Views of Salvation & The Divine

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 989). 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 h

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were it not that it was partly the European Christian response to Nazism, "one of the radicalized and demoniacal quasireligions" of history (Tillich 108). On balance, Tillich appears to take the view that Christianity is most properly conceived of as universalist, allinclusive (1067), to the degree it has the capacity to embrace the whole of religious tradition while making a special claim for the Redemption as a unique historical expression of "divine selfmanifestation, in all religions and cultures" (Tillich 106). He speaks favorably of early Christian apologists' tendency to seek reconciliation and convergences between Christian and preChristian religious traditions, but his attachment and partiality to Christianity, "especially in its selfcritical, Protestant form" are obvious (108). Nevertheless, Tillich does not close off religious dialogue. He cannot really be described as ptolemaist in Hick's terms. His acknowledgment that Christianity is positioned in an "indefinite" manner to other religions and his view that Christianity can thrive in dialectic, tends to support the view that he can commend his own religion without rejecting others. 2d. Hinduism seems more likely than Islam to be sympathetic to Hick's view th

Category: Philosophy - V