So, I was thinking about the nature of grace and the mighty love that God displayed to us with the sacrifice of His Son. I was listening to a debate between Hitchens and D'Souza. Hitchens kept accusing Christianity of being a guiltless and illogical faith or putting your problems on Him instead of fixing yourself. I would not disagree with him, on certain points, but the tone he uses is incorrect. I think it is perfectly logical that grace and mercy is the way of God rather than a works defined salvation.
Lets start with the beginning, human nature. Lets assume that the baseline is how humans act within the world. Leaving aside that all humans act as if God exists, such as speaking in absolutes and morals.
Humanity has a internal desire to improve themselves to strive to be better. We constantly try to break free of our bondage that surrounds us and improve ourselves through whatever means. Every body has a goal or has a set priorities in life. We gauge how we are as people on these goals. If it is your job, then a promotion or getting the job done is your rule of thumb. If it is doing drugs, getting high as much as possible is considered success.
This drive to be good or to be a good human being has to come from somewhere. I do think it is a a priori motive that we are born with.
So if God does interact with the world around us, how would you think God would do this? By interacting, I mean the purpose of salvation. If God does exist, He would have to be a good creator, based on the ability of our own mind, the world itself, rules, love, etc. (this is another debate to be had). God would take the opposite route of salvation rather than what the world presents.
It is very reasonable that God would offer salvation apart from what our human nature is prone too. We always lean on our own works or our own self to justify our existence. Have you ever played bomb shelter? Well, the situation is that there is a bunch of fictional people standing outside a bomb shelter. There are only 10 spots in the shelter but 20 people standing outside. Your job is tell who is saved and who dies in the bomb that will go off soon. The point of the exercise is to show what the participants really value. Immediately, everyone goes straight to what this person did or what they do for a living. It is a entire work/ man centered logic of salvation. With Christianity, my entire identity and purpose is found not in myself but in God. My salvation came only by grace so that no one can boast and no one can say that they deserve salvation. God showed grace apart from my own doing.
If God offered salvation in the scope of what the world is prone to, what is the need for that salvation? If salvation was defined by the adherence to rules of the Mormon church or following the 5 pillars, how is this different than just trying to be a good person without these religions?
It is necessary that God would offer salvation the way He did otherwise it could be attained through other means rather than strictly through Him. If God does exist, He would certainly want to be with those He wants and those that follow Him. If salvation is no different than what the world presents, there is no need to follow what He wants or He desires because it would be a moot subject; you already saved. How special would that be? There would be no differential between those saved and those who are not. Granted, this is under the presupposition that there is both heaven and hell, but without this God could not enact justice in the afterlife and salvation would be pointless. He would have to accept everyone regardless of whatever soul does on this earth.
Yet I digress into another topic, why heaven and hell are both needed.
To summate,
1) It is reasonable that God would offer salvation opposite of human tendencies otherwise their is no significance
2) Salvation through God, by grace, is a completely foreign idea to our own nature.
3) Human tendency is to make works the definition of who we are (what we do is who we are)
4) Relying only on grace of God for salvation is consistent with differentiation needed for judgement to take place in the afterlife. As in, this grace is consistent with a good natured God, a just God.
5) If God does exist, He would want us to follow His will but if salvation can be attained through the world, there is no need to follow His will.
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