Soteriology

Soteriology (/səˌtɪəriˈɒlədʒi/; Greek: σωτηρία sōtēria "salvation" from σωτήρ sōtēr "savior, preserver" and λόγος logos "study" or "word") is the study of religious doctrines of salvation. Salvation theory occupies a place of special significance in many religions.

In the academic field of religious studies, soteriology is understood by scholars as representing a key theme in a number of different religions and is often studied in a comparative context; that is, comparing various ideas about what salvation is and how it is obtained.

Buddhism

Main article: Salvation (Buddhism)

Buddhism is devoted primarily to liberation from suffering, ignorance, and rebirth. The purpose of one's life is to break free from samsara, the cycle of birth-and-pain-and-death, to achieve moksha and nirvana. All types of Buddhism, Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana (or Tantric), tend to emphasize an individual's meditation and liberation, which is to become enlightened.

In Theravada Buddhism the apparent individual takes this spiritual journey alone. Along this journey, they discover in experience that they are empty of being an individual, they are selfless. Mahayana Buddhism is the spiritual journey of helping others. People who make the pledge to help others before they help themselves are called Bodhisattva. Vajrayana Buddhism is the spiritual journey of transformation, where awareness is transformed into a deity. In all of the three forms of Buddhism, one gradually moves towards liberation, and away from dukkha, and as a result the natural state of Enlightenment becomes the dominant experience in that individual's life.

Buddhist philosophies vary on the subject of the afterlife, but they tend to emphasize an individual's meditation and appeal to the Buddha's teachings, often through an intermediary monk, priest, or teacher who is seen as a "link" (through the direct contacting of an enlightened being) or "helper" in their attaining of 'nirvana'. Amongst other things, nirvana is an ultimate realization that the afterlife is not important, and because of this all fear ends.

All schools of Buddhism teach dependent origination, which points out that the individual is not a separate and isolated entity. This can be directly found using a process of meditation which is the focusing of one's awareness on an object of concentration (samma samadhi). All forms of Buddhism have different ways to realize that the individual is part of a false set of truth-clouding constructs, obscuring 'what is'. The truth of 'what is' is beyond language and must therefore be experienced directly.

Thus, the fundamental reason that the precise identification of these two kinds of clinging to an identity – personal and phenomenal – is considered so important is again soteriological. Through first uncovering our clinging and then working on it, we become able to finally let go of this sole cause for all our afflictions and suffering.

In Buddhist thinking, individuals should seek to spread truth and knowledge among all of humanity and strive for the creation of a collective salvation of goodness for all. This is shown in the vow of the bodhisattvas, human beings who have become enlightened through the experience of understanding deep truths:

Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation– never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Until all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin, sorrow and struggle, but will remain where I am.

Christianity

Main article: Salvation (Christianity)

In Christianity salvation is the saving of the soul from sin and its consequences. It may also be called "deliverance" or "redemption" from sin and its effects.

Variant views on salvation are among the main fault lines dividing the various Christian denominations, both between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and within Protestantism, notably in the Calvinist–Arminian debate, and the fault lines include conflicting definitions of depravity, predestination, atonement, and most pointedly, justification.

According to Christian belief, salvation is made possible by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, which in the context of salvation is referred to as the "atonement". Christian soteriology ranges from exclusive salvation to universal reconciliation concepts. While some of the differences are as widespread as Christianity itself, the overwhelming majority agrees that salvation is made possible only by the work of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, dying on the cross.

Hinduism

In Vedic religion (Hinduism), individual salvation is not, as is often incorrectly alleged, pursued to the neglect of collective well-being. "The principle on which the Vedic religion is founded," observes the Sage of Kanchi, "is that a man must not live for himself alone but serve all mankind." Varna dharma in its true form is a system according to which the collective welfare of society is ensured. Hinduism, which teaches that we are caught in a cycle of death and rebirth called saṃsāra, contains a slightly different sort of soteriology, as noted above, devoted to the attainment of transcendent moksha (liberation). For some, this liberation is also seen as a state of closeness to Brahman.

Westerners coined the name "Hinduism" itself as a convenience to encompass a constellation of different paths to moksha, based upon the Vedas, India's original religious texts. “In India,” wrote Mircea Eliade, “metaphysical knowledge always has a soteriological purpose.”

Islam

Main article: Salvation § Islam

Islamic soteriology focuses on how humans can repent of and atone for their sins so as not to occupy a state of loss. Muslims believe that everyone is responsible for his own action. So even though Muslims believe that Adam and Hawwa, the parents of humanity, committed a sin by eating from the forbidden tree and thus disobeying God, they believe that humankind is not responsible for such an action. They believe that God is fair and just and requested forgiveness from him to avoid being punished for not doing what God asked of them and listening to Satan.

Muslims believe that they, as well as everyone else, are vulnerable to making mistakes and thus they need to seek repentance repeatedly at all times. Muhammad said "By Allah (God), I seek the forgiveness of Allah and I turn to Him in repentance more than seventy times each day." (Narrated by al-Bukhaari, no. 6307)

Not only that God wants his servants to repent and forgives them, he rejoices over it, as Muhammad said "When a person repents, Allaah rejoices more than one of you who found his camel after he lost it in the desert." (Agreed upon. Narrated by al-Bukhaari, no. 6309)

Islamic tradition has generally held that the vast majority of humanity shall receive punishment in hell upon death and that only a small few will enter paradise. For example, the Hadith, as recounted in the Sahih al-Bukhari, decrees that out of every one thousand people entering into the afterlife that nine hundred and ninety-nine of them will end up in the fire of despair.

Jainism

Main article: Salvation § Indian religions

Mokṣa in Jainism means liberation, salvation, or emancipation of soul. It is a blissful state of existence of a soul, completely free from the karmic bondage, free from saṃsāra, the cycle of birth and death. A liberated soul is said to have attained its true and pristine nature of infinite bliss, infinite knowledge, and infinite perception. Such a soul is called siddha or paramatman and considered as supreme soul or God. In Jainism, it is the highest and the noblest objective that a soul should strive to achieve. In fact, it is the only objective that a person should have; other objectives are contrary to the true nature of soul.

Judaism

Main article: Salvation § Judaism

In contemporary Judaism, redemption (Hebrew ge'ulah), refers to God redeeming the people of Israel from their various exiles. This includes the final redemption from the present exile.

Judaism holds that adherents do not need personal salvation as Christians believe. Jews do not subscribe to the doctrine of Original sin. Instead, they place a high value on individual morality as defined in the law of God — embodied in what Jews know as the Torah or The Law, given to Moses by God on Mount Sinai, the summary of which is comprised in the Ten Commandments. The Jewish sage Hillel the Elder states that The Law can be further compressed in just one line, popularly known as the Golden Rule: "That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow".

In Judaism, salvation is closely related to the idea of redemption, a saving from the states or circumstances that destroy the value of human existence. God as the universal spirit and Creator of the World, is the source of all salvation for humanity, provided an individual honours God by observing his precepts. So redemption or salvation depends on the individual. Judaism stresses that salvation cannot be obtained through anyone else or by just invoking a deity or believing in any outside power or influence.

Some sections of Jewish religious texts appear to argue that no afterlife exists even for the good and just, with the Book of Ecclesiastes telling the faithful: "The dead know nothing. They have no reward and even the memory of them are lost." Rabbis and Jewish laypeople have often wrestled with such passages for many centuries.

Mystery religions

In the mystery religions, salvation was less worldly and communal, and more a mystical belief concerned with the continued survival of the individual soul after death. Some savior gods associated with this theme are dying-and-rising gods, often associated with the seasonal cycle, such as Osiris, Tammus, Adonis, and Dionysus. A complex of soteriological beliefs was also a feature of the cult of Cybele and Attis.

The similarity of themes and archetypes to religions found in antiquity to later Christianity has been pointed out by many authors, including the Fathers of the early Christian church. One view is that early Christianity borrowed these myths and motifs from contemporary Hellenistic mystery religions, which possessed ideas such as life-death-rebirth deities and sexual relations between gods and human beings. While Christ myth theory is not accepted by mainstream historians, proponents attempt to establish causal connections to the cults of Mithras, Dionysus, and Osiris among others. (see also Zeitgeist: The Movie)

Sikhism

Sikhism advocates the pursuit of salvation through disciplined, personal meditation on the name and message of God, meant to bring one into union with God. But a person's state of mind has to be detached from this world, with the understanding that this world is a temporary abode and their soul has to remain untouched by pain, pleasure, greed, emotional attachment, praise, slander and above all, egotistical pride. Thus their thoughts and deeds become "Nirmal" or pure and they merge with God or attain "Union with God", just as a drop of water falling from the skies merges with the ocean.

Other religions

Shinto and Tenrikyo similarly emphasize working for a good life by cultivating virtue or virtuous behavior.

See also

• Comparative religion
• Dalit theology

Further reading

• John McIntyre, Shape of Soteriology: Studies in the Doctrine of the Death of Christ (T&T Clark, 1992)