeketh after God. All have turned out of the way: they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, there is not so much as one. Their throat is an open sepulchre: with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery in their ways: And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law speaketh, it speaketh to them that are in the law: that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be made subject to God. Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.​

Romans 3:9-20 DRB
Yet we must reconcile these words from saint Paul with his words from Chapter two:

For whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law: and whosoever have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending one another, In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. But if thou art called a Jew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will and approvest the more profitable things, being instructed by the law: Art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law. Thou therefore, that teachest another, teachest not thyself: thou, that preachest that men should not steal, stealest. Thou, that sayest men should not commit adultery, committest adultery: thou, that abhorrest idols, committest sacrilege: Thou, that makest thy boast of the law, by transgression of the law dishonourest God. (For the name of God through you is blasphemed among the Gentiles, as it is written.) Circumcision profiteth indeed, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. If then, the uncircumcised keep the justices of the law, shall not this uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not that which by nature is uncircumcision, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law? For it is not he is a Jew, who is so outwardly: nor is that circumcision which is outwardly in the flesh. But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God.​

Romans 2:12-29 DRB
For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. yet it is also true that by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. and here we are, people who have heard the gospel, believed it, and rely on it for our justification and for our eventual salvation. It seems something more is needed to complete the doing of the law by means of which one is justified before God.

 

[AlightSeeker]

Give it some thought, the question isn't about being innately better or even about being better because of education but rather it is about being better in heart and conduct than the heathen who do not know God.

What then? Do we excel them? No, not so. For we have charged both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. As it is written: There is not any man just. There is none that understandeth: there is none that seeketh after God. All have turned out of the way: they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, there is not so much as one. Their throat is an open sepulchre: with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery in their ways: And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law speaketh, it speaketh to them that are in the law: that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be made subject to God. Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.​

Romans 3:9-20 DRB
Yet we must reconcile these words from saint Paul with his words from Chapter two:

For whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law: and whosoever have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending one another, In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. But if thou art called a Jew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will and approvest the more profitable things, being instructed by the law: Art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law. Thou therefore, that teachest another, teachest not thyself: thou, that preachest that men should not steal, stealest. Thou, that sayest men should not commit adultery, committest adultery: thou, that abhorrest idols, committest sacrilege: Thou, that makest thy boast of the law, by transgression of the law dishonourest God. (For the name of God through you is blasphemed among the Gentiles, as it is written.) Circumcision profiteth indeed, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. If then, the uncircumcised keep the justices of the law, shall not this uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not that which by nature is uncircumcision, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law? For it is not he is a Jew, who is so outwardly: nor is that circumcision which is outwardly in the flesh. But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God.​

Romans 2:12-29 DRB
For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. yet it is also true that by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. and here we are, people who have heard the gospel, believed it, and rely on it for our justification and for our eventual salvation. It seems something more is needed to complete the doing of the law by means of which one is justified before God.

Without holiness no one will see the Lord. Jesus says the pure in heart will see the Lord. We must purify our hearts and minds of our unfaithfulness to God which is adultery and idolatry. We do that by obeying Jesus and his apostles in all things. Not that we seek to be apostles, but we mimic the faith they teach us and that they themselves lived by also. Not just because obeying them is faithful to God, but because everything they teach leads us out of our unfaithfulness, out of our adultery and idolatry.

 

[The Righterzpen]

Give it some thought, the question isn't about being innately better or even about being better because of education but rather it is about being better in heart and conduct than the heathen who do not know God.

What then? Do we excel them? No, not so. For we have charged both Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin. As it is written: There is not any man just. There is none that understandeth: there is none that seeketh after God. All have turned out of the way: they are become unprofitable together: there is none that doth good, there is not so much as one. Their throat is an open sepulchre: with their tongues they have dealt deceitfully. The venom of asps is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery in their ways: And the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now we know that what things soever the law speaketh, it speaketh to them that are in the law: that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may be made subject to God. Because by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin.​

Romans 3:9-20 DRB
Yet we must reconcile these words from saint Paul with his words from Chapter two:

For whosoever have sinned without the law shall perish without the law: and whosoever have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law. For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. For when the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of the law; these, having not the law, are a law to themselves. Who shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them: and their thoughts between themselves accusing or also defending one another, In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ, according to my gospel. But if thou art called a Jew and restest in the law and makest thy boast of God, And knowest his will and approvest the more profitable things, being instructed by the law: Art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them that are in darkness, An instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, having the form of knowledge and of truth in the law. Thou therefore, that teachest another, teachest not thyself: thou, that preachest that men should not steal, stealest. Thou, that sayest men should not commit adultery, committest adultery: thou, that abhorrest idols, committest sacrilege: Thou, that makest thy boast of the law, by transgression of the law dishonourest God. (For the name of God through you is blasphemed among the Gentiles, as it is written.) Circumcision profiteth indeed, if thou keep the law: but if thou be a transgressor of the law, thy circumcision is made uncircumcision. If then, the uncircumcised keep the justices of the law, shall not this uncircumcision be counted for circumcision? And shall not that which by nature is uncircumcision, if it fulfil the law, judge thee, who by the letter and circumcision art a transgressor of the law? For it is not he is a Jew, who is so outwardly: nor is that circumcision which is outwardly in the flesh. But he is a Jew that is one inwardly and the circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit not in the letter: whose praise is not of men, but of God.​

Romans 2:12-29 DRB
For not the hearers of the law are just before God: but the doers of the law shall be justified. yet it is also true that by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified before him. For by the law is the knowledge of sin. and here we are, people who have heard the gospel, believed it, and rely on it for our justification and for our eventual salvation. It seems something more is needed to complete the doing of the law by means of which one is justified before God.

I think how you answer this would depend on your understanding of the operation of election and atonement in the life of someone who's not been exposed to the written revelation of Scripture; either through having someone preach it to them, or being able to access reading it themselves.

 

[Fervent]

It seems to me the "we" in Romans 1 and the "we" in the question are not the same.

 

[GDL]

Are we (Christians) better than the heathen who do not know God?​

Firstly, I agree with @Fervent in post #4.

Then, I guess that depends upon what you mean by "better" (it seems you mean better by law keeping or likely "works") and how one views things like this: "and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness." (Eph. 4:24 NKJ)

And there's also the prior context to Rom2 such as this: 5 But in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart you are treasuring up for yourself wrath in the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, 6 who "will render to each one according to his deeds": 7 eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality; 8 but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness-- indignation and wrath, 9 tribulation and anguish, on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first and also of the Greek; 10 but glory, honor, and peace to everyone who works what is good, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 11 For there is no partiality with God. (Rom. 2:5-11 NKJ)

So, is a man "better" than another man if he:

• in accordance with endurance of good work, seeks glory and honor and incorruptibility/immortality, and is recompensed with eternal life, glory, honor, and peace instead of:
• is self-seeking, disobedient to truth, obedient to unrighteousness, and accomplishing evil, and is recompensed with indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish.

One sounds better than the other to me. So does the new man created in true righteousness and holiness who has clothed himself with this new man as commanded.

I guess a few questions for you are: (1) who is "we" Paul is talking about? (2) what judgement is this? (3) who are these seekers of glory who receive glory from God?