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.From this particular beliefmay develop the view that the death of the savior is a tributary atonement for the devil'spower gained over the souls of humans as a result of men's sins.This is the view ofearliest Christianity.Or, on the contrary, the death of the savior may be viewed as ameans of smoothing the wrath of god, before whom the savior appears as an intercessorfor humans, as in the cases of Christ, Muhammad, and other prophets and saviors.Again,the savior may, like the ancient bearer of salvation in magical religions, bring personforbidden knowledge of fire, technical arts, writing, or possibly the lore requisite forsubjugating demons in this world or on the way toward heaven, as in Gnosticism.Finally,the decisive achievement of the savior may be contained, not in his concrete strugglesand sufferings, but in the ultimate metaphysical root of the entire process.This ultimatemetaphysical basis would of course be the incarnation of a god as the only device forbridging the gap between god and his creatures.This metaphysical conception constitutedthe culmination of Greek speculation about salvation, in Athanasius.The incarnation ofgod presented humans with the opportunity to participate significantly in god, or asIrenaeus had already phrased it, "enabled humans to become gods." The post-Athanasianphilosophical formula for this was that god, by becoming incarnate, had assumed theessence (in the Platonic sense) of humanity.This formula points up the metaphysicalsignificance of the concept of the Son who is "of the same substance" as the Father.According to another view, the god might not be content with one single act ofincarnation, but as a result of the permanence of the world, which is practicallypresupposed in Asiatic thought, he might become incarnate at various intervals or evencontinuously.Belief in continuous incarnation is the principal force of the MahayanaBuddhist idea of the Bodhisattva, though this idea is related to occasional utterances ofthe Buddha himself, in which he apparently expressed a belief in the limited duration ofhis teaching on earth.Furthermore, the Bodhisattva was occasionally represented as ahigher ideal than the Buddha, because the Bodhisattva forgoes his own entrance intosalvation (Nirvana), which has only exemplary significance, to prolong his universalfunction in the service of humankind.Here again, the savior "sacrifices" himself.(I.1.c) IncarnationPDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0 http://www.pdf4free.comBut just as Jesus was superior in his own time to the saviors of other competingsalvational cults, by the fact that he had been an actual person whose resurrection hadbeen observed by his apostles, so the continuously corporeal and living incarnation ofgod in the Dalai Lama is the logical conclusion of every incarnation doctrine of salvation.But even when the divine distributor of grace lives on as an incarnation, and especiallywhen he does not linger continuously on earth, certain more tangible means are requiredfor the mass of the adherents, who wish to participate personally in the grace madeavailable by their god.It is these means of grace, exhibiting a wide variety, which exert adecisive influence on the character of the religion.Of an essentially magical nature is the view that one may incorporate divine power intohimself by the physical ingestion of some divine substance, some sacred totemic animalin which a mighty spirit is incarnated, or some host that has been magically transformedinto the body of a god.Equally magical is the notion that through participation in certainmysteries one may directly share the nature of the god and therefore be protected againstevil powers.This is the case of "sacramental grace."(I.1.d) Sacramental GraceNow the means of acquiring these divine grace may take either a magical or a ritualisticform, and in either case they entail, not only belief in the savior or the incarnate livinggod, but also the existence of human priests or mystery cultists.Moreover, the characterof priestly means between the savior and humans depends in considerable extent onwhether or not these graces are personal possession, and whether or not the proof ofpossession of charismatic grace is required.If the proof is required, a religious dispenserwho no longer possess such a state of grace, as for example a priest living in mortal sin,cannot legitimately mediate this grace of sacrament.Such a strict consistency in theprinciple of charismatic dispensation of grace was maintained by the Montanists,Donatists, and in general all those religious communities of Antiquity that based theorganization of their church on the principle of prophetic-charismatic leadership.Fromthis standpoint, not every bishop who occupies an institutional office and confess thebelief externally, but only those bishop who witnesses internally the prophecy or othergift of the spirit could effectively dispense divine grace.This was at least the case whenthe dispenser of grace had fallen into mortal sin.(I.1.e) Institutional GraceWhen we leave this requirement, we are dealing with an altogether different notion of thedispensation of grace.Now salvation is brought by the grace which is dispensed on acontinuous basis by an institutional community that has either divine or propheticcredentials for its establishment.This type of the dispensation is called "institutionalgrace." The institution may dispense its grace directly through purely magical sacramentsor through its treasuries of the accumulated achievements by officials or virtuosos.Wherever institutional grace operates consistently, three basic principles are involved.The first is that salvation cannot be received without belonging a particular institutionPDF Creator - PDF4Free v2.0 http://www.pdf4free.comvested with the control of grace.The second principle is that it is not the personalcharismatic qualification of the priest but the ordination of succeeded office whichdetermines the effectiveness of the dispensation of divine grace.Third, the personalreligious qualification of the priest is altogether a matter of indifference to the institutionwhich has the power to distribute religious grace.That is, salvation is universal; it isaccessible to other than the religious virtuosi.(I.1.f) Catholic InstitutionIndeed the religious virtuoso may easily and inevitably fall into spiritual danger tochances of salvation and the genuineness of his religious qualification if he seeks one'sspecial way to God, instead of ultimately trusting the institution of grace.In this dogma,what god requires is the obedience to the institution and its dispensation of grace; it mustbe the principle in order to distribute salvation for all human beings.The level of personalethical requirement must therefore be made compatible with average humanqualifications, and this in practice means that it will be set quite low.Whoever canachieve more in the ethical standard, namely, the religious virtuoso, may thereby, inaddition to insuring his own salvation, accumulate good works for the credit of theinstitution, which will then dispense them to those in want of good works.This view is the specific standpoint of the Catholic church and determines its character asan institution of grace, which developed throughout many centuries but has beenestablished since the time of Gregory I (600 AD).In practice, however, the viewpoint ofthe Catholic church has swung between a more magical and a more ethical andsalvational orientation.(I.1
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