If someone is born blind and deaf and never is able to hear the gospel or read, will they be lost?

Answer:

All references to reading or hearing the word are not intended to be taken literally.  In Luke 8:10, Jesus said, "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that,  'though seeing, they may not see;  though hearing, they may not understand.'"  If the seeing was meant literally in both uses, then what Jesus said would be nonsensical.  He was just saying that although the people in Jesus' time had the physical ability to see with their eyes, they somehow managed not to see what was going on.  The second use of "see" has to be referring to their perception of the events that were occurring.  So, even though their eyes worked fine, Jesus was essentially accusing them of being blind.  The spread of the gospel is not dependent on our physical ability to hear or see, but on our ability to understand.

More to the point of the question.  Helen Keller (for which there is a lot of information on the web) is probably the most well-known person who was blind, deaf and had limited ability for feeling.  Yet she managed to learn to communicate through the help of some very determined and heroic friends.  Hearing and reading are only two ways to communicate.  Braille was developed to allow those who can not see, the ability to read through their fingertips.  There is also sign language and if that were not enough, there are creative people who can design even other ways to communicate.

When Jesus was confronted by men who were trying to come up with an "impossible" question (Matthew 22:23-33), he replied with a simple statement that really put the questioners on the defensive.  He said, "You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God."  I believe that his reference to the power of God is intended to mean, "even if this were a problem, it would not be beyond the power of God to solve."

So, the direct answer to your question is that the blind and the deaf have the same issues as all of us.  They are sinners like the rest of us (Romans 3:23) and need to turn to Jesus because "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved" (Acts 4:12).

Darrell Hamilton