The Great Debate Over The Doctrine of Salvation

By Elijah C. McSwain

The Great Debate over the Doctrine of Salvation was originally written as a master's thesis project at Grace Christian University to analyze the tension over the doctrine of salvation. The doctrine of salvation has been one of the most highly contested and prominent subjects of debatable dialogue among intellectuals within the world. For centuries, the debate has taken the world by storm due to the convoluted rhetoric surrounding what constitutes salvation in the eyes of mankind as opposed to the decree of God concerning salvation. As a result, secular rationalization and Christian orthodox stand as polar opposites of thought on the theological and philosophical spectrum as it relates to the doctrine of salvation. Thus, it is the primary objective through this written platform to point to the truth of what salvation entails of from a biblical perspective to aid in settling the dispute about salvation despite the argumentative position of certain intelligentsia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636305059

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The Great Debate Over The Doctrine of Salvation

Elijah C. McSwain, Sr.

ISBN 978-1-63630-504-2 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63630-505-9 (Digital)

Copyright © 2021 Elijah C. McSwain, Sr.

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

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Table of Contents

Secular and Modern Rationalization

Salvation through Means of Universalism

Salvation Obtained through Human Works

Salvation from a Scientific Perspective

The Declaration of Salvation in Opposition to a Humanistic and Secularized World

The Biblical Need for Salvation

The Biblical Narrative of Salvation as Atonement

The Biblical Narrative of Salvation as Redemption

The Biblical Narrative of Salvation as Justification

This book is dedicated to further the work of the kingdom of heaven. The basis behind this written composition is to make a contribution to the heart of Christian doctrine surrounding the means by which salvation has been manifested to the world.

Secondly, this book is dedicated to my wife, Anderia; to my children Elijah Jr. (EJ), Aniyah, and Josiah (deceased); as well as to my parents, siblings, other family members, friends, professors, and faculty of Grace Christian University for their continuous support and encouragement in an effort to write this biblical genre.

Preface

The Great Debate over the Doctrine of Salvation was originally written as a master’s thesis project at Grace Christian University to analyze the tension over the doctrine of salvation. The doctrine of salvation has been one of the most highly contested and prominent subjects of debatable dialogue among intellectuals within the world. For centuries, the debate has taken the world by storm due to the convoluted rhetoric surrounding what constitutes salvation in the eyes of mankind as opposed to the decree of God concerning salvation. As a result, secular rationalization and Christian orthodox stand as polar opposites of thought on the theological and philosophical spectrum as it relates to the doctrine of salvation. Thus, it is the primary objective through this written platform to point to the truth of what salvation entails of from a biblical perspective to aid in settling the dispute about salvation despite the argumentative position of certain intelligentsia.

Introduction

The Issue at Hand

The doctrine of salvation throughout the ages has been a highly regarded topic of conversation both inside and outside of the religious arena. A great deal of attention and lingo has been attributed to the thought of what constitutes the fundamental basis for being saved. Numerous of views from different sectors of life have caused much friction to rise to the surface about the doctrine within itself. Therefore, there is much controversy that looms over its doctrinal position in both a positive and negative light as to the premise of what defines the terms of salvation. The underlying controversy about salvation stems from groups of individuals that hold a secular worldview of soteriology in contrast to those that hold a biblical worldview of soteriology. The argumentative framework of debate hinges on the fabricated reality of secularists who undermine the means by which God has deemed for salvation to be defined. Consequently, the result of such behavioral thought patterns has attributed to many people attempting to redefine what God has already defined about the doctrine of salvation. Despite the concrete reality that God set in motion to manifest salvation through His Son, Jesus Christ, others have opened up gateways of humanized thought to challenge such biblical claims. Over the course of time, the salvific window through which many people viewed salvation in the past has been clouded with various conceptualization of human rhetoric of falsehood. For many, the word salvation takes on many forms of thought according to religious creed and belief. The conceptualization of the term salvation conveys different realities among different religions. According to many religions, salvation can be viewed through a pluralistic window by the achievement of some desired religious aim that affirms the idea that many paths lead to salvation (Heim 1995, p. 6). The pathway of such falsehood has created a secularistic whirlpool that aims at drowning the theological and biblical truths about salvation. As a result, the doctrine of salvation has become congested with foreign thought, theoretically making it a debatable subject among the human populace over opposition of differing views.

The debate over the doctrine of salvation is nothing new. This debate is as ancient as biblical times where scholars and religious leaders of their day concocted their own ideology as to what salvation entailed for the world during their lifetime. Likewise, today the same debate is still in existence and flourishing. The methods may have changed in some respects, but the same sides are at odds with each other because of the differing ways that people grasp the doctrine of salvation. Many intellectuals and prolific thinkers of today have fictitiously created systematic approaches as to how a person can be counted righteous and obtain salvation according to their own heterodoxy apart from accepted Christian orthodoxy. Hence, attempting to undermine the biblical stance of salvation in an effort to replace it with erroneous beliefs and false doctrine. The modern-day pluralistic views of salvation have tainted the minds of people because of contemporary thought being achieved through modernism and secularism. Thus, it is the aim of this book to draw out the secular idea of salvation in terms of universalism, works, and science in opposition to the manner that God has deemed salvation to be after His own decree.

Secular and Modern Rationalization

In order to understand the view of most intellectuals in the world today concerning salvation, it is vital to examine the postulation upon which their thought is founded. Secular and modern thinkers fashion their lives to act independent of the reality of God. Individuals as such have constructed their own foundational grounds of thought for life that aims to exist exclusively and autonomously apart from God.

Bush asserts that the platform for secularism is a means to be profane, of the world, and have no sacred or religious value pertaining to God because it is centered on being consumed with the present age of conventional thinking. Thus, the very core of secularism is to be entangled with the concerns of the modern times, to lack a transcendent perception of reality, and to cater to the world’s mold of life as distinguished from the spiritual and eternal reality of God. Hence, secularization is a process of history that moves away from an order of life that is characterized by a theistically based unity between the sacred and the secular; toward an order of life that has no consensus regarding if anything is sacred (1984).

The secular narrative is a lifestyle, a thought pattern, and a standard regarded as being distinct from God’s creative order. Humanism is a thought pattern and code of conduct fashioned after a cultural mold that is rooted and grounded in worldly wisdom. The primary purpose of this growing movement focuses on persuading humanity to conform unto a way of life that the greater society deems as the norm as it relates to the meaning established through secular belief.

According to the website of the Council for Secular Humanism, if meaning is not ordained from on high then what meanings can we work out among ourselves? If eternal life is an illusion, how can we make the most of our only lives? As social beings sharing a godless world, how should we coexist? For the questions that remain unanswered after we’ve cleared our minds of gods and spirits, many atheists, agnostics, skeptics and free thinkers turn to human secularism [http.//secularhumanism.org/; 04/18/12]. (Morgan 2012, p. 139)

Consequently, the objectivity of secular and modern rationalism is to remove God totally out of the picture or diminish the decree of God in thought, conduct, and reality. The framework of its core belief hinges on the notion that humanity is capable of defining its own sense of morality through self-reliance and resources that subsist outside of God. It is a mindset geared toward life that humanity knows what is best suitable for their own good and becomes a habitual pattern of practice as well as a thought process devoted to intellectual pursuits. As a result, the community of secularists stand in opposition to God and exhibit manifestations of defiance toward biblical connotations in pursuit of an indifferent life disconnected from the will of God.

Secular humanism is then the practice and advocacy of nontheistic humanism by legislators, judges, scientists, educators, writers, entertainers and the society at large without much regard to God (Bush 1984, p. 6).

The foundational grounds for the secular world advocate the premises of subjectivism, synergism, and syncretism. The grounds for subjectivism denote that all knowledge is limited through human experience and any transcendent (divine) experience is irrelevant or nonexistence. Contrariwise, some humanists hold a synergetic view of life that humanity somewhat contributes to the efforts of life’s great realities such as salvation. Furthermore, some intellectuals hold the position of syncretism, whereby opposing principles, practices, and philosophical thinking can be combined to form a new doctrinal stance about a subject matter. Therefore, the actions and thinking patterns of many intellectuals as such are then viewed as the standard of praxis for life’s so-called great truth. A praxis that is ultimately geared toward