Roles and Ways of Salvation
Salvation from Latin Salvatio, Salva, is a term used to refer to the state of the deliverance of the soul from transgression and the consequences of transgression. Since eternity, over time immemorial, life has been dictated by estrangement, fear of the unknown, spiritual and moral guilt, risk of failure and anxiety, and the desire to meet expectations both from ourselves and from the people who surround us. Success, as is well known, will never lower its standards to accommodate an individual as one has to raise his/ her standards to achieve it. Such means used to archive success and to lead a life free of transgression, therefore, play a significant role in influencing salvation. The ways of achieving salvation have varied broadly in the history of religion, ranging from intimidating coercive magic to acts of passionate ecstatic and entreaty devotion to ethical patterns of human behaviour Divided into classic types, salvation ways include devotion, faith, disciplined action, and meditation and insight.
Salvation is a future hope and at the same time, a present reality. It is understood to not only to involve an individual but also the community as a whole. It is the crucial goal of religion. At a personal level, salvation is the way by which we are, we from those factors that limit and compromise our wellbeing. Liberation and salvation are central to the religion’s nature and thus simply defined as “a means to ultimate transformation.” Another form of salvation projects beyond personal psychic wholeness to the future and this-worldly salvation through the coming of the Messianic or Utopian age
Faith can mean belief and therefore, the mental aspect to the existence of the unknown in the total personal response of mind, heart and desire collectively submitted as a trust by theologians. Through faith, an individual feels incapable of taking any action that can lead to salvation from the factors confining him/ her to craving, sin and ignorance. When a believer reaches a condition of self-complete helplessness and abasement grace and love of spiritual divination would salvage him/ her from the bondage. Acts of devotion are impelled by the feeling that accompanies the experiences of divine grace. The ways of devotion are more often found under the ways of action, insight and faith. Devotionalization shows a deeply felt individual encounter with the profound presence experienced in some sort of revealed encounter leaving the individual changed radically. The way of action and obligation is the most universal and accessible way to salvation. Majority of believers show their religious ways and faith through prosaic patterns in religious activities, for instance, obligatory moral duties and sacraments.
The ways of meditation and philosophical insight is not widely used but open to all believers who are willing to be guided by its demanding discipline. It remains an esoteric way whereby a spiritual elite influences one. Believers who follow this way of belief have it in mind that real insight is crucial for the attainment of genuine spiritual release and freedom. Two classic examples of meditation and philosophical insight are, a) the classic Yoga which was further explained by Pantanjali, the Indian sage in his Yoga and improving on the techniques of Yoga and b) The final goal or Theravada Buddhism which comes through the cessation of pain, suffering and unease. The eightfold path leading to Nirvana consists of eight components, namely; right aspiration, right understanding, right speech, right effort, right action, livelihood, right concentration and mindfulness. The elements are not practised in any numerical order but developed all together each assisting in the cultivation of others.
References
Edward C. Dimock, Jr., and Denise Levertov, trans., (1966). In Praise of Krishna ( New York 56f.,65f.
Kenneth Cragg (1969). The House of Islam (Belmont, Clif.,1969), 48.
Sanders, A., & De Ridder, K. (2007). Fifty years of the philosophy of religion: a select bibliography (1955-2005). Brill.
Watson, P. S. (2000). Let God be God: An Interpretation of the theology of Martin Luther. Wipf and Stock Publishers.