I PARTTEN
4. A single continuous process with distinguishable components
Nature and Locus of the Need
A second question relates to the nature and locus of the need which must be dealt with. In the traditional view, man’s basic deficiency is thought of as being vertical in nature. The primary human problem is separation from God. Sin is violation of the will of God, and the result is enmity toward God. What is needed is to restore the broken relationship between God and the creature. This is the evangelical view of salvation.
It is characterized by terms like “conversion,” “forgiveness,” “reconcilia- tion,” and “adoption.” A second view is that the primary human problem is horizontal. This may mean that an individual is deficient in his or her adjustment to other persons, or that there is a fundamental lack of harmony within society as a whole. Salvation involves the removal of ruptures within the human race, the healing of personal and social relationships. “Relational theology” is concerned with this process on the level of individual maladjustments and small-group problems. Liberation theologies are concerned with the conflicts between different racial or economic classes, the fact that the whole of society is so structured as to deny certain of its members some of the basic necessities of life. Finally, the primary human problem is also thought to be internal. The individual is plagued with feelings which must be eradicated-guilt, inferiority, insecurity. “Adjustment,” “self-understanding,” “self-acceptance,” and
“growth in self-esteem” are catchwords here.
The Medium of Salvation
The question of how salvation is obtained or transmitted is also highly important. Some views regard the transmission of salvation as virtually a physical process. This is true of certain sacramental&t systems which believe salvation or grace to be obtained by means of a physical object.
For example, in traditional Roman Catholicism, grace is believed to be actually transmitted and received by taking the bread of communion into one’s body. While the value of the sacrament depends to some extent
890 Salvation
upon the inward attitude or condition of the communicant, grace is received primarily through the external physical act. Others think that salvation is conveyed by moral action. Here salvation is not so much something possessed by some individual or organization and transmitted to others, as it is something created by altering the state of affairs. This idea of salvation is found in the social-gospel movement and in liberation theologies. The approach to change advocated by some of these ideolo- gies can be quite secular in nature, involving, for example, the use of normal political channels. Evangelical theologies represent a third idea:
salvation is mediated by faith. Faith appropriates the work accomplished by Christ. The recipient is, in a sense, passive in this process. (These issues will be examined more fully in chapter 48.)
The Direction of Movement in Salvation
An additional consideration is the direction of movement in salvation.
Does God work by saving individuals, effecting a personal transformation which proceeds outward into society and changes the world of which the redeemed are a part? Or does God work by altering the structures of our society and then using these altered structures to change the persons who make it up?
The social-gospel movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century was convinced that the basic human problem lies not in a perverted human nature, but in an evil social environment. According to this view, there is no point in trying to change individuals, for they will be thrust back into a corrupt society and be infected again as it were.
Humans are not essentially evil. They are whatever their environment makes them to be. So instead of attempting to cure individuals, who are corrupted by society, we must alter the conditions leading to their illness.
We might say that the advocates of the social gospel were proposing a sort of spiritual public-health ministry. Their view of human nature was much like that of Jean Jacques Rousseau, though in a very different context of course. In another way it paralleled behaviorism’s view that the individual personality is little more than a set of behavior patterns determined by one’s environment.
The opposite approach has been advocated by those elements within Christianity that emphasize conversion. They hold that human nature is radically corrupt. The evils of society result from the fact that it is composed of evil individuals. Only as there is transformation of these individuals is there any real hope for changing society. Altered individuals will eventually change society, not simply because the whole is composed of the sum of its parts, but also because supernaturally transformed
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Conceptions of Salvation 891
individuals have the motivation to work for the change of the societal whole.
The Extent of Salvation
The extent of salvation is an issue for those who think of salvation as applying to individual persons rather than to society. The question is, Who or how many members of the human race will be saved? The particular- ist position sees salvation as based upon individual responses to the grace of God. It maintains that not all will respond affirmatively to God; con- sequently, some will be lost and some saved. The universalist position, on the other hand, holds that God will restore all humans to the relationship with him for which they were originally intended. No one will be lost.
There are two varieties of the universalist position. One might be a universalist by being an optimistic particular&t. That is to say, one might hold both that it is necessary to accept Jesus Christ personally in order to be saved, and that every individual will do so. Unfortunately, however, it does not appear that everyone in the past has accepted Christ; indeed, countless numbers did not even have the opportunity to do so. It conse- quently is not feasible to think of all as being saved in this fashion, unless there is some sort of unconscious means by which the conditions for salvation can be fulfilled. The more common universalist position is to assume that in the end God will on some basis simply accept all persons into eternal fellowship with himself.
The Objects of Salvation
In some circles there is the idea that only human beings, individually and collectively, are to be saved. This view considers the rest of the creation as merely a stage on which the human drama is worked out: it is therefore only incidental to the whole occurrence of salvation. An alternative view, however, holds that there are cosmic dimensions to salvation. Human beings are not alone in having been affected by the presence of sin in the creation. Usually taking its cue from Paul’s state- ments in Romans 8:18-25, the alternative view argues that salvation, in its final form, will include the restoration of the entire fallen cosmos, which is now under the bondage of sin, to the pure and glorious condi- tion in which it was created and for which it was destined by its Maker.
Current Conceptions of Salvation Liberation Theologies
One of the vital movements currently propounding its unique view of salvation is the cluster of theologies which may collectively be referred
892 Salvation to as ‘liberation theologies.” We might subdivide this movement into black, feminist, and Third World theologies. It is especially the last of these three that is referred to as liberation theology. While there are some significant differences which have occasionally produced conflict among these groups, there is a sufficient commonality among them to enable us to trace some basic features of their view of the nature of salvation.
One of the common emphases here is that the basic problem of society is the oppression and exploitation of the powerless classes by the powerful. Salvation consists in deliverance (or liberation) from such oppression. The method of liberation will be appropriate to the nature of the specific situation.
The liberation theologies’ analysis of humanity’s predicament stems from two sources. On the one hand, there is a consensus that the capitalist or “developmentalist” approach to economic and political mat- ters is inherently both wrong and inept. Capitalists hold that there is one process through which all societies ought ideally to pass. The problem with the undeveloped nations is simply that they are not as far along in the process as are the more industrial nations. As the undeveloped nations advance, their problems will be solved.2 To the liberation theolo- gians it is increasingly apparent, however, that the economic develop- ment of the advanced nations, as well as the prosperity of the elite social classes, is achieved at the expense of the less fortunate. One sees in Latin American countries the sharp contrast of luxury high-rise apartments adjacent to slums. International corporations succeed because they ex- ploit the cheap labor in banana republics and similar places. Rich nations use military power to keep poor countries subservient to them. For the poorer nations to emulate the practices of the richer nations will not result in prosperity for all. The underlying reason here is that the pros- perous nations are prosperous specifically because they keep other na- tions impoverished. The gap between poor and rich continues to increase.
Not only are there large numbers (even in the United States) living under poverty conditions, there are people who literally are unable to live! In addition, millions work under degrading and unfair conditions.3
The other source of this push to see salvation as liberation from exploitation is a sense that the Bible identifies with the oppressed. The charge that liberation theology is biased in its approach to the Bible is acknowledged to be true, but it is pointed out by way of response that
2. See, e.g., Walt W. Rostow, The Stages of Economic Growth, 2nd ed. (New York:
Cambridge University, 1971).
3. Gustav0 Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, trans. Sister Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1973), p. 26.
Conceptions of Salvation 893
the biblical writers shared this bias. The history of God’s redemptive working is a history of groups of oppressed people. Certainly the people of Israel were oppressed in Egypt. Indeed, the Book of Exodus is one of liberation theology’s favorite portions of God’s Word. In later history as well, Israel was constantly under the yoke of more powerful nations.
Consider the raids of the Philistines and captivity at the hands of the Assyrians and the Babylonians. The church, particularly as it expanded into Gentile territory, was made up of powerless, poor, and unimportant persons rather than the elite of society. Just0 and Catherine Gonzalez summarize: “First of all, is it true that most of the Bible is written from the perspective of the powerless? Surely this is the case.“4
Liberation theology concludes from the fact of God’s proclivity for speaking the word through the powerless that his message of salvation concerns them in particular Jesus confirmed this in Luke 10~2 1: “I thank thee, Father, . . . that thou hast hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to babes.” Either the wise and power- ful must hear God’s word through powerless persons such as Nathan, Amos, Peter, and Jesus, or they will not hear it at all.
But what is the specific nature of salvation as viewed by liberation theologies? We should note first that these theologies do not claim to be universal theories, but are closely tied in with concrete political realities.
Universal theories usually turn out to be the theological conceptions of white middle-class males. Black theology, by contrast, claims to be a way of breaking out of the corrupting influence of white thought to formulate a theology built upon norms and drawn from sources appropriate to the black c~mmunity.~
Correlatively, liberation theologies do not view the Bible as universal in nature. When examined closely, it is seen to be a book not of eternal truths and rules, but of specific history. Truth here is not something that k but rather something that happens. And the specific history in the Bible is not merely narration of past events. It is also a plan for the redemption of God’s creation; it is a political task to be carried out.6
Although liberation theology relates particularly to concrete historical and political matters, it does not understand itself to be merely a frag- mentary theology. It is concerned with and deals with the whole of Christian theology. It is not merely about liberation. It is designed to be a
4. Justo L. Gonzalez and Catherine G. Gonzalez, Liberation Preaching: The Pulpit and the Oppressed (Nashville: Abingdon, 1980), p. 16.
5. James H. Cone, A Black Theology of Liberation (Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1970), p. 53.
6. Gonzalez and Gonzalez, Liberation Preaching, pp. 20-2 I.
894 Salvation treatment of all the doctrines or topics of traditional theology, but from the perspective of liberation.7
Liberation theology does not understand God to be the impassive, immutable, unknowable being traditionally believed in by most Chris- tians. Rather, God is active. He is involved with the poor in their struggle.
An evidence of this is the incarnation, by which God, far from remaining aloof and secure, came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ and entered the human struggle. In the understanding of liberation theology, the unchanging and unchangeable God of traditional theism is actually an idol, an idol developed by those who had the most to lose from change.
But on the contrary, God is active, and actively involved in change. This means that he is not neutral. He is in favor of equality. And for equality to prevail, God cannot and must not work equally for all persons. If his justice is to be an equalizing justice, it must necessarily work in an unequal or compensating manner in an unequal world. Perhaps the most emphatic statement of this view was made by James Cone: “Black theol- ogy cannot accept a view of God which does not represent him as being for blacks and thus against whites. Living in a world of white oppressors, black people have no time for a neutral God.“8
Liberation theology’s view of salvation assumes a particular view of humanity and of sin. Traditional theology has often emphasized humility and self-abasement as the primary virtues of humankind as designed by God. Pride, correspondingly, is viewed as the cardinal sin. Sin is often considered a matter of inner attitudes or private misdeeds. According to liberationists, however, the Bible does not emphasize humility, an attri- bute which often leads to acceptance of oppression. Rather, in passages like Psalm 8, the Bible exalts the human creature. Moreover, the Bible does not look upon internal pride as the principal sin. Serving the inter- ests of the powerful in this respect as in so many others, theology and Christian preaching have tended to ignore the sort of sin most often condemned in the Bible: “Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land” (Isa. .5:8).9
Salvation is not to be thought of primarily as individual life after death, maintain the liberation theologians. The Bible concerns itself much more with the kingdom of God. Even eternal life is usually placed in the context of a new social order, and is regarded as consisting not so much in being plucked out of history as in being a participant in its culmination. This understanding that the goal of history is the realization of justice has
7. Ibid., p. 2 1.
8. Cone, Black Theology, pp. 131-32.
9. Gonzalez and Gonzalez, Liberation Preaching, p. 24.
Conceptions of Salvation 89.5
never been popular with the powerful. If, as the traditional formulation has it, history and eternity are two parallel (i.e., nonintersecting) realms, our goal within history is to gain access to eternity. This can best be achieved by being meek and accepting. Since the chief concern of the human individual is for his or her soul to go to heaven, those who exploit the body may actually be rendering a service. But as Gonzalez and Gonzalez put it, if history and eternity intersect, “if salvation is moving into a new order, which includes the entire human being, then we must strive against everything which at present denies that order.“lO The sal- vation of all persons from oppression is the goal of God’s work in history and must therefore be the task of those who believe in him. They will seek to bring about salvation in this sense by every means possible, including political effort and even revolution if necessary.
Existential Theology
A variety of twentieth-century theologies have been existential in the sense of being based upon or constructed from existential philosophy.
Indeed, to varying degrees probably the majority of twentieth-century theologies have incorporated some measure of existentialism into their formulations of doctrine. We have in mind here, however, those which are overtly and avowedly existential in orientation, theologies in which existential philosophy plays a major and significant role. Perhaps the outstanding representative of existential theology in this sense is Rudolf Bultmann and his demythologization program. Bultmann sought to in- terpret the New Testament and indeed to construct a theology on the basis of the thought of Martin Heidegger, who was teaching philosophy at the University of Mar-burg when Bultmann was teaching New Testa- ment there. To understand Bultmann’s concept of salvation, it will be necessary to summarize some of Heidegger’s major philosophical tenets.
A hrst major tenet is Heidegger’s distinction between objective and subjective knowledge. Objective knowledge consists of ideas which cor- rectly reflect or correspond with the object signified. Here the attitude of the subject or knower has no bearing at all. In fact, it is potentially deleterious, for it tends to prejudice the data. Objective knowledge is what is sought by the various natural sciences, where the aim is to identify, describe, and analyze as accurately as possible the data under consideration. Subjective knowledge is quite different, however. Here the central concern is not accuracy, whether an idea correctly depicts the object signified, but the subjective involvement or inward passion of the knower, how he or she feels about the topic of discussion or object of
IO. Ibid.
8 9 6 Salvation knowledge. It is impossible to gain scientific-type knowledge when deal- ing with subjects rather than objects. For subjects, that is, other persons, human or divine, simply cannot be subsumed under hard categories of logic. Our subjective knowledge of another person is not our fund of objective ideas about that person; it is a matter of our feelings toward that person. The same is true of our subjective knowledge of ourselves.
The truth about ourselves, then, involves far more than objective infor- mation. For while we may have all sorts of scientific knowledge about our body, we may know very little about the real self, who we actually are.’ !
What has just been said Bultmann applies to the Bible. It. is not in essence a source of objective information about God, about the human person and condition. It gives us Gexhichte rather than Hktorie. It is not in essence an objective account of factual occurrences. Instead, it con- veys to us the impact which various occurrences had upon the disciples.
Its aim is not to inform us, but to transform us; not to add to our store of information, but to affect our existence.
In Heidegger’s thought there is also an important distinction between authentic and inauthentic existence. The aim of philosophy is to produce authentic existence in the individual. Authentic existence, as the term implies, is to be what we are meant to be, to live life in such a way as to fulfil the potential which is ours as humans. An example of inauthenticity is failure to exercise one’s ability to make choices and act freely. To do something simply because everyone else does it, going along with and conforming to the crowd, is to fail to be one’s own person.i* Another example of inauthenticity is unwillingness to accept the fact that one has acted freely and is therefore responsible. Excusing or explaining one’s actions on the basis of any type of determinism, whether genetic, psycho- logical, sociological, theological, or some other form, is inauthenticity.
Authenticity, on the other hand, involves accepting responsibility for one’s acts. It is acknowledging that whatever may have contributed to my being what I am, I am now able to choose freely and will accept respon- sibility for my choices. This acceptance of responsibility for oneself Hei- degger terms “guilt.”
Bultmann borrows the concept of authentic and inauthentic exis- tence. He mentions two tendencies in modern man. There is, on the one hand, a tendency to be guided in life by a self-orientation. Man’s aim is to fulfil his desires for happiness and security, usefulness and profit. He is
11. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper and Row, 1962), p. 85; cf.
Ssren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D. E Swenson and W. Lowrie (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University, 1941), pp. 169-75.
12. Heidegger, Being and Time, pp. 163-68.
Conceptions of Salvation 897
selfish and presumptuous. Love for others and desire to know, tell, and honor the truth are subservient to the drive for self-aggrandizement. Not only is man disrespectful of the concerns and needs of others; he is also disobedient to the commands and claims of God upon his life. He either denies that God exists or, if he does believe, denies that God has legiti- mate right to his obedience and devotioni
The other tendency mentioned by Bultmann is that modern man believes that he can gain real security by his own efforts. He thinks of himself as autonomous. The accumulation of wealth, the proliferation of technology, and the quest to wield influence are either individual or collective attempts of humans to guarantee their future. This is, unfortu- nately, an unattainable hope, for there are some obstacles which man cannot master. Death inevitably comes, no matter what the human may do. Natural disasters which destroy property as well as lives cannot be anticipated or prevented. Thus, in this world of uncertainty, man’s at- tempts to build security are doomed to failure. Still man keeps on trying.
And as he continues to act selfishly and to seek security through his own efforts, he rejects or denies all that he is intended to be. This is Bultmann’s theological equivalent of inauthentic existence.14
What man is called to by God and by the gospel is his true self, his true destiny. This is, as it were, authentic existence or salvation. The word of God “calls man away from his selfishness and from the illusory security which he has built up for himself. It calls him to God, who is beyond the world and beyond scientific thinking. At the same time, it calls man to his true self.“i5
As the word of God comes to man personally, it calls hirn to go beyond himself and his anxieties. It calls upon him to abandon his attempt to build security through his own efforts or those of the human race. It offers him the true security which comes from placing one’s trust in God.
Only through the exercise of faith can man put an end to his inauthentic existence: “to believe in the Word of God means to abandon all merely human security and thus to overcome the despair which arises from the attempt to find security, an attempt which is always vain”‘6
In exercising faith, which comes as a response to the message of Christian preaching, we abandon the attempt to build security through our own efforts; we place our trust in God instead. But this involves placing our trust in something which is unseen in this world, and for
13. Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Scribner, 1958), pp. 39- 40.
14. Ibid.,p. 45.
15. Ibid., p. 40.
16. Ibid.