Introduction:
What is Soteriology, and Why Does It Matter?
Have you ever wondered why Christians today hold such different views about how people are saved? Some believe that once you’re saved, you can never fall away. Others argue that salvation requires an ongoing relationship with God, one that involves faith, obedience, and even transformation. Still others describe salvation as a process of healing or even becoming more like God. These differences aren’t just modern theological preferences; they stem from centuries of real-world questions, biblical interpretation, and responses to spiritual and cultural crises.
This exploration falls under the umbrella of soteriology, a term that comes from the Greek word sōtēria, meaning “salvation.”
Studying soteriology helps us ask essential questions:
- Why did certain beliefs about salvation arise?
- What challenges were they trying to resolve?
- And how do those ancient debates still shape Christian traditions today?
Before we dive in, I want to share a quick disclaimer: I am not a trained theologian, and I know I may not fully grasp all the nuances of these deep theological debates. This presentation is simply my attempt to understand the history of salvation in the Christian faith. It is not meant as a criticism of any person, tradition, or denomination. With the help of this class, I hope we can explore these ideas together and arrive at a clearer understanding. This is a journey of curiosity and learning for all of us.
When I first became an Adventist, I held the belief, which I now recognize was shaped by a certain kind of pride, that my church’s understanding of Christianity was the perfect and only true way. I was quite rigid in my views and struggled to make room for others who saw things differently. Over the years, through many humbling experiences and lessons, I’ve come to reflect on why I held that attitude and how easy it is for any of us to fall into that mindset. I’ve also been deeply humbled to realize how much the culture in which Christianity took root shaped the way we understand the faith. This curiosity led me to study the history of Christian beliefs about salvation, and, as often happens, I found myself going further and deeper than I expected.
As we journey through history, from the Apostolic era through the early church fathers, the East-West split, the Reformation, and into today’s denominations like Baptists, Methodists, and Adventists, we’ll see that each stage reveals a sincere effort to remain faithful to Jesus’ message, even as understandings diverged. This realization can help us be more humble and gracious toward fellow Christians from other denominations.
Apostolic Soteriology: Responding to Real-Life Crises
The first Christian writings about salvation weren’t detailed theological books. Instead, they were written as quick responses to real problems in a fast-growing, often misunderstood movement. The Apostles weren’t trying to write academic papers; they were pastors and missionaries helping new believers understand who they were, where they belonged, and how to follow Jesus after His resurrection.
One of the biggest crises in the early church was this: Do Gentile (non-Jewish) believers need to follow the Jewish law to be saved? This wasn’t just a side issue; it went right to the heart of what the gospel meant. Christianity had grown out of Judaism, and the first followers of Jesus were Jewish. So when Gentiles began to join the movement, debates arose: Should they be circumcised? Keep kosher? Obey Sabbath laws?
Gentiles and the Law
Paul, the earliest Christian writer, tackled this crisis head-on. He argued that Gentiles didn’t need to become Jews to be saved. Faith in Jesus was enough.
In letters like Romans and Galatians, Paul insisted that salvation comes by God’s grace, not by keeping the law. He reminded his readers that even Jews had failed to fully obey the law, so how could it be the requirement for salvation? His bold claim in Romans 3:28 rings out clearly: “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.”
But Paul wasn’t just preaching personal salvation; he was also showing that Jesus’ death broke down the barrier between Jew and Gentile. In his view, sin had disqualified all people, but Christ’s sacrifice opened the covenant to all without the need for circumcision or ritual laws. As he puts it in Ephesians 2, Christ “made the two groups one” and “destroyed the barrier.”
While Paul preached that salvation was by grace through faith, his writings left open questions that later generations would wrestle with.
For example, Paul’s emphasis on grace was seen as permission to sin freely by a group of people called Antinomians who believed that God’s forgiveness made obedience unnecessary. Paul, of course, condemned it in Romans 6:1-2
What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!
But there are some other issues that Paul couldn’t address. As Paul said that faith is essential for salvation. If so, whose faith saves us, ours or Christ’s?
This leads to a phrase Paul used in Romans and Galatians: pistis Christou. It’s usually translated as “faith in Christ,” but some scholars suggest it may actually mean “the faithfulness of Christ.” In that case, Paul wasn’t saying we’re saved because we believe hard enough, but because Jesus himself was faithful to the mission of God, all the way to the cross.
This subtle shift carries deep meaning. It suggests that our salvation doesn’t rest on the quality of our belief, but on the reliability of Jesus. And even that faith we do have? It’s made possible by grace, too.
Gnostics
Another challenge the early church faced was Gnosticism. Gnostics taught that the physical world was bad and only special secret knowledge could save people. They believed God would never become human because they thought bodies were evil. This was a big problem because it went against the Christian teaching that Jesus was fully human and fully God.
John directly confronted early Gnostic teachings in his letters, especially in 1 John. He warned believers about people who claimed Jesus didn’t really come in a human body, writing, “Every spirit that acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, but every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God” (1 John 4:2-3). John made it clear that denying Jesus’ real humanity was a serious error. He also emphasized that true faith shows itself through loving others and living in the light, not through secret knowledge. By doing this, John protected the church from Gnostic ideas that separated Jesus’ divinity from His humanity and taught salvation through hidden wisdom instead of faith in Christ.
While John strongly defended Jesus’ full humanity and divinity, he didn’t fully explain how these two natures worked together, how Jesus could be both fully God and fully man at the same time. This mystery was left for later church leaders to debate in councils like Nicaea and Chalcedon.
John also focused mainly on love, obedience, and faith, but didn’t give a detailed explanation of how God’s grace relates to keeping God’s commandments. This is a topic that would lead to later debates on faith vs. works. Lastly, he didn’t clarify how believers should live out obedience practically in every cultural situation, which left room for different interpretations of Christian behavior.
Jesus alone
Another big question the early Christians faced was this: If salvation comes through Jesus, what does that mean in a world full of other religions and gods?
In the Roman Empire, people worshiped many idols and followed all kinds of beliefs. The early church had to make it clear where Jesus stood among all these options.
Peter answered this question boldly when he told the Jewish leaders, “There is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). He made it clear that only Jesus can save people, not idols, not Roman gods, and not even just following the Jewish law. This was a powerful message that went against what most people believed and sometimes made Christians targets of persecution.
But even though Peter clearly said Jesus is the only way, he didn’t explain what happens to people who never hear about Jesus. How does God judge them? Is there hope for them? These questions are important because they touch on whether God is fair and how wide His salvation reaches. The New Testament doesn’t fully answer these questions, and Christians have been trying to understand them ever since, from Paul’s writings in Romans 2 to today’s debates about whether God’s grace can reach people outside the church.
As the first generation of Apostles passed away, new questions arose. The church was growing rapidly across the Roman Empire, and believers faced fresh challenges: How should Christians understand Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection now that He was no longer physically present? How could they explain salvation clearly to people shaped by Greek philosophy and different religious ideas? It was in this setting that the early church fathers of the East began to shape a deeper understanding of salvation. These thinkers, like Irenaeus and Athanasius, took what the Apostles taught and started building a more complete picture of how Jesus saves, emphasizing healing, restoration, and sharing in God’s life.
Soteriology of the Early Church Fathers in the East
As Christianity expanded into the Greek-speaking world of the Eastern Roman Empire, early church fathers faced a vital question:
How does Jesus not just forgive us, but actually heal and transform us?
For these thinkers, the main concern wasn’t only “How are we pardoned?” but “How are we restored to what God created us to be?” They believed salvation meant healing the whole person, mind, body, and soul, and uniting us with God Himself.
One of the first influential voices was Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 130–202), who asked,
How did Christ actually save humanity?
His answer became known as the Recapitulation Theory.
Recapitulation Theory
According to recapitulation theory, Jesus retraced the steps of Adam’s failure but lived in perfect obedience, renewing humanity’s story. In Irenaeus’s view, Christ’s life, death, and resurrection corrected Adam’s disobedience and restored the image of God in us. This wasn’t just theory; it was a direct response to early Gnostic groups who taught that creation and the human body were evil. By emphasizing that Jesus became fully human and sanctified every stage of life, Irenaeus showed that salvation involves all of who we are, not just some invisible soul. He grounded this in Paul’s words: “In Adam all die; so in Christ all will be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Building on these ideas, Origen of Alexandria (c. 185–254) raised another important question:
If humanity is enslaved by sin and the powers of evil, how does Jesus set us free?
Ransom Theory
Origen taught Ransom Theory. In Ransom theory, he imagined that Satan, through sin, held humanity captive and had a kind of claim over sinners. Jesus’ death was like a ransom paid to free humanity. Origen even proposed that God outsmarted Satan by offering Jesus, who, because of His divinity, could not be held by death, leading to Satan’s defeat through the resurrection. This theory reflected the Bible’s spiritual warfare language, such as Jesus’ words in Mark 10:45 about giving His life “as a ransom for many.”
Yet it also raised tough questions:
- Did God owe Satan anything?
- And could God use deception as part of His plan?
Later theologians in the West would struggle with these implications.
But perhaps the most profound question came from Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373): What was the ultimate purpose of Christ’s incarnation beyond forgiveness?
Theosis theory:
His answer was striking: “God became man so that man might become god.” Athanasius didn’t mean humans would become divine in essence, but that through Christ, believers are invited into God’s life, a process called theosis.
He pointed to 2 Peter 1:4, which speaks of becoming “partakers of the divine nature.” For Athanasius, salvation meant far more than avoiding punishment; it meant transformation so deep that believers reflect God’s love, holiness, and eternal life. While later Western theologians sometimes misunderstood this as blasphemous or prideful, the Eastern Fathers were careful to preserve the difference between Creator and creature, teaching that theosis was about grace-filled union, not becoming God by nature.
Gregory of Nazianzus and the Cappadocian Fathers continued this line of thought in the late 4th century, posing a critical question:
Did Jesus truly take on every part of our humanity?
They insisted, “What is not assumed is not healed.” If Jesus didn’t fully take on human mind, body, and soul, then those parts could not be saved. They argued that Christ had to be fully human so He could redeem every aspect of the human experience, pointing to Hebrews 2:17: “He had to be made like His brothers and sisters in every way.”
Through these questions and answers, the Eastern Fathers laid a foundation for understanding salvation not just as a legal verdict, but as a process of healing, restoration, and sharing in God’s own life.
Yet they left some doors open: they didn’t fully explain how Jesus’ death accomplished the ransom without implying God deceived Satan, nor did they detail how sinful humans could safely participate in God’s holiness without losing their human identity. They also didn’t offer a clear roadmap for how believers practically experience this transformation in daily life. Still, their vision of salvation as restoring God’s image in us and bringing us into union with Him profoundly shaped Eastern Christian theology, standing in contrast to the later Western emphasis on legal satisfaction and punishment.
Soteriology of the Early Church Fathers in the West
As Christianity spread into the Latin-speaking Western Roman Empire, new questions arose that would shape the future of Western theology for centuries to come:
- If sin offends a holy God, how is that offense addressed?
- If humanity stands guilty, how can justice and mercy meet?
While Eastern thinkers emphasized healing and transformation, many Western theologians began asking: What does salvation mean in terms of God’s justice? Their focus shifted more toward the legal implications of sin and the necessity of satisfaction for wrongdoing.
One of the most influential Western voices was Tertullian of Carthage (c. 155–220), who posed an early version of this question:
If God is both just and merciful, how can He forgive sin without violating His justice?
Tertullian began framing sin in legal terms, using courtroom language: guilt, penalty, and justice. He emphasized Christ’s death as a kind of legal substitute, one who took our place and bore our penalty. Although he didn’t fully articulate a formal theory of atonement, his legal imagery prepared the ground for what would come later.
These early legal concerns eventually crystallized in the thought of Augustine of Hippo (354–430), one of the most important figures in all of Western Christianity. Augustine raised a pressing new question in response to a British monk named Pelagius:
Are humans capable of choosing good without divine help?
Pelagius had seen moral decline in Rome and concluded that people needed to try harder to live righteously. He believed human beings were born innocent and could obey God through free will, without needing internal grace. Citing verses like “Choose life so that you and your descendants may live” (Deuteronomy 30:19), he argued that God’s commands implied we must have the power to obey them.
But Augustine saw a deeper problem. He argued that humanity wasn’t just weak, but deeply wounded by original sin; Adam’s fall had infected all of humanity. In his view, we are not born spiritually neutral but spiritually broken. Quoting Romans 5:12“just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin…” Augustine taught that we inherit guilt and a sinful nature, and that only God’s grace, not our effort, could save us.
At the Council of Carthage in 418 AD, Pelagius’ teachings were condemned, and Augustine’s views on original sin and the necessity of grace were affirmed.
From this debate came key Western doctrines:
- Original Sin: inherited spiritual corruption
- Total Depravity: humans cannot choose God without His grace
- Predestination: God must choose whom to save
- Irresistible Grace: when God offers saving grace, it cannot be refused
- Baptismal Regeneration: Augustine believed even infants must be baptized to remove inherited guilt
Augustine’s approach was deeply influenced by Roman legal thinking and framed salvation as a matter of guilt, penalty, and divine pardon. His views would go on to shape not only medieval theology, but also the later Protestant Reformers like Luther and Calvin.
Yet these powerful ideas brought new tensions.
- If God’s grace is irresistible, do humans still have meaningful free will?
- If only some are predestined, can others be blamed for rejecting grace they never had a chance to receive?
These questions would ripple through history and spark entire theological movements.
Next, we’ll see how medieval theologians like Anselm and Abelard tried to go even further: If sin is an offense against God’s honor, how does Christ’s death actually repair it? And does salvation change the heart, or just settle the debt? In the 11th and 12th centuries, two medieval theologians, Anselm of Canterbury and Peter Abelard, offered very different answers to these pressing concerns.
Soteriology in the Medieval West
By this point in church history, Western Christian thought had fully adopted a legal framework for understanding salvation. Rooted in Roman law and Augustine’s view of inherited guilt, sin was increasingly seen as a violation of divine justice. But this raised a crucial dilemma:
- If God is all-loving and all-powerful, why must someone suffer and die to balance the scales? Couldn’t God simply forgive without a price?
Two prominent thinkers took up the challenge and landed in very different places.
Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033–1109) asked a core question in his famous work Cur Deus Homo (“Why Did God Become Man?”): Why couldn’t God just forgive sin without requiring a payment? His answer laid the foundation for what became known as the Satisfaction Theory of Atonement.
Anselm argued that sin dishonors God, much like an insult to a king disrupts the moral order. Because God’s honor is infinite, the offense is infinite, and humans, being finite, can’t repay it. Only someone both human (to represent us) and divine (to offer infinite merit) could restore that honor. That someone is Christ. According to Anselm, Jesus didn’t die to appease Satan, as earlier theories suggested, but rather to satisfy the demands of divine justice.
He appealed to verses like 1 Peter 3:18: “Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” His model matched the social and legal norms of medieval feudal society, where honor and satisfaction were central themes.
However, some saw a danger in this approach. Did this turn God into a harsh judge obsessed with honor and retribution? Could salvation still be understood as a free gift, or did it now sound like a transaction?
In response to concerns like these, Peter Abelard (1079–1142), a French theologian and philosopher, proposed a radically different approach. He asked: What if the primary purpose of Christ’s death wasn’t to pay a debt, but to show how much God loves us?
Abelard’s Moral Influence Theory taught that Jesus’ death was not a legal exchange, but the ultimate display of divine love, meant to awaken love and repentance in our hearts. Drawing on Jesus’ words in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” Abelard emphasized that salvation happens when we respond to that love with a changed life.
But critics of Abelard worried he had gone too far in the other direction. Did he downplay the seriousness of sin? If Jesus’ death only influences us emotionally, what about God’s justice?
Together, Anselm and Abelard represent a growing tension in Western Christianity: Is salvation about satisfying justice, or about stirring love? Is it objective and legal, or relational and transformative?
Both models tried to answer real questions of their time, but neither fully settled the debate. Their different answers planted the seeds for later theological battles in the Reformation and continue to shape how many Christians think about the cross today.
Next week, we’ll look at how the conversation about salvation changed dramatically during the Protestant Reformation and the time of John Wesley. We’ll see how leaders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley reacted to the beliefs of the Middle Ages and to each other, creating powerful but sometimes opposing ideas about grace, faith, and how people are transformed ideas that still shape Christian churches today.
As you think about what we covered today, here are a few questions to consider:
- If the Apostles were mostly writing to deal with real problems in their time, and not trying to write organized theology books, how should that affect the way we read what they said about salvation?
- Do you notice any differences between how Eastern and Western church leaders thought about being “saved”? Which way makes more sense to you, or matches your own faith journey?
- How do you think culture affects the way each period explained salvation, like Greek philosophy in the East, Roman law in the West, or today’s focus on individual choices?
- Finally, do you think salvation is something that happens in one moment when you believe, or is it better understood as a lifelong journey of healing, obedience, and growing closer to God?
Donald: I think this really even leads to the conversation we had before class about AI. Because really what we’re talking about is the evolution of thought. If you don’t look back, you don’t know how we got to where we are. You just accept where you are as being the way it has always been, and that certainly is not the case.
The question I have is: if John were able to live again today, what would he think of today’s Christianity? He’d probably look at one, then look at the other, and find little similarity between where he was and what we’re thinking, because of the evolution of thought.
I think it’s hard to work through all that and not have it be dry, but you were not dry. And if we don’t at least dabble in how we got to where we are, then all we do is talk about the way it is.
Michael: I agree. In many churches, when we talk about God and Christianity, we’re always emphasizing that this is knowledge we got through the Bible. But I think it’s because most people are not aware of all the background that Kiran included. Unless you’re really thoughtful and read a lot, it’s very hard for you to realize that.
But I wonder if the reason that you’re getting us to have this discussion is whether we should be asking ourselves whether there is a better way for us to believe. Some of these topics are not serving us well right now. If things are not set in stone (as we’ve come to believe through pastors and priests) then maybe there are better ways that we can find out, and our thinking can shift a little bit on some of these topics.
C-J: If you think of Christ’s coming as a duty to assist us in this relationship to the utilization of the Holy Spirit—it covers everything Kiran said. And it’s such a simple thing. It’s not who, when, revelation, time or place, politics or theology. The bottom line is Christ came to assist us in this relationship with the Father. And as soon as I heard that, the stars aligned. It just was so fluid, so easy. It has nothing to do with me. I cannot do it on my own. It’s Christ’s sense of duty to assist.
Kiran: I was wondering why the first apostles—who lived for quite a long time— didn’t develop theology? One paper said it was because they were persecuted, so they couldn’t have elaborate worship ceremonies. They would go into some place, some corner nobody knew, quickly worship, and then dissipate. They would go to catacombs and sing one song, pray one prayer, and then they disappeared. They didn’t have long-winded discussions or Sabbath school classes or Sunday school classes that we have. And they couldn’t just go back and read books. They didn’t have those things. So that’s why theology simply amounted to being faithful to Christ. But then, Christianity became a legal religion of Rome.
David: Maybe they didn’t ask questions because they didn’t need to. They were close enough to Jesus that there were no questions to be asked. If you were there with Him, you knew what was right. It’s only after the passage of time that the human mind will grope for something more to do—there are little vacuums pop uo here and there and the mind starts filling them in, as Don has often told us. I agree with Donald that Kiran’s talk was by no means dry. I think it was intellectually very, very stimulating; and, as Connie said, it was delivered in a way we could understand. It wasn’t presented intellectually, but it was intellectually very rich.
I thought his putting lines of Scripture into the social and historical context of the time was especiaally helpful. I wish there were more sermons that did that, rather than simply quoting Scripture and assuming everyone gets it. Because without that social and historical context, I think we miss a great deal. So I thank Kiran for providing that, because much of it was new to me.
So when Christ died, the early worshippers basically had no questions—they already had the answers. They were there, with Christ; the Truth was obvious. But when He was gone, human curiosity starts kicking in, and we start asking questions. Should we? Why? What results from those questions? Theology resulted, and religion resulted, that’s what. My question to the posers of theological questions would be: What part of “love thy neighbor” don’t you understand? Because if you understand that, what is there to question?
Sharon: A very interesting and profound talk by Kiran, indeed. I think anytime anything is turned into something political, we’re in trouble. And probably we’re in trouble when we turn anything into academics as well—especially the complexity of a personal walk with the Lord Jesus Christ.
I love the idea that John would come back and visit us at church and wonder, “What in the world is going on here?” Because we’re trying to create doctrines and dictates based on phenomenological experience, which is really not possible to do—or at least not possible to do effectively. And as David just said, what’s not to get about “love thy neighbor as thyself”? It’s a simple construct.
If we go beyond the simplicity of the very practical lessons that Jesus gave us, we’ve probably way over-thought religion. And when it became political, and we started doing elections and having policies and governance and academic defenses of religion, we probably lost some of the genuine simplicity that Christ came to bring us.
I also want to tackle a question Kiran presented: Is our rebirth experience a singular event, or is it a lifetime event? I think the answer is both; that it starts with a singular commitment and it continues every day when we decide to abide in that love of Jesus instead of abiding in our own perspectives and our own self-centered world. When we start to trust Him 100% for our salvation, I think it’s a process that starts singularly, but I see every single day that my abiding is a continual commitment—a continual engagement in an amazing, lifelong relationship with that Savior who came to bring the simple gospel of Christ’s love to me and to all those in the world. And what am I doing to show—to walk the walk—and not so much talk the talk, but live the example that Jesus gave us?
Don: Kiran’s talk flashed me back to my college days and the moral influence theory of Abelard and things that we studied many years ago. I think all of these theories come from a failed understanding of the concept of grace.
If Jesus had thought it was very important that we know which theory would pertain to why He had to die, I think He would have told us that, if that was the condition of salvation. But the good news of the gospel is that that’s not the means of salvation. It’s what the work of God does—not what you believe—that is going to influence your salvation. So the propagation of theories and the academic leanings that Sharon referred to are sort of put on the back burner when you understand the concept of grace.
And so I think it’s a misdirection of our thinking when we try to worry about converting people to our viewpoint on why Jesus had to die based on some theological point of the kind Kiran referred to, and when we don’t allow for God’s grace to do the work that He’s promised us to do.
Carolyn: Where did we stand if we lived before Noah, or at the time of Noah, or from the time of the Garden of Eden up to Noah, and then up to when Christ was born?
C-J: God’s grace is sufficient—that God meets us where we are, both in our intellect and in our place in time. God’s grace is sufficient. A child does not understand how much a parent is willing to give or how long a parent is willing to give. But as you mature, you understand the commitment that, as a parent, you have toward your child. It’s always been grace from the beginning of time.
Sharon: Jesus and God had a much closer communication style with the people before He sent His Son. It seems like there was a lot more opportunity when God spoke directly—whereas now we have to get it filtered through the Holy Spirit communicating to us. Before, maybe God had a way of communicating with people so that they actually knew and had an intimate, personal relationship with Him. I have no theory behind that, but if you look at the Old Testament, God had ways of communicating that you don’t always see in the New Testament.
Donald: Does this bring us back to the evolution of thought? Again, it’s your culture, your understanding, what’s revealed in your time. That can answer Carolyn’s question as well. As we progress through our faith journey we move toward a construct of doctrine. Why do we do that?
In the beginning, when we started, I think it was pretty innocent. But as it moves along, then we have to defend it, and so once we’re defending it, we’re not going to let our guard down, because it has to be this way—we have to protect it. I think that’s unfortunate, because once it’s been walled around, defined, with the t’s crossed and the I’d dotted, we’re not willing to let these evolutions of thought take place, because we have come to a place where now it just is.
Don: We turn the ways that we do things into rules, then doctrines, then immutable doctrines, and we don’t allow for any more forward thinking or evolution of thought.
David: We also start to anthropomorphize and forget the distinction between the spiritual and the mortal. When Adam and Eve walked with God in the Garden, I don’t think they walked with a physical, human-being-like God. I think they had the Holy Spirit within them, and that is the God they walked with in the Garden. They paid a lot more attention to it before the fall than we do today, but it has always been there—before and after the fall.
I agree with Sharon that the people who lived and died before Christ came probably were, in a sense, closer than we are to God in believing that God was right there next to them, or within them. They recognized the Holy Spirit. To me, that answers the question of how people who never heard of Jesus Christ could be saved: it was because they always had the Holy Spirit within them, telling them what was good and what was not, urging them against their own proclivity after the fall not to judge and not to try to distinguish between good and bad.
With the Holy Spirit within them, they knew they should love, and were perfectly capable of loving, their neighbors. And if they hadn’t followed what became the central commandment of Jesus, humanity would have died out, because evil would have won and destruction would have replaced creativity.
So it’s a fascinating question, but again, it leads to the notion that when theology started asking questions, it detracted from spirituality—from awareness of and communion with the Holy Spirit—and we started adopting anthropomorphic and material arguments that really don’t belong and shouldn’t be applied in the spiritual world.
Michael: Through grace, we are offered to walk with God now, but we don’t. We find it hard to imagine that we are doing the same as Adam and Eve did before the fall, and so we don’t see that it’s a possibility. But the whole concept of grace is that it is very much a possibility. So I’m wondering—and I think Kiran mentioned—how does that look? I think we find it hard to always have faith in grace.
Don: We are people who wish to discriminate. That’s the nature of eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. We want to distinguish between what is right theology and what is wrong theology. We want to distinguish between what is correct doctrine and what’s incorrect doctrine—and whatever I believe, of course, is the correct doctrine. What you believe, if it doesn’t conform with what I believe, is not the right doctrine. But Jesus does very little in the way of doctrinal teaching. He does, as David said, teach that we should love God and love our fellow man. And that’s a pretty broad doctrine.
C-J: Humans have a tendency to be very territorial and imperialistic. We not only want our territory, we want your territory—and therefore you will comply—now, please. That’s where we want you: where you were, and now you are. But in Christ, in relationship with God, it’s not—we have to put in the effort of “I choose God,” but we cannot do that.
It’s a duty to assist: “I am present, if you will allow me.” You don’t surrender your identity—I made you who you are with intention and purpose. But we have to come into relationship—agreement in terms of that you must learn of me, you must learn about your neighbor. You aren’t superior; you just have different places on the stage.
If we can learn by this amassing of information that Kiran gave us through history, little by little, we’re making adjustments toward seeking the truth. But that can be avoided if we allow the Holy Spirit into right relationship from the beginning, when we say, “I choose the Lord through revelation that indeed this is the Christ.” And though I will fall many times, I believe that the Lord is my light and will guide me on the correct path, no matter how many times I fall, through grace and a love that is immeasurable. That’s what humanity has to have restored—healed and restored—so that we can have peace with each other and with our relationship with God.
Kiran: Next week I’m going to talk about the two opposing views—Calvinists and Arminians—and then how we adapted Arminian theology, and what it means. And at the end of the talk, I’ll read the declaration of the Council of Nicaea. Someone translated it into Old English, which was then translated into modern English. It was very simple. So how did we get this complex? And why are we so detailed in how sanctification works, and how this works, and how that works?
So let’s see what happens. And at the end of the day, I think my goal is to convince everybody that it doesn’t matter what the theology is. What matters is Christ and His grace.
Donald: My mother raised me in the context of her time and place. And to make life comfortable for her and me, she established parameters, because we find it difficult not to have something well defined—we button it up, seal it up, pack it up. The challenge is challenging that, because then you’re challenging what you were raised to believe.
This takes me too back to college. I studied for twelve credits of religion in college, and some of this was brought to my attention. I went into a box. I went to an Adventist school—they wanted me to come out an Adventist. So you can tell me my history or tell me this journey of thought, but it really was, “Let’s loop back around this. This is kind of almost like a rest stop—where you get off the highway, you do something over here, but you’re not going back the other way. You’re going to get right back on that highway and think the same way.”
Don: More next week. Thanks for your participation.
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