Respond

1. Write an essay which discusses why do all religions address salvation? What makes the idea important to the human experience?

The Path to Salvation

For as long as people have been living, they have been searching for a savior. Needing a savior does not mean there is “danger confronting” you, salvation is also for those “not visibly threatened” (Cunningham and Kelsay, 2013, p. 133). Salvation is referred to as “a quest to understand and order the world” (p. 145). This understanding is something that “all persons need”, despite their situation, and even though their lives seem perfect (p. 133). This seems complex, and it is, there are many paths and concepts of salvation, but this doesn’t mean it can be forced. For the Buddhists, “salvation lies in insight”, for the Hindu in “liberation”, and for the Christian “salvation is deliverance from death” (p. 134). Why? Why is it that the major religions of the western world are concerned with being saved? With understanding their purpose? The understanding for this may come from the four patterns in which “salvation may…be distinguished” (p. 134).

The four concepts are as follows: “individual salvation, in this world or in another world, and group salvation”, in this world or in another world (p. 134). The concepts that relate directly to the human experience are that of the individual salvation. The first concept of salvation is the individual and this world. This concept covers “the search for meaning, the desire to be remembered, and the ideal of completion”, each of these subdivisions answers the questions as to why an individual would want to be saved, however the reasoning is not so religious. The first part, the search for meaning, “is an attempt to bring order to the world”, it is the sufferer who “seeks for meaning in a world filled with contradictions”. The next part, the desire to be remembered, was “the motivation for the creation of…works” from the renaissance period (p.135). The ideal of being remembered for something you created, is a way of making sure your name lives on although you physically can’t. It is through this definition of individual salvation that one of the five paths to salvation is formed. The five paths to salvation are knowledge, action, aesthetics, submission, and grace. The path of aesthetics is the one that seems to derive from the individual need to be remembered. Aesthetics involves “the action of those whose special talents incline them in the direction of bringing beauty into the world” (p. 144). This path, being so concerned with the appeal of things, doesn’t seem to naturally fit in a journey towards salvation. However, it is a vital part of the individual path.

The final individual path to salvation is the “ideal of completion”, this portion of the individual is probably the biggest reason people go on a search for salvation (p. 136). This ideal tends to vary among religions. For example, the Buddhist ideal of completion is the “goal of enlightenment” (p. 136). The reason Religions seem to address salvation, when it comes to the individual is to give their people a reason to live good, fulfilling lives, and to follow in the paths of their spiritual leaders.

As far as the individual salvation in relation to another world, there are three parts: “joining the spirit world, cosmic cycling or expansion, and the idea of judgement” (p. 137). Joining the spirit world ties the idea that “certain traditions…assume that death is followed by a tradition…rebirth into a new existence” (p. 137). This idea connects to the second part, which is cosmic cycling or expansion. This second part involves the “existence of an eternal soul, spirit, or mind that experiences a cosmic cycling”, meaning the soul, or spirit, leaves one worldly life to start a new one. Both parts involve the idea of reincarnation, “in which spirits are reborn in new” (p. 138). The final idea is that of judgement, specifically the “Day of Judgement”, the day “when good is rewarded and evil punished” (p. 138 – 139).

Each individual path to salvation leads to a greater understanding of who we are, and why we make the choices we do. This shows that religions, by offering the idea of salvation, are concerned just as much with the individual as they are with the greater good. Religions address salvation to provide a hope for their people, to give them a reason to live their lives in the best way possible. The idea of salvation is important to the human experience because it helps people “understand and order the world in connection with a notion of sacred reality” (p. 145).

References

Cunningham, Lawrence, and John Kelsay. The Sacred Quest: An Invitation to the Study of Religion. 6th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2013. Print.