In the comparative study of religions, salvation is sometimes defined broadly so as to illustrate commonality among the various religions. For example "Salvation" could be defined as “a benefit conferred upon or achieved by its members.” Many religions / institutions / philosophies offer benefits (“salvation”).
However the nature of the "benefit" and how it is achieved varies enormously among different religions.
It is important to understand, honor and respect these differences
The Christian Doctrine of Salvation was not rigorously defined in the early church; and there is diversity in views on:
Two distinctive features in Christian salvation are agreed upon:
Salvation is grounded in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ
There are different views on how salvation is “grounded" in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus:"
Jesus provides a model or paradigm for the redeemed life
There are two different ways in which Jesus is viewed to provide the model for redeemed life:
What are we save from? What are we saved for?
Our deficiencies and needs can be described as "vertical" (between God and Humanity) and "horizontal" (between our fellow human beings and within ourselves):
Sin causes a broken relationship with God.
“How do I find a gracious God?” (Martin Luther).
How can sinners (all of us) ever be accepted by a Holy God?
Some terminology (Protestant):
Roman Catholicism has tended to use a slightly different terminology:
Some terminology (Roman Catholic):
If these different terminologies are appreciated, the differences between Protestant and Roman Catholic views on "Justification" are not as profound as sometimes suggested:
“Protestants speak of a declaration of justice and Catholics of a making just. But Protestants speak of a declaring just which includes a making just; and Catholics of a making just which supposes a declaring just. Is it not time to stop arguing about imaginary differences?”
- Hans Küng
In Liberation Theology, the oppression and exploitation of powerless classes by the powerful. Salvation is liberation from this oppression
Biblical basis for liberation theology:
Basic tenets of LIberation Theology:
Salvation is liberation from the forces that deprive us of authentic existence (Bultmann, Tillich)
terms from Existential philosophy:
Christian Inauthentic Life arises from two human tendencies:
A Christian must abandon the quest for tangible realities, transitory objects.
3. How Are We Saved?
How does Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection save us? What are the mechanisms by which the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, and/or the Resurrection makes our salvation possible?
Some views (not mutually exclusive):
The view that Jesus' sacrificial offering of himself on the cross made our salvation possible pervades liturgy. This view proposes:
Problems / Questions with this view of how we are saved through Jesus' life and death
Horace Bushnell (1866) suggested:
3.3. The Cross as Victory (Christus Victor)
Christ the Victor = Christus Victor
Through his Crucifixion and Resurrection, Jesus achieved a lasting victory over sin, death and Satan. The view that Christ won a victory through his Crucifixion and Resurrection also pervades our liturgy.
But how? How did Jesus' death on a cross achieve a victory?
The Classic Theory of How the Victory was Won (Origen, Gregory the Great):
St. Anselm was troubled by this classic explanation of the Christus Victor theory because:
3.4.1. The "Satisfaction" Theory
Anselm, with later refinement by Thomas Aquinas, proposed:
Problems with this "satisfaction theory:"
“God become human, in order that humans might become God.”
Salvation in Orthodox Church: the broken relationship between individuals and God is restored so that human beings can participate in the uncreated energy of God (“deification”)
“Deification” is possible because:
“It was necessary that the voluntary humiliation, the redemptive selfemptying (kenosis) of the Son of God should take place, so that fallen men might accomplish their vocation of theosis, the deification of created beings by uncreated grace.”
- Vladimir Lossky, 1953
The incarnation, the life and death of Jesus illustrates God’s love for humanity and moves us to love of God. This love is what saves us.
“the purpose and cause of the incarnation was that Christ might illuminate the world by his wisdom, and excite it to love of himself”
“our redemption through the suffering of Christ is that deeper love within us which not only frees us from slavery to sin, but also secures for us the true liberty of the children of God, in order that we might do all things out of love rather than out of fear. . .”
3.6.2. Christ is the Moral Ideal
After the Enlightenment, this view “expanded” to:
Is our salvation:
This question in part arises from the attempt to shoehorn justification, sanctification and our final salvation into a past-present-future framework, and then to emphasize just one part of the process:
Processes of Salvation:
However, the processes of salvation are complex in their chronology:
“Christian understanding of salvation presupposes that something has happened, that something is now happening, and that something will still happen to believers.”
Origen proposed that all will be saved (Universalism) because he could not accept the Gnostic-like view that there would be a realm of Good and a realm of Evil existing side by side for all eternity:
John A. T. Robinson (radical English theologian 1960’s) proposed all will be saved because in the end, no one will reject the overpowering love of God:
Augustine distanced himself from Origen, and stressed that faith is a precondition for salvation.
He and later Calvin argued that those Biblical passages which say that God wishes all to be saved refer to all kinds of people, not all people.
This logically leads to the view that salvation can only be found within the Church.
5.3.2. What Kind of Faith is Needed?
Question: what kind of belief or faith is the precondition for salvation? Must it be an explicitly Christian Faith?
John Wesley agreed that faith is needed for one to be saved, but not necessarily a fully Christian faith
C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity suggests that a commitment to the pursuit of goodness and truth is a sufficient faith for salvation
5.3.3. What is the Church?
The Roman Catholic view remains that salvation can be found only in the church -- but “the church” is more than just the visible institutional Catholic church.
With this definition of the "People of God," some Catholic theologians have reversed the usual formula, suggesting that "the Church," by definition, is that place where salvation is found:
Wherever there is salvation, there the church is also
- Yves Congar
The basis for this view is the Reformed doctrine of predestination.
The logic behind this view is:
Chapter 13 “The Doctrine of Salvation in Christ” in: Christian Theology. An Introduction. Third Edition. Alister E. McGrath, Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 2001
Chapter 43 “Conceptions of Salvation” in: Christian Theology, Second Edition. Millard J. Erickson, Baker Books, Grand Rapids, 1998
Chapters 13 and 14 “The Work of Christ,” “The Holy Spirit and Salvation” in: Principles of Christian Theology, Second Edition, John Macquarrie, Charles Scribner, New York, 1977