Below is a conversation extracted from BSA on 4/19/2025 that begins with a very insightful response to the question in the title of this post that was the title to the OP. Emphasis throughout this post is mine.
Below is my critique of conventional soteriology, [the doctrine of salvation by Jesus Christ] and my own perspective on “salvation”. The question that I have for anyone who cares to read it and give it any thought is do you think that it’s at all biblical, at all consistent with any ideas about salvation that can be found in Scripture? How do you think it lines up, or doesn’t, with traditional, supposedly Bible-based doctrines of salvation?
I should say upfront that I don’t subscribe to a conventional understanding of salvation, according to which it’s God extending mercy and forgiveness to us. To my mind this implies that God’s “justice” is punitive, retributive, that God’s inclination is to visit retributive justice upon us; it gives primacy to such “justice” in God’s nature.
I would argue that it fails to attribute primacy to God’s agapeic nature, to recognize that God’s fundamental mode of existence and relationality is love. A God whose fundamental mode of being and relating to us is love is not oriented, inclined to punishment, and doesn’t mercifully and forgivingly restrain “Himself” from imposing punishment; rather, a God in whose nature love holds absolute primacy was never going to inflict suffering on us as comeuppance for sin and therefore doesn’t need to hold “Himself” back from doing so; and, for that matter, is not an authoritarian who views sin as a chastisable transgression against his sovereign authority.
My conception of “salvation” is quite different. To my mind salvation is bringing one’s mind, one’s attitudes and inclinations; and one’s conduct, one’s way of relating to others and living in the world into attunement with the kind of love represented by God. And this involves a process, a process of personal growth; and a practice, an intentional cultivation of such attunement.
So, in conventional language, I envision salvation as involving both faith and works. But works aren’t a matter of earning salvation, God’s love is free flowing; and it’s God’s exclusive response to our failings, not one that God must choose over punishment. Rather, works, the practice of right conduct is a matter of making oneself receptive to, and participation in, God’s love. Works are, a spiritual practice is about self-transformation, and developing a mind and character that’s aligned with God’s mind and character, the concept of “earning” salvation doesn’t enter into it; nor does divine mercy and forgiveness. To apply, and answer Tina Turner’s question—”What’s love got to do with it”—everything. Love is the entirety of what has to do with salvation, the whole shebang of salvation.
(Perhaps this is a somewhat Pauline understanding of salvation, since it’s participationist, it involves participation in the divine; but then again not exactly the way that Paul understood participation. LOL. Well, the whole business about the death and resurrection of Jesus having salvific significance utterly fails to resonate with me. The idealized Jesus makes a fine model of divine love, and therefore a means of connecting with God, but to my mind he’s a middleman who can be eliminated with spiritual impunity. I like to say about the Jesus of Christology who gave himself as a vicarious sacrifice for our sins what Laplace said about God, I have no need of that hypothesis.)
PS A point of clarification. In my view although God loves us just as we are, even if we’re not in sync with God’s love, even if we’re serious sinners; and never chastises and reprobates anyone, God can be, and is disappointed when we fail to cultivate our capacity for love, and are unreceptive to relationship with God. But this is only because even though God accepts us as we are God still envisages and desires what’s best for us, wants us to realize the best human possibilities and values. So yes, God judges in the sense of having a valuational perspective on us, and our best interests—a love-based perspective; but God’s response when we disappoint by failing to measure up to what we should be in that perspective is not wrath but rather sadness, and more loving care aimed at our betterment and regeneration.
To me, this question may highlight one of the differences between theology and biblical studies, at least from my naive, non-specialist perspective.
A couple of my favorite phrases I have picked up from public-facing scholar Dan McClellan are: “the Bible is not a univocal text” and “everybody is negotiating with the text.”
Does the question in the OP leave open the possibility that among the authors of the four canonical gospels there might be different understandings of what constitutes salvation? And that they might not all agree with paul? And that the author of james definitely does not agree with paul? That in order to come up with a coherent theological single “Biblical” definition of salvation, one always has to negotiate with a text (or library of texts) that is not univocal, and is not just teaching one thing on any topic, including salvation?
For the theologian that exercise might be important, even necessary. But from a biblical studies perspective is it better to ask what a given author of a given text within the bible thinks salvation is, rather than asking what “the bible” teaches salvation is?
Because tone doesn’t come across well in comments, I don’t mean any of that to be confrontational or unkindly dismissive of the Q in the OP. Those are just the thoughts that bubble to the surface for me when reading the question. If I have misunderstood the thrust of the question entirely, please forgive me and feel free to set me straight. Fwiw, I like your answer to the Q better than that of some of the conservative theologies I grew up with!
Karl Uotinen – Thanks for raising some good points and questions. And I absolutely agree that “the Bible is not a univocal text” and “everybody is negotiating with the text.” My reply to Michael deals with those two observations, and so instead of rehashing what I’ve said there I’ll just refer you to that reply. And don’t worry, I don’t find your reply to be confrontational at all. It’s a very reflective reply, and much appreciated.
I think that’s a beautiful view of salvation, spiritually powerful and mature. I’m tempted to just refer to Mark 12:34 and leave it at that, but I guess I want to comment on whether it’s “Biblical” or not.
The Bible, of course, contains a variety of perspectives which don’t always play well together. In addition, it’s not always obvious how liberal one can be when honestly applying new perspectives to old texts. In these cases, I think it’s fair to apply the same standards of fidelity that the New Testament uses when interpreting Old Testament texts. When quoting Isaiah or the Psalms, how careful did Matthew feel the need to be to ensure that he wasn’t stretching the meant to fit his own purpose? In my mind, that’s how careful we should be when applying Matthew to our own theological-moral framework.
Michael L Waddell – Thank you. And I absolutely agree that the Bible is of course not monolithic in perspective. It’s a collection of literature that many sources who were not of one mind have contributed to—some of which constitute a veritable alphabet soup: E, P, D, and J (in the documentary hypothesis); K (the hypothetical Kenite source), R (the redactor), L (the lay source of some of Leviticus); and Q, M, and another L in the four source hypothesis).
So naturally we’re going to find different and inconsistent ideas about what constitutes right heartedness, the right conduct of life, and right relationship with God (that is to say “salvation”); everything from a wrathful God for whom Phineas’s spearing of an unfaithful Israelite man and a Midianite woman is an act of atonement needed to restore good relations between “Him” and “His” people, to Micah’s God for whom the love of mercy is a requirement for covenantal fellowship with “Him”. One can find support for all manner of theological and soteriological belief in the Bible.
Fundamentalists then can fixate in their customary literalistic fashion upon those passages that validate their not so love-oriented understanding of God and salvation; and liberals such as myself can instead more creatively interpret various scriptural bits to make them align with our agapeic vision of God. Any view can be touted as biblical (as Antonio observed, “even the devil can quote scripture …”). But it’s impossible for either camp to come up with a view on the question of salvation (or any question) that’s biblical in the sense that the entire Bible consistently throws its weight behind it. The Bible is just too much of a mixed bag to be consistent on anything. For this reason I would never describe my own soteriology as, and I don’t need it to be “biblical”.
However, that said, I’m not an originalist who holds that the meaning of a text is limited to the original intent or vision of its author. In my view if the preconceived ideas that inspire one’s creative exegesis are insightful then, rather than being sheer eisegesis, creative exegesis can grow an inchoate germ of meaning in a text into a veridical understanding that transcends the author’s perspective. And so I would argue that a liberal reading of various biblical passages can indeed legitimately support the kind of agapeic theology and soteriology that I’ve put forward in my post, even if those passages don’t literally and explicitly articulate it. A liberal doctrine of salvation then can be authentically biblical—just not the exclusively biblical doctrine.
Kenneth Tyler Mar 29 a little philosopher
And if you’re going to start talking about ‘salvation’ 🙂 you probably need to extend your scope to the many discussions in the first few centuries before the notion we think of as salvation solidified.
Kenneth Tyler – Good point. Also, to my mind “salvation” unfortunately always connotes the idea of securing God’s mercy and benevolence, even if only by faith and not works. I prefer the view found in Judaism, that rather than securing we merely need to be receptive to God’s love and blessings; to live up to already being the objects of God’s loving care, and to treat each other accordingly. I think that Christians would do well to adopt the Jewish view, and dispense altogether with thinking in terms of salvation.
Kenneth Tyler Mar 29 a little philosopher
Speaking of Jewish. Are you familiar with Buber’s collected sayings of the hasidic rabbis? [Copy in DropBox Christianity/Kindle/Tales of the Hasidim – Martin Buber.epub]
Kenneth Tyler No, I’ve only read I and Thou.
not to confuse the guys he’s writing about with current hasidic groups. They’re basically a lot of parables. It was a very ‘heart-warming’ movement, like methodism (which it was sort of contemporaneous with)
Kenneth Tyler – Thank you! I just acquired the book. If anyone else here is interested in reading it, here’s a share link to download my copy for free:
I’d be more than happy to read along. It’s one of my favorite books and has had a huge influence on me.
Salvation from what and to what end? I tie it directly into the Kingdom of God not as a place, but into a way to think, a way to act, a way to share…comfort, food, shelter, medicine. Someone said somewhere we all reside in personal kingdoms, well Jesus pictured a marriage of personal sacrifice with a communal utopia. And sacrifice is not exactly right. If one believes in a panentheistic model of creation then it is a return to the Kingdom, a natural comfortable joyous act. But if Salvation is merely to wander streets of gold…..
Joseph Warren – A great critical-minded question. Like you, I don’t think in traditional terms of rescue from the eschatological fate of God’s punitive judgment and justice, from perdition and hellfire. And your vision of salvation very much resonates with me. I reconceive salvation as a process and practice of well-being, as practicing a way of being in the world that doesn’t make one liable to experience needless, elective suffering; and that accustoms, habituates one to skillfully negotiate the suffering that’s an inherent, unavoidable part of human existence; to not be crushed and desolated by it, to not be driven to despair. And more importantly, a love-oriented way of being with others in the world that involves the mutual easing of suffering, and promotion of well-being. Your mention of a “panentheistic model of creation” further suggests that we’re on the same wavelength, envisioning the interrelatedness and interdependence of everyone’s well-being owing to our interrelation with each other through our interrelation with divinity. “Salvation” then would be not a return to this ontological and existential state of affairs, but simply recognizing and manifesting it.
Thanks for your reply.
It gives an interesting aspect to the discussion to remember that Christianity formed, in great part, in response to the power and violence of the ‘Empire’. So there is a political aspect and a community aspect to ‘salvation’ that it is hard for us to come to grips with.
Kenneth Tyler – Not sure of this. The original charismatic communities isolated in preparation for the apocalypse. Then they filled a void, a need not satisfied by the pagan sacrifices. Charity combined with stoicism maybe. Plus an option to the political turmoil and crass valuation of life. Then as it grew larger individuals co-joined with the power of Rome, in degrees of course with plenty of backward steps. Then the church turned on the outliers, the supposed heretics, thereby equating salvation with orthodoxy and proving to Rome that they were predictable, ordered citizens.
I am humbled and appreciative for what Charles started and many responded with clarity and willingness to listen.
My question is i do not know what it means to be saved and from what. i grew up as a fundamental Southern Baptist I believed when i accepted Christ as an eights year old would be forgiven for all. Yes that is the story i told myself and lived by- that was my faith story but i now have lived thru many transitions as to the story i tell myself about salvation. Paul in Galatians 2:20 reads “ I am crucified with Christ yet never the less live, yet it is not i who live but Christ who lives in me.
In other words it is me in Christ form. That is now my faith story that allows me to be somewhat of a Universalist. see Faith as the stories i tell myself that give meaning to my life. Many of the stories are Biblical and support me to embrace the paradox and polarities in my life and the abilities to embrace the polarities and paradox in my life and the multiple interpretations of what the Bible may say or not say about Salvation. Charles i am learning as i go. Being a part of this group is exciting to me. thank you.
ROBERT MISER – Thank you for your feedback. It sounds like for you religion and spirituality are a process of growth. Congratulations. In my view that’s precisely what they should be.
