Salvation : Ethical Life III

This book offers a reflection upon the human search for meaning, security, healing, and reconciliation in an examination of the central teaching of the Christian faith: salvation. Ward begins by exploring the human condition, then turns to the redemptive work of Christ, and concludes with a study in spiritual formation.

Salvation: Ethical Life III examines the meaning of salvation in Christian theology. Viewing all theological writing as a cultural production, Graham Ward rethinks key aspects of salvation^—^sin, death, atonement, and sanctification^—^through various lenses drawn from both the humanities and the sciences. This examination is divided into three parts. The first part explores what it is to be human: immersed in our environments, erring and death-bound, and reflecting upon who we are. The second part turns to the redemptive work of Christ by first examining so-called theories of the atonement and then analysing the redemptive process as it emerges in the seven last words of Jesus on the Cross. Proposing a universal salvation, the book develops the Pauline notion of recapitulation, the gathering of all things to their created origin in the Trinitarian Godhead. The final part then focusses upon the processes of this gathering in terms of spiritual formation. Ward moves from the initial hearing of the divine call, through to the way responding transforms perception, emotional life, and disposition. Foremost in this transformative process is the liberation of desire through which salvation culminates in coming to know as we are known and coming to love as we are loved. In an epilogue, the book reflects upon the life, theology, and poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, pointing to the role of failure in the process of redemption.