Tag Archives: salvation

Against Exclusivism

In a recent discussion I had elsewhere, the topic of (Christian) salvation came up in the context of the Jewish people living before Christ. It seems to be a common Evangelical argument that at least some of these people (e.g. David, Moses, etc) were saved by Christ. However, I now take issue with this for a few reasons.

First and foremost is that the method by which ‘salvation’ is dispensed changed between OT Judaism and NT Christianity. To put it another way, the ‘OT saints’ did not believe that ‘accepting Christ as Lord and Saviour’ was the way. Sure, they may have believed in a forthcoming Christ, but their idea of this Christ would have been fundamentally different, as the Gospels clearly show that the Jewish people were not looking for a spiritual salvation but a political one. The Christian NT (and subsequent theology) fits with interpretations of OT texts only by re-interpreting these texts in light of the Christ-event. It is an intellectually dishonest claim to argue that the people up to the time of Christ read the texts in that light; it’s an anachronism. As a result of this, the OT beliefs regarding ‘salvation’ (if there were any at all) are very likely to be different than their NT counterparts.

Secondly and subsequently, if some people before the time of Christ were ‘saved’ (in the Christian sense), the person arguing such must admit she is not an exclusivist.* She must admit that people outside of the Christian religious faith are ‘saved’ in order to remain consistent. There are a few options that work, each of which I wish to address: (1) argue that ‘salvation’ comes from something other than a religious belief/faith, (2) accept some form of inclusivism,* (3) accept some form of pluralism.*

Real Faith Isn’t a Religion

I believe this may be the most popular opinion in Evangelical Christianity, as it seeks to differentiate between religious practices (which may be flawed) and ‘true saving faith’. This is a hybridisation of exclusivism and inclusivism by arguing that only people who follow the real faith (exclusivism) are ‘saved’ but that this real faith is not a single religious tradition (inclusivism). It is a short step from C.S. Lewis’s inclusivism he describes in The Last Battle.* However, there are two issues here that make this position untenable in my opinion. First, it can’t maintain its position as nonreligious with its call for proselytism/evangelism. If one must convert in order to ‘be saved’, then that set of beliefs are, in fact, religious. In other words, conversion is only necessary if there are wrong beliefs. Secondly (and less importantly), it must extend this position beyond just a few groups of people (i.e. post-Christ Christian and pre-Christ Jewish believers). In other words, it must also accept that Hindus, Muslims, Buddhists, Jains, etc can be ‘true believers’ while remaining within their religious traditions both before and after Christ. The combination of these requires a view very close to that of pluralism, which has had some Evangelical Christian expressions recently from figures such as Brian McLaren.

Pluralism

In a nutshell, this position argues that no religious tradition is ‘more correct’ than another. Unlike its hybrid cousin above, it does not need to explain a particular notion of salvation for another tradition. Its one major fault is that it is incompatible with the history and traditions of Christian belief. Attempts to integrate it within some kind of ‘orthodox Christian belief’ ultimately fails because it must eject important pieces of historical Christianity or reinterpret them in order to succeed. As such, I am unable to accept it as a plausible resolution to the above situation.*

Inclusivism

In this context, inclusivism takes a form very similar to the hybrid position, as it argues that salvation comes only from ‘Christian’ belief. Its argument for OT Jewish believers, however, is quickly dissolved as it relies on the anachronistic reading of theology. It still has another option in arguing that even though these believers were not ‘Christian’, they happened (either by chance or by some divine intervention) to get enough concepts right to somehow have fallen into ‘Christian’ salvation before ‘Christianity’ existed (in the same way that one could argue that Augustine had fumbled into semiotics centuries before it was treated as such). Like the hybrid position, however, it must extend this belief to all people. However, unlike the hybrid, it is able to stand firmly within the field of inclusivism and accept a call to proselytism/evangelism without being backed into an intellectual corner. In other words, faith comes from some kind of theological revelation that is most easily found within the Christian tradition but not exclusively (either because of freak chance or by divine intervention). It is this position that I believe to be the only tenable response to the original situation. It is able to accept the possibility of people outside of the influence of the Christian tradition to have received the ‘right’ revelation while also being able to accept proselytism/evangelism.

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NB 1: For these terms, see here for my usage.
NB 2: For an description of this, see here.
NB 3: For a more sympathetic view to integrating Christianity with pluralism, I highly suggest reading John Hick’s works (e.g. God Has Many Names).

On Pluralism

Recently, there was a debate regarding religious pluralism at my university.  One of the panelists provided some useful definitions, which I will use here for simplicity.  First, we begin with atheism as the belief that all religions are wrong.  The logical opposite would be that at least 1 religion is correct.  This leads to another disjunction: only one religion is correct (and thus we have exclusivism) or more than one religion is correct.  Under this level, there is another disjunction: either one religion is “more correct” or more than one are equally correct.  The former here gives us inclusivism, the latter pluralism.  Note that none of these require that all religions are equally correct, which I supposed could be classified as relativism.

One of the other panelists is a Catholic theologian who began with exclusivism.  However, as his argument proceeded with references to many 2nd-Vatican and post-2nd-Vatican texts (e.g. Lumen Gentium), he began to approach inclusivism as he suggested that even though the universal Church is the primary medium through which salvation occurs, it does not exclude others.  A corollary to this was that there is some truth in other religions.  The first panelist, a pluralist, saw this flaw and was one of the stronger arguments against this sort of exclusivism because it was inclusivism in disuguise.

The pluralist’s argument was that one should develop true respect and appreciation for other religions because at least some of them lead to the same ending (whether that be the classic ideas of heaven or moksa).  However, the fatal flaw in this argument is that religious difference is subsumed to religious identity, which leads to an “appreciation” of religions based on an assumed identity.  In other words, this really is inclusivism in sheep’s clothing.  If the pluralist wishes to respect other religions, it cannot be through the subsumption of difference to identity.  It would be a stronger argument if it realizes that difference over and above identity as the excess of religion itself.

Notes On Universalism

“Salvation” needs to be though of as a 2-step process.  Why?  If it is a single-step process, then it would have to be God’s choice; there is too much evidence in the Bible to deny this.  This excludes what is typically called Arminianism.  However, that would also mean that, no matter how random God’s choosing was, it was still preferential.  Furthermore, there is too much evidence in the Bible to suggest that God acted for all mankind, all flesh, to all the ends of the earth.  This leaves two options: (1) universalism as most people see it (that is, God eventually “saves” everyone), or (2) something else.  We’ve already excluded what can be called predestination (which most people equate with Calvinism, but that is another debate).  Lastly, we can exclude Pelagianism because (again) there is too much evidence which suggests that we humans are not free in and of ourselves to choose God.

Now that I’ve touched every major theological stance on the matter, it is time to turn to the two-step process I believe fits what we read in the Bible.  All I want to do here is describe it briefly in process.  First, man has chosen corruption (we see this in Genesis with the story of Adam and Eve; it is echoed in Romans and throughout the NT).  This is followed directly by the Cross where God “saves” all of mankind, universally.  We cannot simply say that this action is only effective on some of mankind (as if God was using a pen to reveal what was written with disappearing ink).  The Bible is clear that this action is for the whole world, all of sin, all flesh, everything.  However, the Bible is also clear that not all of mankind ends up on the “saved” team.  Hence, the next step: mankind must accept this gift.  There is much difficulty if one wants to add in here that God chose all who do accept this (or something similar).  This is because it would bring us back to the same difficulty above if God chooses some for salvation: it doesn’t fit with what we have in the Bible nor does it reflect an image of God as being impartial.  One can add in here that God somehow “knew” this, but it cannot affect God’s actions (or again we get into the same sticky situation).  As a final result, we have the Great Commission: Christ calling all disciples of all time to spread the good news to all ends of the earth, to all peoples.  Perhaps one could also add into here that if one truly hears the good news, it is too appealing to reject, but I’m not sure how this properly fits.

That’s it.  There’s no need to explain away the passages in the Bible that speak of God saving all mankind, passages of not all mankind being saved, nor passages of mankind choosing God.  This is still a work in progress and will need some tweaking.  If any reader sees a possible flaw in the logic or a possibly difficulty with a passage in the Bible, please join in the discussion.