Achieving salvation is the goal of virtually all religions though how it is defined may vary from one to another. In general, it is the idea of graduating from physical existence and entering into God’s heavenly kingdom where angels and saint like figures dwell in a certain otherworldly bliss. Each religion lays out a somewhat different road for getting to heaven, and perhaps there is some merit to the strategies each one has to offer. Invariably though, each cult will offer some recipe that involves the help of God or the effort of man to realize the goal. Some faiths put a strong burden on God to bring souls to eternal life and others put the onus on man to save himself. Salvation may appear in some religions as more the gift of God and in others more a matter of human labor.
This dichotomy not only appears from cult to cult but also exists within the major religions themselves. Not long after the Buddha left this world, his followers broke into two camps which continue to this day. They are known by the terms “Mahayana” and “Hinayana” in the Hindi language. The former word is translated as “big raft” and represents the larger percentage of Buddhists in the world. The latter word means “little raft” and signifies the smaller religious persuasion within Buddhism.
Hinayana is primarily the practice of those who live in a monastic setting, the monks and nuns of this world’s great religion, and perhaps it is fair to say that mainly those who carry out an ascetic lifestyle can live up to the demands of this form of Buddhism. Hinayana emphasizes self-effort to achieve salvation without the benefit of supernatural aid. Meditation and deep contemplation is the chief spiritual practice demanding many hours each day. It is a religious discipline that requires intense commitment and more or less can only be realized by those who can live it full time like those in a religious order.
Mahayana by contrast is a form of Buddhism that is more appealing to the rank and file adherent who cannot give the time and energy that the monks do. It is the faith of the masses who live normal every day lives with jobs and families. In opposition to its sister division, Mahayana emphasizes grace (or divine help) to attain salvation. Religious practice is relevant to life in the world. In distinction to Hinayana, this branch of Buddhism includes petitionary prayer as an important aspect of the religion and reflects the adherents reliance on a power greater than itself.
Of course it is not only in Buddhism that opposing branches of thought exist but within Christianity also there are rival subdivisions whose focus is very different from each other. Many centuries after Buddhism saw its schism, division also hit Christianity starting with the Great Schism of 1054 which divided the faith into eastern and western branches. However this was essentially all political and not theological. It was hundreds of years later that the western church was rocked with a rift of its own which had a number of causes including Renaissance individualism, the rise of nationalism, political and economic motivations, along with theological disputes.
The ecclesiastical abuses at the time had become a stench in the nostrils of the faithful and served as a catalyst to divide the monolithic church in two. St. Peter’s Basilica was in need of a large rebuilding project and a campaign was underway to sell indulgences to the faithful with a promise of helping their loved ones in the afterlife. Johann Tetzel preached persuasively on the doctrine and brought in revenue for the church with his catchy slogan, "As soon as the coin in the coffer rings, the soul from purgatory (also attested as 'into heaven') springs."
At the center of this powder keg was Martin Luther, an Augustinian monk who with a good mind and the power of the pen unleashed polemics against the abuses. The priest had been a pious man who devoted himself to heavy ascetism including fasting and penances and frequent confession but felt he was underneath an onerous yoke for which there was no consolation. He felt a certain spritual despair fearing that his efforts toward God were ultimately inadequate. In the midst of the controversy that would tear the Western Church apart, Luther discovered the teachings of the Apostle Paul which apparently emphasized salvation through faith. This was personally liberating for the monk who cast away the theology of works like an old rag. As a spokeman for the new movement he provided a framework of thought in distinction and opposition to the system that had dominated Western Europe for many centuries.
To Luther’s delight, Paul had a consistent theme in his epistles which emphasized achieving sanctity through the merits of faith (or divine assistance in this context.) Particularly in his letter to the Romans, Paul spoke of “a righteousness that is by faith.” In emphatic terms he declared, “since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God.”
Not only did the apostle celebrate the virtues of faith as a vehicle toward salvation, he seemingly extolled it to the exclusion of any value from human effort. In his epistle to the Ephesians he proclaimed, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” The apostle also informed his protege’ Titus that it is “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy [God] saved us.” So adamant was Paul that salvation was a gift of God only, he also penned to the Romans that if salvation is “by grace, then it cannot be based on works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.”
What the apostle Paul had to say clearly resonated with Martin Luther and the large band of followers who would promulgate his theology to the current day. However it must be said that the ostensive position of Paul on the subject was not necessarily a consistent thread in an overarching biblical theme. Other writers had different things to say on the matter of salvation including Jesus’ brother James who was the leader of the early church in Jerusalem.
James felt that man’s actions were very important on the road to salvation. He wrote, “What good is it my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such a faith save him? ... Faith by itself, if not accompanied by action is dead ... You see that a person is justified by what he does and not by faith alone ... As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.”
The works that James seemed to have in mind were along the lines of what was taught by the ancient Jewish prophets long before. The leader of the Jerusalem church succinctly compressed man’s duty to God in the formula: “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress ...” He was echoing the words of Zechariah who charged, “Do not oppress the widow, or the fatherless, the alien, or the poor.” In fact it was a common theme of the prophets to condemn those who failed to give justice to the poor like Amos who complained, “They trample on the heads of the poor as upon the dust of the ground and deny justice to the oppressed.”
This idea was seemingly very important to Jesus as well and is a motif running throughout the gospels. On more than one occasion the Savior challenged would-be disciples to sell their possessions and to give them to the poor if they were to be perfect. He equated providing for the needy with building up a treasure trove in heaven where a soul could enjoy the eternal reward of doing good. His parables reflected this theology as well, particularly the well known story of the Sheep and the Goats where it is only those who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, welcomed the stranger, and attended the sick who would be found worthy to enter the kingdom of God.
For Jesus, living a life of love and kindness was imperative to achieving salvation and perhaps more generically it was the life lived in obedience to God’s will that would merit eternal bliss. When asked by the rich young man what he needed to do to get eternal life, Jesus responded, “If you want to enter life, obey the commandments.” On a few occasions, Jesus chided his followers with harsh words: “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord’ and do not do what I say?” In fact Jesus soberly warned, “Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my father who is in heaven.” The Messiah set a high bar to be his follower and expected nothing less than full obedience to God. He laid that out to his disciples shortly before his Passion affirming, “If you love me you will obey my commandments.” Friendship with Jesus and by extension God was conditioned on much more than lip service; it required full cooperation with the divine will.
It’s no wonder that there are significant divisions within Christendom when very different theologies appear within the New Testament on the nature of the all important subject of salvation. The premier apostle Paul comes across to be saying one thing and the Savior and his brother another. How can we resolve what looks to be mutually exclusive ideas on the matter? While it may not be a simple matter to reconcile the words of these biblical figures together, it may be the case that Paul is not nearly as negative on good deeds as it appears.
While on the surface the writings of Paul seem to condemn works of righteousness in the formula of salvation, a closer look at his phraseology may suggest a softer position than meets the eye. While it is true that many times he will use the term “works” generically in his passages, in other places he qualifies that idea further with the expression “works of the law.” This terminology is even seen in the epistle to the Romans where Paul champions the merits of faith more than any other New Testament letter. He writes, “No one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law,” and a few verses later he reiterates, “a person is justified by faith apart from the works of the law.” In the Epistle to the Galatians he employs the same kind of language affirming, “that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. Toward the end of that letter, he hints at what he is referring to with an additional clarification: “For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’”
“Works of the law” is consequently a reference to the Mosaic Law, that body of Jewish statutes that had bound the faithful from the time of Moses to the present. Particularly Paul’s use of the phrase focuses on those ceremonial and civil aspects including dietary laws, purity rituals, social laws, sacrifices, and many other particular rules that governed the life of a Jew. As a preacher to the Gentiles, it was Paul’s objective to forge a type of Christianity that unshackled the faithful from the onerous weight of the Jewish system which was culturally foreign and irrelevant to his Gentile audiences. Paul’s position was ultimately accepted by the Jerusalem Council around 50 A.D. where it was decided that only the Jewish Christians would continue to follow the Mosaic Law while the Gentiles would more or less just be bound by the the more comprehensive moral law.
Without Paul’s fierce opposition to perpetuating the Mosaic system, the Christianity that we know today would undoubtedly have been much more Jewish in its thought and practice, and so it seems that the apostle’s antagonism toward works was probably more of a hostility toward the Jewish legal code than anything else. Notwithstanding those passages that rail against works, there are other verses in Paul’s writings that look like they praise the value of righteous deeds, for he declares, “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Consequently it would look as though Paul made a sharp distinction between works in general and the more specific “works of the law.”
Even if we can demonstrate that Paul was more congenial to the value of good deeds than is often assumed, the New Testament nonetheless presents seemingly contradictory viewpoints on the subject of salvation, and consequently Christendom is divided in its theology on the matter. Of course the dispute is not just limited to Christianity but to other philosophies and religions like Buddhism as we have described. A large portion of the world may very well be polarized in its understanding of the way of salvation, and naturally we have to wonder if one side is right and the other wrong. At least logic might dictate that for diametrically opposed positions, only one can be true. Or maybe not?
At least we seem conditioned to align ourselves with one side or the other as an “either/or” mentality seems to be natural to us. But the philosphers have often challenged us to change our paradigm which may very well be appropriate in this case. The Hegelian dialectical method sought to reconcile contradictory ideas (thesis and antithesis) with a synthesis of the two. It is the proposition of “both/and” rather than “either/or.” In this instance, it would be to say that faith is important AND works are important, or that salvation is simply the result of faith and works together. Entering into the kingdom of heaven is therefore the product of both human effort and divine assistance.
We normally do not find the truth in one extreme or the other but somewhere in the middle whether it be in the political, moral, or religious spheres. Even the Buddha himself learned this the hard way after he almost killed himself with a brutal ascetic lifestyle. He came to learn that the path to life was the one that avoided severe austerities as well as over-indulgences, and he called it the Middle Way which has been celebrated by his followers ever since.
So too we understand that there is a middle way on the road to eternal life that shares both in the soul’s labor and in God’s grace. The same scriptures which present to us the extremes also show us the middle way, the partnership between God and man. The Lord’s brother James put it very well when he wrote, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.” In the Old Testament it was the prophet Zechariah who expressed a similar sentiment with “Return to me and I will return to you.” Both embody the same spiritual law, namely that if we reach out to God he will reciprocate and come near to us. If we make an effort to come close to him, he will pour out grace on us and strengthen us on our journey. Salvation is then the result of human effort assisted by God’s grace.
This concept is seen in Jewish mysticism, what is known as Kabbalah. In that system, the relationship between God and man is depicted as a circular current flowing from man to God and then from God back to man. What ascends from man is generically his “prayer” encompassing his efforts, sacrifices, sufferings, and problems. It is what he offers up to God in his struggle on the spiritual journey. In return what descends from God is identified as “benediction” which we may also call grace. It is the showering of divine consolations, spiritual illumination, and divine assistance to help man on his pilgrimage.
In this Jewish system of thought, the circulation is analogous to the flow of blood through the body. Because man offers his effort, he becomes exhausted and depleted much like the deoxygenated blue blood flowing in the veins. God reciprocates giving his own vital life force to man, recharging him like the reoxygenated red blood flowing in the arteries. The analogy is found as well in the Kabbalah’s Sephiroth Tree or Tree of Life diagram that includes a right and left column, one called “Severity” representing man’s effort and the other named “Mercy” to symbolize God’s grace. Biblically speaking, the giant two pillars in the portico of Solomon’s Temple named Jachin and Boaz may have a similar connotation.
If both human effort and divine grace are key components to achieving salvation, it is probably important to address how each functions toward that end. Though we may need to take a step back first and answer the more fundamental question about what is needed for the soul to merit salvation. Unfortunately, there is not a pat answer to that as if we could make some formula that would fit everyone universally. But we can set the general framework for it by identifying a few of the major criteria necessary to graduate from the material world and to enter into the higher planes of immortal beings. First and foremost, we can say that no one will attain eternal life without learning all of the lessons he came into this world to learn. In the allegory of the creation narrative, it is portrayed as learning the difference between good and evil, something that can only be mastered through experience after experience in the physical world. Secondly, the soul must acquire all virtues needed to function in the spiritual world. Such qualities as patience, perseverance, humility, kindness, and love must be learned. The epistle to the Hebrews informs us that “without holiness, no one will see God.” The words are a reflection of a fundamental biblical command for us to be holy as God is holy, a mandate issued by the prophets, apostles, and Jesus himself. Thirdly the soul must pay off all of its debts to God before it can become a denizen of heaven. It is the application of the spiritual law of reaping what we sow and is known as the law of karma broadly across major religions. Whatever sins we have committed need to be redressed in full before we can leave earth forever. We have to be “in the black” before our account can be closed and move on to new things.
With the milestones identified that will make someone ready for salvation we can now better appreciate our role and God’s role in this equation. In keeping with the subject of this essay, we will specifically address faith and works, the two elements that must function synergistically to bring about the sanctity of the soul.
So what is faith? Frequently it is understood to be a collection of beliefs regarding unseen and unproven things, mental assent of certain ideas that often have to do with the afterlife, the destiny of man, and the person of God. While this definition has some value, there is a more rudimentary understanding of the term that we can utilize to make sense of the journey to salvation. At the most basic level, faith is the substance of man’s connection to God; it is the nebulous link that joins a soul to the Deity. Fundamentally it is a relationship that is forged by experience wherein one learns to trust God and believe in him despite all of the hardships of life (or perhaps as a result of all of this world’s difficulties.)
Faith is not of a binary nature which is to say that one either has it or does not, but it is really a continuum of shades of gray. Everyone in the human race has some degree of faith perhaps ranging from very little to very great. Most of us are on the spectrum somewhere in between.
Faith as a connection may be extended to another similar analogy, that of a conduit. We can imagine faith to be a pipe linking us to God, and that pipe channels grace from heaven into the soul. If faith is weak, then only a trickle of this divine life force may enter into someone, but if faith is great, then the divine power can flood into one’s being. Grace is frequently portrayed in the bible as a river, and we see it first in the Garden of Eden allegory where a river flowed out of the garden to water the whole surrounding region. Later it was envisioned as a stream flowing out from Ezekiel’s temple which the apostle John later appropriated as his River of Life flowing out from the throne of God.
As the conduit of divine power, the value of faith cannot be understated on man’s spiritual journey, for it is the force that alone can ensure that he accomplishes the goal. When faith is strong, the soul is inundated by a powerful motivation to align itself with the divine will. In fact it is almost compelled to follow the way of God and obey his precepts. (The apostle Paul wrote, “It is God who works in you both to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.”) Because the awareness of God’s presence is so great in the one who has vibrant faith, there exists also a holy fear or reverence within the soul that keeps it from offending God and thereby accumulating more sins. Additionally when one possesses a formidable faith, he becomes convinced that whatever comes his way in life is by divine permission and for his own good. Therefore he can patiently endure suffering without complaint and quietly endure hardships as they teach life’s lessons and secure important virtues. The prophet Habbakuk wrote, “The righteous will live by his faith” and of course it is only a vigorous faith that can ensure that a soul remains cooperative with the divine plan and lives an upright and pure life. With little to no faith, man will inevitably align himself closer to the animal world than to the angelic world to which he is called. Christ expressed the philosophy of those without faith in one of his classic parables about the Rich Fool. In that story we have the ideology of unbelief epitomized: “Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.” Ultimately the life lived without faith has as its sole objective the maximization of personal pleasure and enjoyment before it expires.
For this reason, ultimately a life lived without faith is inherently selfish and cannot be pleasing to God. Devoid of any altruism, any outwardly good acts on the part of someone who has no connection to God are of little to value. To use the words of the prophet Isaiah, all such “righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Paul seems to reiterate this notion with his unequivocal statement, “Whatever does not come from faith is sin.” And this principle is also echoed in the book of Hebrews where it is written, “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”
It should be clear at this point that works without faith is of no value and faith without works merits nothing. Both faith and works must operate together synergistically if they are to do any good for the soul. They are like complementary forces that feed off each other, for a vibrant faith will generate works as its fruit and dilgent works will strengthen faith.
This idea of works we have identified with the notion of human effort which certainly encompasses good deeds but also as the Kabbalah suggests represents human suffering, sacrifices, service, and prayer. It is one’s offering of himself fully to God. The value of works on the path of salvation has much to do with the law of karma or the sow and reap principle we have touched upon. The principle of karma demands that punishment be meted out according to the misdeed (e.g. an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.) Suffering then is the default method that ensures that all of us will pay for our sins. The apostle Peter seemingly alluded to this mechanism in his first epistle: “He who has suffered in his body is done with sin.” But suffering is not the only way that we can pay back our debts to God.
A few verses later, in the same passage, Peter informs us that “love covers over a multitude of sins,” an idea that he echoed from the Book of Proverbs. The principle is found in a few Old Testament passages including one from Sirach which promises, “Kindness to a father will not be forgotten, but will serve as reparation for your sins.” The verses communicate to us that our acts of loving kindness or good deeds as we often refer to them also have the merit to cancel our sins. Naturally, doing good is always preferable to suffering if we can avoid it, and is undoubtedly the more efficient way to make amends for our wrongdoing. For that reason, Paul the strong advocate of faith nonetheless encourages his readers to make every effort to show acts of kindness to our neighbor. He writes, “I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good.”
While suffering is often the way that we settle debts to God, it should be said that it is not devoid of other redemptive purposes. On the surface we often view our pain and disability, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual as a waste of time. But this is never the case. Though suffering may on one hand be making amends for misdeeds it is at the same time accomplishing other important functions in the soul. There is probably no better vehicle to instill virtue within a person than being subjected to suffering in one form or another, for one acquires many positive qualities including patience and endurance among others. Undoubtedly suffering will produce some degree of compassion in the soul for others who have been afflicted in a similar way. In the end suffering teaches us a lesson about the bad choices we have made (subconsciously if not consciously) and finally leads us away from sin.
Though there is plenty of involuntary suffering that people will endure in life, what is unquestionably baffling to those of little faith is how some will take on a form of voluntary suffering on top of all the other hardships of life. By this we are referring to sacrifices which are usually acts of self-denial or self-abnegation. The most popular form of this across all faiths is the practice of fasting which is of course the denial of nourishment to the body. It is probably a good question to ask why anyone in a good frame of mind would want to take part in masochistic behavior, and ultimately it would seem that through faith they perceive it to be of some value. Just like involuntary suffering, offering sacrifices can function as a way to pay off debts that we have incurred but it is also a way to obtain virtues through practice. Self-denial inculcates temperance, moderation, and discipline and forces the physical body with its needs and desires to play second fiddle to spiritual interests.
World religions may emphasize the importance of human effort or the significance of divine grace even to the exclusion of the other. A tendency to focus on one of these polarities over the other likely has to do with where we are on our spiritual journey along with inherent temperament and personality. At the end of the day, whether we recognize it or not, we are on the surest path to God when we successfully learn to reconcile our role with God’s role in our lives. Whether our personal theology can buy into it or not, we will make the most spiritual progress when see faith and works not as mutually exclusive notions but as partners working together as we wend our way to heaven.