This 35/40 (A* grade) essay on Religious Studies - Developments in Christian Thought - Religious Pluralism, provides a great revision and learning resource, covering both key content and wider knowledge on the topic of Religious Pluralism.
Some of the topics covered in the essay include: salvat...
There is no other means of salvation but through Christ. Discuss.
In Acts 4:12, it says “God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved”,
meaning Jesus, which justifies the view of missionaries to spread God’s word and convert others to
Christianity so they too can achieve salvation through Jesus. In order to accurately answer this
question, we must know what salvation actually means: it is the deliverance from sin and its
consequences, believed by Christians to be brought about by faith in Christ. This definition is key at it
shows that, to achieve salvation, Christ plays a key role, however many people would argue that
salvation is simply ‘believed’ to be through Christ, perhaps implying that the role Jesus plays is not
necessary. The three main views regarding salvation and Christ are exclusivism, inclusivism and
pluralism, with exclusivism favouring the title statement and the others less so. I will be evaluating
the exclusivist view of salvation and comparing it to inclusivism and pluralism to find the validity of
salvation being achieved exclusively through Christ and with no other alternatives, to which I find
valid to a great extent.
Exclusivism strongly supports the idea that salvation can only be achieved through Christ and
strengthens this view to a great extent. Exclusivism is the view that only one religion offers the
complete means of salvation due to the belief that Christ is the truth. This idea is somewhat
supported by Russel who claims that “since (religions) disagree, not more than one of them can be
true”, implying that it is a matter of logic that only one religion must be true, and the belief that
Christianity must be the true religion is supported through John 14:6 in which “Jesus answered, ‘I am
the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.’”. with evidence from
the Bible, this would affirm the belief in Christians that Jesus is the only way to Salvation, and
through his sacrifice, people can be reconciled with God. This idea is further supported by
theologians such as Kraemer and Barth. Kraemer was a leading figure behind the Ecumenical
Movement and, in his book ‘The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World’, he claims that people
cannot achieve salvation through their own faith systems but must convert to Christianity. Barth
claimed that God chooses to reveal himself to us through Jesus, the Bible and the Church and that
Christ cannot be known through human efforts, but through these ways. We can also see this view in
the Catholic Church as the phrase “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” is often used, meaning there is no
salvation outside the Church, further supporting the exclusivist perspective. Through Bible verses
and theologians and thinkers such as Russel, Kraemer and Barth, we can see that there must only be
one religion that is correct, and salvation can only be achieved through Christ alone as his sacrifice
provided us means to achieve salvation. Exclusivism therefore provides strong points promoting the
idea that salvation can only be achieved through Christ.
There are two main issues with the exclusivist view regarding the view that salvation can only be
achieved through Christ, and these are biblical interpretations and access to Christianity. Some
critics suggest that it is difficult to differentiate between words actually spoken by Jesus and those of
writers trying to communicate the narrative of Jesus’ life. Through this, we can observe that there
are many conflicting views in both the Bible and the Christian religion itself. We do not know exactly
what the ‘truth’ is and arguably, the Bible may have been translated and interpreted so much that
Biblical claims that Jesus is the only way to achieve salvation may be far from the truth, therefore
reducing exclusivists’ ideas to mistranslated nonsense. This idea is supported by Hick who claimed
that Jesus never declared himself the Son of God and therefore assuming he is the only way to
salvation is irrational. In addition to this, access to the Christian faith is limited in some less
developed countries. Even with the development of technology, some people may not have been
exposed to the Christian faith. Wouldn’t it be unfair for these people to suffer eternal damnation
because they have not heard about the God sending them there? In addition to this, there is the
issue with people who lived before Jesus; if Christ is the only way to salvation then these people
cannot achieve it. This questions the nature and attributes of God, notably him being
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