What Is Salvation?
In our era, there is much confusion about the notion of salvation. Many Christians seem to delight in asking others, “Are you saved?” To some degree, this seems just a part of the general combativeness and aggression that we’re living in. But unless you know what salvation really is, you’re in no position to address this question. So, let’s look at this issue carefully.
To start such an examination into an old theological issue is always fraught. There are many established positions on the matter, and it is very easy to find yourself getting lost in minutiae. To circumvent this, I prefer to start by examining the term ‘salvation’ in more ordinary contexts. So let us begin.
There are two parties involved in every saving act. For example, if someone is saved from drowning, the two parties are the savior and the one who is saved. In the same way, there are two parties in the Christian notion of salvation. There is God, in the person of Jesus, who is saving the person in need.
This leads us to the next question: What is the person being saved from? The traditional theological answer is that we are saved from sin. Our Eastern Orthodox brethren even have a graphic depiction of this. Many of their crucifixes – both painted and sculpted – show the cross of Jesus being planted over a skull. This skull represents the skull of Adam, the vehicle through which sin entered into our consciousness. This graphic depiction is intended to show clearly that Christ died to redeem the sin of Adam.
So, what exactly was Adam’s sin? His sin was disobedience. At that very early point in humanity's development, there was only one rule: don’t eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Adam clearly disobeyed this and was cast out of the Garden of Eden, and as a result, became subject to pain, suffering, and death. In traditional Christian theology, Adam’s sin was seen as a kind of mass infection. Every person since Adam has been similarly infected with the consequences he bore: pain, suffering, and death.
In my view, this is a pretty good explanation of salvation, but when you look closely, it has a number of flaws. For one, it violates our current sense of fair play. Why, for example, do you have to suffer and die for something someone else did? A someone you don’t even know who lived thousands of years ago! Kind of hard to swallow, isn’t it? Looking at the matter more deeply, this is not consonant with the New Testament notion of a loving God. The God who would condemn the entire human race for one person’s mistake is cruel and sadistic, not loving.
Second, how does Jesus’ death make up for Adam’s mistake? I’ve heard a number of explanations over my lifetime, but none of them hold up in the face of scrutiny. Again, was Jesus’ torture and death really the action of a ‘loving’ God? It seems cruel, mean-spirited, and sadistic to me. And how, exactly, does torturing a man to death lead to the commutation of Adam’s mistake? I mean, all humanity is still subject to pain, suffering, and death, so what did Jesus’ sacrifice really accomplish?
The traditional theology that informs Jesus’ death is lacking on several fronts. It is based on the Old Testament’s version of the Divine – harsh, judgmental, and even cruel. It is clearly not the Christian understanding of God. Second, it misunderstands the true nature of the infection by not understanding the true nature of Adam’s mistake. And believe me, it was a massive mistake, although you could also argue that it was necessary for humanity's development. And finally, the traditional understanding omits a crucial part of the human psyche – our proclivity towards guilt and self-blame. On these grounds, I believe, we need to reformulate our understanding of salvation.
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So let’s begin by looking at the crux of the issue – Adam’s mistake. God told Adam that he was not to eat the fruit from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which, along with the Tree of Life, was situated at the center of the Garden of Eden. Prior to eating the forbidden fruit, Adam appears to have been in a very primitive state of consciousness. Without the dualistic conception of good and evil, everything would appear to Adam as acceptable. Indeed, God told him that he could freely eat from every tree in the garden except that one. And after Eve appears in the narrative, they are both naked and without shame, again indicating a primitive state of consciousness with little or no differentiation between good and bad. This is in stark contrast with virtually every human culture since that time, with our massive taboos regarding sex and appropriate dress.
In a strange way, Adam's state of consciousness sounds like the consciousness present in my dog, Maggie. Maggie approaches each new object with curiosity and interest. If there is a sharp sound or a sudden movement, she will typically recoil. On the other hand, if there is an interesting smell, she typically moves towards it. There is no a priori judgment of good or evil; everything is evaluated on its own merits, after first experiencing it.
Prior to eating the forbidden fruit, Adam appears to have no ego. If he has a sense of self, it seems very primitive, at the level of an animal's consciousness. Maggie, for example, responds to her name and seems to have a kind of rudimentary sense of self. With both Maggie and Adam, there is a sense of timelessness here, with no urgency because they are living in each and every moment. There appears to be no sense of the future and no sense of the past. As a result, there can be no planning. This is a devastating handicap because virtually every human endeavor relies on planning. You cannot hunt or gather without planning to go where the food sources are. You cannot have a community of individuals who live together without extensive planning.
When this biblical story is examined with a critical eye, Adam's so-called mistake begins to seem necessary for human development. From a psychological perspective, Adam’s mistake marks the beginning of the development of an ego – a separate sense of one’s self. This ego could be described as the very beginning of humanity. Of interest, Adam’s ego developed in response to an outside influence, God’s demand that he not consume the forbidden fruit.
When humanity lived in an animal’s state of consciousness, we were simply another species: just one among many. But once we formulated an ego, we became radically different. This difference is clearly apparent if you take a moment and look around you. You live in an elaborately constructed house, with a varied and interesting diet of food sources that have been derived from many different countries and delivered to your local supermarket. You leave your house and get in your car, bus, or taxi, and are driven to your supermarket where you choose from a wide variety of tasty foods. What other species has created such amazing complexity? The answer, of course, is that none have.
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With the appearance of an ego – due to the influence of an external force, in this case God, – duality has entered into human consciousness. Suddenly, there are an array of new conceptual tools: the notion of good and bad, of right and wrong, and many others. Along with these tools comes the notion of time, differentiating the present moment from past and future. Suddenly, humanity is able to plan by using past experiences to predict and prepare for the future. If you will, the appearance of the ego appears to have spread throughout all humanity as a kind of massive infection.
At first glance, these new tools confer astounding advantages to the human race, but on closer examination, we quickly discover a dark side. We begin to apply the notion of good and bad to ourselves, and in the process create the emotions of guilt and shame. We find that planning can also be used for destructive ends. Initially, human beings would fight person to person, but with the ability to plan, we became able to gather larger groups to fight battles and wars with horrific consequences.
This is the state in which we find ourselves today. We are each driven by our egos. This means that we live in a state of almost perpetual dualism, and we find ourselves constantly looking for ways to enter into unity. We long for the peace that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the Fall. We long to quiet the constant back-and-forth chattering in our own minds. We long for deeper connections with one another – connections made elusive by our constant judgments.
This is the state of humanity when Jesus appeared. We, who are so internally divided by our conflicting judgments and the demands placed on us by others, experience a vast abyss between ourselves and the Divine. Not only do we experience this abyss with God, we also experience it with each other. Perhaps even more debilitating, we experience it within our own minds, within our own sense of self. Thus, we are fragmented, both internally and externally.
Psychologically, we tend to blame ourselves for these vast chasms, which lead to our isolation and loneliness. This infection is passed from parent to child every time the child is praised or blamed for an action. This infection is passed through our social institutions, through churches and schools and governmental institutions in the same manner. On every side, the developing ego is bombarded with messages to “do this” or “do that” in order to gain somebody’s approval.
Spiritually, this has greatly stifled our development. Instead of being free to explore our own innermost nature, we avoid anything that smacks of deep reflection. This avoidance has hindered us spiritually. Jesus and all the great saints have consistently pointed to the Presence of God that is always within us and immediately accessible. Because of our guilt, however, we avoid exploring this most intimate of connections. And this is what Jesus came to save us from.
With the entrance of God’s Son into the world, we are assured that God’s condemnation of Adam has been lifted from humankind. As a result, there is no actual abyss between ourselves and the Divine. The only abyss that exists is the one in our own minds, the one we hang on to. This means that we are now free to plunge into unitive states or to hold back. To enter into God’s embrace, or to hold ourselves apart as separate egos. Free choice – God’s ultimate gift to humanity – is restored to us once again.
It’s important to note in all of this that the salvation given by Jesus is free. Nothing is required of us. We don’t have to believe in a certain way. We don’t have to perform propitiating rituals. As a result, that often–asked question, “Have you been saved?” turns out to be simply ridiculous. Of course, you have been saved! And it doesn’t require anything of you. It doesn’t even require that you adhere to the Christian faith. The Son of God, in his infinite generosity, has destroyed that felt sense of separation from God that we have. The hidden gift here is that we are now free to heal all of the other separations we experience – the separations from each other, and the separations within our own psyche. Now we are free – truly free – to enter into union.
Faithfully yours in the love of God,
Ken Kaisch, PhD
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