Four Views on Salvation in a Pluralistic World (Counterpoints: Bible and Theology)

Salvation in a Pluralistic World is a masterful text written by a compilation of competent, faith- filled Christian authors. It seeks to discuss a variety of Christian responses to Pluralism in the modern world, and involves an active conversation between the authors about each view. John Hick, the first author featured in the text, strongly defends the pluralistic idea that every major religion entails an opportunity for “independent salvific access to the divine Reality” (17). He equates salvation to the process of sanctification, thus denying any Christological significance and opening the door for people of a plethora of religious views to achieve salvation. Clark H. Pinnock discusses Inclusivism and its acceptance of God’s presence everywhere in the world, thus in every religion as well as cultural contexts outside of religion. However, it differs from Pluralism in that it acknowledges the divine nature of Jesus Christ and the necessity of understanding this aspect to achieve salvation. Alister E. McGrath, as well as Douglas R. Geivett and Gary W. Phillips present a spectrum of ideas in the Particularist category, which generally believes in the absolute significance of a Christologically inclined achievement of salvation. The spectrum entails a difference in view of whether or not knowledge of God originates solely within Christianity.An outstanding contribution of this text is its discussion on theological considerations such as the Incarnation, Jesus as the Son of God (or not), the Resurrection and the Holy Spirit. These concepts are difficult and require an extensive exegesis of Scripture and analysis of context. I felt that each author, whether I agreed with their view or not, devoted a substantial amount of effort to this cause and increased my understanding of topics that previously seemed impossible to grasp. I feel that any reader could glean valuable information from all four authors to aid in the process of determining their own position. A critical weakness of the text is its coverage on the Pluralistic section. It was not too burdensome to understand the primary differences between the Pluralistic authors, but a lot of what was written in the Geivett and Phillips section felt unclear and a little redundant. It seemed like it was not different enough to be written as its own section, and I wondered if there was another view that could have been covered instead. However, as I say this, I want to clarify that it was difficult for me to come up with a critique of the text. Overall, my view is both positive and appreciative, and I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to discover how Christians interpret the idea of salvation in today’s religious climate.

I didn't realise how important the question of Salvation in Pluralistic world was until I started reading the views of John Hick. His academic underwriting of the pluralist position has done a lot to influence and substantiate contemporary pluralism. This is no doubt the mood of contemporary culture. Hicks thesis was that if Christians claim to have the Spirit surely they should be better (ethically) than people who don't have the Spirit, but they aren't so then Christianity can't be the only way. He finds it convincing, I didn't. It's simply not what Scripture teaches about those who have the Spirit, and is an incredible subjective criteria for dismissing the particularity of Christianity. Pinnocks view is that of an inclusivist who thinks God would be unfair if He didn't save everyone, even if they don't strictly profess faith in Christ. But Pinnock technically isn't a universalist. He still holds that the seeds of faith in God must be there, even if differently acknowledged. I didn't find this convincing either, and thought that most people would see this as wishful thinking and a short step to universalism and eventually full blown pluralism. McGrath's and Gevitt & Philipps views did not differ substantially. Both conservative and evangelical but they had a few minor squabbles. McGrath did delve more into experiences people were having in the two thirds world, such as Muslims experiencing visions and dreams of Jesus. Gevitt and Phillips asked McGrath to substantiate those claims about dreams with evidence. They focused more on exegeting scripture to show that their view was scripturally based, but didn't delve much into the philosophical questions raised by their view.Overall the value of the book is it's interaction and dialogue. You get to not only hear the views of different people, but to see how they interact and respond to others view points, and criticisms of their own. Apart from the trite comments of Pinnock saying he hopes the readers will realise that it's 3 against 1 (meaning 3 people who disagree with Hick), the book was well worth reading.

If you have wondered how people come to the conclusions that they do about salvation, this book will help you track the logic. It is well done. It really helps you see clearly the paths of the mind when it comes to this intriguing subject

From my vantage point the traditional/conservative position seems most Biblical, coherent, and true. Still looks to me like Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life." The Great Commission is still in progress.

Clear and well written book on the four views of salvation. Enjoyed the counter arguments after each chapter.

The book was in good condition. Fewer mark-ups in the book than what the summary detailed. My only complaint is the picture of the book was from the 2010 edition, while the book was from the 1996 edition. Going back and looking at the details does show that they advertised the 1996 edition (so that's my fault), but I also fault them for advertising the wrong cover. Not a big deal, but still knocks them down from a 5-star.

This book extends a look at reconstruction as it moved toward the twentieth century.

Helpful summary of current debate. Four views covered touch all the bases in this controversial subject. Well-written. and very readable.

This book is a superb achievement - to get the leading credible academic representatives of the various evangelical responses on the forever vexed question of who gets to 'heaven' and who doesn't, AND to bring their prime theological enemy (John Hick) into the conversation too, is an important and commendable achievement. I commend this book to anyone exploring answers to these issues which affect alot of human views and behaviour in our religiously confused world today.1) Geivett presents the hardcore exclusivist position, meaning that anyone who dies outside of saving faith in Jesus, is pretty well doomed (a haphazard and cruel arrangement on God's part, if true? Hick and Pinnock think so);2) McGrath offers us the same but wisely prefers to leave God the problem of what happens to the 'unsaved' (i.e. it's not for us to say, which he calls 'Christian particularism');3) Pinnock is considered a progressive evangelical because he aligns with the Roman Catholics i.e. he's inclusivist in his approach at least, which says people of any/no faith who manifest godliness will be allowed into 'heaven' because God's love through Jesus has gained forgiveness for all whether they realise it or not and so God accepts that they have failed to happen to believe and accept that 'through no fault of their own'.4) Lastly comes Prof. Hick's viewpoint which is attacked by all those in the book whenever possible, because it's the most "radical", in that he abandons the Christian supremacy which all the others hold onto. Very simply, he says that all the main world religions (judged by their spiritual and moral fruit in human lives), influence humans to move increasingly out of natural self-centredness and toward greater God/Divine Centredness. Therefore, it's more helpful and mature to simply accept that any and all religions that do this are effective vehicles for enabling Salvation. i.e. all such religions lead in that sense lead humans toward a greater orientation in God/The Divine Reality and the related spiritual fruit in their lives. Of course he considers the true meaning of 'salvation' to be human transformation from self-centredness to God-centredness rather than the traditional Christian notion of our being saved from sin alone, which is a key issue for him. He is the worlds most articulate academic spokesman on this subject, by far, so it's interesting to see him in debate with some of the most important leading evangelical thinkers.Of course Hick has long been aware that the main obstacle to his view is how we view Jesus - for if God visited Earth and initiated his own special group of people and did certain key things for us, then of course that would be the one true religion of God. So you get a whole debate on the subject of Christology (our understanding of Jesus: Son of God, or not, etc) in between all the other subjects which is valuable too.It's a fascinating comparative read with each responding to the other so clearly.I recommend this book 100%.