Salvation
Salvation for: Gnostics through secret knowledge and passwords; mystery religions through initiation; philosophers through ecstatic experience achieved through contemplation. these were salvation from the evil world of matter and the slavery of the body; Judeo/Christian salvation is part of creation; Jewish afterlife only one option and split Pharisees and Sadducees; Christians not just life after death but part of a new creation. Christians, however, came to think of the soul as immortal and to emphasise its life after death over God's bringing all creation to its intended end.; moved to see the body as an obstacle and practised mortification; moved from soul immortal by God's gift to its being part of its nature and the question was whether it went to heaven or hell. The existence of the Empire pointed away from the idea of a 'rival' heavenly kingdom; what was wrong with the earthly one? Baptism not for new creation but to send to heaven. In the West entrance into heaven depended increasingly on earthly behaviour. The tension in the Bible between god punishes and gives freely broke down; Pelagius brought this to a head and he was 'nominally' defeated by Augustine but he in turn 'bought in' to Pelagius saying that:
Synthesis: Grace empowers us to do the works which attain salvation.
Infant baptism set off the process by eliminating original sin, enabling good works and penance to correct aberration; the footnote on limbo. The Eucharist gained merit; private masses enabled the rich to enjoy their pleasures; the evolution of purgatory by Gregory the Great; Mortal sin guarantees hell. Lifting people from purgatory by masses and buying indulgences; the "treasury of merit".
The desperate Luther discovers Romans "The just are saved by faith" but this means that God declares the sinner just and might better be called "justification by grace". (Then came Tetzel preaching his 1517 indulgence for the completion of Saint Peter's in Rome: "The moment the coin hits the bottom of the chest a soul will arrive in heaven" - KC). Luther broadened his attack to include penitential system; followed Augustine's agenda on sinfulness and predestination but did not accept the formula of grace enabling good works; grace was not a power or a fluid but granted to the sinner out of god's attitude of love; grace does not make sinners acceptable but accepts them. Justification is not a process but a declaration.
Luther did not want to open the door to sanctification but Calvin did: religion only concerned with salvation lacks the important dimension of pleasing God; (but, in any case, accepting predestination and election, you could not cultivate it anyway - KC). This led to high Puritanism, notably in England; the paradox of right living earning nothing. John Wesley (1703-1791) reacted to legalism to "put one's life in the hands of Christ" and retained sanctification but not legalism; justification must be followed by sanctification, the work of the Holy Spirit. But sanctification not a personal matter; it is bringing humanity to where it should be (full circle with starting point of chapter -KC). A key point, then, social justice, e.g. anti slavery. Contemporary theologians talk about holistic theology of salvation, symptom is liberation theology.
(Gonzalez does not adequately deal with "election" and whether all are saved - KC).
Synthesis: As with "Justification" the 'mechanics' obscure the essence that we are saved through the Resurrection.