The purpose of this research is to examine the soteriological dimensions of religions. The plan of the research will be to set forth a comparison of such dimensions in Christianity and Islam, and then to discuss the complex human components of soteriological issues, from the point of view of faith and absence of faith.
1a. The concept of salvation is at the core of Christian faith. Tillich (107) and Hick ("Names" 111) refer to what they describe as the outmoded Christian view that salvation is attainable only through faith in Jesus Christ, by way of the Church, with all the ethical and spiritual activity and dogma that such a faith implies. Hick says that in light of the encounter of the world's religions this view has been modified to the view that the Church offers "special" access to salvation, adding that it is "still working within the presuppositions of the old dogma" (Hick, "Names" 112). Hick finds this explanation inadequate, and he provides a modified Christian concept of salvation as the experience, by way of the figure of Christ, as "living contact with the transcendent God. . . . We believe that he is so truly God's servant that in living as his disciples we are living according to the divine purpose" (Hick, "Names 115). On that view, Christian salvation is arguably an experience of earthly consciousness and not necessarily an aspect of in inchoate afterlife.
The Islamic view of salvation is contained in doctrine of the Day of Judgment: "For the Muslim life on earth is the seedbed of an eternal future. It will be followed by a day of reckoning which is foreshadowed [in the Koran] in the most awesome terms" (Smith 98-9). The ethical basis for human behavior, including the correct observance of Islamic law, informs Islam's concept of salvation in the doctrine of heaven and hell, although Smith explains that some Muslims interpret the doctrine literally and others symbolically. Salvation, or the "joy of joys consists ...